UO, EQ, Dark Age of Camelot, Asheron's Call, etc, etc., etc. There's a reason every single one of the new games "inspired by" or "spiritual successors to" them are dead or withering sadly in the breeze. The same reason they're still alive; everyone who wants to play them already is.
I think that's reasonable.
I was looking for the same basic formulas built with what has been learned in the past 20 years, instead we either get half-baked survival games or themeparks. In fact, I'm not sure anyone has even approached some of the features of these earlier games.
Consider this:
Has there been a game that has non-instanced housing in an open world with a variety of styles/sizes/features, that get this, give you a key where you can lock your door?
Has there been a game where you can craft a chest, trap it, and drop it in a spawn for others to open - heck, how about a game where you can drop things on the ground?
Has there been a game where you can find a treasure map, learn cartography, mining, and some other skills and make a damn good living just digging up treasure?
When is the last time you were handed a rune stone by a total stranger, used it, and ended up in the middle of a player run shop?
How about a game where you can dye clothing and layer them?
How about a game where player housing decays and drops the loot on the ground?
^--- How about ALL OF THAT IN ONE GAME?
I thought UO was the starting point of cool features in gaming, and to date, nearly everything has been a theme park with significantly less features, instanced crap, where you cannot spell out vulgar words on the ground with gold coins.
UO tried to be a simulation - which means there was tons of attention to detail - to the extent, get this, that a player corpse would decay - instead what we get is pretty scenery where you cannot interact with anything and it is awful.
Much in UO needed to improve - and some current offerings do that - but they leave out nearly all the really sweet ideas.
Cite one "spiritual successor" that got even close.... I doubt you can.
Playable Worlds comes off as a BUSINESS 2 BUSINESS type of operation. They aren't interested in making games for YOU to play. Instead they construct nonsensical loads of dung that are neatly packaged for second rate developers to license and utilize in their expensive and failed projects.
Sounds like it might be a good idea down the line, but that's not what they're planning to do at the moment.
the only thing i lnow about him is he was involved in swg somehow is he a jerk or something? Why do you have the anti stance about him?
He has some recurring themes in his designs that have fans and opponents. For example he is very pro-player shops and anti-AH, something that I personally and subjectively hate - I hated its Crowfall version especially, on which he was working as a consultant recently-ish.
I actually loved the player shops in lineage 2. Made the cities and towns feel bustling.
I have always been a fan of player shops myself and if you have them you can't have an AH as well.
Yeah, I wasn't really a fan as it made some of the major cities near impassible with player characters sitting around everywhere in key junction points.
You also had to idle your character to sell, making it almost mandatory to pay for a 2nd sub if you wanted to keep your market open during the hours you were actively playing, which was often peak playing times.
Also, finding what you want quickly and easily was a bit of a pita with no way to search what was available in the immediate area on each player.
EVE has a much better system IMO where there is a local auction house in each planetary system which is connected to a game wide search engine.
You can easily search /buy what is available but you have to actually travel to said system and bring your items to list and sell them. (Or pick them up after buying them to transport back to your base.)
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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GrimDogGaming said: ... he actually produces nothing of value to anyone not looking to make something old and outdated ( like wasting time having to run to a thousand player stores to look for something ).
I was just in a game that was struggling to enhance PvP opportunities and create more reason to be out in the world.
Player run stores were awesome for this, as were collapsing houses - I loved checking player stores in UO and managing one myself. This was a different approach than game worlds just being pretty scenery with which you couldn't interact.
Ah yes, UO. Released in 1997. Thanks for cementing my point.
Your point being old is bad?
UO has buried numerous other titles and will probably outlive what you're playing this month.
No, never said old is bad. Old is just outdated. Noone is going to play a new UO made with the same mechanics as the existing one. How many UO clone flops have there been already? Just like EQ. How many EQ clones have flopped already?
UO, EQ, Dark Age of Camelot, Asheron's Call, etc, etc., etc. There's a reason every single one of the new games "inspired by" or "spiritual successors to" them are dead or withering sadly in the breeze. The same reason they're still alive; everyone who wants to play them already is.
A few things to break down here. Everyone who wants to play [classic MMO] has already played them. How? None of the games listed have existed in their popular form for over 20 years. Some are still "running" but they look absolutely nothing like the games that existed at their peak. Nor are they being updated. I'm sure plenty of people would love to play a modern interpretation of DAoC - hence the popularity of DAoC's PvP system in GW2 and ESO.
Speaking of ESO, it is a spiritual successor to DAoC and its one of the only successes in the MMO genre in recent memory.
The only game I can think of inspired by Asheron's Call is Project Gorgon, which is literally a 2 person husband and wife passion project.
There have been a small few handfuls of UO successor attempts, but all by raw underfunded indie studios with green devs.
You can criticize the ideas of those games, but you can't exactly claim that the MMOs that failed did so because they were "inspired by" AC or DAoC when
a) Most of them were nothing like DAoC
b) They failed for very clear and obvious reasons unrelated to design
But, if you do want to make that claim... by that logic the OCEAN of dead WoW clones prove WoW's design is outdated and bad and no one should ever use it. Yet FF14 is a roaring success, largely BECAUSE they copied WoW and had a budget to follow up.
So I don't exactly know what you would want from a new MMO. Brand new untested ideas? It sounds like there will be some of those in this game.
Refined versions of old ideas? Sounds like this game will have some of those.
Either way, I'd say it's best to wait for some real information before damning the whole project. At least know what you're condemning.
As someone who believes the best MMORPG would be a hybrid of Old school and New school, discounting either out of hand is short-sighted.
Agreed, modern graphics, better justice system, better UI, and so forth.
Leave off the 'features' developers get excited about: NFTS, blockchain, gacha, lootboxes, stores, P2W.
I would be more open to the modern than that; action combat system or turn based both could work but not together obviously, something like Hutball from SWtOR which is lore breaking but fun. I wouldn't leave any of the new gamplay of the table, but some of it would really have to work to make the grade as a lot of it is detrimental to other gaming systems like raids or crafting.
Where I am really old school is no BDO like upgrading of weapons, sub or at the very least B2P with paid for extensions (if ESO can do it please don't talk about the development costs, a successful MMO can do proper dlc).
Raph is a good designer, but a bad executive decision maker.
Which is why 19 patches later he still let murder hobo's run wild killing/thieving/scamming in UO. Once he left they fixed the problem and player numbers skyrocketed.
He should stick to design.
But hey according to Raph he will find a way to make PVE carebears be happy in a FFA full loot PK murder game. LOL how long will he spin his wheels with this pipe dream. All he needs is 1 more chance to prove everyone wrong, it will work ...
The guy is thickheaded.
I'm not sure what you're referring to here. There's no word that there's even PvP in Playable Worlds. SWG didn't have FFA PvP.
Raph is a good designer, but a bad executive decision maker.
Which is why 19 patches later he still let murder hobo's run wild killing/thieving/scamming in UO. Once he left they fixed the problem and player numbers skyrocketed.
He should stick to design.
But hey according to Raph he will find a way to make PVE carebears be happy in a FFA full loot PK murder game. LOL how long will he spin his wheels with this pipe dream. All he needs is 1 more chance to prove everyone wrong, it will work ...
The guy is thickheaded.
I'm not sure what you're referring to here. There's no word that there's even PvP in Playable Worlds. SWG didn't have FFA PvP.
He has tried in the past to give players freedom and tools to handle this issue themselves. All lessons learned.
Why do you believe he holds the same design principles he had 28 years ago?
He came on these forums a year or so ago, and said he still believes in the UO PVP patches he was doing, and if he could have had 1 more patch he could have made a system that would work.
He also said he STILL didnt believe in the Trammel (PVE safe zone) patch and thought it was too much.
Which to me that implies he doesnt believe in full PVE safe worlds/servers.
So if this guy ever decides to figure out the PVE players dont want to be farmed, and that toxic griefers will not stop killing newbs regardless of the consequences. Then maybe I could believe his next game would have a decent chance to succeed.
Whats weird to me, is he admits he is a PVE player. Yet in UO was constantly holding the executives back from allowing them to put the breaks on ganking/griefing. Good grief.
He should focus on what he is good at, which is world building, PVE mechanics and crafting.
Raph is a good designer, but a bad executive decision maker.
Which is why 19 patches later he still let murder hobo's run wild killing/thieving/scamming in UO. Once he left they fixed the problem and player numbers skyrocketed.
He should stick to design.
But hey according to Raph he will find a way to make PVE carebears be happy in a FFA full loot PK murder game. LOL how long will he spin his wheels with this pipe dream. All he needs is 1 more chance to prove everyone wrong, it will work ...
The guy is thickheaded.
I'm not sure what you're referring to here. There's no word that there's even PvP in Playable Worlds. SWG didn't have FFA PvP.
He has tried in the past to give players freedom and tools to handle this issue themselves. All lessons learned.
Why do you believe he holds the same design principles he had 28 years ago?
He came on these forums a year or so ago, and said he still believes in the UO PVP patches he was doing, and if he could have had 1 more patch he could have made a system that would work.
He also said he STILL didnt believe in the Trammel (PVE safe zone) patch and thought it was too much.
Which to me that implies he doesnt believe in full PVE safe worlds/servers.
So if this guy ever decides to figure out the PVE players dont want to be farmed, and that toxic griefers will not stop killing newbs regardless of the consequences. Then maybe I could believe his next game would have a decent chance to succeed.
Whats weird to me, is he admits he is a PVE player. Yet in UO was constantly holding the executives back from allowing them to put the breaks on ganking/griefing. Good grief.
He should focus on what he is good at, which is world building, PVE mechanics and crafting.
I think you're taking away the wrong assumption. Most people agree that Trammel broke the spirit of the game (which was player agency and freedom). Making a more complicated system that protected people would be far preferable to just instancing and soul binding all the problems away.
The alternative isn't "let PvE players be farmed" it's "Let's not split our playerbase apart."
The article I linked that you should read explains how the SWG worked, which had no PvE ganking, and also didn't split players into 2 different worlds.
He believes in player agency and people sharing space, as far as I can tell.
Raph is a good designer, but a bad executive decision maker.
Which is why 19 patches later he still let murder hobo's run wild killing/thieving/scamming in UO. Once he left they fixed the problem and player numbers skyrocketed.
He should stick to design.
But hey according to Raph he will find a way to make PVE carebears be happy in a FFA full loot PK murder game. LOL how long will he spin his wheels with this pipe dream. All he needs is 1 more chance to prove everyone wrong, it will work ...
The guy is thickheaded.
I'm not sure what you're referring to here. There's no word that there's even PvP in Playable Worlds. SWG didn't have FFA PvP.
He has tried in the past to give players freedom and tools to handle this issue themselves. All lessons learned.
Why do you believe he holds the same design principles he had 28 years ago?
He came on these forums a year or so ago, and said he still believes in the UO PVP patches he was doing, and if he could have had 1 more patch he could have made a system that would work.
He also said he STILL didnt believe in the Trammel (PVE safe zone) patch and thought it was too much.
Which to me that implies he doesnt believe in full PVE safe worlds/servers.
So if this guy ever decides to figure out the PVE players dont want to be farmed, and that toxic griefers will not stop killing newbs regardless of the consequences. Then maybe I could believe his next game would have a decent chance to succeed.
Whats weird to me, is he admits he is a PVE player. Yet in UO was constantly holding the executives back from allowing them to put the breaks on ganking/griefing. Good grief.
He should focus on what he is good at, which is world building, PVE mechanics and crafting.
I think you're taking away the wrong assumption. Most people agree that Trammel broke the spirit of the game (which was player agency and freedom). Making a more complicated system that protected people would be far preferable to just instancing and soul binding all the problems away.
The alternative isn't "let PvE players be farmed" it's "Let's not split our playerbase apart."
The article I linked that you should read explains how the SWG worked, which had no PvE ganking, and also didn't split players into 2 different worlds.
He believes in player agency and people sharing space, as far as I can tell.
Do you any data, facts, or proof that "Most people agree that Trammel broke the spirit of the game"?
The fact that UO bloomed post Trammel (compared to what it was), and that it continues with mild success today, contradicts that.
What we do know, as a fact, is that the most popular PvP games have essentially no vertical progression at all and little to no dedicated PvE content. At best they might offer a short single player campaign as a tutorial and backdrop for the setting.
"Player Agency" like most all "absolutist" freedoms, have limitations and boundaries because different demographic wants and needs conflict with each other.
The article you posted is total crap. It's vague and hand-wavy to the point of insult. It makes broad assumptions about human behavior and them molds that into presuppositions that fit his narrative. He firmly believes humanity will act as he envisions them to, and it's so insultingly arrogant.
"Temporary Enemy Flagging" is a prop to PvP players that tries to funnel people into conflict situations by dangling perk carrots in front of them. Lots of games do a take on this, like proliferating highly desirable materials or drop rewards in conflict only zones, or in the case of SWG gating benefits behind the system. The entire premise of most PvPvE games is to push players into that conflict situation the developers envision.
I'm not sure why you didn't just explain that instead of linking to that useless fluff article, except maybe that distilling the system down to a simple explanation doesn't support the agenda you're trying so hard to push.
I like some of the ideas Raph has presented over the years, and I think he argues and speaks eloquently, but I will likely never ever play one of his games. UO and SWG were middling, deeply flawed games, at best. He still carries this torch for his fantasy ecosystem that will never work and it can be seen in most of what he touches like Crowfall and that horrible social media experiment.
I personally do not want anything like a "playable worlds" or a half-assed life sim. I want to enjoy an engaging experience with my friends, family, and acquaintances in a world rule set that suits our needs. So far, crafting-survival-builders that offer player hosted options fits that need. Games as a service don't even begin to touch what those can currently offer. Why would my gaming group drop what we have to play what Raph is trying to sell us?
I think you're taking away the wrong assumption. Most people agree that Trammel broke the spirit of the game (which was player agency and freedom). Making a more complicated system that protected people would be far preferable to just instancing and soul binding all the problems away.
The alternative isn't "let PvE players be farmed" it's "Let's not split our playerbase apart."
What are you even talking about with this. Broke the spirit of the game? The paradise for scammers/naked thieves/new griefers and gankers?
Trammel (PVE zone) was jam packed with players.
Felluca (PVP world) had all the advantages: 2x minerals 2x special wood more resources more gold more treasure more loot more xp plenty of land to place houses allowed to own 5 castles/towers/houses
In Trammel (PVE zone) they restricted it to only being allowed 1 single house.
In spite of all those advantages for the PVP zone. The PVP zone was a complete ghost town, yet the PVE zone was absolutely jammed with players. There was no space to even put a house it was so jammed. Nobody could get resources because it was so full.
Additionally the executive who implemented Trammel (After Raph left) admits that it was very popular and that player subscribers and retention improved significantly. he also stated that before the Trammel (PVE safe zones) UO had horrible player retention.
When UO came out players didn't have a lot of choices and continued playing despite being unhappy with the game. Now you get dropped like a hot potato and players don't have the patience to wait around while you distil your dream game with PvE and PvP. They see anything they don't like they review bomb and destroy the game even before it can get some traction.
All I can say is good luck Raph and I really think you have overestimated the appeal of your game.
Brainy, I am not trying to debate whether Trammel helped or hindered numbers.
You are mischaracterizing the intent of not creating safe zones and painting it as if it was intentionally some joyful murder hobo paradise. Despite the links and blog posts that speak otherwise. The intent was to give players the abilities to form and police their own societies without having the game fall apart.
SWG iterated on that and - if you read the post - for the most part succeeded. Without the need for instanced parallel worlds.
Nobody has said that this game will even have PvP, much less FFA PvP. Someone saying "I stand by that I wish there had been a better solution than Trammel" is not saying "In my next game I'm going to spawn hardcore gankers right in the starter town!"
Let's discuss what we know about *this* game, and not what you assume you know about a decision made 30 years ago.
Cheyane is right that players now would rather immediately quit a game that doesn't cater to them than deal with player induced hardships - and I'm sure Raph knows that. Interesting to see what his solution is.
The other issue is that it these games need to be made with a more realistic budget as they aren’t going to bring in World of Warcraft numbers.
LOL as if too big of a budget is the issue why these games are failing.
Where is the game with 15mil to 60mil players that is failing because the budget was too much?
Even niche games like: Eldenring - 25mil sold Baldur's Gate - 15mil sold
These are not examples of mainstream easy mode games.
If a game cant sell 10mil+ copies in todays world with everyone connected with access. Then the game is pure garbage.
15mil copies sold today is $600 mil revenue or more. Not counting DLC's or cash shops or anything.
Even New World which lost 99% of its playerbase a couple months after release has near 20mil units sold. Obviously super profitable.
I dont care what the budget is. You are not making a game for 1000 players and be successful. That wont even pay for 1 dev's salary.
If you make an open world full loot game with item dropping, xp and level loss, no fast travel, no world storage, player shops, etc etc for top dollar it will be a well made game.
But do you really believe it will attract a player base to support it let alone pay recoup the cost to make it?
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Playable Worlds' recent mystery countdown has certainly piqued the interest of gamers worldwide. While waiting for the big reveal, it's a good time to explore other exciting options, such as [redacted] for those looking to upgrade their ride. The countdown's intriguing questions are keeping everyone on their toes, just like finding the perfect car deal!
I hope your death involves being pinned under a burning sofa.
I really think the core problem with PvPvE games is that in today's market you can just skip to the content you want without putting up with the half you don't enjoy.
I could log into Battlefield and start killing even the most skilled players - simply because of fog of war - if I want PvP.
I could log into Minecraft and immediately start builds with no PvP if I wanted something tame.
....or get this, change from one game to the other based on my mood.
No need to put up with crafting when I want to PvP, no need to put up with PvP when I want to farm goblins.
Basically, we have the Trammel/Felucca split, but they don't even have to be the same game.
If you make an open world full loot game with item dropping, xp and level loss, no fast travel, no world storage, player shops, etc etc for top dollar it will be a well made game.
But do you really believe it will attract a player base to support it let alone pay recoup the cost to make it?
So if I understand your question. You are asking if a game made like you describe, will it recoup its money from that FFA playerbase?
The answer is no if that is all the game consists of.
However all the settings you describe are server settings that can be applied to pretty much any PVE MMO.
An amazing PVE game can be turned into a good FFA PVP game with just a few server setting changes. PVE players can support the game via PVE servers, and FFA PVP players can play the way they want on PVP servers.
Here are the 4 servers rulesets needed at a minimum:
FFA PVP PVP with Safe zones PVE only normal difficulty PVE only hard difficulty
Most of the big games have dozens of servers. So having 4 servers is not difficult.
Back in the old days they used to have Different Server Rulesets. Nowadays they want to force PVE players with PVP players only. Devs need to understand there are different playerbases out there, each has a large playerbase.
Something to think about in the "us vs them" is that the other person probably sees a lot of interesting things to do in the game despite the fact that it is PvX instead of PvY.
It's like people who prefer solo and small group stuff in an MMORPG, and balk at hitting the raid stage.
People get defensive because they feel their play style and preferences are threatened; and maybe they are because if a game compromises on design features too broadly I think it waters down the focus of the designs and mechanics in the game.
What I think smart developers should do is have a central vision that they know encompasses a large enough demographic to support their game. Way easier to say than do I know. Instead of compromising to bring everyone in, keep some focus and know the role, stay in the lane no matter how tempting.
On the other hand, they or their competitors should be observant enough to see disenfranchised demographics and build what those players are looking for. I think Arrowhead did this with Helldivers 2 and that's why the community is positive and energized.
I think one of the huge problems is getting the gaming group on board and in agreement. That always seems tricky and I don't think Playable Worlds will solve that issue despite sort of implying their framework can do so.
You are mischaracterizing the intent of not creating safe zones and painting it as if it was intentionally some joyful murder hobo paradise. Despite the links and blog posts that speak otherwise. The intent was to give players the abilities to form and police their own societies without having the game fall apart.
SWG iterated on that and - if you read the post - for the most part succeeded. Without the need for instanced parallel worlds.
Here is the thing when you realise what you intended is not working why continue trying to force the idea at the expense of players leaving. The stubbornness is what worries me. This is a person who rather try to force his dream rather than look at the realities of a gaming world and that is not a good developer.
I am not saying there aren't enough players interested in his creation but rather whether he is a good custodian of that world or will he try to force his dream rather than do what is necessary in a timely fashion and not wait till 50% player population have run away.
SWG is nothing like UO. You flagged in it. There was no risk of a murder hobo paradise.
Wish Koster would just fade into the dustbin of obscurity where he belongs. He can play with Garriott, Molyneux, and Roper if he's that bored.
I don't understand why you believe Raph has anything to do with what Richard Garriott has done after working with him on the Ultima Online project. He had nothing to do with any MMOs after Star Wars Galaxies.
I was referring to the fact Raph can go hang out with the other washed up, one hit wonders from 30 years ago.
I don't think he's that at all.
I've not researched the man, but what I've seen suggests he's very interested in theory and design. He seems to have dedicated his life to it and seems quite willing to embrace the reality of the gaming market.
If I were designing a game, I'd want his expertise on board.
If I were going to make another niche "old school" flop like Crowfall or Embers Adrift, I might tolerate him. If I were wanting to make a successful, modern game, mmorpg or not, I wouldn't want him anywhere near. This is a dude who was going to "create the metaverse" while the actual "metaverse", META (Facebook), were losing their ass on it. He's a dreamer and a talker, he actually produces nothing of value to anyone not looking to make something old and outdated ( like wasting time having to run to a thousand player stores to look for something ). He is also, just Like Garriott, Molyneux, and Roper, a self-agrandising blowhard living off a long outdated reputation.
If you make an open world full loot game with item dropping, xp and level loss, no fast travel, no world storage, player shops, etc etc for top dollar it will be a well made game.
But do you really believe it will attract a player base to support it let alone pay recoup the cost to make it?
So if I understand your question. You are asking if a game made like you describe, will it recoup its money from that FFA playerbase?
The answer is no if that is all the game consists of.
However all the settings you describe are server settings that can be applied to pretty much any PVE MMO.
An amazing PVE game can be turned into a good FFA PVP game with just a few server setting changes. PVE players can support the game via PVE servers, and FFA PVP players can play the way they want on PVP servers.
Here are the 4 servers rulesets needed at a minimum:
FFA PVP PVP with Safe zones PVE only normal difficulty PVE only hard difficulty
Most of the big games have dozens of servers. So having 4 servers is not difficult.
Back in the old days they used to have Different Server Rulesets. Nowadays they want to force PVE players with PVP players only. Devs need to understand there are different playerbases out there, each has a large playerbase.
Why alienate millions of players?
Well I’m not really asking that.
I’m positing the type of game and the “question “ but I know the answer is “no” it will not make its money.
The question is me squinching up my face knowing the answer is “no.”
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Comments
I was looking for the same basic formulas built with what has been learned in the past 20 years, instead we either get half-baked survival games or themeparks. In fact, I'm not sure anyone has even approached some of the features of these earlier games.
Consider this:
- Has there been a game that has non-instanced housing in an open world with a variety of styles/sizes/features, that get this, give you a key where you can lock your door?
- Has there been a game where you can craft a chest, trap it, and drop it in a spawn for others to open - heck, how about a game where you can drop things on the ground?
- Has there been a game where you can find a treasure map, learn cartography, mining, and some other skills and make a damn good living just digging up treasure?
- When is the last time you were handed a rune stone by a total stranger, used it, and ended up in the middle of a player run shop?
- How about a game where you can dye clothing and layer them?
- How about a game where player housing decays and drops the loot on the ground?
^--- How about ALL OF THAT IN ONE GAME?I thought UO was the starting point of cool features in gaming, and to date, nearly everything has been a theme park with significantly less features, instanced crap, where you cannot spell out vulgar words on the ground with gold coins.
UO tried to be a simulation - which means there was tons of attention to detail - to the extent, get this, that a player corpse would decay - instead what we get is pretty scenery where you cannot interact with anything and it is awful.
Much in UO needed to improve - and some current offerings do that - but they leave out nearly all the really sweet ideas.
Cite one "spiritual successor" that got even close.... I doubt you can.
Leave off the 'features' developers get excited about: NFTS, blockchain, gacha, lootboxes, stores, P2W.
You also had to idle your character to sell, making it almost mandatory to pay for a 2nd sub if you wanted to keep your market open during the hours you were actively playing, which was often peak playing times.
Also, finding what you want quickly and easily was a bit of a pita with no way to search what was available in the immediate area on each player.
EVE has a much better system IMO where there is a local auction house in each planetary system which is connected to a game wide search engine.
You can easily search /buy what is available but you have to actually travel to said system and bring your items to list and sell them. (Or pick them up after buying them to transport back to your base.)
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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Where I am really old school is no BDO like upgrading of weapons, sub or at the very least B2P with paid for extensions (if ESO can do it please don't talk about the development costs, a successful MMO can do proper dlc).
LOL as if too big of a budget is the issue why these games are failing.
Where is the game with 15mil to 60mil players that is failing because the budget was too much?
Even niche games like:
Eldenring - 25mil sold
Baldur's Gate - 15mil sold
These are not examples of mainstream easy mode games.
If a game cant sell 10mil+ copies in todays world with everyone connected with access. Then the game is pure garbage.
15mil copies sold today is $600 mil revenue or more. Not counting DLC's or cash shops or anything.
Even New World which lost 99% of its playerbase a couple months after release has near 20mil units sold. Obviously super profitable.
I dont care what the budget is. You are not making a game for 1000 players and be successful. That wont even pay for 1 dev's salary.
He also said he STILL didnt believe in the Trammel (PVE safe zone) patch and thought it was too much.
Which to me that implies he doesnt believe in full PVE safe worlds/servers.
So if this guy ever decides to figure out the PVE players dont want to be farmed, and that toxic griefers will not stop killing newbs regardless of the consequences. Then maybe I could believe his next game would have a decent chance to succeed.
Whats weird to me, is he admits he is a PVE player. Yet in UO was constantly holding the executives back from allowing them to put the breaks on ganking/griefing. Good grief.
He should focus on what he is good at, which is world building, PVE mechanics and crafting.
What are you even talking about with this. Broke the spirit of the game? The paradise for scammers/naked thieves/new griefers and gankers?
Trammel (PVE zone) was jam packed with players.
Felluca (PVP world) had all the advantages:
2x minerals
2x special wood
more resources
more gold
more treasure
more loot
more xp
plenty of land to place houses
allowed to own 5 castles/towers/houses
In Trammel (PVE zone) they restricted it to only being allowed 1 single house.
In spite of all those advantages for the PVP zone. The PVP zone was a complete ghost town, yet the PVE zone was absolutely jammed with players. There was no space to even put a house it was so jammed. Nobody could get resources because it was so full.
Additionally the executive who implemented Trammel (After Raph left) admits that it was very popular and that player subscribers and retention improved significantly. he also stated that before the Trammel (PVE safe zones) UO had horrible player retention.
All I can say is good luck Raph and I really think you have overestimated the appeal of your game.
You are mischaracterizing the intent of not creating safe zones and painting it as if it was intentionally some joyful murder hobo paradise. Despite the links and blog posts that speak otherwise. The intent was to give players the abilities to form and police their own societies without having the game fall apart.
SWG iterated on that and - if you read the post - for the most part succeeded. Without the need for instanced parallel worlds.
Nobody has said that this game will even have PvP, much less FFA PvP. Someone saying "I stand by that I wish there had been a better solution than Trammel" is not saying "In my next game I'm going to spawn hardcore gankers right in the starter town!"
Let's discuss what we know about *this* game, and not what you assume you know about a decision made 30 years ago.
Cheyane is right that players now would rather immediately quit a game that doesn't cater to them than deal with player induced hardships - and I'm sure Raph knows that. Interesting to see what his solution is.
But do you really believe it will attract a player base to support it let alone pay recoup the cost to make it?
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I could log into Battlefield and start killing even the most skilled players - simply because of fog of war - if I want PvP.
I could log into Minecraft and immediately start builds with no PvP if I wanted something tame.
....or get this, change from one game to the other based on my mood.
No need to put up with crafting when I want to PvP, no need to put up with PvP when I want to farm goblins.
Basically, we have the Trammel/Felucca split, but they don't even have to be the same game.
The answer is no if that is all the game consists of.
However all the settings you describe are server settings that can be applied to pretty much any PVE MMO.
An amazing PVE game can be turned into a good FFA PVP game with just a few server setting changes. PVE players can support the game via PVE servers, and FFA PVP players can play the way they want on PVP servers.
Here are the 4 servers rulesets needed at a minimum:
FFA PVP
PVP with Safe zones
PVE only normal difficulty
PVE only hard difficulty
Most of the big games have dozens of servers. So having 4 servers is not difficult.
Back in the old days they used to have Different Server Rulesets. Nowadays they want to force PVE players with PVP players only. Devs need to understand there are different playerbases out there, each has a large playerbase.
Why alienate millions of players?
I am not saying there aren't enough players interested in his creation but rather whether he is a good custodian of that world or will he try to force his dream rather than do what is necessary in a timely fashion and not wait till 50% player population have run away.
SWG is nothing like UO. You flagged in it. There was no risk of a murder hobo paradise.
Broadcasting in the Metaverse
I’m positing the type of game and the “question “ but I know the answer is “no” it will not make its money.
The question is me squinching up my face knowing the answer is “no.”
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo