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How do you judge the success of an MMO?
Jyiiga
Member UncommonPosts: 1,187
While hanging out on some other forums today another poster made this comment.
"In my opinion, there are four successful mmo's. EQ, DAOC, Guild Wars, and WOW. I judge "success" by my character being born, growing up, integrating into the community, and dying naturally... satisfied at a full life in the game world."
Now I'm sure others milage varies on what they consider successful. I just thought this was an excellent comment and I wanted to share.
Comments
I agree with the poster. But I would word it differently.
To sum up what that person said.
Success in a MMORPG is if the game is good at keeping its players playing, instead of jumping ship with abandonment
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Success in an MMORPG?
Relatively smooth launch - Devs busy patching. Login ques (sp?) are bad and terribly annoying. We expect alot of bugs but it has to be within reason. And just as importantl, lots of people to have fun with at the beginning.
Good retention of the launch crowd - Past 1 month, and a good test is seeing how the size is at 2-3 months. Is it emptying out? That's bad, and usually you don't recover. Is it retaining players? That's great, because you are doing things right. Retention, IMO, is very important because it's your best indicator showing how the dev team is doing (which in itself is alot of things: Bug fixes, communication, etc). If you were there at launch and saw everyone leave, that is not good, and will cast doubts if it's worthwhile to stay. If most stayed with you, that's great, and gives you more reason to stay. Afterall, I'm of the frame of mind most wouldn't want to play in an MMORPG where almost nobody plays or has left town.
If everyone's left, there's likely a boatload of reasons why, and when something bad like this happens, "Word Of Mouth" will do tremendous damage. Also, alot of reviews will reflect this also (except for the occasionally compensated Shill Reviewer).
Personally, you can see if an MMO will do alright or fail within 3-4 months. If generous, 6 months if you want to give the devs ample time to do something. But in 3-4, alot will show if they're going down the drain. In general, once this failure happens in the first few months, most MMORPGs can never recover from it.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
As far as success goes, I would have to scale it back to a personal level, myself.
As in, do I want to play this game more than once?
Warhammer, No. City of Heroes, No.
Guild Wars, For a bit. World of Warcraft... Yes. A lot.
I've come to the conclusion that as long as I can't put the game down, that's how successful it is.
Which is why I can only seem to play WoW and associate many of my MMORPG Forum Conversations with it, which, I find, annoys select people.
But I don't care.
Anyway,
There you go.
A good launch and retaining players isn't necessarily important. In fact MOST MMORPGs don't retain players past launch, or have a smooth launch.
It depends on how much money it took to make the game, and their target audience.
For me a successful MMO is one I can get immersed in by providing a world/enviroment that feels limitless and all aspects of the game follow suit(crafting, character progression, etc...).
Options, options and more options.
A good example of what I'm describing would be SWG pre-CU/NGE
I'm kind of an egoist so I usually judge a games success on a personal level as some people have already mentioned. If a game is able to keep me hooked, immersed, and subscribing it is a success in my book. For example, while most of the gaming community probably considers WWII Online / Battleground Europe to be a flop from its very launch and even today, I consider it a success in my book. I enjoy the game tremendously, love the community, and have made many good friends both fom squad membership and lonewolfs.
This is everything I would have to say in a nut shell. Success can be in the eyes of the beholder unless you bring it to a very specific term of like player base, retainment rate, money earned, etc...
Quite frankly im about to re-sub back into SWG just so I can bounty hunt players because even how much the game has gone down hill... I still enjoy the heck out of that system and im saddened that SW:TOR wont have a nice BH system seeing how BHs are only on one faction side :<
You're not making any money as a developer if nobody is there at launch. It must be embarassing if that is happening for a release of a title that's on alot of people's radar, and you're definitely not getting money if you can't retain people that actually DO sign up.
Launch and retention is important. You login as a new player and see nobody around? The devs failed in making a game enticing enough to get people on launch day, and just as bad, failed to make an enticing game for people to keep playing it.
And if the devs can't get enough of their "Target Audience" to try it out, especially with the excitement of launch day, then they've failed in trying to reach and entice them.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
Successfull in my eyes means that a game is making a serious amount of money and stays not only surviving.
Not as much as WoW which i dont like so its a bad game to me while AoC is a good game but it is not that successfull and for example EVE is good and successfull.
For me the personal opinion about a game ranges from very good to very bad.
Out of the many games i played Daoc, SWG, AoC were good games but only Daoc a successfull...now playing RoM until SWTOR arrives and maybe for longer when friends stay there, its a quite good game that has success as far i can tell and offers a myriad of things to do.
What makes a game good:
1. Avatar and Class
2. Game Mechanic
3. Econmy/Crafting
4. World Setting (including Storytelling)
1+2 are a "must fit" !!!
3+4 are a "good to have"...
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
MWO Music Video - What does the Mech say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF6HYNqCDLI
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0x2iwK0BKM
My opinoin on a successful MMO:
1. Pleny of world to run around in.
2. Player driven market and economy. (Why you ask? Because of what is in #3)
3. Forces and Creates Community between players.
4. PvE goals and PvP goals. (Need incentive for both so you are always fighting for something. Ex. leveling to reach a certain zone or doing PvP to gain points/rewards/reputation.)
5. PvP available 24/7. (Some days you just want to bash other people and not GRIND all day)
6. End Game PvP and PvE. (Needs both to keep max levels playing for something whether its to become top DOG in game or to find even better and more unique gear.)
7. Crafting (For those of you who enjoy this.)
8. Item Upgrade at RISK. (Check out Knight Online Worlds "Anvil" concept I think it is ABSOLUTELY genius)
9. Quests that tie into the story. (Gotta keep questing interesting instead of kill 50,000 skeletons blah blah)
10. Skill based combat system for PvE and PvP.
11. Constant Events put out by GM's ect. (Keeps everyone involved in game)
If you couldn't tell by my example of success I really love PvP. I really love having 24/7 meaninful PvP not just an Arena. This keeps me entertained because I know, just like me, some of you get bored with the GRIND of leveling up. I also love a good community. Nothing beats a game that has good community. Everyone in the Faction or Race working together to achieve the same goal which is dominance over the other Faction or Race. Having a player driven economy is huge. Being able to set prices and use the market itself to make money by buying low from people and selling high to others.
Anyways, that was my version of success.
Sustained subscription numbers.
Longevity.
Which hat am I wearing? It is the developer hat? The player hat? As an investor? Perhaps as a fan of an IP?
if it keeps me playing for more then 4 months i consider it a success.
Are you describing a "successful" MMO or a "good" MMO?
Gaming since Avalon Hill was making board games.
Played SWG, EVE, Fallen Earth, LOTRO, Rift, Vanguard, WoW, SWTOR, TSW, Tera
Tried Aoc, Aion, EQII, RoM, Vindictus, Darkfail, DDO, GW, PotBS
-if the game is healthy populated over time, from release to later on during the years.
-if it keeps me playing
-if the game is surviving.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
You mean the features of a well designed mmo that has ticked all these boxes, I largely agree. I think some of the next one to come out tick more of these boxes and the quality of MMO's will being improving.
But economic/subscription numbers is very important to keep confidence in the game and the dev supporting it's growth beyond release (the best thing about MMO's).
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
A successful MMO in my opinion and from a personal point of view is one that keeps me interested and keeps me playing.
Gaming since Avalon Hill was making board games.
Played SWG, EVE, Fallen Earth, LOTRO, Rift, Vanguard, WoW, SWTOR, TSW, Tera
Tried Aoc, Aion, EQII, RoM, Vindictus, Darkfail, DDO, GW, PotBS
I don't care about the "success" of an MMO, only whether or not it's fun.
"Success" is primarily whether an MMO makes enough to survive, and far more than 4 MMOs accomplish that.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Success is largely financial and customer based in NA; its a life lesson and applies to everything. I'd think for mmorpg games, below 300,000 subscribers post one-year out and sustained is a mediocer success. 300,001-600,000 is successful. 600,001 + is very successful, etc.
You are sucessful only if you can get 11 million + players if you dont then well you sir are going to epic fail. So if your not WoW you are not successful. End of story.
Oh yeah and you must have jump and swimming if you dont well epic fail again. Oh and sitting lets not forget sitting, no sitting = epic fail.
A MMORPG is successful if it matches the following criteria :-
1) Am I having fun playing it
If the answer is yes its a success if the answer is no then as far as I am concerned it is a fail. OF course that does not mean its a fail or success overall but top be honest if 10 million people say a games great and I say it sucks then as far as I am conserned it sucks.
Simples
Gadareth
Am I having fun? If yes, then it's a success.
If the answer is anything other than yes, then it's not a success.
Wrong, people like you don't understand how companies work, it's all about the money making. If a MMO is still around (like DAoC or EQ) it's still making money and a succes on its own, does it compare to WoW? No, absolutely not, but they can't even compared and the reasons why they can't be compared are obvious and I won't explain.
I have no idea what DAoC cost to make, but let's estimate the following: $50mil, including the expansions (a lot, considering nowaday triple-A games get double that as production costs). Up to Januari of 2008 they had 50k active subscribers according to wikipedia.
Box price incl. expansion: 50$ (assuming they had at LEAST 50k box purchases)
50.000 x 50 = 2.500.000
Monthly fee of 10$ over 8 years:
12 x 10 x 7 = 840 per subscriber
50.000 x 960 = 42.000.000
So after 7 years of daoc, estimating the lowest possible hypothesis, they made 44.500.000 mil off the game. This obviously excludes maintenance costs, etc.. It also doesnt include the facts that they had 250.000 active subs at their prime and therefore sold more boxes at higher prices and had spike subscription incomes, my hypothesis estimates the lowest possible, it's just to paint an image for the ignorant idiots. Whats my point? Simple, DAoC was pretty good for it's time, players kept buying expansions and playing and it was making money for the developing/publishing company, in other words: A SUCCES.
I can garantee you, that this game is still making money to this day and is considered a succes. DAoC wasn't even nearly as big as other succes MMO's like EQ, Lineage 2, FFXI, LOTRO etc...
NOTE: Above are very rough estimates, somebody with half a brain can understand them.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_age_of_camelot
http://www.mmogchart.com/
Wrong. People like you are failures at most, and you justify it by lowering the bar so much that I'd have to tunnel a hole to achieve any height of success.
It's funny, as EQ, DAoC and WoW are definitely my favourite MMOs and I can see where that poster was coming from with what he said, though I'd probably add several other things such as quality of community and consistency of subscriber base.
Guild Wars though, I regret ever installing onto my PC hard drive, and given my own personal liking for the other three games wonder how said poster really found enjoyment playing it.