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As gamers are we falling into an "everything or it sucks" trap?
Angier2758
Member UncommonPosts: 1,026
It's a rather simple question. One of themes I've seen I've since 2004 with WoW and EQ2 was that players have a list of requirements for a game that they'd like; like a business partner if you work a technical company. As the years have gone by this list of requirements have gotten longer or have been in direct competition with eachother. For example; I personally love games with a lot of classes with a lot of specs; yet I also want a game to be decently balanced. However, even a large company will have problems meeting all the requirements and in the end they seem to spread themselves so thin trying to meet all the requirements that players demand they end up forgetting to make the game fun.
The MMORPG companies have failed many times with making their games fun. As players we have failed because we don't realize that we've become the obstinate business partner that would rather see a game tank than see it be successful with half our requirements met.
How many times will companies and players do this till the genre dies? or becomes a tiny niche that really never meets what it could have become.
To me it seems like a spiraling trap.
Comments
From my experience it doesn't matter what players say they want.
Game developers all seem to think they know exactly what we want anyway, and screw whatever we say.
For example, no matter how many times people complain about games that copy WoW, the next big MMO will copy WoW instead of doing something new and interesting.
I don't worry myself about 'over-stressing' game makers who are just dying to make a game how I want them to make one, to the point that they're ripping their hair out because they can't get it just how I like.
Thinking that's the case is a bit... fantastical.
Played: DAoC, AC2, WoW, CoH, GW, GW2, WAR, AoC, Champions Online, Rift, Dragon Nest, Vindictus, Warframe, Neverwinter, Dungeon Fighter Online
Currently Playing: Dungeon Fighter Online Global
Waiting for: None
Everyone says they want something new and interesting, but what? Think of it like you're the one gathering the requirements for a game: "new and interesting" is a bit nebulous.
Not over stressing, but making it hard to please us. How many players decry a game if it's not a WoW clone? We say we want something different than WoW, but I swear I hear a lot of "this game sucks it doesn't have bgs/raiding like WoW".
If you think that a gaming company isn't *trying* to pick requirements that would make us buy their game you'd be a bit too cynical.
^this , although some devs listen to the players and add stuff on the next patch or expansion, which for some players is a too late situation.
But that what you said there is exactly what I'm talking about. They DO pick requirements that they think will make us want to buy their games.
Like what I said about WoW. Why do game makers make their MMOs to immitate qualities of WoW? Because they think that's what people will buy, because WoW has made a lot of money and has had a lot of subscribers.
The question is, who is deciding what gamers want? Is it other gamers? Is it game developers who actually play games? Often I think the answer is no.
If you're looking for who to blame for games lack of "fun" these days, all you have to do is look at the CEOs and the shareholders and the people who are only in the gaming industry to cash in on the money. They push games to release too soon, they push developers to follow "reliable patterns that have been proven to sell" instead of trying something risky and different. They can't see that many of the most successful games were succesful because they were DIFFERENT.
I really don't think what's going to destroy the MMO industry is the players. Sure, I agree that people hard to please as a collective. That's how it is for everything in life; the larger the population, the more opinions their will be for what people want, the harder it will be to please enough people that the game won't fail.
However the true killer of games, MMOs or otherwise, is usually the guys behind the scenes, holding the leash, destroy creativity to improve marketability.
As long as game companies keep producing games designed to "sell" instead of games that are original and don't just mimic previous games because their popularity, it will continue to decline.
Don't get me wrong, I understand what you're saying, but I don't think that it's the real reason for the failing of today's games.
Played: DAoC, AC2, WoW, CoH, GW, GW2, WAR, AoC, Champions Online, Rift, Dragon Nest, Vindictus, Warframe, Neverwinter, Dungeon Fighter Online
Currently Playing: Dungeon Fighter Online Global
Waiting for: None
I'm not sure I follow you here. Yes, everyone asks a lot and has different opinions of what should be in a game, but the key word is "everyone." I am not everyone, so you can apply the same logic of this thread to just about any consumable product in existence. They will take all the previous features of the same product, and demand that those features be in. Each singular person, however, might only demand one or two features.
I think what people need to sit down and think about is how a game would work without certain features. Take the auction house for example: People would just trade their items instead. Is it so important to have instant gratification rather than a strong social atmosphere? I think people would survive, and find it to be an equal if not better experience.
With that in mind, why not add them in? Some things go against the very idea of the game, such as an auction house in a Warhammer 40k MMO. But most other things, such as instances, world PvP, instanced PvP, etc are all standards set that have enough benefits to warrant the addition. The bar has been set, and each new MMO has to match it and attempt to raise it; that's how the world works. Sometimes, you even get to see the bar changed, and old "accepted" features evolve. :P
Personally, I want the following in an MMO: Good PvP and unique classes, with a PvP system complex enough to set the bad players apart from the good players. Of course, everything I said just now is almost completely subjective, so what's a developer to do? :P
Sarcasm is not a crime!
Is it still a "trap" when it's self-inflicted, exuberantly embraced, and heralded as a virtue??
Yeah you're following. Maybe you just said it better?
I'm afraid that I'm not seeing this problem. All that I've seen since wow are a bunch of half-baked wow clones that don't do anything different, are half as polished, and have a quarter the content. If I actually saw a studio TRY to create a full-featured mmo I'd be inclined to agree. But as I see it, I think the studios lately are just lazy and trying to make a quick buck with under-funded and feature-lacking mmos.
I agree with zaxx.
Lots of garbage, little treasure.
The only two that offered any polish in the last few years out the gate was Lotro & Rift.
Vanguard Saga of Heroes, Final Fantasy XIV, Tabula Rasa just a handfull of unfulfilled promises n let down expectations.
It's so bad, I am back to playing 14 year old Ultima Online. I would give limbs for UO2 but alas I'm afraid the industry is swimming in mediocrity as far as game design/UI/combat. So I think it's for the best that UO2 waits till the industry gets more talent or the ceo bureaucrats let the talent do what they do best and take the corperate "bottom line only thinking"handcuffs off em.
Well I just have one unbreakable rule , P2P only(will check b2p gw2 thou) without double dipping in mmorpg's (that is diffrent in other kind of games thou).
But I mostly agree , if you make long list of what have to be in game you won't find it.
So I am going to compromise, apart of one thing at the start of my post .
I think players are at fault BUT companies are maybe even more ,they did since WoW to create games that were supposed to be attractive to "everyone" ,and they failed miserably. Not to mention overhyping and overpromising and in the end releasing games that were unfinished and did not deliver their promises. Just Warhammer Online , Age of Conan and Vanguard anyone? just to name those most games. Not to mention flood of medicore at best other p2p and f2p games?
I think mmorpg market grew so much and playerbase grew as well and at same time became so polarized , that really developers really need to start think of WoW like of an abberation that won't happen again (in terms of such huge market dominance) and start providing more diverse and profiled games , both in terms of gameplay and diffrent business models.
People like to oversimplyfy things and look for "next WoW" in terms of game and for f2p exchanging p2p. Wrong imho.
There will be few big games that will divide market among themselves and there will be various diffrent business models in use from pure p2p to pure f2p and with many in-between.
Nowadays one game to fit all just does not work again , I think if WoW was released today it would not be as huge success as it was in 2004 and later on.
Games trying to cater to all will at the end cater to none.
Players should also be more realistic at their gameplay expectation that's sure as well.
I don't think we are.
What I ask of developers is nothing that hasn't already been done in the industry, twice, and one of those MMOs is over a decade old.
Keep in mind as well, that these older games had smaller development teams, smaller budgets, and had shorter development timelines... yet how are new MMOs that have big dev teams, big budgets, and long development cycles ending up so... lacking?
I would say no, since I recently played Rift for 3-4 months, I won't say it sucks, but what it is missing on my list, made me not renew my sub. The world was too small, didn't seem like their was things to do, other than what they told you they wanted you to do. The crafting/harvesting was kind of stale and not as useful or a part of the economy as it should of been imo. Everything is instanced, and I prefer open world dungeons (I know, thats the way things are, but it is still on MY list of things I would like).
So Rift was a big compromise to what I have on my list, and what I know I like.....It turns out it was missing too much, and I didn't get into it. It is a good game for what it is, but it's not for me. I like to have a lot of options, different things to do, and not feel like I have 1-2 options to do, that are worth doing.
I would love to see even 50% open dungeons, or something close, a compromise...something other than the same stuff that is being put out now. It seems stale to me, and I have not even played it a ton.
I hope GW2, Arche Age, TSW, something changes it up enough....I will probably give swtor a try, since I have friends playing, but I think it will just be Rift in space/sci fi all over again, I hope not though. I don't enjoy hating stuff, I play games to have fun...Just last more complete game I have played was Vanguard (even with its flaws)...Everything since then has failed to hit the mark.
Yes.
Maybe because many of the new titles that come out are sucking. (Or this is the most common theme in my opinion) Suck after 1-3 months.
We have a bit of new titles comming out soon though, so get out your hyper critical eye!
I am entitled to my opinions, misspellings, and grammatical errors.
Most players now are just greedy and selfish is all. This is also why most communities in MMO's are terrible as well.
It's human nature, most people aren't going to consider something better when it doesn't have many of the simple elements that most popular mmos have had for years.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
I think that only a few gamers (relatively speaking) feel that way. I would say a vast majority of people who play games don't bother with the nitpicking, and just play whatever's fun. Then you have forum crowds who are a bit more... let's say exuberant, in their opinions about whether a game fails or not, and what features are required for success. Also, I don't think any two forum gamers will agree 100% on the end list of features that are 'must have'.
Ultimately, I feel that those of us with such strict requirements for what makes it into a game don't have much influence on success or failure.
I had to think about this one for a while.
I thoroughly agree that people play games that are fun for them. People stop playing games when they are no longer fun.
Difference between new MMO gamers and ones that are MMO veterans? The veterans have stopped playing one or more MMOs because they are no longer fun. Those veterans want something different, yet many of the veterans have a laundry list of favorite features that they consider 'must haves' in any new MMO game that they would play long term. So what the vets want is really a mix of the old and the new. But the mix of the 'old' that the vets want isn't all the same thing, and often are contradictory.
So what we have now is an ever-growing population of jaded MMO vets who flit in and out of games, leaving as soon as the "new car shiney" feel wears off mixing in with new MMO players who are still in their first game wondering what our problem is. Until they too get tired of their first game and try to find a new one.
So now we get to the developer's side of this. IMO, a lot of people complaining about the state of MMOs either have forgotten the history of computer games, never really understood the implications of the development cycle or flat out are not aware or thought about either.
Just to summarize, in the earlier days of computer gaming dev cycles were short, budgets small, LOTs of games were made. Most were crap. We as gamers had publications to sort through all the crap and point us towards the diamonds. We tend to only really remember those diamonds and forget (or never saw) the mountain of crap they were buried in.
Devs tried to learn from the diamonds to make their games better. The customer satisfaction survey card included in the box with every game was the norm. The shorter development cycles meant that market feedback got incorporated into new games faster. Innovation was easier, because it was just as important to actually bring something new to the table as to be shiny, and frankly, most PC gamers didn't expect games to be bug free.
But then budgets got bigger, development cycles longer, players stopped being so accepting of bugs and unpolished product. Innovation slowed down to a crawl, because unless you had a proven track record (like Will Wright) you just couldn't get the money to compete. So the PC world became big budget sequelitis. Right about this time is when MMOs broke out of the DIKU MUD stage and we got Ultima Online.
So right from the outset, there have been less MMOs in production than there ever were in the single player scene. When Blizzard brought WoW online, that ended any grace period from players regarding production values. Smaller studios HAVE to do trade-offs somewhere to compete with the big boys, but those tradeoffs are no longer acceptible to most of the playerbase. Any indie MMO that doesn't have AAA production values is starting out with 2 strikes against it, unless it has serious innovation that players actually like it will be Dead On Arrival.
Now lets look at that long development cycle. This is actually a serious disadvantage. The really major design decisions that seriously affect gameplay have to be made very early on in the cycle, as everything in the game depends on those decisions. So games just coming out now were based on feedback made years ago. Star Wars: TOR has been in development for 6 years. Think about what people were saying about MMOs back in 2005. Think about what MMOs were even THERE in 2005. The reality is that very little of what has been learned from then till now regarding MMOs could have been included in SWTOR.
To add to developers misery, feedback moved from those survey cards to forums. Does anyone on THESE forums seriously think that forum feedback is really enough? How many people are willing to spend the time to spell out ALL of what they think in forum posts? How many posts are actually calm and well thought out critiques of games? I think most of you know the answer to those questions.
Those big budgets? The more money involved, the less risk investors are usually willing to take. Ponder this, what might have happened if Blizzard chose to expand upon their own in house model of Diablo for WoW instead of borrowing the EQ model lock stock and barrel? IMO we would now have 3 basic 'how to do MMO' models now instead of 2. Instead, Blizz chose the 'safe' route of copying an existing model and using forum feedback from previous MMOs to guide the changes. We all know how that turned out.
I believe that it is going to take a drastic reduction in the development cycle to spur innovation in the MMO industry. This will allow A) a reduction in production costs allowing the possibility of greater risk and
faster incorporation of feedback in new games.
It would also help a ton if players were willing to take the time to be a lot more thorough and thoughtful in their game critiques online, combined with supporting those developers willing to take big risks in innovation while making it clear why we are doing so. THIS is what we as players can do to improve the situation.
Here's the thing.
If someone comes out with a game that is seeks to replicate or imitate the gameplay experience of WoW (or any other game) then I am not going to play the new game if it doesn't offer me more than WoW does. There's really no reason to. When I played WAR, I thought that it was like WoW but with worse quests, one city per faction, an extremely linear quest-grind, but slightly better PvP. When I played Aion, I thought it was like WoW except you could fly in select places (WoW has flying mounts so this really is moot now) and it was much more grindy.
When I look at the games like that, I really see no reason to play them over WoW. WoW just is better at being WoW than any other game, and it has had a long time to get its formula right.
Now if a game actually tried to offer a DIFFERENT experience, I would be much more forgiving if it lacked features that other games have. Darkfall, for example lacks A LOT of stuff that other MMORPGs have, but I played it for a while nonetheless.
Why?
Because it was DIFFERENT. Playing Darkfall doesn't feel at all like playing WoW, it is a completely different experience and it attracts a different kind of player.
Before the WoW era, almost every MMORPG that came out offered a different experience. UO, EQ, DAoC, AC...all these games offered something different to the player. Nowadays, almost all MMORPGs can be described by beginning with the phrase "It's like WoW but..." For example...
Rift: It's like WoW but there are Rift events and the class system is more flexible.
Aion: it's like WoW but you can fly in some places and there is a degree of open-PvP.
WAR: It's like WoW but there is a bigger focus on PvP
Personally, I think this is the problem with the industry. We want something NEW to play. If developers keep rehashing the same old formula, then yeah people aren't going to play it unless it is the "best" example of that formula. And you're not going to beat WoW for that.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
This genre just needs to die for a bit. Then maybe we'll see diversity and more surprises once again. Hopefully, less titles to water down the genre's player distribution.
The MMORPG genre probably rakes in more money than what was dreamed of back in 1998 or very early 2000's. But the gameplay has gotten rotten stale. And someway, somehow, the in-game community has become a solo-centric one. And the dream of letting players do whatever they want with a game world has died years ago.
The genre needs a hard reset. Let the bombs fall, I say.
"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)
I share the same sentiment you do. I look at the truckloads of f2p crap that are dumped out, the major anticipation games turned major disappointments and can't help but feel extremely jaded.
Be careful what you wish for. No genre of computer gaming has ever really recovered from a 'death'. When was the last time you saw a vehicle/flight sim? Yeah, I'm aware that there are now a few, VERY few, new adventure games but that is nothing compared to what was once out there.
It boils down to focus, primarily what the player has to focus on. I like to use SWG vs WOW in this debate, SWG was after all one of Blizzards chief competitors as it hit the market.
I view SWG as the last truly community focused AAA MMO made. SWG wasn't all about progression nor was UO or EVE. I guess you can say EQ was. DAOC to an exent, was also largely progression based. UO and SWG were community based. They were SIMS, where as EQ and DAOC were games. The game won, people in mass have an easier time focusing on games, they require far less work on the part of the user and devs, you just follow a guided line of progression.
SWG as I remember it was a game that was largely all about the friends you made, ( I still game with them, lots of them) some of them are also members of this forum. Lots still are easily found on the sites members of that community have maintained since the early demise of that (in-game) community. It's really pretty amazing the bonds that were forged in those two games.
I notice many from other older games seem as though they don't have this, as they're always complaining about finding groups/guilds/communities etc... It's also a server by server thing as well.
WOW and games since then have largely always been progression based, this creates more of an e-sport mentality, as it allows players to simply dominate others, in PVE and PVP. Ego's rule the day, which in hindsight might explain why DAOC, EQ and others didn't spawn the type of communities SWG and UO and some others have.
In short, the thempark was just an easier design all around, it didn't require complex interaction, it doesn't require creativity, it doesn't require community, all it needs is progression, and obtainable things.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Well the features being full is actually less important than the "half as polished" and "quarter the content" parts.
And really if we're talking an MMORPG 100% as polished as WOW (let alone more polished) then we're talking about something that players would be willing to be somewhat patient with as the company released more content
It's pretty unreasonable to expect any game to have the content of something like WOW or EQ1, actually. It's just not feasible. But to also be half as polished with weaker combat systems? That totally destroys the new MMORPGs which have come out.
Rift was 80-90% as polished as WOW. It was rewarded with better than average success as a result. The first MMORPG to equal (and ideally surpass) WOW will be a huge success.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I am inclined to agree, which is why the F2P movement has picked up some steam lately.
Funny, but not all that long ago many people expected Aion to equal WoW polish and popularity. Can't say that worked out as expected at least in the western market.