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Our only hope..
Vlid
Member Posts: 7
I think that our only hope to play a great MMORPG game is to help and give our best ideas as a community and create a game through the kickstarter..A game made from the community itself..
What do u think of that?
PS
I made that thread in response to the fact that the repopulation and Nexus 2 have turn to Kickstarter in order to be able to cope financially.
Comments
A wonderful theory...But then again, so is communism.
In a perfect World, Op- This would work. In reality we would have underfunded vaporware withsome fantastic forum discussions.
Pretty much.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
Im talking about objective criteria..From what i've seen i think that the majority of the mmo community can be objective..
I make spreadsheets at work - I don't want to make them for the games I play.
I made that thread in response to the fact that the repopulation and Nexus 2 have turn to Kickstarter in order to be able to cope financially.
Sounds great in theory. Unfortunately, I don't think that would work very well.
Thing is, The Community is not an homogeneous body, nor are their opinions. When one starts the development of a video game, they must know very well and from the very beginning the pillar concepts for its foundation; it is a fundamental skill for a good developer to, parting from there, know when to listen to the community and when to ignore it (which, let's be honest, is most of the time). Additionally, gamers' views and suggestions are more often than not contradictory (a direct result of them being an heterogeneous group of people); this can be most easily observed in MMOs: if we were to always listen to the community we would find that somehow every class of every MMORPG ever has been overpowered and underpowered at the same time.
And that is not even the main issue. Let's say that, somehow, we achieve a global consensus for what's the "best" approach to every single design issue in our MMO: most probably we would find that when we put them together it makes a terrible game, the reason being it's been made from independent and scattered decisions roughly put together instead of growing steadely from well established pillars towards well stablished goals.
By ways of conclusion, I want to punctualize that knowing the different views of the playerbase while developing a game is essential, but it is even more important to discern when are they to be taken into account. The gaming community can tell you their preferences, but it's up to you to put them in contrast with each other and to pick those that fit better into the game you have in mind.
I'm afraid democracy, as optimal as it is in other matters, would not be the best choice for this particular one.
It would be awesome if one of those companies was <monitoring> and gettin ideas from a community like that.
I know it seems that simple in my mind and eventually its not, but i think its nice to share ur thoughts
Nope. I don't believe in Kickstarter, and you can't really raise enough for a proper MMO anyway.
And there are plenty of games to play, even if there is no great new MMO.
Kickstarter has a big chance to finance some great single player games - I have eye on few crpg's and strategies that have a potential to put mostAAA productions to shame.
For mmorpg's - not enough money if we speak about good PC mmorpg with good 3d graphics and good features.
Maybe mobile mmo or some 2d mmo for PC / consoles ? (though personally I am not interested in those) Or maybe some heavy instanced COPRG?
Full fledged mmorpg? Nah That's at least 30-40 mln dollars unless you're cool with another Mortal Online...
Thanks,
Mike
Working on Social Strategy MMORTS (now Launched!) http://www.worldalpha.com
So you'll have thousands of content designers and no programmers or artists? Sounds like a good outcome.
Having ideas for an MMO is easy. Implementing them in a way that works smoothly and people can easily use and get used to is where the problem lies. Because that is so difficult many companies rely on everything that's already been done and slightly polish the experience of those same things.
I'm sorry but every time I read somebody saying lets use kickstarter, I about roll on the floor laughing. No Not using kickstarter for anything sorry we got to come up with a better idea than that.
Actually, kind of in line with but somewhat different than what the OP is suggesting, what would be great is something like this:
A true world building MMO where players are given the tools to be actual people much like in our own world, but also with some "godlike" powers.
A place where the world starts out very new and fresh with little in existence, but through hard work and collaboration players (both as individuals and as groups) can continue unlocking tools which allow them to alter the world.
- Allow shaping of areas of the world geographical (through terraforming, etc)
- designing and placement of creatures throughout the world as well as the ability to specify their habits (breeding, migration, reactions to other forms of life)
- same as above regarding plant life / vegetation
- creation of our own societies and laws in various areas of the world
- the ability to create a need for roles within the societies (like "jobs" that go beyond your standard killing stuff, collecting stuff, crafting stuff). As a few examples, educators who have knowledge / skills that they can pass on to others and be rewarded for it, medical personell who have the skills to treat wounds and diseases, a transit system run by players who earn a living transporting other players and cargo around, a "police" force responsible for enforcing local laws, an active military unit responsible for protecting the nations, even all the way down to cleaning personell (trash collectors, janitors, etc) responsible for keeping the cities clean and ensuring happiness and preventing the spread of filth and disease. Some of these things obviously not manually done by individual players, but at least done as sort of running a business. Give players the tools to create the businesses and send out NPCs to perform some of the mundane tasks while earning profit (or going broke if run poorly).
- influence over the development of technology as time goes on. a completely free invention system where players can think up different ways of utilizing resources and other existing technology to create all kinds of crazy stuff like we have done throughout our own history
- Along with all the stuff above, and so much more.... interesting and immersive combat as well.
TLDR version: Something similar to us as humans moving to an unpopulated alien planet and starting over nearly from scratch, but with the benefit of attaining powers we dont have IRL. Kind of like many of our "gods" throughout history in myths and legends who were the ones that created and / or influenced various aspects of the world as we know it, while also leading a "human" way of life and needing to struggle to survive and increase their impact on the world while warring with eachother.
I wholeheartedly agree with that. I have many many spreadsheets with my ideas, balancing tables and unique maps, but lack the skills and funding to make them happen. I'm sure there are many MMORPG.com members in the same boat as me. It's not that I don't want to have the skills, it's that I don't have time to drop my job/school and live without income long enough to learn how to make the game ideas fully fleshed out.
I played WoW up until WotLK, played RoM for 2 years and now Rift.
I am F2P player. I support games when I feel they deserve my money and I want the items enough.
I don't troll, and I don't take kindly to trolls.
You mean like minecraft where people can literally build the whole world?
Or Love where players can change the world, build power sources, create moving objects, towns, etc.
The problem is look at how many people play those compared to the other games out there, big companies see that as too risky to go that route.
In way yes. But sort of a combination of those things but done with better / more realistic graphics (adding to the immersion), and some additional features.
Also, 2 features i completely forgot to add:
- Much more extensive control of our character than we see in games now. Get rid of simplistic "click a button and perform a series of actions". Give us nearly full body control with precise movement of our limbs and all that.
- After we get to the point where we have the thing i listed above, allow players themselves to create some of the mechanics of the game, such as combat. Look at our own world and the wide range of fighting styls both past and present. There have been so many different forms of martial arts, swordsmanship, use of tools / technology (such as guns), etc. It was never "Oh you use a sword, so every attack you make goes exactly like this" and we were all clones of eachother in combat. The methods of using your sword effectively varied from person to person.
The big problem though is our current level of technology. I know putting in all the things im talking about would be a massive load on a server. Maybe someday....
Let alone the massive cost to develop. That's the real problem. The barrier to developing these kinds of games is the fact that they would never see a RoI on the cost of developing such a game.
That is the gamer lack of realistic expectations now.
You want high quality realistic graphics while have a diverse system to allow full player freedom to truly shape and change the world. You just defined a budget likely never seen before and earlier you were talking about people coming together to do this indie style.
Full body, precise control over all limbs/muscles. Ok and how will someone do that? How are you going to control that outside of wearing a Virtual Reality suit that reads in all of your body motions? There is absolutely no level of realistic expectations in that sentence.
That is the biggest problem with any kind of "Hey, let's get together and make the most awesomesauce game ever" projects. People think that anything can be done, and anything can be done with no highly skilled programmers or artists. Just look at the mod community before looking into making an entire MMO from the ground up. For every highly successful mod like Counter-Strike, which didn't even come up with any new systems for the half=life engine outside of rounds it was all art and level design, there are thousands of unfinishes/barely started mods where the people had the idea of making the most amazing thing ever. Quickly they realized they fully lacked the abilities to do any of it and quit. Others come up with a whole other set of most amazingness ever and start yet another mod to be finished, quitting the first.
Any group who wants to change the gaming world needs to start off by either making a mod of an existing game, fully 100% done and released. Or start with something like an iPhone game and work their way up. It will allow them to see how much work goes into even the simplest things and will allow them to approach bigger projects with far more realistic expectations.