Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Why did MMOs become about the money and numbers?
This discussion has been closed.
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Comments
I admit I'm more of a jaded gamer and it takes more to satisfy me. Maybe cause I've been playing video games almost as long as I can remember. I think my jaded gamer syndrome started when I hit my 20's and the genre's ideas became slower and some of my favorite genre's became long in the tooth. Though the platform side scrolling games are some of the best now.
The problem with MMORPG's is that type I liked the most lost. Essentially with EQ winning out over UO and the seemed failure of SWG the Sandbox path that I enjoyed the most was effectively stomped out of mainstream gaming. Very little development and plus the stagnation of the genre with the themeparks has made me to dislike the genre. If it wasn't for F2P I wouldn't be playing it at all.
Sandbox elements, exploration, difficulty, inconveniences, community, longevity in game play have all seemed to be stamped out. Now we have voiced over quest hubs with single player style story lines for the past I don't know how many years. Things seem to be changing some. Many of the things they took out were annoying but now I rather have annoyance then being bored or playing an online game where nobody talks.
You do know MMOs have ALWAYS been about the money right. WoW was created (after the warhmmer deal falling out) to MAKE money seeing how Everquest 1 did (which btw is what the emulated the most from FYI getting a good majority of their workers from).
MMos have and always will be about money. Sure, some can be more about the design and the vision, but those will be few and far between. Investors don't pay to have a game that earns no money, they pay to have one that rakes in cash. its dillusional to think otherwise. Worst off, even an MMo that is meant as a 'love letter' focused on the game rather then profiting from it will STILL need that money. MMos are expensive to maintain and as such they require more money to function and continue to function.
Uh back in the late 90s Pc games were $30.00-$40.00 and console games were $40.00-$50.00. Prices didn't change for games until around 2005 I believe.
MurderHerd
Video game prices have been pretty stable for a long time, even since the 90s.
http://www.1up.com/news/90s-game-price-comparison-charticle
Adjusted for inflation, games are much cheaper now than they were in the 90s.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Let us conclude that you did not understand what Loktofeit tried to say and that is that. I am really done arguing against your straw man. You just won't let go.
I have not seen any panel so I cannot comment on it. Forums only tell there are some people that want something different. There's no indication of how many or if they do really want things to be different. But all this is irrelevant because forums are always skewed toward the negative. That is why you shouldn't read much into it, if at all.
Yes, I'm saying there is no such thing! There are ways to lure people in and keep them playing but those are also the features of good games. This is you, those couple of buddies of yours, telling its bad, when its really not. Its not good or bad.
There has not been a game which I am satisfied with entirely, but I am still satisfied enough to play. There is no way of knowing how satisfied people are without extensive surveys. But it is prudent to assume that because so many people play your game as opposed to someone else's game, and nothing forces them to play, and seeing as the number of players go up each year, that people are generally satisfied.
Some people are disappointed. No one is fighting you on that issue. What is your point?
It is far more pointless saying "some people are disappointed". There's always people who are disappointed whatever you do.
You are the only one holding on to your straw man. We've been over this for many pages already. People have told you its a straw man. Loktofeit told you it is a straw man. Let go. You only make yourself look bad.
Why some posters say they are not economically viable, is that, when made with the same production quality as the games in the mainstream niche, those games are less likely to break even or, at the very least, have worse return for investment (ROI).
You hit a smaller market, you get less money. If the expected returns are smaller, your budget should reflect that. That is why you should not expect a 50 million dollar sandbox out of the blue. Eve Online grew gradually over time. They have established their market. There is no solid proof that there's much more.
The difficult thing is, people are used to AAA quality and expect the same sort of quality from even the small budget niche games.
I can't argue with faulty logic. Remember "if you argue with a fool, onlookers can't tell which is which". I refuse to dance around with some of the more ridiculous comments you've made. The straw man you made from Loktofeit is one of the more obvious. I thought it was fairly simple to sink, but I didn't expect you to stick to your guns and going down with the ship.
In this case, observing player culture and indie games.
Name those "copy cats". Lets get some examples from you for a change.
There is nothing wrong thinking they're playing too safe. I would agree with you. But your assumption is false:
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I understand perfectly. He's saying since a lot people are playing and that number is increasing (still haven't seen any data), that means MOST people are satisfied. What does he mean by satisfied? Well it was in response to me saying people are disappointed so obviously he has to mean satisfied to the point of not being disappointed. And that's just not a connection he can make for the MANY reasons I've given over and over.
Yeah, they're always skewed toward the negative, that doesn't mean there's nothing to be learned from them. And like I said, it's not a coincidence that the games coming out are claiming to be the thing a lot of people have been asking for on the forums.
First of all, it's an assumption when you say "as opposed to someone else's game." As I pointed out before (and people keep ignoring it), it seems very reasonable to assume that there are a LOT of people jumping from MMO to MMO. That would have no impact on the overall subs in the industry, but would indicate that people are disappointed/not satisfied.
And I have no idea what to even say to you. It's really telling that you won't even accept that carrot-on-a-stick gameplay exists. I'm not sure if that's pure ignorance or just you being completely stubborn. Is there anybody who quite honestly enjoys the concept of carrot-on-a-stick aspect of wow and enjoys the grindy gameplay? I have no doubt! But it seems like a heck of a lot more people complain about the enormous grind in WoW compared to oldschool games. But they stick through aspects of the game they don't like (the grind) to get to the promise of some shiny toy (the carrot). And once they get it, I'm sure a lot of people would just quit, so they have to add more grinds to the game. WHY DO YOU THINK THAT GAME HAS SO MANY GRINDY ASPECTS TO IT? That's carrot-on-a-stick gameplay. What exactly do you deny exists? Do you really think Blizzard doesn't know what they're doing when they implement game design like that? They know full well that they don't have as much of a burden to make fun or interesting gameplay because they're luring people to the "end-game" and even once you get to the "end-game" you have to then start grinding for something else.
Except my point is that there are more disappointed people now than before. Here's where you start yelling "YOU CAN'T PROVE THAT!" "IT'S JUST YOU AND YOUR BUDDIES!"
Well, no I can't prove that. That doesn't mean it's not true. You can just close your eyes to the increasing sense of disappointment in the community, but any reasonable person can see that it's there. Again, it's not a coincidence that there's a big shift in games coming... or at least promised
Do you think you can actually speak to the arguments I'm making? Rather than just continuously claim that I'm using a straw man? I said people are disappointed with games. Lok, in retaliation to that, said that people are satisfied because people are playing them and that number is increasing (still waiting on the data). So OBVIOUSLY he means that people are satisfied to the point of not being disappointed, RIGHT? Like... why else would he bring it up as a retort to my saying people were disappointed?
But then you come along and take up this crusade about... what exactly? That I used a strawman? Do you mean shorthand? Are you pissed that I said "playing players = satisfied players"? Is that the problem?
learn the topic first. You're changing his words to "satisfied enough to play and pay for the game." Why are you wasting my time with that? It's a pointless thing to say "people are satisfied enough to play because they're playing."
Well this is the very definition of a strawman. I'm not asking for a AAA quality sandbox game. And many people have specifically used the EVE example: start small, build on it.
You can just SAY crap like "people are used to AAA quality...." but there's no reason to think that a game would fail just because it doesn't have state of the art graphics. Many many games (not just MMO's) are popular well beyond the point of breaking even and they don't have state of the art graphics.
Because you don't understand the context, and for some reason don't like shorthand.
Why take the time to parse out individual points if you're not going to respond to them? What about all the other stuff I said??? I'll number them for you:
1. Somebody has to try the new thing. You can't always copy another game.
2. What would you use to decide what kind of game to make aside from listening to the community?
3. You shouldn't listen to customers about details, but what's wrong with listening to customers about really broad strokes?
Before I waste my time and compile a list for somebody who refuses to answer my most important points, are you claiming that there isn't a lot of stealing ideas/copying right now?
What the hell..... I was giving you two extremes to define the opposite edges of the spectrum. Do you really think there's never been a company that made a game with no regard for the money they'd make? Because that's a pretty silly thing to think. I promise you there have been countless small indie developers (as in like 1 or 2 people working on their own time) that just make a game to make a game.
And if you're saying that some companies want to make a good game because good games sell, well then that's not a contradiction of what I said. I'm saying their only concern is making money. You're just kind of half-assing an argument that other people have tried to make: companies looking for more money is a good thing because it means they'll make better products. Well that's true at least in part, but it means they'll make better products within their particular industry or genre. Our point is they're making a type of game this watered down and made to appeal to the masses. I have no trouble believing that Blizzard makes their game WELL, but it's the type of game they're making that we have a problem with.
I agree completely.
I never played UO or EQ, I joined in the 2nd age of MMOs (3rd if you include MUDs) with DAoC. But SWG was one of my favorite games of all time. Nevertheless, I feel that a game like Age of Wushu is every bit as good as those old games, and this is a modern game . . . yet no one plays it. It is a profoundly deep sandbox MMO in which just during the short time I played it I had more epic adventures than I can recall ever having in any other game. Now, granted, one of the main reasons for the fact that very few play it is that it is a Chinese import, but still, it does raise a question: could a AAA game today ever truly be as deep and rewarding as those old games were?
Even if Age of Wushu were designed in America, it has a very steep learning curve and is very time demanding, and once you fall behind the game becomes less forgiving. It is open PvP and can be very intimidating. Could a game like that ever be made into a AAA success?
Remember, when we first started gaming, AAA games were being designed by people in their basements and were being played by a massive community of geeks. "Normal people" barely knew how to get online, never mind dive into a MMO. I'm not sure that even IF these "normal people" could have entered the world of MMOs that they would have liked those old games. Those old games appealed to people like us. And . . . I am not sure that anything has changed: epic, open, sandbox games still appeal to people like us, still strike us as the essential defining qualities of a true MMO. It is just that people like us now make the minority of online gamers. "Normal people" took over, and when they took over the games adjusted to appeal to "normal" tastes.
The clearest indication that the mainstream took over MMO gaming was WoW. The fact that you have just one all so popular game, while ALL the other games are ignored, was so emblematic of 20th century mainstream culture. 20th century mainstream culture was all about finding the BEST and then everyone flocking to that one thing. Everyone watching the same movie, everyone listening to the same music, essentially everyone following what is "popular" and that is why it was called "pop" culture. Today the winds are changing however, and the internet has gradually adjusted culture toward appreciating a diversity of tastes.
You certainly see this with gaming. More and more independent games are on the rise, and more and more gamers are beginning to realize that they need to find the games that THEY LIKE, not just the ones that are the most popular. Often when we complain about the state of gaming, particularly of MMOs, we focus in on the very popular games, as if the only way we could be happy was if a very POPULAR MMO to our tastes were to appear. There may very well be MMOs out there that appeal to us, but they aren't popular and so we ignore them.
We started gaming in an era where the cutting edge and popular were simultaneously sophisticated. It is a bit like when Jazz music first appeared. It initiated collective culture's move into popular forms of music, and yet was profoundly sophisticated. After a short period of time it was replaced by less sophisticated forms of music like Rock, and whereas in its heyday it had been extremely hip, it quickly faded into a sort of music snobs listen to. The same fate perhaps is the destiny of old school MMOs.
But gaming also seems to be moving in the opposite direction of the dumbing-down trajectory that 20th century popular music followed. Increasingly, gamers seem to be seeking more sophisticated games and there seems to be a dawning awareness that games can explore many more possibilities if the gamer is willing to learn new rules. I deeply hope this is the case, because games have barely scratched the surface of what is possible as long as they continue to innovate.
Apparently you did not.
Ehh... what is your point exactly? Ofcourse they promise to be everything you've ever wanted.
Could be. Then again, majority of people might have hopped games in the old school days too. You will never know. This is all speculation.
Grind was new in old-school games. People didn't know any better then. The whole idea was novel back then. People forgave a lot of things. I have come across this many times in what I do. For example, it is this cognitive bias which made iPhone's early adopters excited even when the device was severely lacking in features - you couldn't even send a text message with it.
We know grind now. It is not a new thing anymore, and some people are tired of it. But in order to gauge if old-school games had grind to the levels of WoW, you only need to revisit some of them. Have you played Lineage? Everquest?
There's nothing wrong with grindy gameplay if the player finds it entertaining, or addictive. As I've said before, Diablo was one such game. Gear grind was a strong part of that game. And people still liked Lineage and Everquest very much even with their grindy gameplay. Many sandboxes are nothing but grind. Nothing particularly sinister about it. On these forums. Some people have posted they want to "work" for their rewards.
I don't know what your deal is with WoW, but this whole carrot-on-a-stick thing is your concoction. You might as well try to convince me that chemtrails and government mind control is real. The whole idea is laughable so I will knowingly dismiss it as nonsense.
You lost it right? Are you listening to yourself? Yes, I can say that there's a pink elephant floating in orbit of Neptune playing a harmonica, but just because I can't prove it doesn't mean its not true.
You're sensing an increased sense of disappointment in the community? Do you have any other special powers? Please, share more of your wisdom oh wise one!
I feel like I'm starting to sound like a broken record here. He said "most people". Obviously he means most people are satisfied enough to play and pay. There's always people who are disappointed. His point was that, given the evidence, likely most people are not.
I am running out of different ways to explain the same exact thing over and over.
Hey, at least you're not going to lose for lack of trying.
Read carefully; I said "very rare". This sort of shit got you in trouble with Loktofeit too. But I am anxiously waiting for your list.
You were using sweeping generalizations for the basis of your argument. You shouldn't do that. And I'm sure there has been indie devs like what you said. Trouble is, no one has ever heard of them.
I'm not going to even start a pointless argument to define exactly what you mean by "watered down", but what is your beef with going for the mainstream niche? Someone ought to serve them.
What you expect from developers is unrealistic and naive. Lets not beat around the bush: You are venting because you find your niche is not adequately served, right?
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
You summed it up right away and didn't even realize it.developers of AC LOVED their game and the genre
I can't find the page anymore, but AC was developed by people who truly enjoyed fantasy and medieval, they we're people did Live action Roleplaying, and wanted to create and online gathering place for people who enjoyed the same things without having to have small meetings, and traveling across state!
I think the MMORPG genre degraded at the split of AC and EQ.
AC made by fans of the genre, started in a garage of friends.
EQ made by Sony, a big greedy company.
1 could afford to advertise, 1 could not!
Btw, Asheron's Call isn't that great anymore, and has not lived up to it's potential.
It got sold to Microsoft, and then to Warner bros, then back and forth, and now lays in the filthy hands of Warner Bros.
This game has great potential, but... like you said, when they try and expand the market to fit consumers, not Fans, well bad things happen, and continue to happen.
If Asheron's Call lore went open source ( I say this because to this day not many can understand the old coding language that AC is, was freehand and original, built by MIT students who also did things like building robots and stuff lol ), it could be expanded on greatly and I think turned back into a great game.
We have the 'you are only looking back through jaded eyes' discussion every time something like this comes up. I suppose I only think most modern MMO's have midget worlds, no grouping and are all slowly going P2W because I am jaded?
Yes nostalgia plays a part, but once you recognise that you can tease out what was good because it was your first time and what was good because it was just plain good.
I think most people actually don't know what they are missing out on is the problem.
Goes with the Advertising, and who you can grab first before they try something else.
heres another excerpt from a review of AC that I think explains things well
Quests. In AC, quests are more than just simplistic kill tasks with instructions that could figure out without thinking to hard. The quests tie in to the game lore, you hear about them through rumors from town criers, and sometimes NPCs that want you to retrieve some lost item of theirs from a dangerous dungeon. The rewards matter, and some of them are of use to you for years after you've gotten them. You don't do quests because you have to in order to level up, although there are quests that give experience rewards, but rather because the quest has an extremely useful item that you might want, or for a new useful spell such as something that teleports you to a new island. The interesting thing is that you aren't even told what to do, the player is left to figure things out for himself/herself by looking at the previous lore and other quests. Exploration plays an important part in questing in AC.
However, the absolute best thing about Questing in Asheron's Call were the live events where the developers would play main story characters and the players would have a chance to change what happens. On the PvP server I remember one of the most evil clans ended up joining an evil story characters allegiance played by a developer. The fact that the players actually took part in the story at some times and pushed it in the direction they wanted made the game far more interesting and immersive than anything else I've ever played. There were even epic one time quests where sometimes only one person would get the reward.
Compare it to World of Warcraft where quests exist for the sole purpose of leveling up and are intended to be done one after another. There is no deep story behind them, and they hardly tie into the game world. Each quest you do will tend to make the last quest item you got worthless, and you only do them because you have to.
heres the guys post, please ignore the whole WOW things, I know it's a sore subject.
https://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?50879-Why-Asheron-s-Call-is-better-than-WoW
All in all a great review.+1
I've worked with developers for 30 years and I've yet to find a single developer that qualifies as a visionary. They're production-line workers who's only value is to spit out product.
Don't think...code. Leave the heavy lifting to the big boys.
Actually the 'visionary' poster is correct.
Gamers making games.
Developers for consumers.
That's the difference.
But I'm going to leave these forums again as half you just want to argue for the sake of argueing.
So goodbye Noobs.
And I hope some newbs come to the genre and re-invent the way we are gaming.
My point is that people are disappointed with the status quo. If they weren't, there wouldn't be so many games claiming to be different and there wouldn't be a lot of sandbox games in production.
LOL, yes I cannot prove that people are disappointed or that they are jumping from game to game. I never said I could. My claim is that it seems like people are more disappointed with the lack of innovation now than they were 10 or whatever years ago. And I'm saying that it's probably because WoW made developers think they can just copy that winning formula and profit from it.
"Grind" doesn't capture what I'm talking about. It's one half of the equation. I enjoyed "grinding" in UO because every little bit of work that I did was productive. I would farm mobs to get gold, grind skills to level them up (and you got a progressive benefit as you leveled it up), etc. Even actual TASKS like stocking my vendor, or expanding my guild's rune library. The satisfaction was seen every step of the way. I enjoyed the JOURNEY. If I was on my tamer bard and I was farming dragons in Destard, every single time I went back and banked I was that much richer. Or if I got PK'd, I was that much poorer. That's actual progress.
That is in stark contrast with a game like WoW where you do boring work just to reach a goal, and from there you just have more boring grinds to get the next thing you HAD to get because everybody else has that thing and you need it to compete. Do some people enjoy the leveling in WoW? Probably, there are 8 million people playing it. But I don't think it's far fetched to say that most people are playing because of the carrot they see on the end of the stick, and not because they're enjoying the actual gameplay.
[SarcasticTroll]
This is kind of a pathetic way to debate. Do you generally only accept scientifically proven facts or academic studies when debating a topic? And by the way, what else am I supposed to say other than what I already have? I can't prove it. It's an observation. Sorry you're just too damn stubborn to admit that people are pretty fed up with the status quo...
You're sounding like a broken record because you're deliberately ignoring my points. Why do you keep saying "satisfied enough to play and pay"? As I've pointed out, that would be an ABSOLUTELY POINTLESS thing to say in the context of the debate. I think you know that and you're too stubborn to admit that you just simply came into the middle of a discussion without understand what was going on.
Answer my question. Are you denying that there is a lot of stealing ideas/copying right now? Because to be honest, I'm kind of loathing the idea of going through games I suspect have stolen ideas from WoW as well as wracking my memory just to come back and have you twist your words around and wriggle out of this one. What exactly are you disagreeing with?
I was using sweeping generalizations because I'm talking about every game developer that has ever existed! Why would I NOT use sweeping generalizations? I was saying you can be A, you can be B, or you can be somewhere in the middle. And since I'm arguing on the internet, OF COURSE WE GET INTO A DRAWN OUT DISCUSSION ABOUT HOW UNLIKELY IT IS THAT A COMPANY HAS BEEN ON EITHER END OF THE SPECTRUM.
And it would be nice if one of you themepark white knights would debate honestly. When you get caught in saying something ridiculous, don't just move on and shrug it off... it's more than a little bit frustrating to explain to you in detail why the argument of "better game = more profit" ISN'T a contradiction to my point about companies only going after money.
And no, what I want is absolutely not unrealistic and naive. Here's proof: I would absolutely play EVE if it were my type of game. I'm not too into the sci-fi nature of it. But that level of polish/depth/complexity would be right up my aisle. Hell, I'd even take a game considerably LESS complicated and with less barriers to entry than EVE. So how on earth can you make the assumption that my expectations are unrealistic? I'm very curious.
In fact, you're the one that's naive. For some reason, you just cannot accept the idea that developers right now may be a bit lazy because they think they can copy other game's ideas and cash in on them. How are you so sure that developers simply can't afford to add more depth to their games? That this is the pinnacle of complexity? Why are you so unwilling to admit that it's POSSIBLE that a lot of developers got dollar signs in their eyes when they saw WoW's success?
But to speak to your question: no, my niche isn't adequately being served. That's why there are games coming out to cater to my niche.
Definitely. I personally feel optimistic about the genre for the first time in 10 years. The winds have changed. The last ten years, the post WoW era, were the Dark Ages and WoW was the Catholic Church . . . now comes the Renaissance.
And "good" is subjective. There is no such thing as plain good for everyone.
Small, but interesting instances, and solo-centric gameplay sounds good ... if you like that. Don't tell me no one likes that because the market is certainly catering to that style of gameplay.
Well careful. Many here will hound you for saying such things. They may start to demand that you show them proof that a "post wow era" even exists.
Anyway, yeah I'm pretty excited as well. There seem to be a lot of good games on their way. Personally I'm very excited for The Repopulation. One of the creators described it as "SWG meets shadowbane"
So you take the increase in upcoming sandboxes as a sign of increased disappointment among the players, is that right? Not very sound connection as it is.
I'd say it is more likely that developers see the mainstream market saturated so they are trying their luck with something else.
There's a lot more people playing MMORPGs now than ever. So naturally there would be more disappointed people than ever. World of Warcraft brought more people to the genre than any other MMO ever. Those new players came from other games specifically for WoW. I don't see anything wrong with someone trying to snatch few of those with a product that is already familiar to them. It would be a stretch to think that those same players would play something completely different from what they know.
You are basically blaming companies for serving the biggest niche in the genre.
You found grinding to be fun in UO but boring in WoW so that proves what exactly? Weren't you grinding for the carrot-on-a-stick just like everybody else? Its all a matter of perception. I didn't like grind then, and I didn't like grind now. And people ground (?) toward an end just as much as they do now. Differences are in the details, but I see not much has changed in the large scheme of things.
You shouldn't have claimed it was true. That made it silly; hence, the silly reply. What you "sense" around you is likely what you want to see. You don't even pretend to be unbiased. Like I've said, you've already made up your mind how things are. Then you make up these wild narratives to counter possible evidence against your view.
I will not admit people are fed up with the status quo, because you have have failed to convince me to your side. You have no evidence. Your observation is as good as mine. And Loktofeit made a very sensible assumption about the consensus based on the evidence available. You have nothing.
What you have is forum posts which we all know are skewed toward the negative and your speculation. I don't know whether I should be insulted because you think I would be so easily persuaded. Certainly you won't win anyone over by calling them stubborn.
No. I don't think there's anymore stealing or copying of ideas than ever before. If you look back, many features have stayed more or less the same since Meridian59. I, for one, am tried of the arcaic holy trinity which makes combat encounters rather formulaic. I don't like that trinity mold is applied perversely to sci-fi and modern themed MMOs as well. I have never liked grind either, but as long as a game is subscription based, there will be some.
You shouldn't do that. Every company thinks of making profit and every company tries to make a good game. The extremes you propose do not exist. It's a logical fallacy. Good games are profitable. Try and convince me otherwise without implying they compel you to play even if you don't like it.
I couldn't give two shits if a game is themepark or sandbox. I find arguments between the two sides tiresome and distinction rather harmful. Too many people are turned off by a label rather than trying a game. That includes labels such as "WoW clone", by the way. It gets thrown around far too often by haters, who couldn't give a rats ass about if the game was actually close to WoW or not.
Just because you want a specific game doesn't mean you are owed said game. Are you or are you not demanding an AAA sandbox? Because if you are not, you have many indie titles to choose from. What you shouldn't do is dismissing other poster's explanation why the market is the way it is and what goes into funding them. Like I've already said, some of them work in the industry. They are the experts. Don't make up stories, listen to them.
I am not denying some developers tried to profit from the massive influx of new players brought by World of Warcraft. I think it is perfectly natural and nothing to be frown upon. That is how the market works. That is what companies do. I am calling you naive because you see something out of the ordinary or something sinister about it.
What I also want to do is point out your apparent confusion between complexity and depth. Those two mean two different things in game design. One is something you want minimize if possible (complexity), and one is something you want to maximize. It takes a bit to explain, so I will leave it for another thread. It makes me doubt your "watered down" comment though.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Yes. D3 expansion. Destiny. Division. Some may even have some MMO elements. Gaming is good!
I'm saying it's indicative. There ARE different games coming out and even before this "revolution" a lot of games were claiming to be "different." I'm just offering up a explanation of why we're seeing that.
I don't mean there are more disappointed people in an absolute sense, I'm saying there are more proportionately. It seems like there are relatively more disappointed and fed up people now than ever before.
And you talk about serving the biggest niche in the genre as if those people will ONLY play that exact type of game. I'm not saying the industry should stop making themeparks and only make MY type of game. I'm saying they should disagreggate. Instead of spending 50 million dollars on an MMO designed to appeal to the 20 million players who are playing themeparks, how about five 10 million dollar MMOs that go after certain sub groups? As I've pointed out before, each of those 8 million WoW players would probably enjoy a different game more suited to their desires. But in order to attract MORE people, developers have to water down their gameplay, which doesn't help anybody except the developers.
No, I wasn't. What's the carrot in UO? I'm saying I enjoyed the journey in UO... there was no carrot. I enjoyed slowly and progressively building my character, my bank, my status as one of the more reliable potion keg merchants, etc. The closest thing to carrot-on-a-stick gameplay in UO was some of the crafting professions and the taming professions. Professions like animal tamer and blacksmith/tailor were really only useful once you were maxed, so you had to grind for quite a while with the promise of a reward at the end. That's an example of carrot-on-a-stick gameplay. However it doesn't REALLY fit because that's where your journey STARTS in UO. At that point you'd start selling armor, repairing armor for people at the bank, etc.
Now compare this to a game like WoW where you're constantly doing some grind with some whatever promise at the end - an item, a title, more pvp power, whatever. That's an example of carrot-on-a-stick game design because in general you're keeping people playing with PROMISES, not with the gameplay itself.
You have absolutely no reason to assume that I made up my mind before noticing trends in the community. In reality my opinions are constantly changing based on the facts and what I notice about people's opinions. I'm not sure how you're claiming that I made up my mind and am now skewing any evidence. Furthermore, that doesn't invalidate my concerns with using "total subs" as an indicator of how disappointed people are. If you care to take on any of my claims, feel free. But ad hominem attacks won't cut it.
Also, I'm not trying to convince you that people are fed up with the status quo. I've never tried to convince anybody of that because it's not easily proven with facts or with reason. I was bringing it up as a component of an argument, not something I was trying to argue for. If you don't agree, fine. I do however think you're being quite naive, considering all of the talk on these forums and elsewhere about innovation, lack of creativity, wow clones, quest hubs. But as you say, people will see what they see.
And yeah basic reasoning would indicate that forums will TEND towards the negative. People are more likely to complain about something than they are to praise something. But 2 things:
1. Be glad that I'm not as stubborn as you and the other usual suspects in these conversations because if I were I would simply deny this phenomenon until you showed me actual proof that forums tend towards the negative.
2. That doesn't explain people being MORE negative now than before. In other words, you can assume that for every 1 negative person on the forums, there may be 3 or 4 or however many positive people that AREN'T posting on the forums. Unless you have reason to believe that ratio would change, you can assume that if more people are being negative on the forums, there's a decent chance that more people overall feel negatively.
The things I'm talking about are:
quest hubs
level-segregated zones (this is a big one)
heavy instancing
match finders
carrot-on-a-stick gameplay (different from grind)
Those seem to be LARGELY new concepts being heavily popularized by WoW and subsequent themeparks.
There are other things like the lack of innovation in regards to targeting systems, and the fact that UI's are largely the same.. most of which utilize static ability bars.
Dear goodness.... are we still talking about whether or not companies exist on the ENDS of a spectrum of possible ways to run a company??
FIRST OF ALL, they absolutely 100% do exist. Again, do you honestly believe there has never been a super small indie team that literally did not care about the money and only wanted to make a good game?
SECOND OF ALL, it makes no difference to the point I'm making. I'm saying it's a sliding scale, and we think companies have moved MORE towards the bad end (ultimately caring more about money) and away from the good end (ultimately caring about delivering a good product).
Delivering a good product does NOT have a perfect relationship with profits. Not only that, as I've pointed out before (and you haven't yet responded to), delivering a good product WITHIN THAT GENRE will probably yield higher profits. But that's different from when a company decided what TYPE of game to make. I can believe that WoW is a HIGH QUALITY themepark game. Just like Katy Perry probably has infinite resources available to her. It just means she's making higher quality pop music, not that it's good music. So bringing up that companies want to make a good game so that they can make more money doesn't really mean much at all.
Or labels are created as shorthand so you don't have to list all of the ways the game is similar to other games that you may not like. Some people may think "wow clone" is a good thing. But the point is the game is similar to wow.
I am absolutely NOT demanding a AAA sandbox. In fact I've said many times that I don't expect to have the same level of polish in a game that is marketed towards as many people... that wouldn't make sense. I want the money being spent on MMOs to be split up more so instead of EVERYBODY going after the biggest piece of the pie (and often failing), they start to go after more reasonable pieces of the pie, which will in turn give people games they would probably enjoy more. But tell me what indie sandbox games I have to choose from and I'll tell you why they're blatant failures or just don't appeal to me because of some personal preference problem (like how I don't like the sci-fi aspect of eve).
And I don't know if I would use the word sinister. I don't have a problem with any company doing anything within the confines of the law and morality (don't lie to people about your product). But at the same time, I'm perfectly allowed to point out when a company is making a shallow husk of a game merely to profit off of another game's success. The money spent on that bad game could've gone towards making a good one. I don't know if that's SINISTER, but it's certainly not ideal. I understand it's how markets work, which is why it's one of my arguments that this phenomenon is happening in the first place... because of COURSE it would. So again, I don't see how you can call this a tin foil hat conspiracy, while also saying it's inevitable.
I understand the differences between complexity and depth, but the two DO go somewhat hand-in-hand. You want to minimize complexity in game design as much as possible, but in order to have deep gameplay, you need complexity. This seems especially true for crafting. Unless you find some way to make crafting difficult in a mechanical sense, like how pve or pvp may be with fast reaction time, aiming, whatever else, you kind of have to have complexity with your crafting system in order for it to be deep. Or when it comes to customizing your character. Take path of exile for example. It has a very complex character progression system, and it needs to be that way in order to give people the opportunity to customize their characters in unique ways. You can't separate complexity and depth entirely.
Also, games like chess don't have complex rules, but the complexity comes from the fact that you're playing against a human opponent, or something that can simulate one. So there's a lot of complexity in chess, it just happens to be in the vast amount of possible strategies and emergent situations that can come multiple moves down the road.
It takes more people to make five 10 million dollar games than one 50 million dollar game. The 50 million dollar game has better ROI. The extra money you would choose not to make could be viewed as loss. See how investors react to that. This is not charity, or art, its business. WoW didn't change anything.
And how do you know whether WoW serves their customers best? A large portion of their playerbase hadn't played MMORPGs before WoW afterall. Maybe World of Warcraft was the first MMORPG worth playing?
You're only confirming it is a matter of perception. You enjoyed the journey in UO. Someone surely enjoyed the journey in WoW too. You thought UO had no carrot. I thought it did. There's always a carrot. I think it would be a bad game design if there wouldn't be one.
It was an observation. All you have is speculation. Surely you haven't come to this conclusion based on forum posts and speculation alone?
More than half of what I read on these forums is rubbish - vast majority of all the "good ol' days" threads. No information value at all.
Of course there are more negative comments on the forums. It is a growing genre still.
Who says a product is good then? You've been talking like there is some objective measure of "goodness". What is it?
And don't start with the bad metaphors again.
The term "WoW clone" is almost exclusively used in a derogatory meaning. There is really no other point.
I explained why one would want to make one big MMORPG as opposed to many smaller ones in this post. This is definitely not charity, its more business than art, and if you knowingly make less money than what you could've... Good luck explaining that to the investors! Money that you could've made, but didn't, could be considered a loss.
And you are judgemental by implying that copying wouldn't make a good game. There are plenty of great games that are "copies". Angry Birds for one.
It is really quite pointless to complain about something you can't do nothing about.
Kudos! I have not encountered many posters who would know the difference. But you are wrong that they are tied. Some games try to achieve, or at least appear, deep with complexity, but you can have a very deep game with simple rules and it doesn't matter whether you're playing against another player or not either. Go and chess are the well known examples, but you're forgetting your favorite sub-genre: Remember sandboxes usually try to encourage "emergent gameplay" through simple rules and mechanics. You don't necessarily need complex recipes for crafting, multiple classes, races or anything of the sort. Complexity is not required for depth.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Yes, I know the math doesn't work out perfectly. I didn't think I had to be so literal in order to get my point across. In other words, I forgot who I was talking to. I'm saying more niche, less blockbuster.
But the fact that there's technically more waste involved with making separate games doesn't mean those games shouldn't or WON'T be made. Because there's also a lot more waste if your game fails. And trying to compete against monsters like WoW would probably be much more difficult than trying to serve an underserved niche.
And I say WoW doesn't serve its playerbase as well as it could simply because of how many people it's trying to appeal to. People have different preferences. When it comes to designing a game (not the execution), in general in order to appeal to more people, you have to appeal less deeply to everybody.
So then it becomes a question of how niche should it be? Well that's based on what your goals are and what's economically viable. Not many people would make a game designed to specifically cater to a dozen people's narrow preferences. But that doesn't mean you automatically jump to the most watered down, most base game design to appeal to as many people as possible. That's what we're complaining about. We're saying the genre has moved MORE TOWARDS appealing to the masses. More Katy Perry, less Mozart. More Transformers 3, less Primer. More The Voice, less Breaking Bad.
I don't understand how you can honestly try to say things like "WoW didn't change anything." How can you say something like and expect to have any credibility? Do you think anybody in this scene would agree that WoW didn't change anything about this genre?
What was the carrot in UO? I gotta tell you, this default fallback you guys go to is getting a little old. It's not just a matter of opinion which game had more carrot-on-a-stick design and it's not just a matter of opinion what that means. I can't scientifically prove it to you, but we as humans are blessed with the gift of reason. I laid out for you the differences and now I'm just waiting for a retort.
I have no doubt that SOMEBODY enjoyed the journey in WoW. I'm making the claim that a larger portion of the WoW base play the game for the carrot than in other, older MMOs. I'm saying that a big appeal of WoW is promising somebody a reward for a long grind. And that this kind of game design specifically exists to string people along as much as possible. I'm not saying nobody enjoys the grind in WoW. And I'm not saying everybody enjoyed the grind in UO. What I'm saying is it's a sliding scale and WoW is more dependent on carrot-on-a-stick game design than oldschool MMOs were. Do you disagree with that?
What was an observation? Your blatant assumption about me? What did you observe about me that lead you to believe that?
People talking about the good ol' days are people giving you their opinion that they miss the way the games were. Just the fact that they're telling you it means something. What information value are you looking for? I can point out the new phenomenons in MMOs and how they're less interesting and more shallow, if you like.
I think you know that I mean proportionately.
I don't have to pin point what the exact balance should be between catering to enough players to get enough investment capital to make a polished enough game to give people what they want. I don't know what the answer would be. Without bringing up economic viability, I would say making games as targeted as possible would be the "best" way to make games. Obviously it's not feasible to tailor make games to super small niches, so that's where the question of viability comes into play. I don't deny that compromises have to be made. I just don't buy for a second that we're at that point. I don't see any reason to believe that companies are merely trying to serve people as deeply as possible. I think it's far more likely that companies got excited at the prospect of making a WoW killer or even a WoW clone that it's causing them to sell watered down products. I keep saying this but I just don't at all understand why this is such an unreasonable thing to believe. Why is it so crazy that a HUGE anomaly like WoW caused companies to change the way they think at the expense of the player?
With my "bad metaphors" I'm trying to explain to you how EVERY OTHER TYPE OF MEDIA WORKS, and how it's no different for MMO's and that there's no reason it WOULD be any different for MMO's.
To declare something better than another thing you'd have to agree on some kind of measurement. I'd include things like depth, replay value/retention, aesthetics. I'd even accept an in-depth poll of people, but you'd never be able to conduct it properly. To do it perfectly you'd have to have a large sample size, force everybody to play each game until they know it in-and-out and go into it without a bias. Then you could ask them questions about which was better, which they enjoyed more, etc. Not only that, you'd have to do it in an alternate reality where companies actually behaved the way I'm saying they should behave in a perfect world.
Yeah the people who are using it use it as a derogatory term.... what does that tell you?
Yeah you guys love to say stuff like this but the real world doesn't agree with you. You mock the idea of game companies not going after as much money as possible, and yet there are many developers who make games that they KNOW won't ever be as successful as other types of games. If you don't think that Aventurine could make some changes to DFUW and instantly double its playerbase, you're crazy. In light of your attitude towards the idea that a company would never do something that isn't as profitable as possible, how do you explain the fact that many games are made that know from the get-go that they aren't going to appeal to as many people as possible? It's just pathetically naive the way you guys assume that every company puts the exact same price on their principles. They don't.
And you say it's pointless to complain about something I can't change. Well maybe (aside from the self satisfaction of arguing for something you believe in), but there's no reason to think we can do nothing about it. This comes back to the discussion about why certain games are made. I'm one very very very small voice in a sea of people complaining about things or advocating for things, but I have no doubt that myself and the rest of the people screaming about sandboxes constantly have at least had SOME part in the incoming wave of sandbox games. It's NOT a coincidence that there are changes coming to the genre and that those changes happen to be in line with things we're asking for.
This response illustrates that you really did not grasp the depth of my post... perhaps it was too complex.
Two things:
1. Complexity doesn't equal depth, but depth requires complexity on some level. As I said, I know that games with simple RULES can be deep. But the depth comes from the complexity of the possible decisions/outcomes/skill/whatever. So while the rules of chess are simple, I don't think anybody would deny that the competition involved can be quite complex.
2. What kind of crafting is deep but not complex? In other words, what crafting system draws from something other than complexity in order to achieve depth? And I'd ask the same question regarding player customizing. A game like path of exile has very deep character customization, which it draws from the complexity in its systems. Many many many different gems which you can combine to create different spells, which can potentially work well in tandem with how you build your character's stats/attributes, which also has a large amount of complexity. How do you achieve deep character customizing, without complexity?
I'm not saying the more complex a thing is, the deeper it is. I understand that some games add meaningless complexities and "false choices" which does not add depth. For instance, you can have a million and 1 abilities in WoW, but often times you're only using 1 of those abilities because the other ones simply aren't viable. It's an illusion of depth, but really it's just a false choice. However, what I am saying is that the two are NOT completely disconnected. It's very hard to have depth with no complexity.
Now you're getting it. That is why some devs are looking for a new niche they can serve.
There we go with the bad metaphors again. I'm not going to respond to that.
I wasn't talking about the genre. I was talking about the companies.
I am merely putting your thought pattern and evidence under a magnifying glass, just like I would do to any other poster here. I told you, all you have is your own perception - your own subjective opinion. That's all you've put on the table. And when I point out that your opinion is as good as anyone else's, you get all hostile on me.
Yes.
Because you're not being self-critical at all. You don't have any credible evidence yet you still feel strongly what you believe. It all seems to make sense to you but all I see is this highly improbable hypothesis colored with rose tinted glasses with a rather idealistic view of what the industry is like - or at least should be.
I will tell you what has been told to the people who make these threads over and over: The market is not the same. Games sold 10 years ago are not necessarily going to sell today. Even with updated graphics.
Features were dropped for a variety of reasons. Some were pointless, some cause tedium, some just didn't work the way they were intended, focus group didn't care for it... There's always a reason.
You did? Oh well then. Your guess is as good as mine.
What you're trying to say is completely reasonable. Ideally everyone would have their custom game. Ideally. Its your demand for it I have issue with. It is unrealistic to demand it as things stand.
Exactly, an impossible proposition. And even then it would basically be a vote. A subjective rating.
Honestly? Nothing. I've encountered Eve players who use the term regularly but when questioned, haven't actually played any MMORPG other than Eve. A rather interesting phenomenon, no? They just jump into the bandwagon to dis WoW and WoW players.
You can bet if Aventurine could, they would. They can't. They couldn't even retain most of whom their game was originally targeted to.
You forgot about competition. The more money is on the line the harder the competition. Aventurine couldn't possibly compete against some of the industry giants.
Remember: Praying is something you do to feel like you've done something when you've really done nothing. And I don't think its a coincidence. These things come and go in waves.
It might have been complex but it lacked depth.
Legos. Legos are fairly simple pieces which you can use to "craft" pretty much anything. Also, it is rather amusing that you'd use Path of Exile as an example here since it is perhaps the epitome for giving the illusion of depth. Sure, the passive skill tree is very impressive, but contains only a handful of optimal builds.
And regarding MMOs, I believe WoW is one of the better balanced ones. But your malice toward it has been noted. There are better cautionary examples out there that's all.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I think Holophonist and Quirhid need a teamspeak server or something .. srsly .. this incessant multiquoting just makes my eyes bleed.
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
So how does this contradict anything I've said? IF they are now making games more in line with what I want, then it would seem all of the arguments regarding economic viability kind of go down the toilet.
Why? You say it's a bad metaphor, but why? I'm pointing out that in basically every genre, there are popular but shallow choices, or more niche and deeper choices. MMOs are no different. Would you disagree with somebody saying that Breaking Bad is a better show than The Voice? Or with somebody saying Mozart is better music than Katy Perry? I'm not sure why you think MMOs are unique in that they don't have the watered down, "for the masses" choice when every other type of entertainment does.
Well the companies are part of the genre, and I'm talking about how the genre has changed. I wouldn't presume to know enough about the individual histories of each company or where their money comes from. All I know is that the genre in general is less innovative, less unique, less deep now than it was before.... thanks to WoW.
But you offer no reasoning. I'm sorry but all opinions are NOT created equal. If you want to claim that UO had a carrot to it, what was it? You can't just make a claim, offer nothing to back it up and then hide behind the fact that we're dealing in "opinions" so nobody can be right or wrong. You can use logic and reason and deduction and honesty to have a meaningful conversation, or you can just deny everything anybody says if it disagrees with you.
Got it.
I'm actually extremely self-critical. But what does that have to do with this conversation? You've offered basically nothing but easily thwarted half-assed arguments about how businesses work.
And what do you mean rose tinted glasses? I still play UO frequently despite the fact that the aesthetics are extremely outdated.
Also, what's the highly improbable hypothesis exactly? Everything I say seem completely reasonable to me and I back them up with reasoning that you just flat out don't answer. This post in particular so far has been you just denying things. In fact most of this conversation has been me offering explanations for the things I think, and you basically just plugging your ears and acting like nothing is happening in the industry today.... except for the times that you do admit that things are different?
Yeah except it's disingenuous to compare 10 year old games to games of today. More than just the graphics could've changed. If the genre stayed with more of a simulation-based game design it's reasonable to assume whatever problems existed could've been hammered out at least somewhat.
Also, yes features are dropped for reasons. Sometimes it's because developers are just catering to the immediate whims of players, something you admit isn't always a good idea. See I agree with you on that when it comes to the details. I don't think it's always a good idea to implement features that streamline the gameplay. I think quest hubs, quest markers detailing every step of the way, instance matching, instance teleporting, etc are ultimately bad for the game. You say it's to reduce tedium, I think sometimes forcing you to work for things and talk to people and figure things out can be a good thing.
I feel like you're not even reading my posts. I'm not at all demanding that. I already said what you just said. I already said that it's not reasonable to want a game tailored to each individual person. But that would in fact be the most ideal situation. I highlighted the most relevant part of my previous post but I'll say it again: so then the question becomes: when is it economically viable? If you think we're currently at that point, the point where mmos are as targeted as they can be, then you're crazy.
It sounds like you just don't think the word "better" should ever be used. If two boxers got into a ring and one beat the crap out of the other, it would be reasonable to say he was the better boxer. You guys are like the guys who would say "What if he WANTED to get beat up? You can't PROVE that he's better." It's just silly. We can pretty much agree on what would make a "better" game. And that being the case, you CAN indeed argue about which game is better.
But, again, I'm not sure why you think the MMO genre is different from every other entertainment industry, which basically all notoriously release watered down, shallow products that are designed to appeal to more people. Can I PROVE that Mozart is better than Katy Perry? No, I can't. But do you think we could be reasonable for a second? The most popular product is often NOT the best product.
If there were truly nothing to it, it wouldn't exist. It exists because games copy WoW. It's derogatory because that's cheap and shallow game design that doesn't offer anybody anything that they don't already have.
Bullshit. From the start they aimed to make a certain type of game, and they're just sticking with that. It has nothing to do with "can" or "can't." They're constantly talking about how they're sticking to their principles. They've had a vision of what that game is supposed to be and gosh darnit they're going to do it with as few compromises as possible. It's incredibly presumptuous and arrogant of you to assume that they only reason they're not selling out is because they can't. Why on earth is it so hard for you to believe that people have principles when creating a product? You're basically saying that every company wants to make as popular a game as possible and the ones that don't are simply not capable of it, not that they're filling a certain niche or, in the case of AV, they themselves are gamers making a game that they think is amazing.
So what reasoning do you have to assume that if they did have the resources to do so, that they would? They themselves grew up playing UO and Shadowbane. It's not at all a coincidence that they made a game very similar to both.
What come and go in waves? Coincidences? A lot of games coming out claim to be "sandboxes." Are you saying the fact that a lot of people on the forums complaining about a lack of sandboxes has nothing to do with this influx of sandboxes? Seriously? This is becoming so pointless.
Getting answers out of you is like pulling teeth... usually an indication that you're wrong.
Legos have a massive amount of potential complexity. That's where the depth comes into play. You're just making my argument for me. Legos can be deep because you have an almost infinite amount of choices. That's complexity.
Also, you didn't respond to the crafting question. And the character customizing question. How do you achieve depth with those two subjects without having complexity?
Also, path of exile builds are incredibly numerous once you factor in socketing. Far more so than other games. All of it is possible because the enormous amount of complexity.