Originally posted by Clandestine I know there are gazillions of threads on here that address this in some fashion, but some were started in 2009. What is the newest MMORPG that generally forces (or at least makes it really hard to solo) group play and makes a dedicated healer, buffer, tank, etc. necessary?
Forced group play per the trinity? I'd like to know which games do that too. So I can avoid them entirely.
I don't disagree exactly, yet I question how many actually want these forced community games. Even when games give bonuses to groups (SWTOR) people really don't group up, when they do it's usually short lived. Even considering you get better xp and social points for social gear rewards.
Better pay out, harder content, doesn't seem to be enough to force socialization, so how many would stick around being actually forced into it as they'd have no game-play otherwise? The genre is something completely different than it was years ago, on a community perspective as much as from a game-play one. It's not a small hobbyist community anymore.
It's just weird to me that you see so much of this on forums, then you get in game and see a completely different picture. WHat's confusing is you see it the most from those who want a social community experience (and a lot of it) where are they in the f'n game? WHy is everyone stuck in small clicks or no social activity at all, if that's what MMO gamers want?
Why do they have such a hard time putting that group together to play regularly together, if they're the social butterflies they claim to be? None of it makes sense...
You can't just give bonuses or incentives to group. That doesn't work. People will flock to what's easier every damn time. You either make grouping required or you don't. There is no middle ground because there can't be. If the option of soloing exists for every class then the majority will do that.
That's why it's so damn difficult to form groups. The players that want to are spread out so thin across so many servers. Instead you get players that have absolutely zero patience that would rather be doing a dozen other things instead of devoting time to the group.
Why stick together and work out the kinks when they can just leave and find another group immediately. Or they can log off and go play Diablo or LoL.
It's so damn hard to put together groups because people don't care anymore. The genre is now filled with people that just want to turn their brains off instead of people that find difficult problem solving fun.
I as a player can't get better or form a community when the game has a revolving door where no one sticks to anything for longer than a month.
First you're describing launch communities in games, which are never representative of a games long standing community.
Secondly it's not up to devs how people play, they offer the options, players choose which they prefer. IF they don't want to group in games when they have that option, why would they even pick up a game that forced grouping?
Very few MMO's were ever based around difficult problem solving, those that did have such mechanics were few and far between, to add to that, that type of content was few and far between within them. Throwing more people at something in order to beat it is not difficult problem solving. It's a rather easy problem to solve.
Tedium is not difficulty, that is what most old MMO designs offered, and for one reason, to lengthen the average subscription. That's why everything took forever.
I certainly also hope those asking for this don't make long winded posts about player freedom. When they want everyone forced into their selective playstyle.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
You can't just give bonuses or incentives to group. That doesn't work. People will flock to what's easier every damn time. You either make grouping required or you don't. There is no middle ground because there can't be.
That's not entirely true.
In Lineage 2 people grouped all the time. AND they soloed.
The incentives to group were going to places that requred grouping but that also had better rewards such as better drops, better and needed materials, items that were required for certain quests, etc.
But people could forgo that and solo and not have crack at those things. They "could" then buy these items at usually inflated prices because people took the time to gather them and sell them.
Therefore the choice was to make your money and then spend it on these items that people got from grouping areas or get groups together and do it themselves.
It was also found that certain groups in certain areas not only gained extreme xp for the gruop but also a lot of gold and drops where were hard to come by.
What doesn't work is just making a small xp gain for the group or creating a "hard area" that requires a group but no reason to be there.
Little bonuses don't work. You have to have an extreme motivator for those groups. But other wise you can have both in the same game.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Originally posted by Dreamo84 I think that Pantheon game is the one you are looking for. It promises to bring the hardcore back, I hear it's doing really well...
Too bad its a scam to keep a certain washed up developer in coke and heroin money.
Wow, you trolls sure do love inflating unsubstantiated rumors. Heroin now? Somebody needs a reality check.
Pantheon appears to be coming along nicely.
Brad McQuaid took $45k out of the money donated for game development for 3 months of pay. That's $15k a month in pay for a project that needs every $ it can get to get it off the ground. A game where the lead dev asks members of the community to become "volunteer developers" is doomed to fail.
And a game with a budget of 100m is doomed to fail. Yet we still get excited about them.
Anyway, that wasn't the rumor I was commenting on. Using the donated money to pay people is hardly a scam.
Originally posted by Thupli FFXI grouping was an epic feel.
if they had a game like gw2 with required grouping AND a server only group finder, it would be freaking awesome.
That was a different time.
Really don't think camping the same mob for hours on end would fly nowadays.
You don't need to. All you need is to make grouping more rewarding than soloing. it's that simple. People will either go the easy road and get less rewards, or go the hard/social road, and get more rewards. The harder task SHOULD reward you more. That's good game design.
You can't just give bonuses or incentives to group. That doesn't work. People will flock to what's easier every damn time. You either make grouping required or you don't. There is no middle ground because there can't be. If the option of soloing exists for every class then the majority will do that.
That's why it's so damn difficult to form groups. The players that want to are spread out so thin across so many servers. Instead you get players that have absolutely zero patience that would rather be doing a dozen other things instead of devoting time to the group.
Why stick together and work out the kinks when they can just leave and find another group immediately. Or they can log off and go play Diablo or LoL.
It's so damn hard to put together groups because people don't care anymore. The genre is now filled with people that just want to turn their brains off instead of people that find difficult problem solving fun.
I as a player can't get better or form a community when the game has a revolving door where no one sticks to anything for longer than a month.
No one wants to spend an hour or more trying to get a group together. How is that fun? When you log in I'm thinking you want to actually DO something, rather than sit around with your thumb up your ass waiting for something to do. If your friends and guild mates aren't online or don't want to do what you want to do, then what? You log off and go do something else, never accomplishing anything in game that you wanted.
Forced grouping is deader than disco in MMOs. The genre is better for it. That's why player retention rates are at an all time low?
What do you do when guildies aren't on? You make friends with the THOUSANDS of other people that are around you. Or, you solo until you find a group. That's how it works. It's encouraged grouping, not forced. Never was outside EQ.
The OP isn't looking for encouraged grouping. He's looking for forced grouping, probably because he played EQ and wants to relive the glory years because nothing could ever be better than how it was in the old days.
Retention rates are lower than in the early years because there's so many more choices. Ten years ago we had, what, EQ, DAOC, Lineage, UO, AO, Lineage, Shadowbane and...what else? We had, Star Wars Galaxies, Asheron's Call, City of Heroes, Earth and Beyond, Sims Online, Matrix Online, Planetside 1, FF11, Asheron's Call 2, Horizons, Meridian 59. And those are just the high profile games.
Now take a look at the sheer number of whats available today.
We have argubly fewer choices now than we did then. Almost every AAA game is identical, whereas none of the games I listed, including AC1 and AC2, were anything like each other. Choice doesn't really exist now, in a real sense.
What keeps people playing less is because
a) Almost all MMOs are the same so people get bored way faster
b) Almost all MMOs focus on singleplayer linear content , so when you finish it, the game stops having anything worth doing, and people leave
and C) socializing has all but vanished from MMOs. It's been well documented by numerous MMO designers that what keeps people playing long term more than anything else is lasing friendships formed in a game. And modern MMOs don't encourage people to form friendships, so people don't. They bring in friends from other games, their real life, or from multi game clans, burn through, and leave.
You can't just give bonuses or incentives to group. That doesn't work. People will flock to what's easier every damn time. You either make grouping required or you don't. There is no middle ground because there can't be.
That's not entirely true.
In Lineage 2 people grouped all the time. AND they soloed.
The incentives to group were going to places that requred grouping but that also had better rewards such as better drops, better and needed materials, items that were required for certain quests, etc.
But people could forgo that and solo and not have crack at those things. They "could" then buy these items at usually inflated prices because people took the time to gather them and sell them.
Therefore the choice was to make your money and then spend it on these items that people got from grouping areas or get groups together and do it themselves.
It was also found that certain groups in certain areas not only gained extreme xp for the gruop but also a lot of gold and drops where were hard to come by.
What doesn't work is just making a small xp gain for the group or creating a "hard area" that requires a group but no reason to be there.
Little bonuses don't work. You have to have an extreme motivator for those groups. But other wise you can have both in the same game.
That's just the thing with AOC and TOR though, you do get those extra incentives. It still really didn't change anything.
TOR has whole gear lines based around it. IN AOC's case that's where the good drops were (more frequently at least).
Lineage2, SWG (where grouping really didn't give any incentive outside solo grinding to get more credits), eq1, etc.etc,etc... Were games from a different time, it's not about mechanics or rewards it's about who's playing and what they want. Back then it was about players coming together, today it's small clicks, or no click at all.
People's habits say a lot more than their words ever will.
For as long as I've been visiting here, I've been hearing about FF or EQ how grouping was this awesome experience, people loved coming together with other players, yet then the word forced always comes into play. IF they love it they wouldn't need that forced part... They also wouldn't need incentive like better rewards, or whatever else, they'd just come together.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
To be clear, by "forced" grouping, what I am referring to is a game whose design surrounds grouping rather than solo play. The word "forced" sounds negative after reading my initial post. Just as some MMOs are designed to be solo-friendly and group-unfriendly, are there any games that are solo-unfriendly and group-friendly by design?
I appreciate everyone's input even though I am not seeing much hope that such a thing exists anymore.
The OP isn't looking for encouraged grouping. He's looking for forced grouping, probably because he played EQ and wants to relive the glory years because nothing could ever be better than how it was in the old days.
Retention rates are lower than in the early years because there's so many more choices. Ten years ago we had, what, EQ, DAOC, Lineage, UO, AO, Lineage, Shadowbane and...what else? Now take a look at the sheer number of whats available today.
Yes, and yes. I do believe EQ and DAoC represented the best the genre has ever had to offer. And while I think a game can be better (or as good) than how it was in the old days, I personally haven't seen it. I haven't even seen anything even bordering on close.
Originally posted by Loke666 Besides them there was a long time ago I saw a game that couldn't be soloed and most games becomes even more nerfed either in beta (like GW2) or just after release because people today seems to prefer whining about the difficulty instead of learning to play the game good.
Well, too many players only have a limited window of time to play, so anything hard will be bemoaned...
It is truly a sad state of affairs. Game makers are faced with making good, challenging games, or selling bajillions of copies. We all know which choice they make, almost every time
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
It is old, but Knight Online is one of the MMO's I am in love with because you absolutely need a group to play. It's a very PvP focused game, but in my opinion is the best MMORPG on the market ran by the worst company in MMORPG history.
Also a lot of try hards spend thousands of dollars on that game to be uber leet.
Originally posted by Distopia Plenty of games offer this today, just not exclusively. IN AOC every zone can be played in hard-mode, where grouping is quite essential, SWTOR has areas in almost every zone that are like that. The hard part is finding enough people who want to play that way. WIldstar supposedly has pretty hard dungeons and is geared for hardcore play.
Just the fact that trinity based play is seen as hardcore is very saddening. It just shows how far this genre has fallen.
I don't think anyone believes that the trinity is hardcore. Specially since it is implemented in about 99% of the current MMOs. I also don't see where Distopia says that the trinity is hardcore either.
99%? Really? In the old days, for sure. Today, I'd say the opposite. Most new MMOs coming out or released in the past few years are the "Every player can be and do everything" type of games. Heaven forbid that players have any restrictions placed on them, what-so-ever. Wanna hear players cry? Give them restrictions
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Originally posted by Loke666 Besides them there was a long time ago I saw a game that couldn't be soloed and most games becomes even more nerfed either in beta (like GW2) or just after release because people today seems to prefer whining about the difficulty instead of learning to play the game good.
Well, too many players only have a limited window of time to play, so anything hard will be bemoaned...
It is truly a sad state of affairs. Game makers are faced with making good, challenging games, or selling bajillions of copies. We all know which choice they make, almost every time
The ironic part is, those casual MMOs almost universally do worse than oldschool MMOs used to do. They have no player retention rate and they start merging servers and firing staff almost within the first month of launch.
The market has spoken, we don't want a casual WoW clone. But publishers are idiots.
I do believe the old MMO's cared about fun, community and building up something.
the newest F2P MMO's whose cash shop gets updated weekly during the beta stage, yet not a single bug fix or additional content get added... these don't give a rat ass about you.
Well, too many players only have a limited window of time to play, so anything hard will be bemoaned...
It is truly a sad state of affairs. Game makers are faced with making good, challenging games, or selling bajillions of copies. We all know which choice they make, almost every time
The ironic part is, those casual MMOs almost universally do worse than oldschool MMOs used to do. They have no player retention rate and they start merging servers and firing staff almost within the first month of launch.
The market has spoken, we don't want a casual WoW clone. But publishers are idiots.
You have a warped way of reading a market. There is little to compare between the old market and the market of today. First and foremost there were only a select few games up until around 04. Each offered something a little different than the other, so of course people stuck to the one they liked. It was also a new market back then.
They didn't even get mass appeal until the more casual games started releasing. More than one of those games also had mass exoduses due to changes within two to three years of release, SWG, DAOC, UO.. being the best examples, for some reason the devs thought they needed changing, if they were so healthy and doing well, why did that happen?
Most of those games only peaked at around 300-400k, few western games went above that number until WOW. Some never got close to it.
History doesn't line up at all with what you're implying.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Originally posted by Boreil Originally posted by DistopiaOriginally posted by ClandestineI know there are gazillions of threads on here that address this in some fashion, but some were started in 2009. What is the newest MMORPG that generally forces (or at least makes it really hard to solo) group play and makes a dedicated healer, buffer, tank, etc. necessary?
Plenty of games offer this today, just not exclusively. IN AOC every zone can be played in hard-mode, where grouping is quite essential, SWTOR has areas in almost every zone that are like that. The hard part is finding enough people who want to play that way. WIldstar supposedly has pretty hard dungeons and is geared for hardcore play.Na you cannot consider that an offering, as it doesn't people who play they type of games wanna get to the top easiest so the optional hard mode crap never has or does work, unless you have a dedicated group on al lthe time who want to run the content with you as it should be done.
It has to be all or nothing, fully group focused or go home, Devs need to step up.
I didn't realize "stepping up" meant getting rid of choices
Well, too many players only have a limited window of time to play, so anything hard will be bemoaned...
It is truly a sad state of affairs. Game makers are faced with making good, challenging games, or selling bajillions of copies. We all know which choice they make, almost every time
The ironic part is, those casual MMOs almost universally do worse than oldschool MMOs used to do. They have no player retention rate and they start merging servers and firing staff almost within the first month of launch.
The market has spoken, we don't want a casual WoW clone. But publishers are idiots.
You have a warped way of reading a market. There is little to compare between the old market and the market of today. First and foremost there were only a select few games up until around 04. There were about 60, but go on. Each offered something a little different than the other, so of course people stuck to the one they liked. It was also a new market back then. The market is STILL new. Or it's old, depending on who you ask. It's a pointless metric to bring up and doesn't add to anyone's point. To people who started with MUDs in 85, MMOs were old by 2004.
They didn't even get mass appeal until the more casual games started releasing. They still don't have mass appeal. Only WoW does. It's an outlier. More than one of those games also had mass exoduses due to changes within two to three years of release, SWG, DAOC, UO.. being the best examples, for some reason the devs thought they needed changing, if they were so healthy and doing well, why did that happen? Because they thought they could get more players. Smed wouldn't have gone on record saying it was a huge mistake if it had been the right choice.
Most of those games only peaked at around 300-400k They peaked at those numbers YEARS down the line, starting wtih a much smaller budget. That means they had years of steady, healthy growth. Compare this to modern casual MMOs that launch with about 800k-1 million box sales, then within a month are down to 200k subscribers at best, and scramble to go FTP. Not only do they have less players than old games it cost way more to make, and the companies can't sustain themselves or the games. Many go bankrupt, dissolve their partners, and fire most of their staff. This happened to STO, SWTOR, and AoC, to mention a few. , few western games went above that number until WOW. Some never got close to it. Most still aren't even close to that number.
History doesn't line up at all with what you're implying.
This topic never seems to get old. Why ?.......Because so many people would like to see it happen, yet developers refuse to make an mmo like it !
People bring up games like SWTOR and AOC hard mode........I think the op is talking more about bring back a community based open world game. Not zone, instanced game full of videos and walls.
People also bring up " find a Guild that's right for you ". This will never happen either. People will always play what developers feed them.
Well, too many players only have a limited window of time to play, so anything hard will be bemoaned...
It is truly a sad state of affairs. Game makers are faced with making good, challenging games, or selling bajillions of copies. We all know which choice they make, almost every time
The ironic part is, those casual MMOs almost universally do worse than oldschool MMOs used to do. They have no player retention rate and they start merging servers and firing staff almost within the first month of launch.
The market has spoken, we don't want a casual WoW clone. But publishers are idiots.
You have a warped way of reading a market. There is little to compare between the old market and the market of today. First and foremost there were only a select few games up until around 04. There were about 60, but go on. Each offered something a little different than the other, so of course people stuck to the one they liked. It was also a new market back then. The market is STILL new. Or it's old, depending on who you ask. It's a pointless metric to bring up and doesn't add to anyone's point. To people who started with MUDs in 85, MMOs were old by 2004.
They didn't even get mass appeal until the more casual games started releasing. They still don't have mass appeal. Only WoW does. It's an outlier. More than one of those games also had mass exoduses due to changes within two to three years of release, SWG, DAOC, UO.. being the best examples, for some reason the devs thought they needed changing, if they were so healthy and doing well, why did that happen? Because they thought they could get more players. Smed wouldn't have gone on record saying it was a huge mistake if it had been the right choice.
Most of those games only peaked at around 300-400k They peaked at those numbers YEARS down the line, starting wtih a much smaller budget. That means they had years of steady, healthy growth. Compare this to modern casual MMOs that launch with about 800k-1 million box sales, then within a month are down to 200k subscribers at best, and scramble to go FTP. Not only do they have less players than old games it cost way more to make, and the companies can't sustain themselves or the games. Many go bankrupt, dissolve their partners, and fire most of their staff. This happened to STO, SWTOR, and AoC, to mention a few. , few western games went above that number until WOW. Some never got close to it. Most still aren't even close to that number.
History doesn't line up at all with what you're implying.
It does if you actually understand the market.
60? 60 in the whole world? What MMO market are we talking about here? The asian and western markets are two different things. The Asian market is completely different. It has had a completely different evolution.
Where do you get your numbers for games today? SWTOR is listed as one of the highest grossing MMO's of today, yet you keep mentioning it as a failure. What modern "casual" MMO was listed as only having 200k subs? I can't think of really any outside of maybe AOC. Yet you say that as if every MMO since WOW has had that little of subs.
Where are you pulling these numbers from? What evidence are you using? And BTW Smed would say anything to get players back... What about what Koster said about SWG? He thinks they should have told more stories and focused more on those aspects, from the start.
Understanding the market has nothing to do with making up your own history.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Comments
Forced group play per the trinity? I'd like to know which games do that too. So I can avoid them entirely.
First you're describing launch communities in games, which are never representative of a games long standing community.
Secondly it's not up to devs how people play, they offer the options, players choose which they prefer. IF they don't want to group in games when they have that option, why would they even pick up a game that forced grouping?
Very few MMO's were ever based around difficult problem solving, those that did have such mechanics were few and far between, to add to that, that type of content was few and far between within them. Throwing more people at something in order to beat it is not difficult problem solving. It's a rather easy problem to solve.
Tedium is not difficulty, that is what most old MMO designs offered, and for one reason, to lengthen the average subscription. That's why everything took forever.
I certainly also hope those asking for this don't make long winded posts about player freedom. When they want everyone forced into their selective playstyle.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
That's not entirely true.
In Lineage 2 people grouped all the time. AND they soloed.
The incentives to group were going to places that requred grouping but that also had better rewards such as better drops, better and needed materials, items that were required for certain quests, etc.
But people could forgo that and solo and not have crack at those things. They "could" then buy these items at usually inflated prices because people took the time to gather them and sell them.
Therefore the choice was to make your money and then spend it on these items that people got from grouping areas or get groups together and do it themselves.
It was also found that certain groups in certain areas not only gained extreme xp for the gruop but also a lot of gold and drops where were hard to come by.
What doesn't work is just making a small xp gain for the group or creating a "hard area" that requires a group but no reason to be there.
Little bonuses don't work. You have to have an extreme motivator for those groups. But other wise you can have both in the same game.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
if they had a game like gw2 with required grouping AND a server only group finder, it would be freaking awesome.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
That was a different time.
Really don't think camping the same mob for hours on end would fly nowadays.
And a game with a budget of 100m is doomed to fail. Yet we still get excited about them.
Anyway, that wasn't the rumor I was commenting on. Using the donated money to pay people is hardly a scam.
You don't need to. All you need is to make grouping more rewarding than soloing. it's that simple. People will either go the easy road and get less rewards, or go the hard/social road, and get more rewards. The harder task SHOULD reward you more. That's good game design.
We have argubly fewer choices now than we did then. Almost every AAA game is identical, whereas none of the games I listed, including AC1 and AC2, were anything like each other. Choice doesn't really exist now, in a real sense.
What keeps people playing less is because
a) Almost all MMOs are the same so people get bored way faster
b) Almost all MMOs focus on singleplayer linear content , so when you finish it, the game stops having anything worth doing, and people leave
and C) socializing has all but vanished from MMOs. It's been well documented by numerous MMO designers that what keeps people playing long term more than anything else is lasing friendships formed in a game. And modern MMOs don't encourage people to form friendships, so people don't. They bring in friends from other games, their real life, or from multi game clans, burn through, and leave.
That's just the thing with AOC and TOR though, you do get those extra incentives. It still really didn't change anything.
TOR has whole gear lines based around it. IN AOC's case that's where the good drops were (more frequently at least).
Lineage2, SWG (where grouping really didn't give any incentive outside solo grinding to get more credits), eq1, etc.etc,etc... Were games from a different time, it's not about mechanics or rewards it's about who's playing and what they want. Back then it was about players coming together, today it's small clicks, or no click at all.
People's habits say a lot more than their words ever will.
For as long as I've been visiting here, I've been hearing about FF or EQ how grouping was this awesome experience, people loved coming together with other players, yet then the word forced always comes into play. IF they love it they wouldn't need that forced part... They also wouldn't need incentive like better rewards, or whatever else, they'd just come together.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
To be clear, by "forced" grouping, what I am referring to is a game whose design surrounds grouping rather than solo play. The word "forced" sounds negative after reading my initial post. Just as some MMOs are designed to be solo-friendly and group-unfriendly, are there any games that are solo-unfriendly and group-friendly by design?
I appreciate everyone's input even though I am not seeing much hope that such a thing exists anymore.
Yes, and yes. I do believe EQ and DAoC represented the best the genre has ever had to offer. And while I think a game can be better (or as good) than how it was in the old days, I personally haven't seen it. I haven't even seen anything even bordering on close.
It is truly a sad state of affairs. Game makers are faced with making good, challenging games, or selling bajillions of copies. We all know which choice they make, almost every time
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
It is old, but Knight Online is one of the MMO's I am in love with because you absolutely need a group to play. It's a very PvP focused game, but in my opinion is the best MMORPG on the market ran by the worst company in MMORPG history.
Also a lot of try hards spend thousands of dollars on that game to be uber leet.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
The ironic part is, those casual MMOs almost universally do worse than oldschool MMOs used to do. They have no player retention rate and they start merging servers and firing staff almost within the first month of launch.
The market has spoken, we don't want a casual WoW clone. But publishers are idiots.
I do believe the old MMO's cared about fun, community and building up something.
the newest F2P MMO's whose cash shop gets updated weekly during the beta stage, yet not a single bug fix or additional content get added... these don't give a rat ass about you.
You have a warped way of reading a market. There is little to compare between the old market and the market of today. First and foremost there were only a select few games up until around 04. Each offered something a little different than the other, so of course people stuck to the one they liked. It was also a new market back then.
They didn't even get mass appeal until the more casual games started releasing. More than one of those games also had mass exoduses due to changes within two to three years of release, SWG, DAOC, UO.. being the best examples, for some reason the devs thought they needed changing, if they were so healthy and doing well, why did that happen?
Most of those games only peaked at around 300-400k, few western games went above that number until WOW. Some never got close to it.
History doesn't line up at all with what you're implying.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Na you cannot consider that an offering, as it doesn't people who play they type of games wanna get to the top easiest so the optional hard mode crap never has or does work, unless you have a dedicated group on al lthe time who want to run the content with you as it should be done.
It has to be all or nothing, fully group focused or go home, Devs need to step up.
I didn't realize "stepping up" meant getting rid of choices
It does if you actually understand the market.
This topic never seems to get old. Why ?.......Because so many people would like to see it happen, yet developers refuse to make an mmo like it !
People bring up games like SWTOR and AOC hard mode........I think the op is talking more about bring back a community based open world game. Not zone, instanced game full of videos and walls.
People also bring up " find a Guild that's right for you ". This will never happen either. People will always play what developers feed them.
Remember Marketing is in charge, not you !
60? 60 in the whole world? What MMO market are we talking about here? The asian and western markets are two different things. The Asian market is completely different. It has had a completely different evolution.
Where do you get your numbers for games today? SWTOR is listed as one of the highest grossing MMO's of today, yet you keep mentioning it as a failure. What modern "casual" MMO was listed as only having 200k subs? I can't think of really any outside of maybe AOC. Yet you say that as if every MMO since WOW has had that little of subs.
Where are you pulling these numbers from? What evidence are you using? And BTW Smed would say anything to get players back... What about what Koster said about SWG? He thinks they should have told more stories and focused more on those aspects, from the start.
Understanding the market has nothing to do with making up your own history.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The only numbers that have said SWTOR was doing well were a "third party report" that has no sources or basis on actual numbers.
SWTOR has merged its servers about 5 times, gone from almost 80 servers down I think 15 last I checked. It STILL is down to just 20% of its staff.
As for casual MMOs with under 200k subs: LotRO, Rift, AoC, STO, CO, virtually every single one of them.
And saying "we should have had more story" is not the same as thinking the NGE was a good idea.