So you define a true Gamer by a Game they have played? That seems like a low blow to me. Besides you don't know anything about my Gaming background. Yes I played Diablo, and I liked it to some extent. But I also played Wizardry or text based RPGs and 100s of other RPGs. As Gamedeveloper I know a tad about how Games are made...
Amusing how many people don't read or understand the whole text but are still triggered to leave some meaningless hateful comments
You just don't understand Wiz, he hates most everything not FFXI and unless you have played that title you aren't a "true" group oriented gamer.
I can see where he is coming from though, all of your example games are not well regarded as standard bearers for group centric games.
Maybe at one time many moons ago ROM and WOW were more so, but both were full of solo casuals at launch and catered ever more so afterwards.
D2 / D3 are rarely held up as standard bearers of MMORPG grouping, I've never considers the team play aspects to be very deep. To me most ARPGs are just exercises in spam killing endless waves of npcs, and not particularly interesting, and of course many solo in them.
So yes, your grouping "pedigree" will be called into question even though I realize you have done a lot of it in games such as ROM which I suspect many here never delved into very much.
"Around these parts" people generally reference EQ1, EQ2, DAOC, FFXI, and few others as the original "hardcore" group centric MMORPGs even though most understand one could and often did solo in them.
Most of us do take your point, we well know there hasn't been a new group centric MMORPG released in a very long time, and game play definitely has a more casual element to it, especially if below "end game."
So while there is no help today, Saga of Lucima is promising to deliver a very group focused approach, perhaps punishingly so but we won't know for another 2 to 4 years unfortunately.
Pantheon is another possibility, but still several years out.
On the nearer horizon, CU, Crowfall and Ashes the MMORPG (AtM) may release next year which will favor grouping, but are heavily based more on PVP, not PVE.
Oh yeah let's not forget Star Citizen....er no, let's continue to do so. No telling when it will ever release or what sort of gameplay it really will support.
Could be "everything", "nothing much" or likely something in between.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
The gaming market is not for gamers anymore it is for casuals. Sure you can find games with a lot of meat, but most are now built on the foundation that you will dip in and out of them and not finish them.
Thats also why they are built to bring in as much money as possible right away.
The gaming market is not for gamers anymore it is for casuals. Sure you can find games with a lot of meat, but most are now built on the foundation that you will dip in and out of them and not finish them.
Exactly. There's mad money to be made catering to the likes and dislikes of casuals who just happen to dabble in games.
Even games that are not 100% aimed at them are still trying to attract them by easing up on "chores" like leveling or gearing up and providing ways to wallet your way around those "inconveniences."
Game hoppers make up a large part of the market, if not the majority, only makes good sense to design games to appeal to them.
There's financial sense and then there's quality gaming sense. That there would be what we are all seeing in the gaming scene these days and it's something very different from what we had 20 years ago before the mainstream got into gaming.
No, there's financial sense and then there's "I want a 'quality game' that appeals to me but I don't want to have to pay the $100 million it will take to make it, so can't you just make my game and promote it to casual suckers so that they end up paying for it?" sense.
20 years ago, casuals were young and hadn't been footing the bill for the interests of "quality gamers" for decades and they could be tricked into it pretty easily. Today, they're a lot older and they've been having the football pulled out from in front of them at the last minute for 20 years. And they're pretty much done footing the bill for developing games made by people who sneer at them for people who sneer at them.
Adapt or figure out how to get by without casual-subsidized welfare for "quality gaming".
The gaming market is not for gamers anymore it is for casuals. Sure you can find games with a lot of meat, but most are now built on the foundation that you will dip in and out of them and not finish them.
Exactly. There's mad money to be made catering to the likes and dislikes of casuals who just happen to dabble in games.
Even games that are not 100% aimed at them are still trying to attract them by easing up on "chores" like leveling or gearing up and providing ways to wallet your way around those "inconveniences."
Game hoppers make up a large part of the market, if not the majority, only makes good sense to design games to appeal to them.
There's financial sense and then there's quality gaming sense. That there would be what we are all seeing in the gaming scene these days and it's something very different from what we had 20 years ago before the mainstream got into gaming.
You guys are on topic. The entire reason why games are casual friendly is due to how companies monetize their products now. They gain the largest percentage of income from the smallest percentage of players who pay the most money.
This is why their is such a massive rebellion against RMT and F2P practices and why old school MMORPG hosting is becoming more popular today along with calls for subscription only games.
The only way to increase F2P/RMT earnings, is to increase the number of players because you increase the chance of gaining more whales willing to spend obscene amounts of money. The entire shape of the game changes. Even the very genre has a chance of vanishing completely. It is the destruction of niche gaming.
Equal access to game play is the only way to sustain a core design principle. It's this very shift away from this that destroyed old school MMORPG gaming. It has nothing to do with individual games finding ways to stay profitable (and most were purchased by the large developers at their peak, when some of those developers were under the wing of even bigger companies than they are now). It has everything to with maximizing profit at ANY COST, including the destruction of the very industry you profit from.
My ONLY complaint about venture capitalism is that is destroys niche marketed products ... MY PRODUCTS OF INTEREST! If I could make millions through venture capitalism and stock market manipulation, I would. But, the reality is as follows:
Venture capitalists are dogs running around sniffing asses. They find the ass than smells best, and run off to a new ass if it smells better. They DON'T sustain industries. They consume it entirely if allowed, and move on to appropriate, profit and consume something else.
We are seeing the tail end of such a consumptive event within the industry right now. Investors don't care about the products you like. They only want profit and the current industry exploited it's audience to a maximum limit before push back from both the public and governments. The bubble burst.
Indie development may have more room to breath now. This actually may help the MMORPG industry and is trending toward this. It only needs to attract it's core audience again and not the biggest audience possible.
The gaming market is not for gamers anymore it is for casuals. Sure you can find games with a lot of meat, but most are now built on the foundation that you will dip in and out of them and not finish them.
Exactly. There's mad money to be made catering to the likes and dislikes of casuals who just happen to dabble in games.
Even games that are not 100% aimed at them are still trying to attract them by easing up on "chores" like leveling or gearing up and providing ways to wallet your way around those "inconveniences."
Game hoppers make up a large part of the market, if not the majority, only makes good sense to design games to appeal to them.
There's financial sense and then there's quality gaming sense. That there would be what we are all seeing in the gaming scene these days and it's something very different from what we had 20 years ago before the mainstream got into gaming.
No, there's financial sense and then there's "I want a 'quality game' that appeals to me but I don't want to have to pay the $100 million it will take to make it, so can't you just make my game and promote it to casual suckers so that they end up paying for it?" sense.
20 years ago, casuals were young and hadn't been footing the bill for the interests of "quality gamers" for decades and they could be tricked into it pretty easily. Today, they're a lot older and they've been having the football pulled out from in front of them at the last minute for 20 years. And they're pretty much done footing the bill for developing games made by people who sneer at them for people who sneer at them.
Adapt or figure out how to get by without casual-subsidized welfare for "quality gaming".
You do know that F2P hardly even existed 20 year ago don't you? Nice try though.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
The gaming market is not for gamers anymore it is for casuals. Sure you can find games with a lot of meat, but most are now built on the foundation that you will dip in and out of them and not finish them.
Exactly. There's mad money to be made catering to the likes and dislikes of casuals who just happen to dabble in games.
Even games that are not 100% aimed at them are still trying to attract them by easing up on "chores" like leveling or gearing up and providing ways to wallet your way around those "inconveniences."
Game hoppers make up a large part of the market, if not the majority, only makes good sense to design games to appeal to them.
There's financial sense and then there's quality gaming sense. That there would be what we are all seeing in the gaming scene these days and it's something very different from what we had 20 years ago before the mainstream got into gaming.
No, there's financial sense and then there's "I want a 'quality game' that appeals to me but I don't want to have to pay the $100 million it will take to make it, so can't you just make my game and promote it to casual suckers so that they end up paying for it?" sense.
20 years ago, casuals were young and hadn't been footing the bill for the interests of "quality gamers" for decades and they could be tricked into it pretty easily. Today, they're a lot older and they've been having the football pulled out from in front of them at the last minute for 20 years. And they're pretty much done footing the bill for developing games made by people who sneer at them for people who sneer at them.
Adapt or figure out how to get by without casual-subsidized welfare for "quality gaming".
You do know that F2P hardly even existed 20 year ago don't you? Nice try though.
"Casual" is not the same thing as "F2P-only". Nice try though.
The gaming market is not for gamers anymore it is for casuals. Sure you can find games with a lot of meat, but most are now built on the foundation that you will dip in and out of them and not finish them.
Exactly. There's mad money to be made catering to the likes and dislikes of casuals who just happen to dabble in games.
Even games that are not 100% aimed at them are still trying to attract them by easing up on "chores" like leveling or gearing up and providing ways to wallet your way around those "inconveniences."
Game hoppers make up a large part of the market, if not the majority, only makes good sense to design games to appeal to them.
There's financial sense and then there's quality gaming sense. That there would be what we are all seeing in the gaming scene these days and it's something very different from what we had 20 years ago before the mainstream got into gaming.
No, there's financial sense and then there's "I want a 'quality game' that appeals to me but I don't want to have to pay the $100 million it will take to make it, so can't you just make my game and promote it to casual suckers so that they end up paying for it?" sense.
20 years ago, casuals were young and hadn't been footing the bill for the interests of "quality gamers" for decades and they could be tricked into it pretty easily. Today, they're a lot older and they've been having the football pulled out from in front of them at the last minute for 20 years. And they're pretty much done footing the bill for developing games made by people who sneer at them for people who sneer at them.
Adapt or figure out how to get by without casual-subsidized welfare for "quality gaming".
You do know that F2P hardly even existed 20 year ago don't you? Nice try though.
"Casual" is not the same thing as "F2P-only". Nice try though.
Yeah? Why do you think the industry went F2P if not to attract casuals who wouldn't pay a sub because they wanted to play 20 games per week not just one.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
The gaming market is not for gamers anymore it is for casuals. Sure you can find games with a lot of meat, but most are now built on the foundation that you will dip in and out of them and not finish them.
Exactly. There's mad money to be made catering to the likes and dislikes of casuals who just happen to dabble in games.
Even games that are not 100% aimed at them are still trying to attract them by easing up on "chores" like leveling or gearing up and providing ways to wallet your way around those "inconveniences."
Game hoppers make up a large part of the market, if not the majority, only makes good sense to design games to appeal to them.
There's financial sense and then there's quality gaming sense. That there would be what we are all seeing in the gaming scene these days and it's something very different from what we had 20 years ago before the mainstream got into gaming.
No, there's financial sense and then there's "I want a 'quality game' that appeals to me but I don't want to have to pay the $100 million it will take to make it, so can't you just make my game and promote it to casual suckers so that they end up paying for it?" sense.
20 years ago, casuals were young and hadn't been footing the bill for the interests of "quality gamers" for decades and they could be tricked into it pretty easily. Today, they're a lot older and they've been having the football pulled out from in front of them at the last minute for 20 years. And they're pretty much done footing the bill for developing games made by people who sneer at them for people who sneer at them.
Adapt or figure out how to get by without casual-subsidized welfare for "quality gaming".
You do know that F2P hardly even existed 20 year ago don't you? Nice try though.
"Casual" is not the same thing as "F2P-only". Nice try though.
Yeah? Why do you think the industry went F2P if not to attract casuals who wouldn't pay a sub because they wanted to play 20 games per week not just one.
LOL. Yeah, the industry went F2P because of all the casual players who wouldn't pay to play unless they got to play 20 games a week, so the industry decided to let them play everything while spending nothing so they could have all the games they want. *eyeroll*
Seriously, where do you guys come up with these narratives? Doesn't anybody somewhere along the line ask if they make even a tiny bit of sense, or is it yet another troll tossing out BS and wondering how viral their garbage is going to go before anyone bothers to question a bit of completely obvious stupidity?
So here's an inconvenient truth for you: the industry went F2P because they discovered that some people will spend more in a month on a single video game than the average person will spend in a month on their house and their car... combined. Those players aren't casuals, they're whales.
Oh yeah, another thing that's happened in the last 20 years that's very relevant to F2P's strength as a business model? A massive shift in wealth from the middle and lower classes to the rich. More money in the hands of fewer people means that if you want to pull in the cash, you cater to the few who pay boatloads, not the many who pay handfuls.
It's not rocket science what's happened, and I have every reason to believe that you're not a complete moron. Follow the money and figure it out.
The gaming market is not for gamers anymore it is for casuals. Sure you can find games with a lot of meat, but most are now built on the foundation that you will dip in and out of them and not finish them.
Exactly. There's mad money to be made catering to the likes and dislikes of casuals who just happen to dabble in games.
Even games that are not 100% aimed at them are still trying to attract them by easing up on "chores" like leveling or gearing up and providing ways to wallet your way around those "inconveniences."
Game hoppers make up a large part of the market, if not the majority, only makes good sense to design games to appeal to them.
There's financial sense and then there's quality gaming sense. That there would be what we are all seeing in the gaming scene these days and it's something very different from what we had 20 years ago before the mainstream got into gaming.
No, there's financial sense and then there's "I want a 'quality game' that appeals to me but I don't want to have to pay the $100 million it will take to make it, so can't you just make my game and promote it to casual suckers so that they end up paying for it?" sense.
20 years ago, casuals were young and hadn't been footing the bill for the interests of "quality gamers" for decades and they could be tricked into it pretty easily. Today, they're a lot older and they've been having the football pulled out from in front of them at the last minute for 20 years. And they're pretty much done footing the bill for developing games made by people who sneer at them for people who sneer at them.
Adapt or figure out how to get by without casual-subsidized welfare for "quality gaming".
You do know that F2P hardly even existed 20 year ago don't you? Nice try though.
"Casual" is not the same thing as "F2P-only". Nice try though.
Yeah? Why do you think the industry went F2P if not to attract casuals who wouldn't pay a sub because they wanted to play 20 games per week not just one.
LOL. Yeah, the industry went F2P because of all the casual players who wouldn't pay to play unless they got to play 20 games a week, so the industry decided to let them play everything while spending nothing so they could have all the games they want. *eyeroll*
Seriously, where do you guys come up with these narratives? Doesn't anybody somewhere along the line ask if they make even a tiny bit of sense, or is it yet another troll tossing out BS and wondering how viral their garbage is going to go before anyone bothers to question a bit of completely obvious stupidity?
So here's an inconvenient truth for you: the industry went F2P because they discovered that some people will spend more in a month on a single video game than the average person will spend in a month on their house and their car... combined. Those players aren't casuals, they're whales.
Oh yeah, another thing that's happened in the last 20 years that's very relevant to F2P's strength as a business model? A massive shift in wealth from the middle and lower classes to the rich. More money in the hands of fewer people means that if you want to pull in the cash, you cater to the few who pay boatloads, not the many who pay handfuls.
It's not rocket science what's happened, and I have every reason to believe that you're not a complete moron. Follow the money and figure it out.
This is correct. After maximizing the money drain from their existing audience, per IP, through F2P techniques, developers adopted meta-marketing strategies.
The greatest benefit of attracting the largest possible audience, is that they, by definition, do not dedicate their entire time to one game. They play multiple games and often multiple games from the same developer. Thus, large developers discover that their own player base competes against each other.
This is where meta-marketing comes. Developers change their development cycle to bounce the collective audience from one IP to another. Blizzard mastered this. Even though Wow likely still had it's largest dedicated audience, it still shifted heavily toward one primary audience playing multiple Blizzard games. This means the income for Wow doesn't go to just Wow. Budgets shift to focus on the next major project in the meta-marketing cycle. There are times where your Wow money went entirely toward other projects and marketing for other projects.
This destroys individual audiences and communities. This is exactly how every major producer runs their corporation now. It's a unified money engine, tapping into a unified audience. Their ENTIRE product line is geared to attract the casual player. The very design of those games CANNOT nurture a singular audience or it impedes the monetization model.
I think this is why so many here can't wrap their heads around this. They still think that the audience has ANY VOICE in this cycle at all. They DON'T. You lost that long ago. Time for the reality check. That check is very easy now. Just stop and look at the current state of the industry.
First mistake,running to Blizzard like all the other new DSL gamer's that arrived around that same time.Diablo a second mistake for MANY reasons but then again i am thinking from a true gamer's perspective,one that wants to feel like they control the player and the game and not some sockets or gear scores as Blizzard likes to use.For the record ARPG's should not be using the letters rpg because they are NOTHING of what a rpg should be.
In the Diablo series,you have literally NO control over your player or game,once a premier build is made an 8 year old kid could pilot it while eating a sandwhich watching cartoons.I found the game design worked mildly yet still boring the FIRST play through,BEFORE you attained a premier build.
The MMORPG aspect,at least the grouping part was NEVER a foray of Blizzard games.The only true grouping games were EQ1 and FFXI,everything else was single player games with a login screen and the login screen only there to create ongoing costs to play.IMO FFXi was one stage better than EQ1 in pretty much every aspect of the design,i can't even think of one area EQ1 did better so you missed the boat on a true grouping game and way more of an rpg than anything Blizzard has ever made. Long story short,you missed the boat and sadly brainwashed yourself into thinking Diablo is how games are made and represent rpg's.
No, no you are not. You are thinking from your very limited experience in a tiny sliver of the gaming world. Never mistake, you ARE NOT a gamer, not at all. As a matter of act, there is a very good argument that you dislike most games and cannot in any way see the value in something you may not like. There are many games out there that I don't like nor play but I see them and I understand why others like them and say they are good games. You cannot do that. Or at least I have never seen it.
Put your tin hat on, big brother is watching.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
The gaming market is not for gamers anymore it is for casuals. Sure you can find games with a lot of meat, but most are now built on the foundation that you will dip in and out of them and not finish them.
Exactly. There's mad money to be made catering to the likes and dislikes of casuals who just happen to dabble in games.
Even games that are not 100% aimed at them are still trying to attract them by easing up on "chores" like leveling or gearing up and providing ways to wallet your way around those "inconveniences."
Game hoppers make up a large part of the market, if not the majority, only makes good sense to design games to appeal to them.
There's financial sense and then there's quality gaming sense. That there would be what we are all seeing in the gaming scene these days and it's something very different from what we had 20 years ago before the mainstream got into gaming.
No, there's financial sense and then there's "I want a 'quality game' that appeals to me but I don't want to have to pay the $100 million it will take to make it, so can't you just make my game and promote it to casual suckers so that they end up paying for it?" sense.
20 years ago, casuals were young and hadn't been footing the bill for the interests of "quality gamers" for decades and they could be tricked into it pretty easily. Today, they're a lot older and they've been having the football pulled out from in front of them at the last minute for 20 years. And they're pretty much done footing the bill for developing games made by people who sneer at them for people who sneer at them.
Adapt or figure out how to get by without casual-subsidized welfare for "quality gaming".
You do know that F2P hardly even existed 20 year ago don't you? Nice try though.
"Casual" is not the same thing as "F2P-only". Nice try though.
Yeah? Why do you think the industry went F2P if not to attract casuals who wouldn't pay a sub because they wanted to play 20 games per week not just one.
LOL. Yeah, the industry went F2P because of all the casual players who wouldn't pay to play unless they got to play 20 games a week, so the industry decided to let them play everything while spending nothing so they could have all the games they want. *eyeroll*
Seriously, where do you guys come up with these narratives? Doesn't anybody somewhere along the line ask if they make even a tiny bit of sense, or is it yet another troll tossing out BS and wondering how viral their garbage is going to go before anyone bothers to question a bit of completely obvious stupidity?
So here's an inconvenient truth for you: the industry went F2P because they discovered that some people will spend more in a month on a single video game than the average person will spend in a month on their house and their car... combined. Those players aren't casuals, they're whales.
Oh yeah, another thing that's happened in the last 20 years that's very relevant to F2P's strength as a business model? A massive shift in wealth from the middle and lower classes to the rich. More money in the hands of fewer people means that if you want to pull in the cash, you cater to the few who pay boatloads, not the many who pay handfuls.
It's not rocket science what's happened, and I have every reason to believe that you're not a complete moron. Follow the money and figure it out.
Obnoxious and dumb. What a combination! I sure hope you don't breed when you grow up.
Maybe have someone explain to you how you can make more money if your customer base is bigger.
How do you get a bigger customer base? Oh you make tough games for the hard core and charge a monthly sub. Yeah... that must be it.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Ill try keep this short and objective, since it looks like most of the posts are flaming or passively hijacking your thread for a flame war.
Theres one game that flys under the radar a lot and that is because it was shut down many years ago but it is infact still alive and probably more populated than Live at any given time on one server. The game is.....Star Wars Galaxies - Legends server.
I only suggest Legends server because in this version there is grouping up for end game content, and there is client options to download ILM mod to improve graphic textures, lighting, animations character models and music. Which makes it look much better than the Live version when it was running. I actually play swg solo and just buy gear from crafters who own venders in there home, guild/city mall.
Guilds on star wars galaxies are extremely social and have there own towns/citys on a planet in there chosen location, Guild Citys can eventually appear on the world map. If you are actually interested in swg, check out the swg reddit and or swg legends home page and from those sites youll get everything you need to get started.
ps: There is nothing wrong with you OP, you just need a gap filler until you find your next game, my gap fillers are usually d2 clones, currently playing Grim Dawn almost 1000 hours and still loving it waiting for new expansion this month.
Edit: oh yea there is a 3 year anniversary event running over at the swg Legends server which enables double exp, btw Double exp isnt usually turned on infact ive never seen it on before.
The gaming market is not for gamers anymore it is for casuals. Sure you can find games with a lot of meat, but most are now built on the foundation that you will dip in and out of them and not finish them.
Exactly. There's mad money to be made catering to the likes and dislikes of casuals who just happen to dabble in games.
Even games that are not 100% aimed at them are still trying to attract them by easing up on "chores" like leveling or gearing up and providing ways to wallet your way around those "inconveniences."
Game hoppers make up a large part of the market, if not the majority, only makes good sense to design games to appeal to them.
There's financial sense and then there's quality gaming sense. That there would be what we are all seeing in the gaming scene these days and it's something very different from what we had 20 years ago before the mainstream got into gaming.
No, there's financial sense and then there's "I want a 'quality game' that appeals to me but I don't want to have to pay the $100 million it will take to make it, so can't you just make my game and promote it to casual suckers so that they end up paying for it?" sense.
20 years ago, casuals were young and hadn't been footing the bill for the interests of "quality gamers" for decades and they could be tricked into it pretty easily. Today, they're a lot older and they've been having the football pulled out from in front of them at the last minute for 20 years. And they're pretty much done footing the bill for developing games made by people who sneer at them for people who sneer at them.
Adapt or figure out how to get by without casual-subsidized welfare for "quality gaming".
You do know that F2P hardly even existed 20 year ago don't you? Nice try though.
"Casual" is not the same thing as "F2P-only". Nice try though.
Yeah? Why do you think the industry went F2P if not to attract casuals who wouldn't pay a sub because they wanted to play 20 games per week not just one.
LOL. Yeah, the industry went F2P because of all the casual players who wouldn't pay to play unless they got to play 20 games a week, so the industry decided to let them play everything while spending nothing so they could have all the games they want. *eyeroll*
Seriously, where do you guys come up with these narratives? Doesn't anybody somewhere along the line ask if they make even a tiny bit of sense, or is it yet another troll tossing out BS and wondering how viral their garbage is going to go before anyone bothers to question a bit of completely obvious stupidity?
So here's an inconvenient truth for you: the industry went F2P because they discovered that some people will spend more in a month on a single video game than the average person will spend in a month on their house and their car... combined. Those players aren't casuals, they're whales.
Oh yeah, another thing that's happened in the last 20 years that's very relevant to F2P's strength as a business model? A massive shift in wealth from the middle and lower classes to the rich. More money in the hands of fewer people means that if you want to pull in the cash, you cater to the few who pay boatloads, not the many who pay handfuls.
It's not rocket science what's happened, and I have every reason to believe that you're not a complete moron. Follow the money and figure it out.
Obnoxious and dumb. What a combination! I sure hope you don't breed when you grow up.
Maybe have someone explain to you how you can make more money if your customer base is bigger.
How do you get a bigger customer base? Oh you make tough games for the hard core and charge a monthly sub. Yeah... that must be it.
Tsk. Remember how confident I was in my last post that you're not a complete moron? I admit it: my confidence was misplaced.
As for that person who ought to explain everything to me, maybe first they should explain to you how F2P means that your player base is no longer the same thing as your customer base, since most of the people playing your F2P game will never, ever, spend a dime on it.
Then they should explain to you that even casual players will pay sub fees (for examples, see WoW, FFXIV), which is why I told you a few posts back that casual is not the same as being F2P.
But I certainly agree with you that a subscription game catering to hardcore design preferences is a recipe for commercial failure. That one's a dead horse that's been beaten to a pulp by several MMORPG launches over the last 10-15 years.
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I can see where he is coming from though, all of your example games are not well regarded as standard bearers for group centric games.
Maybe at one time many moons ago ROM and WOW were more so, but both were full of solo casuals at launch and catered ever more so afterwards.
D2 / D3 are rarely held up as standard bearers of MMORPG grouping, I've never considers the team play aspects to be very deep. To me most ARPGs are just exercises in spam killing endless waves of npcs, and not particularly interesting, and of course many solo in them.
So yes, your grouping "pedigree" will be called into question even though I realize you have done a lot of it in games such as ROM which I suspect many here never delved into very much.
"Around these parts" people generally reference EQ1, EQ2, DAOC, FFXI, and few others as the original "hardcore" group centric MMORPGs even though most understand one could and often did solo in them.
Most of us do take your point, we well know there hasn't been a new group centric MMORPG released in a very long time, and game play definitely has a more casual element to it, especially if below "end game."
So while there is no help today, Saga of Lucima is promising to deliver a very group focused approach, perhaps punishingly so but we won't know for another 2 to 4 years unfortunately.
Pantheon is another possibility, but still several years out.
On the nearer horizon, CU, Crowfall and Ashes the MMORPG (AtM) may release next year which will favor grouping, but are heavily based more on PVP, not PVE.
Oh yeah let's not forget Star Citizen....er no, let's continue to do so. No telling when it will ever release or what sort of gameplay it really will support.
Could be "everything", "nothing much" or likely something in between.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
20 years ago, casuals were young and hadn't been footing the bill for the interests of "quality gamers" for decades and they could be tricked into it pretty easily. Today, they're a lot older and they've been having the football pulled out from in front of them at the last minute for 20 years. And they're pretty much done footing the bill for developing games made by people who sneer at them for people who sneer at them.
Adapt or figure out how to get by without casual-subsidized welfare for "quality gaming".
This is why their is such a massive rebellion against RMT and F2P practices and why old school MMORPG hosting is becoming more popular today along with calls for subscription only games.
The only way to increase F2P/RMT earnings, is to increase the number of players because you increase the chance of gaining more whales willing to spend obscene amounts of money. The entire shape of the game changes. Even the very genre has a chance of vanishing completely. It is the destruction of niche gaming.
Equal access to game play is the only way to sustain a core design principle. It's this very shift away from this that destroyed old school MMORPG gaming. It has nothing to do with individual games finding ways to stay profitable (and most were purchased by the large developers at their peak, when some of those developers were under the wing of even bigger companies than they are now). It has everything to with maximizing profit at ANY COST, including the destruction of the very industry you profit from.
My ONLY complaint about venture capitalism is that is destroys niche marketed products ... MY PRODUCTS OF INTEREST! If I could make millions through venture capitalism and stock market manipulation, I would. But, the reality is as follows:
Venture capitalists are dogs running around sniffing asses. They find the ass than smells best, and run off to a new ass if it smells better. They DON'T sustain industries. They consume it entirely if allowed, and move on to appropriate, profit and consume something else.
We are seeing the tail end of such a consumptive event within the industry right now. Investors don't care about the products you like. They only want profit and the current industry exploited it's audience to a maximum limit before push back from both the public and governments. The bubble burst.
Indie development may have more room to breath now. This actually may help the MMORPG industry and is trending toward this. It only needs to attract it's core audience again and not the biggest audience possible.
You stay sassy!
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Seriously, where do you guys come up with these narratives? Doesn't anybody somewhere along the line ask if they make even a tiny bit of sense, or is it yet another troll tossing out BS and wondering how viral their garbage is going to go before anyone bothers to question a bit of completely obvious stupidity?
So here's an inconvenient truth for you: the industry went F2P because they discovered that some people will spend more in a month on a single video game than the average person will spend in a month on their house and their car... combined. Those players aren't casuals, they're whales.
Oh yeah, another thing that's happened in the last 20 years that's very relevant to F2P's strength as a business model? A massive shift in wealth from the middle and lower classes to the rich. More money in the hands of fewer people means that if you want to pull in the cash, you cater to the few who pay boatloads, not the many who pay handfuls.
It's not rocket science what's happened, and I have every reason to believe that you're not a complete moron. Follow the money and figure it out.
The greatest benefit of attracting the largest possible audience, is that they, by definition, do not dedicate their entire time to one game. They play multiple games and often multiple games from the same developer. Thus, large developers discover that their own player base competes against each other.
This is where meta-marketing comes. Developers change their development cycle to bounce the collective audience from one IP to another. Blizzard mastered this. Even though Wow likely still had it's largest dedicated audience, it still shifted heavily toward one primary audience playing multiple Blizzard games. This means the income for Wow doesn't go to just Wow. Budgets shift to focus on the next major project in the meta-marketing cycle. There are times where your Wow money went entirely toward other projects and marketing for other projects.
This destroys individual audiences and communities. This is exactly how every major producer runs their corporation now. It's a unified money engine, tapping into a unified audience. Their ENTIRE product line is geared to attract the casual player. The very design of those games CANNOT nurture a singular audience or it impedes the monetization model.
I think this is why so many here can't wrap their heads around this. They still think that the audience has ANY VOICE in this cycle at all. They DON'T. You lost that long ago. Time for the reality check. That check is very easy now. Just stop and look at the current state of the industry.
You stay sassy!
Put your tin hat on, big brother is watching.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
Maybe have someone explain to you how you can make more money if your customer base is bigger.
How do you get a bigger customer base? Oh you make tough games for the hard core and charge a monthly sub. Yeah... that must be it.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Theres one game that flys under the radar a lot and that is because it was shut down many years ago but it is infact still alive and probably more populated than Live at any given time on one server. The game is.....Star Wars Galaxies - Legends server.
I only suggest Legends server because in this version there is grouping up for end game content, and there is client options to download ILM mod to improve graphic textures, lighting, animations character models and music. Which makes it look much better than the Live version when it was running. I actually play swg solo and just buy gear from crafters who own venders in there home, guild/city mall.
Guilds on star wars galaxies are extremely social and have there own towns/citys on a planet in there chosen location, Guild Citys can eventually appear on the world map. If you are actually interested in swg, check out the swg reddit and or swg legends home page and from those sites youll get everything you need to get started.
ps:
There is nothing wrong with you OP, you just need a gap filler until you find your next game, my gap fillers are usually d2 clones, currently playing Grim Dawn almost 1000 hours and still loving it waiting for new expansion this month.
Edit: oh yea there is a 3 year anniversary event running over at the swg Legends server which enables double exp, btw Double exp isnt usually turned on infact ive never seen it on before.
As for that person who ought to explain everything to me, maybe first they should explain to you how F2P means that your player base is no longer the same thing as your customer base, since most of the people playing your F2P game will never, ever, spend a dime on it.
Then they should explain to you that even casual players will pay sub fees (for examples, see WoW, FFXIV), which is why I told you a few posts back that casual is not the same as being F2P.
But I certainly agree with you that a subscription game catering to hardcore design preferences is a recipe for commercial failure. That one's a dead horse that's been beaten to a pulp by several MMORPG launches over the last 10-15 years.