In my opinion the main reason for most games who fail lies in oversimplification, in narrowing the game towards once niche too much. That doesnt mean that said MMO really has to close to actually fail. If a failed game is closed is part of the company ideology and of course monetary backing. Now a game is too narrowed down when it aims for ONE target audience only. MMOs who do that almost ALL failed so far.

Some of these narrowed games can be quite big and vast, but usually the defining pieces makes it really appealing for one target group only. Lets take two very different examples, Tabula Rasa and Vanguard.

TR was essentially an online shooter. If we review it honestly, everything else was just decoraton. In the core, what you did 90% of your game time was running around and shooting at things as in a shooter. So it was really interesting only for this one target audience. The rest tried it out a while and left. On top of that, TR had two fundamental flaws, because essentially the developers were unable or unwilling to admit the truth to themselves: the truth that they had created a shooter, and not a MMORPG. Now most people who love shooter prefer to make it as PVP, they dont want to shoot bots. Second, most of these guys dont need a subscription based MMO, they play online for free in TF, CS or whatever is fashion these days. So TR had ONE target audience, and everything they did went totally away from that target group's gaming habits. If you narrow a game down on one pillar, the risk is considerably higher as if you would base a MMO on several pillars.

VG, while being complex, had one defiing principle, when it was designed: they wanted to bring back the hardships of the EQ days. VG was made by EQ devs and geeks, and they thought to base everything fitting for that supposed hardcorish, EQtesque, UO-loving playerbase. For a long time VG was advertised with harsh verbal images. The devs boasted how they loved the corpse runs in underwear and to really cry from the losses of death and long, deadly journeys asf. (Or think how the "No crying in the red circle" of PotBS - backfired.) Now, however hardcorish VG really was is of no importance, but VG NEVER got a chance after that. Both the VG devs and the fans greatly overestimated the number of those willing to endure EQ/UO era hardships today. I know, the official story is, VG was brought down by bugs and performance, but really, I dont think so. I think the bugs and performance issues were more a projection screen for the fundamental flaw: the idea to revive a game concept which like the dinosaures had died out for a reason!

The EQ/UO hardship ideology didnt die out because of some evil scheme or accident, it died out because it was inferior to the accessibilty of other, modern MMOs. Like a man with a sword dies in a war fought with guns. Some things cant be turned back. Once NPCs didnt have that symbol over their head, indicating the quest giver. You had to ASK everyone. Both SWG and EQ2 started that way, and EQ2 added the overhead symbols when WOW made them popular. Now VG was FULL of tiresome timesinks. 90% of all the VG "hardships" werent difficult or challanging, 90% of them were just mere timesinks. And when VG was launched, the vast majority of potential MMO gamers just didnt want such timesinks anymore. SO VG was based on one target audience: the leftover dinosaurs who still accepted such timesinks. Only because of THAT the bugs and performance issues brought VG down. If VG would have been bug free and with good performance it still would not have fared better than AoC.

The same is to say, in smaller degree, the case with AoC and WAR.

AoC was basically oriented for a certain target audience, people who seek to buy Pirelli calendars, people who love gore and boobs. AoC had some good virtues, but essentially a certain audience felt at home, and the rest didnt. Now when you feel at home in a game, you endure a LOT, and the proof that this is so, is SWG. SWG had a LOT of issues, considerably more than AoC, but it was diverse, it offered something for many kind of gamers, and thats why they stayed.

WAR similarly is a certain niche, the niche of the "Planetside" gamer. WAR's only strong side was supposed to be PVP. We always expected PVE to be an aferthought. The PVE world is, even compared to games like EQ2 (thinking how "alive" the game feels), extremely sterile and cold. And when the RVR didnt function, because people vanished in the handfull of scenarios, the game began to fall apart, because the one defining column wasnt good enough.

Games which had a long lifespan, EQ2, DAoC, SWG and of course in the most profound sense WOW, all tired to appeal many types of customers and many play styles. I guess thats WOW's real "secret" of success. It can be played both by the E-sports geek and the gandma. They all have something to like, something to identify with, so even if one part is just so-so, the gamers endure it, because they feel at home, like in that fitting pair of shoes or the comfortable couch. Such games have players and systems where players naturally fit into, many biospheres, if you like, they dont have one, sole system to which everyone has to adapt.

In the long run only games who aim for a complex world built can really survive. Sure, there are some niches, games like EVE or Planetside live in their niche quite well, but they have to be very round in themselves and will never be more than a small niche. In most cases it breaks a game to narrow it down on one defining idea.
 

Originally posted by Elikal

In my opinion the main reason for most games who fail lies in oversimplification, in narrowing the game towards once niche too much.

 

That is the direct opposite of the problem. Most MMos these days just copy the EQ formula, it worked for WoW, so it can work for us! And they produce bland clones that use no innovation, and become easier and easier to rope in the most noobs possible, because only noobs could enjoy games that simple. WoW didn't have to innovate to be a success, why should they? 

I disagree.  I think the reason most mmos fail is because of a poor launch and player expectation.  If you had a poor title at launch, no one who played that game early will come back.  Its also cursed more because if a game shares similarities with another title then those gamers will compare it with that title and if its worse won't come back.  This is the problem we are in now, games are coming out similiar to WoW but gamers who try it no longer like WoW or WoW does a better job considering its been released for 4 years.

Games that had a successful launch then sometimes suffer because of lack of community.  This being noobie areas becoming barren as players race to the high-end.  This happens in all games unless there is a universal city for communication such as Ogrimmar or Iron Forge.

I think WoW was a 1-note game designed to appeal to a casual gamers market.  Is it appealing to most seasoned mmo players?  On these forums you can tell not so much.  Does it involve pop-cap games popular with grandma?  I don't see any such element.  Even WoW was niche, its just that niche represented a wide audience.

I enjoyed the read & there are some good points ..

Originally posted by Cleffy

I disagree.  I think the reason most mmos fail is because of a poor launch and player expectation.  If you had a poor title at launch, no one who played that game early will come back.  Its also cursed more because if a game shares similarities with another title then those gamers will compare it with that title and if its worse won't come back.  This is the problem we are in now, games are coming out similiar to WoW but gamers who try it no longer like WoW or WoW does a better job considering its been released for 4 years.

Games that had a successful launch then sometimes suffer because of lack of community.  This being noobie areas becoming barren as players race to the high-end.  This happens in all games unless there is a universal city for communication such as Ogrimmar or Iron Forge.

I think WoW was a 1-note game designed to appeal to a casual gamers market.  Is it appealing to most seasoned mmo players?  On these forums you can tell not so much.  Does it involve pop-cap games popular with grandma?  I don't see any such element.  Even WoW was niche, its just that niche represented a wide audience.

Sorry, but I think there is an entire list of myths.

First, WOWs launch was far from perfect. Several fundamental parts were added a long time after launch. Just take the PVP penality it got and compare it to the ruckus about the same problem in AoC now. The majority of those who love WOW and stayed came to the game about a year later. It didnt skyrocket to 11 millions in a few months. It was in better shape, but really not that much better than say EQ2 or LOTRO, who DIDNT get 11 millions subs. That just doesnt explain those proportions. When one MMO gets SO many more, it has to be more than such simple explanations.

Second, to some degree it is invitable to "copy" WOW features and any game which doesnt is doomed. WOW shaped game habits and some things were just the most functional thing, like the UI or the symbol over a quest giver. It established norms, some norms it only popularized when they existed before, like the radar. Those are functional standards a new MMO cant fall behind, or it has to make such a leap ahead as none of us can imagine it at the moment, just as we werent able to really forsee 2008 MMOs in 2003 or so. Think of WOW like the invention of the first car, compared to the horse carriage. Sure there are many brands of cars, Ford, GM, Mercedes, whatever, but they all have to adapt to certain basics to share the same road, and as with cars, at some point only a few people use horse and carriages.

Third, sorry but calling WOW a niche game is re-defining the word niche. You are free to do it, but it does not change the content of what I say, it just would force me to use another word or a complicated explanation of something everyone really understands. Niche = a small percentage of the MMO gamers and one special target audience. Non-Niche: a greater percentage of the MMO gamers and open to various target audiences. Now you can re-define the word, but we dont get one step ahead with that.

One basic assumption I make is, that neither UO nor EQ were really more difficult. Difficult is a term which implies the need of trained skills. A type of games to which that applies would the Tekken or Soul Calibur for console. They base the skill of the character 100% on YOUR, the player skills. In a RPG this can never be the case, even if AoC tried to bring it in a bit, the vast part STILL is the characters skill and only a bit yours. The reason is, that a MMORPG has ONE and ONLY one way to penalize failure: the loss of time. In whatever form it comes, loss of XP, of gear, be it the downtime of EQ where you had to wait between each fight for the mana to regenerate, it was always and only a timesink. Thats the only skill you really need. Usually all uber gear or rare stuff is bound to time sinks: raids, faction grind, whatever. The time sink is the only real enemy in any MMORPG, and THAT is the one part in which UO and EQ really were much more demanding. And ppl accepted it, because there was no other, they didnt knew better. Its simple as that.

The thing were UO and EQ WERE better is the complexity, not the difficulty. As described in detail above.

tabula rasa is/was not a shooter.  its a typical rpg grindfest with a shooter veneer and interface.

if you were both a shooter fan and a former player of tabula rasa you would see that your aim didn't really matter, and dodging didn't really matter.  it was all based on dice rolls.

imo, that's why it failed.  it didn't appeal to rpg fans cuz it had the illusion of being a shooter.

and it didn't appeal to shooter fans after they tried it and saw that shooter skills didn't matter.  just another grindfest.

if it had the balls to go all out and have REAL shooter gameplay, i'm sure it would have done ALOT better.  i know *i* for one would have been subscribed most of the time, but i never bought it cuz it was just another RPG grindfest.

another big fact is that for the first years of its existence, alot of work and manhours went into making a completely different game which was almost entirely thrown away, and they started from new again.  so they had to have twice as many subscribers to be profitable.

i think you are very wrong about them needing to appeal to a broader market.  they need to spend less time and manhours trying to appeal to everybody, and have a much less expensive and more focused game that appeals MORE to a specific niche, and does that job very well with no compromises.  then they aren't competing with WoW and the other hundreds of typical MMORPGs.   they will have almost 0 competition.

tabula rasa was unfocused and for all its surface appearances and hype, was just another MMORPG.  different enough in ways that made existing MMORPGs uncomfortable, but not nearly different enough for any other audience to like it.

people keep saying why pay a subscription for an FPS  when FPS games are free.

there IS no FPS set in a immersive virtual world populated with hundreds or thousands of players. 

THAT would be something worth paying for.

don't bring up Planetside.  there's nothing immersive about their "world". 

just random looking desolate & unpopulated terrain and bases that all look pretty much alike

Originally posted by Elikal

In my opinion the main reason for most games who fail lies in oversimplification, in narrowing the game towards once niche too much. That doesnt mean that said MMO really has to close to actually fail. If a failed game is closed is part of the company ideology and of course monetary backing. Now a game is too narrowed down when it aims for ONE target audience only. MMOs who do that almost ALL failed so far.

Some of these narrowed games can be quite big and vast, but usually the defining pieces makes it really appealing for one target group only. Lets take two very different examples, Tabula Rasa and Vanguard.

TR was essentially an online shooter. If we review it honestly, everything else was just decoraton. In the core, what you did 90% of your game time was running around and shooting at things as in a shooter. So it was really interesting only for this one target audience. The rest tried it out a while and left. On top of that, TR had two fundamental flaws, because essentially the developers were unable or unwilling to admit the truth to themselves: the truth that they had created a shooter, and not a MMORPG. Now most people who love shooter prefer to make it as PVP, they dont want to shoot bots. Second, most of these guys dont need a subscription based MMO, they play online for free in TF, CS or whatever is fashion these days. So TR had ONE target audience, and everything they did went totally away from that target group's gaming habits. If you narrow a game down on one pillar, the risk is considerably higher as if you would base a MMO on several pillars.

VG, while being complex, had one defiing principle, when it was designed: they wanted to bring back the hardships of the EQ days. VG was made by EQ devs and geeks, and they thought to base everything fitting for that supposed hardcorish, EQtesque, UO-loving playerbase. For a long time VG was advertised with harsh verbal images. The devs boasted how they loved the corpse runs in underwear and to really cry from the losses of death and long, deadly journeys asf. (Or think how the "No crying in the red circle" of PotBS - backfired.) Now, however hardcorish VG really was is of no importance, but VG NEVER got a chance after that. Both the VG devs and the fans greatly overestimated the number of those willing to endure EQ/UO era hardships today. I know, the official story is, VG was brought down by bugs and performance, but really, I dont think so. I think the bugs and performance issues were more a projection screen for the fundamental flaw: the idea to revive a game concept which like the dinosaures had died out for a reason!

The EQ/UO hardship ideology didnt die out because of some evil scheme or accident, it died out because it was inferior to the accessibilty of other, modern MMOs. Like a man with a sword dies in a war fought with guns. Some things cant be turned back. Once NPCs didnt have that symbol over their head, indicating the quest giver. You had to ASK everyone. Both SWG and EQ2 started that way, and EQ2 added the overhead symbols when WOW made them popular. Now VG was FULL of tiresome timesinks. 90% of all the VG "hardships" werent difficult or challanging, 90% of them were just mere timesinks. And when VG was launched, the vast majority of potential MMO gamers just didnt want such timesinks anymore. SO VG was based on one target audience: the leftover dinosaurs who still accepted such timesinks. Only because of THAT the bugs and performance issues brought VG down. If VG would have been bug free and with good performance it still would not have fared better than AoC.

The same is to say, in smaller degree, the case with AoC and WAR.

AoC was basically oriented for a certain target audience, people who seek to buy Pirelli calendars, people who love gore and boobs. AoC had some good virtues, but essentially a certain audience felt at home, and the rest didnt. Now when you feel at home in a game, you endure a LOT, and the proof that this is so, is SWG. SWG had a LOT of issues, considerably more than AoC, but it was diverse, it offered something for many kind of gamers, and thats why they stayed.

WAR similarly is a certain niche, the niche of the "Planetside" gamer. WAR's only strong side was supposed to be PVP. We always expected PVE to be an aferthought. The PVE world is, even compared to games like EQ2 (thinking how "alive" the game feels), extremely sterile and cold. And when the RVR didnt function, because people vanished in the handfull of scenarios, the game began to fall apart, because the one defining column wasnt good enough.

Games which had a long lifespan, EQ2, DAoC, SWG and of course in the most profound sense WOW, all tired to appeal many types of customers and many play styles. I guess thats WOW's real "secret" of success. It can be played both by the E-sports geek and the gandma. They all have something to like, something to identify with, so even if one part is just so-so, the gamers endure it, because they feel at home, like in that fitting pair of shoes or the comfortable couch. Such games have players and systems where players naturally fit into, many biospheres, if you like, they dont have one, sole system to which everyone has to adapt.

In the long run only games who aim for a complex world built can really survive. Sure, there are some niches, games like EVE or Planetside live in their niche quite well, but they have to be very round in themselves and will never be more than a small niche. In most cases it breaks a game to narrow it down on one defining idea.
 

With respect to the portion highlighted in orange above I completly disagree with your opinion. There are more than enough players out there who like that type of game to have a playerbase of 250,000 or more. No, in my opinion it was a combination of the flaws in the game, with the devs not delivering a solid overall game, in tandem with the addition to SOE into the mix, as many of that target audience has bad feelings toward that company with regard to past experiences. The hardship ideology as you define it isn't inherently inferior to the easy/everybody can do it philosophy that is prevalent today. It is just different. It is also fun to enough people for a solid game to be made using it.

The issue lies, in my opinion, squarely with these companies either not caring enough to put out solidly made games or the CEOs of these companies pressuring the actual developers making the game to rush a product out with the idea that they can patch things in later. Speaking of the latter we are seeing time and again that in doing this it infuriates your customers to the point where they play the 30 free days (if that) and quit. If Vanguard would have had the time they really needed to put in all their advertised features in a solid state and if they had of stayed under the Microsoft banner (I'm not saying Miscrsoft is flawless, but they are Kings of high measure when compared to SOE in the MMO space) Vanguard would be enjoying and thriving, healthy subscription population on 250,000 or more.

That 250,000 is fairly easily measured in my opinion by looking at interest in the game before launch. Well over that number showed interest in beta (even discounting the fact of multiple sign ups) and if the game was put together well, with those people knowing full well the game was being made in the hardship ideology, they would have stayed. So you have to ask why did they leave? Well, as I see it, many lost interest when SOE came into the picture (myself included) and even more left the ship once they got into the game and saw how badly it was done.

interesting thread, however, niche is just a word .

When u look at EVE ONLINE by example, it has 300 k subscribers. Eve excisted for 5/6 years. Now do the math, of course , in the beginning they only had a few subs , but they grew and grew.

Basically, it is a cash cow for CCP. A company like CCP , will not go under anytime soon!

LOTRO is a game , that is very casually, the typicial WOW/EQ clone. You can compete very fast in LOTRO and it is not a really complex game. It is a themepark game. It was polished, it has one of the biggest I.P's ever, it is a mainstream I.P ,focusing for the mainstream. I would say it had a even better launch then world of warcraft. Still , i has subscribtions under the most hardcore mmo currently available! Yes eve online. LOTRO has like 200/250 k subs, of course with Mines of moria ,this will increase, but i would say, ambulation is EVE expansion to get maybe some more subs.

WAR launch was not bad, it has most of it's features, except the concept is flawed , unlike DAOC, WAR subs are not increasing, DAOC where.

I am saying , world of warcraft is a cult hit. There won't be allot of mmo's that will copy this success. You can clone WOW , make it simple and even more casual but most likely , you won't get a WOW hit. You will not likely even get 1 million. WAR is very casual, but it is decreasing in subs. It's not a bad game, but it is a niche game , a niche game advertised for the masses with EA behind it.

People ! Stop with the nonsense , niches are not profitable, they are, you are sadly mistaken if you think it isn't. Every company starts small, so create small, not big.  Start simple , do not directly want to compete with the 9 inch gorrilla that is called WOW. Pick a niche and gain that and so step a feet in the mmo market, not the otherway around.

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

Originally posted by Elikal  ...

VG, while being complex, had one defiing principle, when it was designed: they wanted to bring back the hardships of the EQ days. VG was made by EQ devs and geeks, and they thought to base everything fitting for that supposed hardcorish, EQtesque, UO-loving playerbase. For a long time VG was advertised with harsh verbal images. The devs boasted how they loved the corpse runs in underwear and to really cry from the losses of death and long, deadly journeys asf. (Or think how the "No crying in the red circle" of PotBS - backfired.) Now, however hardcorish VG really was is of no importance, but VG NEVER got a chance after that. Both the VG devs and the fans greatly overestimated the number of those willing to endure EQ/UO era hardships today. I know, the official story is, VG was brought down by bugs and performance, but really, I dont think so. I think the bugs and performance issues were more a projection screen for the fundamental flaw: the idea to revive a game concept which like the dinosaures had died out for a reason!

The EQ/UO hardship ideology didnt die out because of some evil scheme or accident, it died out because it was inferior to the accessibilty of other, modern MMOs. Like a man with a sword dies in a war fought with guns. Some things cant be turned back. Once NPCs didnt have that symbol over their head, indicating the quest giver. You had to ASK everyone. Both SWG and EQ2 started that way, and EQ2 added the overhead symbols when WOW made them popular. Now VG was FULL of tiresome timesinks. 90% of all the VG "hardships" werent difficult or challanging, 90% of them were just mere timesinks. And when VG was launched, the vast majority of potential MMO gamers just didnt want such timesinks anymore. SO VG was based on one target audience: the leftover dinosaurs who still accepted such timesinks. Only because of THAT the bugs and performance issues brought VG down. If VG would have been bug free and with good performance it still would not have fared better than AoC.

...

 

With respect to the portion highlighted in orange above I completly disagree with your opinion. There are more than enough players out there who like that type of game to have a playerbase of 250,000 or more. No, in my opinion it was a combination of the flaws in the game, with the devs not delivering a solid overall game, in tandem with the addition to SOE into the mix, as many of that target audience has bad feelings toward that company with regard to past experiences. The hardship ideology as you define it isn't inherently inferior to the easy/everybody can do it philosophy that is prevalent today. It is just different. It is also fun to enough people for a solid game to be made using it.

The issue lies, in my opinion, squarely with these companies either not caring enough to put out solidly made games or the CEOs of these companies pressuring the actual developers making the game to rush a product out with the idea that they can patch things in later. Speaking of the latter we are seeing time and again that in doing this it infuriates your customers to the point where they play the 30 free days (if that) and quit. If Vanguard would have had the time they really needed to put in all their advertised features in a solid state and if they had of stayed under the Microsoft banner (I'm not saying Miscrsoft is flawless, but they are Kings of high measure when compared to SOE in the MMO space) Vanguard would be enjoying and thriving, healthy subscription population on 250,000 or more.

That 250,000 is fairly easily measured in my opinion by looking at interest in the game before launch. Well over that number showed interest in beta (even discounting the fact of multiple sign ups) and if the game was put together well, with those people knowing full well the game was being made in the hardship ideology, they would have stayed. So you have to ask why did they leave? Well, as I see it, many lost interest when SOE came into the picture (myself included) and even more left the ship once they got into the game and saw how badly it was done.

I agree. There was nothing wrong with the vision of Vanguard - it was simply the execution. With the right management and investors VG would be in the top 3 western MMOs right now IMO. For example does not get any more neiche and hardcore than EvE - and that is a runaway success.

Originally posted by FischerBlack

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

Originally posted by Elikal  ...

VG, while being complex, had one defiing principle, when it was designed: they wanted to bring back the hardships of the EQ days. VG was made by EQ devs and geeks, and they thought to base everything fitting for that supposed hardcorish, EQtesque, UO-loving playerbase. For a long time VG was advertised with harsh verbal images. The devs boasted how they loved the corpse runs in underwear and to really cry from the losses of death and long, deadly journeys asf. (Or think how the "No crying in the red circle" of PotBS - backfired.) Now, however hardcorish VG really was is of no importance, but VG NEVER got a chance after that. Both the VG devs and the fans greatly overestimated the number of those willing to endure EQ/UO era hardships today. I know, the official story is, VG was brought down by bugs and performance, but really, I dont think so. I think the bugs and performance issues were more a projection screen for the fundamental flaw: the idea to revive a game concept which like the dinosaures had died out for a reason!

The EQ/UO hardship ideology didnt die out because of some evil scheme or accident, it died out because it was inferior to the accessibilty of other, modern MMOs. Like a man with a sword dies in a war fought with guns. Some things cant be turned back. Once NPCs didnt have that symbol over their head, indicating the quest giver. You had to ASK everyone. Both SWG and EQ2 started that way, and EQ2 added the overhead symbols when WOW made them popular. Now VG was FULL of tiresome timesinks. 90% of all the VG "hardships" werent difficult or challanging, 90% of them were just mere timesinks. And when VG was launched, the vast majority of potential MMO gamers just didnt want such timesinks anymore. SO VG was based on one target audience: the leftover dinosaurs who still accepted such timesinks. Only because of THAT the bugs and performance issues brought VG down. If VG would have been bug free and with good performance it still would not have fared better than AoC.

...

 

With respect to the portion highlighted in orange above I completly disagree with your opinion. There are more than enough players out there who like that type of game to have a playerbase of 250,000 or more. No, in my opinion it was a combination of the flaws in the game, with the devs not delivering a solid overall game, in tandem with the addition to SOE into the mix, as many of that target audience has bad feelings toward that company with regard to past experiences. The hardship ideology as you define it isn't inherently inferior to the easy/everybody can do it philosophy that is prevalent today. It is just different. It is also fun to enough people for a solid game to be made using it.

The issue lies, in my opinion, squarely with these companies either not caring enough to put out solidly made games or the CEOs of these companies pressuring the actual developers making the game to rush a product out with the idea that they can patch things in later. Speaking of the latter we are seeing time and again that in doing this it infuriates your customers to the point where they play the 30 free days (if that) and quit. If Vanguard would have had the time they really needed to put in all their advertised features in a solid state and if they had of stayed under the Microsoft banner (I'm not saying Miscrsoft is flawless, but they are Kings of high measure when compared to SOE in the MMO space) Vanguard would be enjoying and thriving, healthy subscription population on 250,000 or more.

That 250,000 is fairly easily measured in my opinion by looking at interest in the game before launch. Well over that number showed interest in beta (even discounting the fact of multiple sign ups) and if the game was put together well, with those people knowing full well the game was being made in the hardship ideology, they would have stayed. So you have to ask why did they leave? Well, as I see it, many lost interest when SOE came into the picture (myself included) and even more left the ship once they got into the game and saw how badly it was done.

I agree. There was nothing wrong with the vision of Vanguard - it was simply the execution. With the right management and investors VG would be in the top 3 western MMOs right now IMO. For example does not get any more neiche and hardcore than EvE - and that is a runaway success.

I also agree. The points of the original poster would only be valid if Vanguard was a shining example of a "hardcore" MMORPG, but it was anything but.

For example, what in the world was Diplomacy, a single player mini-game, doing in an MMORPG that was supposed to encourage grouping? The world was also designed badly so that it seemed barren. The races were to far spread out, even though it wasn't designed as a PvP game. What was the point in such a huge world, and then spreading out the playerbase so much?

Add to the many flaws of game design crippling bugs and lag, and it's game over.

I would also disagree that RPG fans won't play a game that LOOKS like a shooter. I'm playing Fallout 3 and it's a great game. It LOOKS like a shooter, and kinda is, until you go into VATS combat which is 100% RPG. Your stats determine if you hit the target, and how much damage you do, not your l33t mouse and keyboard reflexes. RPG fans are not fooled just because their character is holding a gun instead of a bow and arrow.

so basically your theory is that games who aim for a big audience get more subs then niche games...

its obvious and it also explains why games like DF will never get massive

Define fail. There are two views. The company who puts the game up and the person defining 'fail'. A company might see 200K regular subs are a complete success depending on how much they have invested while 3rd party might see this as a failure comparing to the greatly over discussed numbers associated with the WoW title.

Then of course you have actual failures like TR but even those might meet certain needs like taking away a market share from a competitor. I would tend to label TR a full failure but again, not being inside MCSoft, who really knows? Lots of special insurance might actually make such a 'fail' at least a wash other than the time sink factor (which is in an of itself a factor of fialure measurement, I know).

Originally posted by Elikal 

One basic assumption I make is, that neither UO nor EQ were really more difficult. Difficult is a term which implies the need of trained skills. A type of games to which that applies would the Tekken or Soul Calibur for console. They base the skill of the character 100% on YOUR, the player skills. In a RPG this can never be the case, even if AoC tried to bring it in a bit, the vast part STILL is the characters skill and only a bit yours. The reason is, that a MMORPG has ONE and ONLY one way to penalize failure: the loss of time. In whatever form it comes, loss of XP, of gear, be it the downtime of EQ where you had to wait between each fight for the mana to regenerate, it was always and only a timesink. Thats the only skill you really need. Usually all uber gear or rare stuff is bound to time sinks: raids, faction grind, whatever. The time sink is the only real enemy in any MMORPG, and THAT is the one part in which UO and EQ really were much more demanding. And ppl accepted it, because there was no other, they didnt knew better. Its simple as that.

The thing were UO and EQ WERE better is the complexity, not the difficulty. As described in detail above.

You almost had me until the above statement..

EQ was more difficult because the environment around you demanded  competence & knowledge of class. At the time I left WOW shortly before BC there were no such demands. Three years ago I sat in Molten Core with people who didn't know how half their skills were used?!? Imagine raiding Plane of time in EQ with 1/4 of you're raid force not knowing critical skills.

Wouldn't happen because in UO, EQ, AC & DAOC there's was no faking it.

So the above argument simply falls flat. In fact the better arguement is WOW and it's ilk work because of their ease. They allow today's mmo player to just get in and play. Honestly there's nothing wrong with that but let's not try and re-write MMO history.

Originally posted by Zarraa

Originally posted by Elikal 

One basic assumption I make is, that neither UO nor EQ were really more difficult. Difficult is a term which implies the need of trained skills. A type of games to which that applies would the Tekken or Soul Calibur for console. They base the skill of the character 100% on YOUR, the player skills. In a RPG this can never be the case, even if AoC tried to bring it in a bit, the vast part STILL is the characters skill and only a bit yours. The reason is, that a MMORPG has ONE and ONLY one way to penalize failure: the loss of time. In whatever form it comes, loss of XP, of gear, be it the downtime of EQ where you had to wait between each fight for the mana to regenerate, it was always and only a timesink. Thats the only skill you really need. Usually all uber gear or rare stuff is bound to time sinks: raids, faction grind, whatever. The time sink is the only real enemy in any MMORPG, and THAT is the one part in which UO and EQ really were much more demanding. And ppl accepted it, because there was no other, they didnt knew better. Its simple as that.

The thing were UO and EQ WERE better is the complexity, not the difficulty. As described in detail above.

You almost had me until the above statement..

EQ was more difficult because the environment around you demanded  competence & knowledge of class. At the time I left WOW shortly before BC there were no such demands. Three years ago I sat in Molten Core with people who didn't know how half their skills were used?!? Imagine raiding Plane of time in EQ with 1/4 of you're raid force not knowing critical skills.

Wouldn't happen because in UO, EQ, AC & DAOC there's was no faking it.

So the above argument simply falls flat. In fact the better arguement is WOW and it's ilk work because of their ease. They allow today's mmo player to just get in and play. Honestly there's nothing wrong with that but let's not try and re-write MMO history.

You also needed to know how to interact with people so you could group. If you were an asshat you'd be twiddling your thumbs a lot, or doing some really, really slow grinding.

Now, screw it. Be an asshat all you want, there's plenty of solo content to access anyways, so who cares?

It's simple. MMOs are being released far too early, they need polish so that the playerbase doesn't feel alienated. Imagine how great AoC could have been with an extra 6 months - 1yr of development.

Originally posted by Elikal

VG, while being complex, had one defiing principle, when it was designed: they wanted to bring back the hardships of the EQ days. VG was made by EQ devs and geeks, and they thought to base everything fitting for that supposed hardcorish, EQtesque, UO-loving playerbase. For a long time VG was advertised with harsh verbal images. The devs boasted how they loved the corpse runs in underwear and to really cry from the losses of death and long, deadly journeys asf. (Or think how the "No crying in the red circle" of PotBS - backfired.) Now, however hardcorish VG really was is of no importance, but VG NEVER got a chance after that. Both the VG devs and the fans greatly overestimated the number of those willing to endure EQ/UO era hardships today. I know, the official story is, VG was brought down by bugs and performance, but really, I dont think so. I think the bugs and performance issues were more a projection screen for the fundamental flaw: the idea to revive a game concept which like the dinosaures had died out for a reason!

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AoC was basically oriented for a certain target audience, people who seek to buy Pirelli calendars, people who love gore and boobs. AoC had some good virtues, but essentially a certain audience felt at home, and the rest didnt. Now when you feel at home in a game, you endure a LOT, and the proof that this is so, is SWG. SWG had a LOT of issues, considerably more than AoC, but it was diverse, it offered something for many kind of gamers, and thats why they stayed.

First, I disagree with your statement about VG. It's true the developers had a "vision" that included the return of some hardcore elements, but the "vision" was tossed out the window at some point. I don't remember the details of the VG death penalty - I think you had the option of returning to your death site as a ghost to retrieve lost xp or else resurrecting in a safe spot with a small xp loss - but I do remember it wasn't true to the vision, and that many former EQ players regarded the VG death penalty as rather "care bear-ish".

VG failed because the original vision was flawed to begin with, and the flawed vision mutated into a weird mishmash of features that were poorly implemented and riddled with bugs.

As for AoC, I don't know what the population is like these days, but the reason I quit was because I felt it was designed for the console.

there's a big difference between Fallout 3 and Tabula Rasa.  did you play TR?

its very obvious Fallout 3 is an RPG.  extremely obvious.  its made even more obvious by the fact that its a sequel to 2 very famous RPG games.  you say it LOOKS like an FPS, but i'm not talking about some superfluous visual appearance, i'm talking about how people percieve the underlying mechanics.   everyone knows you don't need aiming or dodging skills cuz its RPG combat.

in TR, because the INTERFACE was so shooterish, there are a ton of people in these very forums that talk about TR being a shooter, and who obviously don't seem to see thru the illusion.  even the OP talked like it was a real shooter

I don't know about the other games you mention, but I'm an  EQ veteran and followed Vanguard very closely and tried it. Vanguard failed because of the Vision being destroyed when SOE stepped in (the Vision was what made Vanguard the new EQ) and by very poor performance and unplayability.

Let's take WoW.  WoW is a success not because of design document but because of its marketing approach.  WoW targeted non-MMORPG players with its marketing campaign.  AOC did not do that, VG did not do that, and TR did not do that.  Billizard is a big boy company in a field filled with little children.

Now, why did SWG survive to today?  Not because of Subscription numbers, those fell off in a huge way 2.5 years after release.  SWG survived because of SOE Station Pass Subscriptions and the need to have "x number" of MMORPGs on SOE Station Pass Subscription.

Developers really want to believe quality matters or substance matters, well it DON'T!  Look at US politics.  Both presidential candidates were completely substanceless.  US political campaigns combined got over 100 million customers for their substanceless nonsense, why?  They spend a hell of a lot of money on marketing.  They market to the old, they market to the young, they market to the religous, the non-religous, the uneducated, the educated, EVERYONE.  That is how WoW did it, they rehashed an old product (EQ-like MMORPGs), rereleased it, and marketed it really well.

Originally posted by PyscoJuggalo

Let's take WoW.  WoW is a success not because of design document but because of its marketing approach.  WoW targeted non-MMORPG players with its marketing campaign.  AOC did not do that, VG did not do that, and TR did not do that.  Billizard is a big boy company in a field filled with little children.

Now, why did SWG survive to today?  Not because of Subscription numbers, those fell off in a huge way 2.5 years after release.  SWG survived because of SOE Station Pass Subscriptions and the need to have "x number" of MMORPGs on SOE Station Pass Subscription.

 

Developers really want to believe quality matters or substance matters, well it DON'T!  Look at US politics.  Both presidential candidates were completely substanceless.  US political campaigns combined got over 100 million customers for their substanceless nonsense, why?  They spend a hell of a lot of money on marketing.  They market to the old, they market to the young, they market to the religous, the non-religous, the uneducated, the educated, EVERYONE.  That is how WoW did it, they rehashed an old product (EQ-like MMORPGs), rereleased it, and marketed it really well.

No way. Switch the marketing campaign of SWG and WoW, and the results will be the same. It's the product, not the marketing campaign.

That's only true if the products are fungible, but SWG and WoW are not .

Same goes for the US Presidential campaign. Barack Obama, and McCain exactly the same except for marketing? Hardly.

Originally posted by corpusc

there's a big difference between Fallout 3 and Tabula Rasa.  did you play TR?

 its very obvious Fallout 3 is an RPG.  extremely obvious.  its made even more obvious by the fact that its a sequel to 2 very famous RPG games.  you say it LOOKS like an FPS, but i'm not talking about some superfluous visual appearance, i'm talking about how people percieve the underlying mechanics.   everyone knows you don't need aiming or dodging skills cuz its RPG combat.

...

at best, Fallout 3 is a hybrid between a player skill and character skill when it comes to shooting. while in VATS, it comes down (mostly) to character skill (which can be affected by positioning, which is player's skill); out of VATS, player skill and reflexes have much greater influence. if you can keep crosshairs on target's head, you will hit target's head, and inflict greater damage. personally, i find it rather conflicting mechanic: it should either be fps, or it should use sticky target.

The issue is that Warcraft so dominates the MMORPG market right now that the only feasible way is try to either create something totally different, or to peel off some of WoW's base by creating a niche game.  Any game that tries to pull off the "something for everyone" type of approach that WoW has is going to have a terribly hard time at it because WoW has 4+ years of polish and content now, a huge playerbase which is invested in the game with capped characters, and technical playabililty on machines going back to 2002 (at least prior to patch 3.0).  No new game can reasonably compete with that head on, and Blizzard knows that.  Even the games that have been trying to pick at this or that niche (WAR, AoC) have had a very hard time at it.  Sure it would help if those games had been released in better shape, but that's a part of the problem -- people can and will compare new games to the polish of 4+ year old WoW, whether that is "fair" or not.  Blizzard's game is making the barrier to entry *very* high at the moment in the MMORPG market.  Sure, there have been a lot of games released, but they've all underperformed expectations, every single one, and a few have outright failed.

Someone is going to have to have the balls to design something completely different and take a risk with it.  Fat chance that this happens while the globe is mired in this financial crisis.  But eventually someone will design something different, and if it is done with quality, that *could* make a difference.  But until then, WoW owns the market.  That sucks for those of us who prefer more involved games, but that's life right now.  Probably a good time for a vacation from the genre for the time being, really.

There is a difference between simple and elegant.  Good MMO should have elegant design principles. 

The one with stupid simple suck, the ones with stupid complex fail.

Look at EvE, it can be quite boring but it has elegant design in many regards.  Yes it has other layers of complexity but look at the travel and content of the game.  At its heart their is a fairly small set of features with simple easy to understand parameter.  Yet the consequences of that design is very far reaching.  That is why it continues to grow even though half the people playing think the gameplay itself is not so great.

The fact is most good designs are elegant and barebones but are very powerful and far reaching.

Most MMO are a mish mash of weak crap they does not interact well.  Some games have tried to fix the "big ball of hair" problem by simplifying without creating elegance.

That is the heart of the problem.  However elegance is hard to achieve it takes a very solid and broad understanding, often a subtle perspective, and quite a bit of work.

Try looking at an MMO in different way.  Rather than fun or satisfying.  Try to evaluate if the way it works is strong or weak.   Does it have holes?  How are those holes plugged up?  Do different parts of the MMOs interact well together or do they cause problems when they intersect?

When you look at it in terms of weak vs. strong you almost always come out with elegant designs being strong.  Further you start to find that all the annoying problems you had with a game are a result of weak and in-elegant solutions or understandings of how things interact.

Most DIKU MMO like EQ, WoW etc are not that elegant or strong.  They have been cobbled together into a working structure, but almost all of their major problems can be seen when one part of the game comes into a grinding problem with the other part, like an iceberg hitting the titantic.  Smart games like WoW have minimized these conflicts.  But due to the basic structure of a DIKU MMO that is the best you can do. 

Things like Travel time versus Static location dungeon content.  Dropped Uber Loot versus crafting.  large-sized raiding versus group content.

Ever single one of those are parts of a DIKU MMO that have caused major problems in the game.  And each one of those is because they took two things and mashed them together with no overaching desing to tie them together and create more elegant normalized total solution.

Originally posted by PyscoJuggalo

Let's take WoW.  WoW is a success not because of design document but because of its marketing approach.  WoW targeted non-MMORPG players with its marketing campaign.  AOC did not do that, VG did not do that, and TR did not do that.  Billizard is a big boy company in a field filled with little children.

Now, why did SWG survive to today?  Not because of Subscription numbers, those fell off in a huge way 2.5 years after release.  SWG survived because of SOE Station Pass Subscriptions and the need to have "x number" of MMORPGs on SOE Station Pass Subscription.

 

Developers really want to believe quality matters or substance matters, well it DON'T!  Look at US politics.  Both presidential candidates were completely substanceless.  US political campaigns combined got over 100 million customers for their substanceless nonsense, why?  They spend a hell of a lot of money on marketing.  They market to the old, they market to the young, they market to the religous, the non-religous, the uneducated, the educated, EVERYONE.  That is how WoW did it, they rehashed an old product (EQ-like MMORPGs), rereleased it, and marketed it really well.

You don't know much about marketing do you? WOW had more subscribers than EQ or any MMO it "copied" before any major marketing campaign even went into effect. Blizzard purposely had to tone down everything because there were too many people playing. They had to remove the game from the shelves because too many people were playing. Sony was much more aggressive with EQ2 and SWG than Blizzard was. WOW succeeded BECAUSE it played better than everything else out there. Magazine and online reviews are NOT advertising. TV coverage is not advertising. Word of mouth is not advertising. WOW sold on its own merits and very little else. The PLAYERS marketed WOW. Blizzard only piggiebacked on what was going on. By the time the big campaign started, WOW already was breaking records.  Marketing only got the word out to those who didn't have a friend already playing.  The thing is, a friend's opinion means more than any Mag ad or TV commercial.

Its so sad that there are still people that don't understand that WOW is where it is because its a well designed game that did most things better than the competition. No amount of advertising convinces someone to pay a subscription service for something they don't like. MMOs are not movies or music CDs. They're not a book. They're a cell phone service. A cable service. A newspaper. They're a subscription based form of media. Those forms do NOT excell unless the product they're offering is good.

WOW wasn't a rehash of anything.  It was an improvement over everything.  Theres a big difference.  If it was a rehash it wouldn't have sold the way it did.   Why?  Because EQ and DOAC did NOT play well.   It was night and day switching from DAOC to WOW.  Going from EQ to WOW was like going from a Model-T to a 2009 Camry.  .  Those odler MMOs might've been fun for the nerd/geek set, but for those that played games other than just MMOs, the QUALITY of WOW outshined them by leaps and bounds.  WOW was a superior VIDEOGAME in every way.   The one thing Blizzard did was add quality to a genre that had none of it, or at least very little.  

Stick 100 people new to the genre in front of  WOW and EQ, UO or DAOC and guess which game they'd choose?    Your mistake is thinking older MMOs were actually fun for people besides hardcore RPGers or D&D nuts.    WOW however was fun for all of them and everyone else.  Why?  Its a superior game.

Quality does matter.  Thats how MMOs last past the 1st month.  Marketing ONLY sells the box.  It doesn't sell a subscription fee.  Its marketing 101. See AOC and WAR for recent examples.