Originally posted by Leucrotta

Originally posted by tank017
I agree with this article completely

Those who complain about wanting something different don't put there money nor their support where their mouth is

Nonsence, why should i put 50 euro's in a game like MO or DF at launch? im not a producer nor investor, i pay money as a consumer and expect to be treated like one, which means they need to provide me with a  good product from the start and not 6 months to 1 year down the road.

 

they need to put their product where their mouth is and not release something else.

I actually do think that "cinematic" and "Story driven" is the route most mmo's will be going in the future, and should have been for a long time now. Right now many of them are just kind of like mindless husks with shallow static worlds.

Originally posted by Denambren

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Question:

How many unpolished and half finished , theme park MMOs made it big ?

Answer:

None

Same as sandbox , theme park , or whatever else.

Game needs to be polished and finished to suceed.

 

Your theory fails

 

Pretty much exactly this.

You can't say that games like Earthrise (!?!!?) and Fallen Earth are games that sandbox fans should have supported. These games were an embarassment to gamers because of the state they were released in.  Just because someone calls their unfinished pile of manure a sandbox game doesn't mean you should subscribe to that game for a year to help the industry.  Doing that promotes the idea that an unfinished, unpolished product with barely any content is what we're looking for as players. If we were to promote this idea, then the article is right about that: you would not see any multi-million dollar budget MMOs, theme park or not, since we would have clearly sent the message that we don't need content or polish to keep paying monthly for an MMO. 

The highlighted is a lie.  A damn dirty ape lie.  Fallen Earth was possibly the best launched Sandbox style hybrid in our current generation of MMOs.  Icarus Studios is really a fantastic developer, and though some part of the game could have been more polished,  everything was functional and more stable than Darkfall, Earthrise, MO and Xsyon combined.   

Some could easily make the case that MMOs themselves are never truly finished,  and not a single MMO has ever launched bug free,  theres just, acceptable bugs, and unacceptable bugs. FE was very playable,  but lost players in other areas, such as the economy, the post apocalyptic setting, and a lot of the missing PvP elements that were added a little too late to keep the population.  (also they way overbalanced mutations 2 or so months after launch making some builds useless... don't know if they ever fixed it, I unsubbed shortly thereafter).

But I digress....  you see relatively few sandboxes because the biggest companies that make games see very few gains in creating them.  If people want to see more sandbox games, they have to be willing to show developers that the money will be there.   Its a catch 22... to say the least.

Originally posted by maskedweasel

Originally posted by Cik_Asalin

The reality for a long time has been that new apathetic definition of success for a mainstream themepark PvE-heavy subscription-based mmorpg's is one that sustains 200k-300k subscribers 6-months to a year out after selling 1million + boxes; history has proven that time and time again.

 

The exception has been facebook games like WoW and FarmVille, but I dont consider them really mmorpg entertainment outlets.

 

One of 2 things.  Either the market is tired, and has been tired of the afformentioned for some time, or those same mmorpg's are just not sandboxy enough to entertain an audiance that is not looking to pay $15/month for an overly glorified single-player rpg.

 

It's yet to be seen, but highly probable, that SWTOR is on the path of yet another heavy-pve single-player-esque non-massively-multiplayer design platform, which I think will just feed into what we've seen from those types of games, in terms of lack of sustained subscribership.

 

But at the same time, its funny to see Bioware back-peddle on a definition of success.  I recall a time when analysts said that EA and Bioware would need 2-million subscribers to turn a profit on a supposed $300 million development investment.  Then the supposed development budget was remarked to be closer to $150 million and only 500,000 subscribers are needed to break-even.  However, expect microtransactions blended into the business model to help support the financial return on TOR.

 

Then there is their illustrious publisher (EA).  lol  The publisher's (EA) last attempt to launch an MMO was Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning in 2008. Subscription numbers for the Mythic-developed titled got off to a strong start but quickly dwindled causing the publisher to shut down 63 servers a year later.

 

That was an outside analyst, not coming from EA specifically,  that was "1 million to break even" and that "2M+ was possible"

 

The 300 Million spent was a proven incorrect, rumored post by EALouse.   That was  AFTER EA released information that the budget for TOR was 150M.   There was no backpeddling by EA or BioWare anywhere there,  its a bunch of misinformation from outside sources.

 

TOR also said that Microtransactions (cosmetic items) are a possibility, and that the payment model will have a "twist" and won't just be a monthly sub (stating that instead of a monthly sub you may have other options to pay).   Nothing has been released on that so far.

 

Hope that clears things up for you.

haha.  Doesnt clear anything up, really.  What was once thought to be an "accounting error" is now shifted to another book that doesnt directly fall under the TOR accounting umbrella.  None-the-less.  Its still funny to see a studio strive for mediocrity.  And I am a Bioware fan, but will have a hard time justifying $15/month for one of their story-rich single-player rpgs.

Originally posted by Cik_Asalin

Originally posted by maskedweasel

 

Hope that clears things up for you.

haha.  Doesnt clear anything up, really.  What was once thought to be an "accounting error" is now shifted to another book that doesnt directly fall under the TOR accounting umbrella.  None-the-less.  Its still funny to see a studio strive for mediocrity.  And I am a Bioware fan, but will have a hard time justifying $15/month for one of their story-rich single-player rpgs.

I was just clarifying the point that you said EA was back-peddling.  So, to summarize, the only numbers Officially released by EA:  150 million dollar budget.  500K to break even.

Everything else you posted is speculative, especially the 300M dollar investment comment which would be about as truthful as someone using the age old troll:  "WoW was the first MMO."

Lastly, BioWare isn't expecting you to spend 15 dollars a month on a story rich single player RPG.  Thats why they're making an MMO.  

Originally posted by Cik_Asalin

haha.  Doesnt clear anything up, really.  What was once thought to be an "accounting error" is now shifted to another book that doesnt directly fall under the TOR accounting umbrella.  None-the-less.  Its still funny to see a studio strive for mediocrity.  And I am a Bioware fan, but will have a hard time justifying $15/month for one of their story-rich single-player rpgs.

Shrug. It still amazes me how people bash on SWTOR' story immersive questing that will replace the traditional MMO questing, as if those people are such heavy, passionate proponents of the text-based, no-decision-possible classic MMO questing. It's the ultimate in irony and double standards to me.

It's hard to take people seriously who can't at least see that BW's approach to questing will be an upgrade from what questing is in most current themepark MMO's.

As for sandbox lovers: it's clear to me that a considerable part of those have a very narrow taste, they only want an AAA sandbox MMO that is as polished and with a full feature set at launch as themepark MMO's as WoW or Rift were. If this wasn't true, interesting sandbox and hybrid MMO's as Xsyon, Ryzom, Fallen Earth and others would have gotten a lot more love and attention of those sandbox gamers.

But this didn't happen.

In my opinion it shows that a large group and maybe the majority of those ever-complaining, ever-themepark-MMO-bashing sandbox fans aren't actually fans of the sandbox genre itself, but are actually purely AAA sandbox MMO fans.

I predict that the majority of that last group won't stop complaining and will keep looking futilely for any MMO that can get them their MMO fix, until an ArcheAge or World of Darkness is released. And maybe even then some won't be satisfied.

I'd like to have Star Wars Galaxies 2 now.

Once the NGE 2.0... SW:TOR.... is in place and getting LucasArts its money.... Can we have SWG 2 then? You know, the sandbox game that it was from the start? I want that back.

Isn't this an article in PC Gamer?

I know some of you will knock what I'm about to say, but I don't care.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is the MMORPG that I have always wanted to play. Back in 2004 I started to play my very first MMO  (Which was a sandbox game) called Star Wars Galaxies. When I heard you could play as a Wookiee and live in the Star Wars Galaxy. I jumped in head first, but when played then and up until I left the game in early 2008. I always had ideas of what I thought would make SWG better. The CU was it and nor was the NGE, to tell the truth I didn't even care for the pre-cu. Alas I played on because it was Star Wars and it was an MMO filled with people to play with.

Well with all that said, here comes the kicker. All the ideas I had playing SWG. All the I wonder if and I wish this, questions I was asking in my head about making SWG beter. Seem to be what Bioware is developing TOR in to. Its like they were in my mind while I was playing SWG and now they are making a game I thought SWG was going to be and what I hoped it would become, but didn't.

So in short, no. TOR will not be for everyone, its going to be a game for the Star Wars fan, that wants to live out those childhoood movie fantasies. Its been a long time since I first saw the first Star Wars movie in 1985 (I was 7 years old.) on an old VHS cassette that I borrowed from my local library, but this 33 year old man still gets those fantasies at times. Just like that 7 year old so very long ago. That boys and girls is who TOR is being made for. Not just gamers, not just MMORPG fans, but for the Star Wars fan. Which a Star Wars fan can be a gamer and a MMORPG fan as well.

My point of view is that SWTOR only can be the biggest success in playernumbers since WoW while GW2 is a different business modell and can not compared with SWTOR but maybe offer a trend for different business approaches.

Story IS a big deal for me and i ever wanted a MMO that also covers the story aspect with a great telling, great ingame presentation.
Dragon Age and The Witcher be the latest RPGs i have played and i really want that level of Story/RPG in a MMORPG.

But its not true that Monolithic games be the future - at least not for big games.

For the sandbox games that have been released after original SWG, which is up today the best Sandbox i have experienced, all of them have one or more nogo for me, be it FFA-PvP, FPS controls.
FFA-PvP and FPS-Controls be a sin of dead to me in a RPG game, both belong to shooters, actiongames, sportgames...not a MMORPG.

For the monolithic approach imho this is only true for niche games.
A big mmo that has a big world can be that diversive that different areas of this big world offer specific gameplayelements for the different tastes of its players.
I would absolutely love a game that is a hybrid of Themepark + Sandbox.

I would love if EvE would add great storarcs that give it a sense of mystery, making the space interesting to explore to stumble over ancient artifacts, unknown aliens long disapeared, mysterious generation ships to explore with quest chains onbaord, while having to interact with the old EvE setting as well with different security zones etc. THIS would be really a great game then.

So for SWTOR i see many great aspects which i guess will work very well and i hope they do not go the Blizzard way but instead target to evolve AND add gameplay elements over the course of its live for a better experience not forgetting that there be many different tastes and all of them offer a business chance.

If you have 1 Million Themeparkers and can have 300k Sandboxers too how complicated is it to offer them some room to live ingame?
The engine is there, the Lore is there, the space is there, all the infrastructure is alreeady laid you only need to give it some room and you get in exchange a chance for some more money to make.

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Question:

How many unpolished and half finished , theme park MMOs made it big ?

Answer:

None

Same as sandbox , theme park , or whatever else.

Game needs to be polished and finished to suceed.

 

Your theory fails

 

 Obviously, you didn't play WoW when it first came out....

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

In my opinion it shows that a large group and maybe the majority of those ever-complaining, ever-themepark-MMO-bashing sandbox fans aren't actually fans of the sandbox genre itself, but are actually purely AAA sandbox MMO fans.

I would beg to differ.  I never got the sense that anyone in this thread was claiming that a pure sandbox game will be the type of mmorpg game that bucks the trend, the fact, that not one mainstream pure themepark, heavy pve, shoe-box cage-match pvp-only, linear mmorpg in the last 6-years has sustained what the studio remotely expected to sustain, but to see their subscribership numbers plummet to the 200-300k range 6-months to a year-out.

At least Bioware has pulled back on their expectations and consider themselves winners if they sustain 500k, from what I gather.  But I think if there were a PvEvP blended game, and forever have thought this way, that that model would do better.  It takes alot of work and talent, and the industry surely hasn't shown that they have the talent to deliver on anything that does any better than a predescessor.  But that's me.

Buggy, Polished,  theme park, or sandbox i if a Player does not find something fun about a game it will not be succesful. I played WWII online at launch and man that was one of the worst launches but I still found something fun about it.  I had a blast with it for 3 years.  SWG was buggy at launch played that until they add Jedi.  On the other side I played rift well polished game looks great but felt the same old to me. 

If SWTOR is a success it will be becuase it's fun to play but I have feeling that if they are coppied we will see some companies loose a lot of money.  Not sure how many more can afford this price tag outside of Blizzard for an MMO.

Originally posted by Axton

I seem to remeber a Star Wars semi-sand box game that everyone loved. Until the beast that kills MMO's did what it does.

 

 If you're talking about pre NGE SW:G, you're wrong. Not everyone loved that buggy, incomplete, macro-grind fest. The forums were full of beta testers who were screaming for the game to not be released in the state it was (missing whole professions), yet some people still look back on those horrible times with rose-tinted glasses and sigh dreamily. I never got why.

Star Wars has always been a theme park. I was always surprised Lucas didn't just build one-he's certainly exploited it in every other way.

However-I refuse to believe that an MMO from a company that has never made one before is going to influence the future of the genre. If it came from an established company that knows what it is doing-Turbine,NC Soft,Funcom,etc-I'd at least accept such a notion. But from MMO newbes-no way.They don't have the experience to influence anything.

Originally posted by Liltawen

Star Wars has always been a theme park. I was always surprised Lucas didn't just build one-he's certainly exploited it in every other way.

However-I refuse to believe that an MMO from a company that has never made one before is going to influence the future of the genre. If it came from an established company that knows what it is doing-Turbine,NC Soft,Funcom,etc-I'd at least accept such a notion. But from MMO newbes-no way.They don't have the experience to influence anything.

This is sarcasm, right ?

Originally posted by eric_w66

Originally posted by Axton

I seem to remeber a Star Wars semi-sand box game that everyone loved. Until the beast that kills MMO's did what it does.

 

 If you're talking about pre NGE SW:G, you're wrong. Not everyone loved that buggy, incomplete, macro-grind fest. The forums were full of beta testers who were screaming for the game to not be released in the state it was (missing whole professions), yet some people still look back on those horrible times with rose-tinted glasses and sigh dreamily. I never got why.

 

 Because it was the last big budget sandbox to be released and marked the end of an era when the NGE hit.

The only reason that sandbox games have not been supported properly over the last few years is that far from needing time to grow as the article states, they have been mostly unplayable out the box and nothing is sure to kill off a new MMO as quickly.  If one of the large developers took up the gauntlet and spent a decent amount of money to make a sandbox that was playable from day one it would get support.  Eve may not have been perfect at day one but it was playable and this is something that none of the recent sandboxes can claim to any great extent.

Bcs SWG was even in its bad state of release the best Sandbox game out there with a great IP as background showing off not only huge but superior potential to evolve into a really great virtual world game.
But after 3 month of life it was clear they had stepped away from their course and SOE is incapable to scoop its potential or even get aware of it.

Bioware has proofed they be capable of delivering high quality games and mmos today be not a secret science - they can, they will influence future MMO with SWTOR and that is written in stone!

My opinion will be perceived as simplistic and a bit naive but the facts speak for themselves.

People cherish and reward well made, well polished games which have high production values. They always did and always will. Rift is a prime example of a very polished, bug free MMO with instant success despite of not bringing anything new to the genre and having an overused generic fantasy setting and NOT a worldwide recognizable IP.

Now, consider what Bioware is making. All info till now points towards an MMO with polish and values well above anything we have experienced to this day. Add the Star Wars IP to this and you have an MMO bound for success. People stating that TOR will fail are either ignorant or just blindfolded haters.

Bioware is making a game with an outdated design.  There is literally no reason to stop playing Rift or World of Warcraft for this game, which has almost no distinguishing features other than each character gets to have his own story, effectively eliminating loads of player interaction.

And I've been a Bioware fan my whole video game playing career, but this is simply not gonna do well.  This game's imminent failure will let Blizzard dominate the market when they put out Titan.