"As if the forums aren't depressing enough, we now have official doomsaying pieces like this?

The future has plenty of releases and re-releases to look forwards to for all playstyles, it's really no different then it's always been."

My nan also told me that people that cant see the trouble in the genre are generally fanboys. Congrats

Hmmm Themepark's attract a customer base for 3-6 months, so 1,000,000 @ $60 + 6 months of subs @ 12 is $72,000,000, usually the f2p hits in the 8-12 month mark lately so call it 90 mil before f2p conversion,and thats being generous for any game out lately.

Sandboxes have a lower population, but usually a longer shelflife, even at 1/2 to 1/3 the population, it stands to reason that a sandbox would make more money in the longhaul, even if it is offset by the longterm vs shortterm overhead.  I really can't see why there is not a market for another sandbox game (think this is the beginning of me looking at MMOGCharts)

Originally posted by soulmirror

Hmmm Themepark's attract a customer base for 3-6 months, so 1,000,000 @ $60 + 6 months of subs @ 12 is $72,000,000, usually the f2p hits in the 8-12 month mark lately so call it 90 mil before f2p conversion,and thats being generous for any game out lately.

Sandboxes have a lower population, but usually a longer shelflife, even at 1/2 to 1/3 the population, it stands to reason that a sandbox would make more money in the longhaul, even if it is offset by the longterm vs shortterm overhead.  I really can't see why there is not a market for another sandbox game (think this is the beginning of me looking at MMOGCharts)

Sorry but not true.  When you are talking about things like genre vs genre you can't just ignore Wow cause its the popular thing to do.  Wow has made more money then all Sandbox MMO's in history combined so saying Sanbox MMO's make more money then Themepark ones is just false.  I realize pretty much all Themepark MMO's in the last few years have failed, honestly so have pretty much all Sandbox MMO's other then Eve.  That doesn't ignore the fact in total amount made Themeparks have been way more profitable then Sandbox MMOs.  Doesn't mean they are better games but it does mean they make more money...even longterm.

After many years of different games being overhyped, leading to letdowns, and the next overhyped game - perhaps a lack of overhyping games is what is actually needed.  It's time for folks to put their little boy pants on, sit at their little computers, look at their little screens as they log into their little games...and have a little fun.  If you're always looking for what's coming, you're never going to see what's here.

I think this generation needs a dose of the 80s...

http://www.billboard.com/features/the-10-best-80s-music-videos-poll-results-1005299832.story#/features/the-10-best-80s-music-videos-poll-results-1005299832.story

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3DC360AA714A7969

That was a boring piece of article, and I'm inclined to agree with the Editor's Note, I wouldn't class it as a humor column either.

The article itself doesn't even seem to fit with it's title of "The Age of Boredom". Something along the lines of "I hyped myself too much for every MMORPGs that came out and ended up being disappointed, and now there's nothing on the horizon to be hyped about". Only 2 paragraphs of the whole article could be related to it's title, while the rest falls down to "how I fell for the hype train".

There's also this part that bothered me "I became a victim of the system", no, you became a victim of yourself. A few classes on Critical Thinking would come in handy.

And I won't point you to "upcoming games to get excited for". Why? Because history will repeat itself.

Originally posted by Kyleran
Welcome to the dark ages of mmorpgs, so glad you decided to stop by.

Nice :)

This little short and sweet number will be my new sig (assuming there are no objections).

Originally posted by vorpal28

Originally posted by Aeolron
Thing is sandbox is not the way to go, it just won't sell. For people like us vets yeah it'll sell well but the issue is the game will face similar issues then what most wow clones faced , they need to make a game that's like the old EQ, that game was a world period, he'll you could swim clear to other areas or continents , and then get eaten by a shark and loose your corpse lol , what needs to happen is they need to bring back the hardcore elements to mmorpg, because way back when a mmorpg was a advanced rpg that required people to play the game with, soloing did not exists , or was very hard too. Today's games are too into your story ect and focus mostly on solo content we cant have that anymore if we want this genre to survive and thrive, we need a harsh death system and not just quests. It worlds that require grouping.

I couldn't agree more, bring back grouping and some form of meaningful challenge

 

I agree. Partly.  Bring back the freedom of EQ but allow options.  Part of the issue with bringing back 'old' EQ is that not everyone likes or wants 'old' EQ.  With options they could have servers (like the progression servers) where people could log on with old rule sets. (corpse runs, grouping, etc).  Then have other servers that allow mercenaries, PoK, etc.

What I (still) love about EQ is how I could do whatever I wanted (quests, mob kills, tradeskills, etc) when I wanted without restriction.  This allowed me to play how I wanted. 

Games today spend too much time directing you either to questing with weak side quest elements or complete freedom but no story or strong context to keep you playing.

I still believe if they did a 'remake' of EQ (update graphics or new graphics engine, but keep the core game mechanics) they would have a winner on their hands.

The problem is that the market of mmorpg's is changing and the developers are being dumb sadly. They are all triyng to be like wow but better, why dont they instead of copying wow bring in new players with an amazing idea and more player freedom. Let the players create things sand box games do great like SWG. But everyone copies wow it is like american developers are like how can we copy wow but reskin it to look cooler than it. Dont believe me here are examples

Rift, Swtor, Swg combat upgrade, Eq 2 and many more but the point is you play these games and you think they are boring because when you break it down the mechanics are ALL the same!!!!

fact is there are far to many RPG's out there. I stopped playing RPG's seriously years ago. Now I get all my innovation from games like the world battle series (tanks,warplanes,warships) and games like eve. Eve is doing innovation with cross-game cross-platform and the world series is planning on doing a huge cross-game battlefield. 

Both of those are something to look forward to, and theres lots more, specially when it comes to indie games (0x10c, FTL:Faster than light, starhip corporation and many others). You just have to look outside the relam of the traditional MMO to find great content.

favoring console games-really?...u have no business writing here, furthermore trashing a great franchise like warhammer- just spellls 'TROLL.' for me.

horrible article.

Note: if you are 12 and you are reading this, you are not a moron. CoD players can’t read.

^ this. brilliant!

Originally posted by MindTrigger

I think the most exciting games are yet to come for those of us who can't wait until there is more than just the standard themepark MMO garbage the industry has been spewing out for the last eight years.  Games like The Repopulation, Arch Age, the new Day Z mmo in the works and others that are willing to take a chance on emergent gameplay rather than scripted, linear amusement park MMO's have me very much looking forward to the future.

It's time for player and community driven MMO gaming to come back.  Themeparks have few places left to go.  Look at TSW and GW2.  Those two games have pushed thempark to it's ultimate expression (more or less), and now we need to make old things new again by starting to bring sandbox gaming, horizontal progression, emergent gameplay, community, non-combat features, deep crafting and other much more interesting adventures.  Give me a deep game I can spend a couple years playing again.  I don't want another 2-3 month passing fancy.  Bring back virtual worlds.

well said ! EQ2's world is very involving in every way, anywhere you went there was "stuff" happenning and every path has the potential for adventure.

I am so suprised that no one has mentioned Darkfall online.  4 years going indie sandbox and releasing  Darkfall online : Unholy Wars November 20.  

It has more depth and entertainment than any other MMO i have played, and i started with Ultima Online 14 years ago.  A lot of people experienced a lot of pain with the intial release of the game and wrote it off, but after the 1 year mark they had things worked out.  

Being in a sandbox game is one of those things that makes me quote "if you're bored you're boring" .  

The issue with the entire industry right now is we have a bunch of  WoW clones running around and no one wants to play them since they can just go play wow with all of their friends. Then the issue of the unique sand box games no one plays because they are so small and none of them have done the proper way of building it. For instance look at SwG that game was amazing and was an entire sand box game. That game was so well built before they went all wow clone on us. Also the stupid companies dont advertis, if there are 40million people playing mmo's and you dont advertise then you will always have to compete with the other companies. 

Sand box mmo's do work but the issue is no one get's their name out and there are or were hardly any good ones out. And look at it this way, the average person does not like to wait for more content to be added by the devs and they dont want the same thing over and over again. Well if the players are creating it constantly then there is no delay for the content to be released and that way there is a constant flow of content being added to the game. And the content will be more unique. 

Another thing when it came to CoH and there little quest making system the players would get rewarded with the tickets if people acutally played and liked the mission, which is another thing that people should like. And the game company also gets it better because the more content there is in the game then they can work longer on their patches and add more stuff to the game.

Another thing that mmo's are lacking which is a good idea i think is a dual economy system liek in Diablo 3. these work because the hard working players can make money in virtual or study the trends and make money for their own spending.