Boy, I think someof you folks, in years to come, are going to be embarrased by your wholehearted swallowing of the Star Citizen Hollywood fluff.  Even cursory research reveals a number of long delayed projects, money wastage, and undelivered features in these guys' past.   Roberts' movie production does not speak of good judgement or creativity to me.  Especially for someone who was widely viewed by his company's co-workers as prefering making movies to making games.

Maybe you'll get a half decent space FPS, but for the rest.....don't hold your breath.

Sadly, most fantasy worlds are not that creatively done, and that's before you even get to game fantasy worlds.   Making good, open fantasy world games is not easy to do, and not easy to continue to develop and run.   Cross your fingers and support the ones that you do find to your liking. 

Originally posted by Arglebargle

Boy, I think someof you folks, in years to come, are going to be embarrased by your wholehearted swallowing of the Star Citizen Hollywood fluff.  Even cursory research reveals a number of long delayed projects, money wastage, and undelivered features in these guys' past.   Roberts' movie production does not speak of good judgement or creativity to me.  Especially for someone who was widely viewed by his company's co-workers as prefering making movies to making games.

Maybe you'll get a half decent space FPS, but for the rest.....don't hold your breath.

 

Sadly, most fantasy worlds are not that creatively done, and that's before you even get to game fantasy worlds.   Making good, open fantasy world games is not easy to do, and not easy to continue to develop and run.   Cross your fingers and support the ones that you do find to your liking. 

Good thoughts to consider. With Jumpgate, Black Prophesy etc all burning, the space for SC is wide open, so it's already going to surf on top of that wave of being better/different from other space rpgs/mmo-ifieds.

-

Agree about fantasy world need to be developed to a high level of detail and standard. But it's not the IP -> design that's the major problem (you could say Games Workshop might have caused problems but even that pales), it's Design -> IP that is going wrong; looks like the same thing but the IP SHOULD BE FLEXIBLE eg take a corner of the world that's sandbox/exemplary etc - it can easily be done. But the design of themepark mmorpg to every IP just does not fit eg WAR: Each faction is separate! Creating destro vs order was incredibly bad move when viewing 2-faction themepark -> Warhammer IP eg. Even taking mmorpg, a back step or two, perhaps RTS is better fit? etc etc.

I think when UO introduced the concept of "player housing"... what was so charming/alluring about it was it was an actual PLACE. You could leave Britan or Skae-Brae... and go to your house. You had a key for it that you had to protect like your own first born. It was a place you could run to if an enemy player was attacking you and save yourself.

It was where you could store your loot when your bank ran out. It was where you could safely duel a friend. It was where you could practice skills like magery without fear of being killed or pick pocketted. 

Lastly, if you owned a house... you literally owned that piece of the MMORPG. It was a part of the massive world that was yours and yours alone.  

It seems so often developers who get focused on Player Housing think that if they deliver some instanced house with a few hundred design options, that it satisfies all the feelings of old school housing. Ever since UO, every bit of "housing" in any MMO I've ever played is just pointless fluff, since it's not meaningful.

If an MMO wants to rekindle that UO-housing feel, they need to really take a look at what made it special, and it wasn't just the ability to decide if the floors were wood or stone. 

Originally posted by winter

Originally posted by Theocritus
     Darkfall was probably on the right track, but it used a format (ffa pvp) that the majority of gamers just don't like.....WoW came pretty close but it was too easy for old school MMO vets and it fell short......I think someone will get it right but it may take awhile to get out of the WoW rut that so many MMOs seem to be stuck in atm.

 If Darkfalls on the right track then the genre really is doomed.

 

He wasn't saying it is . . "was probably" . . suggesting there were parts that were.

Originally posted by coretex666

I hope that Blizz's Titan is not a shallow themepark.

I also hope that they are making WoW so casual because it is dated and they need to squeeze as much money from it as possible before it dies (which is what you are supposed to do in this product life cycle stage, imo) and not because it is their current philosophy for making games.

While I consider Arche Age to be a step in the right direction in many aspects, I am afraid that it will not be that new big thing.

Blizzard cannot be trusted yet,they made literally millions and Wow is stil la cheap looking effort missing content that even Archeage will have upon release.Yes they did license a reputable game engine,which is a step in the right direction,but that means very little,what you do with it matters more.The OBVIOUS choice IF you plan on going epic is to license the Unreal tech engine,they did not,tha ttells me they got a deal and are already cutting corners.

I do give Blizzard a chance however, a little more than some other devs but not as much as the other big devs.

I look forward to AA but i agree,it will not be the EPIC game we look for.

SOE imo houses a lot of qualified people under their roof but many are making games for their  console divisions.The other major problem is Smedley is going all out cash shop,he has given up going for mass numbers.Smedley  instead is banking on a product that will attract B2p players or big spenders.It means less servers,less overhead a larger profit margin.SOE=cash shop=fail.

If i was to go Epic it would be with EPIC games or perhaps Valve [half life].

After losing their shirt on FFXIV,Sqaure the biggest player in this market,won't be going Epic again for a very long time.

Few other notables like Rockstar who has made a lot of money and i simply do not trust EA.None of the other developers in the MMORPG market can deliver,i am 90% positive of that.

Originally posted by I_Return
I could

So could I, but it would appeal to less than 1% of the current player base.  Most everyone grumpiong here every weekend, would still be here grumping.

Trick is finding the producer that's willing to live with 100k instead of 10mill.

When people are allowed to invest time and money in return for real influence, and the opportunity to shape a game they take on a very different role from the one that we see most gamers in today. Most mmorpg players view their subscription fee as granting access to a themepark that has been designed to meet their needs. Yet what they really need is a genuine stake in what they are doing. Going to a movie doesn't involve any interaction with the other people in the room, and it certainly doesn't ever entail a period of time before the film is made where people can provide their own thoughts and suggestions. If it did we would probably have better films. Likewise, games like Star Citizen are benefitting from the involvement from the playerbase. WoW's interface design benefitted in the same ways. Players were given access to aspects of the game and the things they created were truly outstanding. WoW interface addons changed the way the game was played forever. Many of the greatest games have aspects where the community has come in and had the opportunity to do things that the developers never planned for, and it is often those things that make games truly epic. 

A long time ago I used to play MUDs, and one of the developers named Kavir, who created the godwars codebase using some other codebases, wrote a blog post about the unintended consequences of game code. Things that players do that a game designer never expected that were truly clever, and resourceful. They were often little things. 

I think if we want a truly epic fantasy game we need a living world, where encounters aren't scripted, they are created in the minds of players who are given the tools they need to carry them out. Whether these are simple village raids, castle sieges, fighting some huge dragon that threatens the world, or whatever it is. 

The other thing that makes a world epic (and not a game) is that epic things only happen once. That's what makes them epic. This means that content must be generated at a pace that far exceeds what current mmorpgs have been able to produce, which also means that content production needs to be placed in the hands of players to the greatest degree possible. How this is done exactly would be up to the team, but think controlled chaos. =) Anyway those are my two cents on what needs to happen in order to create a truly epic fantasy world.  Also, I think Eve should have been mentioned in this article as a sci-fi mmorpg that has done an amazing job of creating an epic, unscripted player experience for many people.

I've said it now for a while and we are now approaching the age of the hybrid MMO rather than one or the other. We have SOE coming with EQNext which will be an hybrid and IMO more PVE hevey than PVP although it will have a great PVP system.

ArcheAge

EQNext

Age Of Wushu

There are numerous other hybrid MMO's coming our way over the next three years. Games like GW2 may have a different combat system from your trypical themepark but it's not original. There are other MMO's where i can use any weapon and other MMO's with the action combat that have come before GW2.

On top of that it really lacks many MMO featrures that other MMO's have, it's a quick fix and not a world where you think you could live in for years.

Star Citizen has some great features and it has a known dev who has proven himself already. All these other dev jumping on the bandwagon are not going to get our money so quickly, we know what we want.

I don't know why the OP goes on about housing because many games already have it. Vanguard has a great housing system and it's race specific. A Kojan house does not look the same as a Qalian house or Thestrian house.

The furniture is different and eveything about each house.

Age Of Wushu is the closet you can get to what the OP is discribing what he would like to see in MMO's.

I actually think EQNext, whatever it may be, is going to be that game.

But like any SOE release, it will be buggy and broken and will still be a niche title.

I just hope they get the character models right... EQ2 has one of if not the worst character models and animations of any MMO I've played. Fuuuuuuugly.

Actually, Titan is going to be the next big thing, sometime, maybe, eventually, when the sun novas...

Originally posted by allendale5
Player funded MMO's will only work if the devs actually incorporate the player suggestions into the game.  I feel that if they don't do it in a meaningful way, then it is no different than any other high risk IPO insofar as they are spreading their costs out on an up-front basis as opposed to recouping it through subscriptions and coin shops.  Players, beware.

Player funded MMO's will not work - they still need an infusion of a large amount of cash from somewhere. ALso, listening to palyer suggestions is many times detrimental to the game itself. I mean, take Rift, in the first 2 weeks after it was released they nerfed builds so much so they were unplayable and that was based on players comments/suggestions. Players are very self-serving and do not care if others areaffected. They only care about themselves.

There is nothing wrong with some of the games out now. Are they perfect no way and they could be improved immensely but also the companies have to follow their own designs and be true to them.

People who say they could make the next big MMO - I say put up or shut up. There are too many backseat quarterbacks and not enough people actually trying to do something about it.

Originally posted by Rlechot
Citadel of Sorcery is bringing everything to the table. They created their own fantasy storyline and they created their own software engine. The game is going to give everyone what they seek in a MMO. From player housing, crafting, to PvP, to in depth story questing that is specific to every person individually. Do yourself a favor and really look at the program they are putting together. There is nothing else like this game if they can deliver what they say they can. I'm not blowing smoke, I have been looking for some kind of MMO that gives all the aspects of what Star Wars Galaxies offered pre NGE and I found it with CoS.

http://www.gameindustry.com/interview/item.asp?id=72

You already have it: GUILD WARS 2.

It is already Outstanding 3 months after realese...Give it a couple of years more...a couple of expansions...