Originally posted by bcbully

I agree.

 

Now if the paid beta is like AoW. More polished and more content than 3 of last years games put together, for $9... I'm crossing the line and buying in...

 

Let's talk about NDA too. NDA means your game is bad plain and simple. 

NDA there not for that reason it means it still need polish and could hurt the game if people thought this was a completed version of the game. Most games that arnt AAA company have a NDA for beta atleast early part of beta and thats because they cant afford or dont have the amount of people in there compoany to test the game well during early part of testing so they need 2 have other players test it for them. They have a NDA so videos dont go out of early phase testing and people think that its near release there lots of people out there who sees a beta/alpha video and decide they dont wanna play it cause its too buggy or what not.

Why do the ppl voting yes even play mmos ? talk about uncontrolled addiction. If I felt that way about anything I did for fun...I'd stop doing it and go find something.

I play these games because they're fun. When they'r enot I'll stop. I'm never going to join some mass protest or sit in....it makes me laugh just thinking about it.

Originally posted by Aerowyn
2012 was the best year for MMOs since 2004 IMHO,, had several MMOs with plenty of new ideas for the genre.. i feel 2013 with a slew of promising games coming  will build on what we saw in 2012.. I feel 2013 will be the best year for MMOs ever:)

I have to agree with you here, 2012 was the year that dev decided to do somthing new from the last 7 years some where good ideas other not so much, however from these companies trying new idea's it started to turn the gears of evolution for the genre, the genre been stuck for 7 years until 2012 and only now it starting to move forward again i think we will see alot more to come this year and next. GW2 was a large part of this movment a large company trying somthing new and was quite succesful and with that other AAA dev have noticed people quite alot of people want some change from what they been doing.

Remember when companies paid players to beta test games?

Originally posted by craftseeker

 

EQnext may be interesting, it may be here by the end of the year.  Or not. I have been starting to hear that it will have a strong PvP focus.  If so that to will be a game I will not download.

It still seems strange to me that in a genre called MMORPG that there are currently no games that encourage first person role playing.  The last of these seems to have been the first of these,  Everquest.

I garantee you there will be PvE only servers aswell as PvP ones.

Originally posted by Briansho
I agree with the topic creator. These companies are starting to give these games away for free. Take advantage of it and enjoy it. Stop giving them money from impulse purchases. They know there are people out there that can't control themselves. Don't fall for it!!!!

But at the same time you have Square Enix that took a loss from FFXIV, kept the servers up for free while they rebuilt the whole game (engine, servers, mechanics, content, all of it) that they will now offer to people who paid for the original FFXIV:ARR free in the hopes that they will subscribe when their trial is up.

In my opinion FFXIV:ARR may just be the savior of the subscription MMO as a genre, one that has been pecked away at as one by one nearly all other major AAA MMO's have fallen to F2P except WoW.

If subscription MMO's are going to last we need a sucess story like FFXIV.  For that reason all fans of AAA MMO's should be rooting for the game to suceed whether you personally want to play it or not, otherwise we are headed for a flood of cheap f2p and b2p cash ins.

VIVE LA FRANCE!!!!!!

son temps mon amis!!!

Originally posted by endgame1

I would say that if anyone is unhappy with the recent round of games released by big game companies, it would probably behoove you to fund promising projects through kickstarter or other means. Nothing against the video game corporations, per se, but it is their duty to maximize their profits for their shareholders. Unfortunately, that goal doesn't necessarily mean making a game as fun as possible, or being craetive, (often it means being risk averse). These days it seems game design decisions are often made by some bean counter with his MBA, rather than passionate game designers. More effort goes into the revenue generation aspects than any other features.

Right now it's completely possible for someone with game design experience to create a near AAA product via crowd funding, I'm hoping some of those projects end up changing the MMO landscape. Nothing wrong with a little competition. 

 

You make a valid sounding point about kickstarter funding.  I have just scanned the current list of projects on kickstarter, I found no game project there that would meet my criteria.  I am not a game developer, nor at my age do I have a desire to become one.

So what now?

Originally posted by beej1986
 

Remember when companies paid players to beta test games?

I also remember walking to school barefoot in the snow...uphill even...

Originally posted by oreal52

It's kind of hard to deliver the perfect MMO to those people that don't even know what they want

from an MMO.They want it to be sandbox but at the same time themeparkish.

They want openworld pvp but without full loot.

You can't give everyone exactly what they dream about.

The problem is that games try to cater to all of the players instead of creating diversity in the market and split the obviously huge amount of willing customers. All They do is delivering half assed games that are not good at anything.

Diversity! Make unique and diverse games not try to mash everything together.

Originally posted by endgame1

I would say that if anyone is unhappy with the recent round of games released by big game companies, it would probably behoove you to fund promising projects through kickstarter or other means. Nothing against the video game corporations, per se, but it is their duty to maximize their profits for their shareholders. Unfortunately, that goal doesn't necessarily mean making a game as fun as possible, or being craetive, (often it means being risk averse). These days it seems game design decisions are often made by some bean counter with his MBA, rather than passionate game designers. More effort goes into the revenue generation aspects than any other features.

Right now it's completely possible for someone with game design experience to create a near AAA product via crowd funding, I'm hoping some of those projects end up changing the MMO landscape. Nothing wrong with a little competition. 

Also, I don't understand why the OP lumped Age of Conan in with the anti crowd funding argument. AoC was a typical big budget/ big company game, no crowd funding involved at all. Things like cash shops, pre-order perks, pay for beta, NDA's and pre-release press bans aren't in anyway unique to crowd funded games either. Many AAA titles have those things too. You seem slightly lost; you don't like the AAA games that have been released, apparently, but then you vehemently attack crowd funding projects. Who would you like to make your games then? Because right now it's pretty much either Joe Shmoe CEO and his WoW clone or other shallow garbage game, or it's a project that needs alternative sources of funding. Nowhere in your post do you mention a game/company/dev you support. 

Age of Conan was a good example of a game that did not deliver what was promised and intentionally mislead the public with a beta that had nothing to do with the rest of the game.

The same is true for recently released games, just now they try to extract as much money from the gamers as possible before the release. It's all about pre-order, payed BETA and Full price box products now. What they deliver in the end is not what they been preaching during the hype.

We should not encourage this behaviour is all i am saying.

 

Finally, Path of Exile isn't really trying to be a MMO, it's on this site the same way ARPG's like Diablo 3 and Torchlight 2 are listed on this site. I don't play it, but I'm not sure why someone shouldn't support it if they enjoy playing it. 

They can support it if they like it, but it's not an MMO and the MMO crowd should not support it. Some are being mislead into believing these are MMOs, when in reality they are not.

Nothing wrong with supporting them if you like them, the post was about MMO's not ARPG's.

 

Originally posted by DamonVile

Why do the ppl voting yes even play mmos ? talk about uncontrolled addiction. If I felt that way about anything I did for fun...I'd stop doing it and go find something.

I play these games because they're fun. When they'r enot I'll stop. I'm never going to join some mass protest or sit in....it makes me laugh just thinking about it.

You are funny, there is no mass protest. This post is trying to make people think about what is going on and then make a decision if they want to support companies that behave like that. You can do whatever you want with your money and time my friend.

holy shit, I just looked at cyberpunk 2077 trailer.

Thanks OP, didnt know about this.

Originally posted by Maephisto

holy shit, I just looked at cyberpunk 2077 trailer.

Thanks OP, didnt know about this.

You are welcome. I am hoping for this one, if its as dark and mature as the original pen and paper we could ahve a winner. Time will tell.

Originally posted by beej1986
 

Remember when companies paid players to beta test games?

Riiight you dont seem to understand what being a profesional game tester is actually about. BETA testing is not the same thing. A game tester doesnt play games, he plays husks that one day will become games. Actually no he doesnt even "play" them he endevours to break them, then repeat the same process numerous times, writing reports on his outcome. No one has ever paid for "testing" a game in "BETA" as mmo gamers know the terms...Gamers go into a beta and want to play, fuck feedback and constructive criticism.

you never know, it might actually be a good year for MMORPGs :3

we just have to wait and see, its only been 1month and a few weeks since the year started we dont have to be pessimistic about things :3

You make it sounds like MMO used to release in good shape but that the quality have dropped the last few years...

MMOs have always been crappy at release, only 2 exceptions I seen was LOTRO (which had very little content) and Guildwars (which was a CORPG), the rest all been terrible (and this includes M59, EQ, Wow and the rest).

As for this year being bad, it seems pretty same as any other year. A few games releasing, one or 2 seems very promising.

But I agree that people should check up the games a lot better before buying any, and in many cases wait 6-12 months until a game is playworthy.

So uh, While I enjoy your enthusiasm OP and also want a change...theres a reason companies pay millions for advertising, it works. So companies will still spoon feed theme park mmorpgs to the masses and they will swallow graciously.

But there is good news. Theres risk takers out there like Camelot unchained. Perhaps the change is coming. 

Also it feels like theme park MMORPG trend has peaked and stalled. Even those casuals, those green, new born MMORPG babies are wanting something different.

I totaly agree with the OP, but it seems that most of the people responding are exhibiting nothing more than apathy and belief in the uselessness of a unified agreement to anything.

In a nutshell most people nowdays  dont care what any of you believe in and only care about what they believe in

There is really no common ground other than unified stupity.....So in the end people want the status quo, they love it! Their actions show it......might as well drop it

Originally posted by Matticus75

I totaly agree with the OP, but it seems that most of the people responding are exhibiting nothing more than apathy and belief in the uselessness of a unified agreement to anything.

In a nutshell most people nowdays  dont care what any of you believe in and only care about what they believe in

There is really no common ground other than unified stupity.....So in the end people want the status quo, they love it! Their actions show it......might as well drop it

ROFLMAO how many MMORPG players are there at the moment 10milliion? 12million? more?

How many are going to read this thread?  300?  500?  maybe 10,000?  Even if we all agreed that doing what the OP suggests is the right thing and did it  no one else would notice.

As a person who pretty much practices what the Op is preaching about, I only buy games I've tried and found enough reediming quality in to warrant a purchase. I can count the MMO's I've purchased on one hand. DAOC, SWG, AOC and SWTOR. The first too had what I wanted from a game-play perspective the last two had my guild (from SWG) playing and a presentation I enjoyed while it lasted. I can still pick up AOC and have some fun for free, which is a plus. TOR I am playing through free to see the class stories I missed at the moment. SWG was the only MMO I purchased blindly at release, yet turned out to be one of my favorite gaming experiences of all time.

The thing that people like the OP need to understand is, everyone wants something different from the games they play. Meaning a game can look like a total rip to one person, yet at the same time it could also be anothers dream come true. This is basically true for all things, games are no exception. A person who likes current MMO's is not living in a dream world as the OP suggested earlier in this thread. That says to me the OP does not understand the first line of this paragraph. It seems the OP doesn't understand his criteria for a purchasable game is not universal and will never be. I base that on the things I'm reading him write. If I'm wrong I apologize, all I can suggest is that you catch more flies with honey.