F2P MMOs are all the rage, while subscription games appear to have fallen on tough times. Dana thinks he knows why and it has nothing to do with how people pay for them. It's all about accessibility in this week's edition of Dana Massey Asks "Why Not?"

Ask yourself this: What do World of Warcraft and virtually every F2P game have in common? And what do Age of Conan, Warhammer Online and others have in common?

Many people say Funcom and Mythic copied WoW, but if they did, they forgot to rip off the single most important thing. Blizzard even published that top secret design document on bottom of the box.

It was the system requirements.

This is what F2P games and WoW share the most. Forget design, forget art style. They can all be run by a wad of chewing gum and a rubber band.

Read it all here.

I agree whole heartedly man. People who can't run or play your game arn't going to buy it. People are not going to pay 500-1000 bucks everytime a new MMO comes out just to play it.

Couple that with the fact that every configuration is different and you see why consoles are doing better than the PC. It's not piracy it's barriers to entry.

Give me SW:TOR that will play (at over 15fps) and look nice on a $500 laptop and you have a winner. If it only runs at 15fps on with 4gb of ram and a quad core processor... well.. .you'll sell 5 copies.

This is why free trials are so important, and also why people want into betas so bad. Most want to try to see if the game's fun, sure, but if it's fun and it runs like shit they either don't spend the money or try and justify spending the cost of the game, monthly fees, AND the massive upgrade costs.

I don't care what game it is. If I have to spend $500 just to play it... i'm not going to. Now all you "hardcore" gamers are thinking "well quit playing on an intellivision" but you are the same people that whine and cry like premature babies when the servers are empty on the biggest baddest games... and then quit 2 months later.

You make some good points, but I've played both subscription and FTP and much prefer a good subscription game. It isn't just for the better  graphics, but for the overall gameplay that is much better. I have played Runes of Magic and found that to be pretty decent gameplay. The subscription games are running into problems pulling in numbers of players, but it isn't all because of the higher system requirements. I've been in a few betas and when I chose not to buy the game at release, it was because I didn't enjoy the gameplay style.

I see one of the main problems is that the games are released in unfinished states. The developers don't have the time to do everything needed before release. They claim that after release certain things will be added later. One of the danger signs is when beta testers try to tell the developers what they don't find fun, but aren't listened to. I'm not referring to single poster gripes, but when several posters say the same thing. The beta testers are going to be the backbone of the game at release and most are veteran players who understand what makes a good game fun. I knew Tabula Rasa would be a flop when they made the dumb changes they did just before release. That game had good potential, as have others that didn't become as popular as the developers had hoped. Some games do still survive and become niche games with a small but solid core of players.
 

I wouldn't go so far as to blame the failures of AoC, WAR, etcetera on their demanding graphics, but you make some very good points. Kudos for an excellent article.

Every graphics artist in my department, and those I see at the conventions, and on industry forums talks about this issue nearly nonstop. How do we make great looking art, in games or otherwise, while making it accessible at the same time? The nearest thing I can think of is optimization. It takes not only incredible coders to make it happen, but the art department has to be top scale too. We are often the ones who know best how to shrink the files we use. Hell, some of us get paid just to optimize animations, rigs, models, and textures themselves! It can get that bad. I personally think they don't spend enough time teaching how to take that great cinematic model that you made for a school assignment, and shrink the file size to it's least possible size. What we DO get however, are meshes that have too many polys, textures that are too large for their purpose, rigs with vertices that will never be animated, or animations with waaaaaay too many keyframes. That is just from an artist's stand point. I'm sure the coders can sometimes do better jobs at cleaning up their code. I think I read somewhere else recently about messy code in mmo's, so I won't get into that too much.

Unfortunately those of us that have been in a studio for a little while, rarely have the time to teach the new recruits how to condense their work. When the bean counters give us enough time to "finish" our work without seperating our screens to create a hammock at night, then the leaders on the teams might have time to run "tutorials" for the newer guys. In my own experience, that makes a world of difference. IT departments will also love it. Especially since that means we may be breaking Autodesk products less...

I am sorry, but I think this one is making it too easy.

GTA: San Andreas had no low reqs. GTA 4 has pretty high specs.

 Sims 3 is quite hardware hungry, Spore is despite its looks not that happy with a low-end machine either. CoD4 sold like hot buns, yet wants quite a machine. Oblivion, The Witcher, Fallout 3...... there is a huuuuge number of gamers and interested people who do have good machines.

There is accessability, and there is laziness. The latter one is the problem. Age of Conan and especially Warhammer ran like crap because their engines are not well-coded. They are not well-made, and are not suited to the demands of an MMORPG. Look at Aion: It runs BETTER than WoW once about 20 people are on screen, and looks infinitely better. Look at Guild Wars, a game that can handle basically anything without dying.

WoW isnt even particularly well-coded. As soon as you got more than about 20 to 30 characters on screen, anything even remotely near the minimum reqs just dies. I had guildmates who met the recommended reqs, and couldnt enter Dalaran during Primetime, and we had to move their characters on our machines to Naxxramas.

The relatively lower system specs may well have helped WoW at its launch, but today, anything but empty zones full of solo quests requires much more power than can be justified with the bad graphics and tech.

What matters is using an engine, using tech that is suited to the demands of a MMORPG. You dont have to have it run on a calculator to be successful, there are millions of players out there whose rigs are not hamster-wheel-powered with wooden dial-up and a broken bathroom mirror as screen. What you need is to do what Guild Wars did, what Aion did, create a game engine that isnt a rip-off of a singleplayer shooter, but that works for 60 people on screen.

And that means scrap the 20 shaders, real-time physics and 30-layer-textures, leave those to the powerhouses that can make them manageable like a good Shooter. Hire the best of the best texture artists, use a decent netcode, polish the hell out of your code, and your game will both look excellent, and run well. Maybe it could be prettier, yeah. But crappy graphics with the excuse of accessability is not the way to go.

Today is not 5 years ago.

Originally posted by Khaunshar

I am sorry, but I think this one is making it too easy.

GTA: San Andreas had no low reqs. GTA 4 has pretty high specs.

 Sims 3 is quite hardware hungry, Spore is despite its looks not that happy with a low-end machine either. CoD4 sold like hot buns, yet wants quite a machine. Oblivion, The Witcher, Fallout 3...... there is a huuuuge number of gamers and interested people who do have good machines.

There is accessability, and there is laziness. The latter one is the problem. Age of Conan and especially Warhammer ran like crap because their engines are not well-coded. They are not well-made, and are not suited to the demands of an MMORPG. Look at Aion: It runs BETTER than WoW once about 20 people are on screen, and looks infinitely better. Look at Guild Wars, a game that can handle basically anything without dying.

WoW isnt even particularly well-coded. As soon as you got more than about 20 to 30 characters on screen, anything even remotely near the minimum reqs just dies. I had guildmates who met the recommended reqs, and couldnt enter Dalaran during Primetime, and we had to move their characters on our machines to Naxxramas.

The relatively lower system specs may well have helped WoW at its launch, but today, anything but empty zones full of solo quests requires much more power than can be justified with the bad graphics and tech.

What matters is using an engine, using tech that is suited to the demands of a MMORPG. You dont have to have it run on a calculator to be successful, there are millions of players out there whose rigs are not hamster-wheel-powered with wooden dial-up and a broken bathroom mirror as screen. What you need is to do what Guild Wars did, what Aion did, create a game engine that isnt a rip-off of a singleplayer shooter, but that works for 60 people on screen.

And that means scrap the 20 shaders, real-time physics and 30-layer-textures, leave those to the powerhouses that can make them manageable like a good Shooter. Hire the best of the best texture artists, use a decent netcode, polish the hell out of your code, and your game will both look excellent, and run well. Maybe it could be prettier, yeah. But crappy graphics with the excuse of accessability is not the way to go.

Today is not 5 years ago.

Well, I did make it simple, I will add that the core logic was that the sheer time investment/fees make the MMO pool smaller. People will buy the Sims and shooters because you play them, and put em away. They have a much wider captive audience.

The MMO audience itself is a lot smaller. Thus, don't limit yourself to high end PCs.

I agree there is more to it than not packing in the polys, but that is a start.

Interesting points, and while I agree that requiring a super computer limits one demographics from the start. Lets not overlook the FUN FACTOR.  Its what grabs and keeps people. Fun is different things to different people. But like it or not, Blizzard has demonstrated that they know how to apply it. For all of WoW's faults(which are legion...) its a fun game up to level cap.

Eye candy is all well and good, but it can and does work against a game, if it jacks the system requirements in to LEO.  What is required are talented EXPERIENCED artists(such as some of  those in the FPS side of gaming) who know how to optimize. The same applies to the technical staff in general. But both classes of people tend to cost MORE than throwing inexperienced people at a project. Bean counters can be the absolute BANE of a project, if they are allowed to make mission critical decisions.

Management needs to be familiar enough with the tech/art side to understand what is realistic in terms of time/talent and combine that with the input of the bean counters when making decisions.  Over and above that is a *complete* understanding of what demographic the game is targeted at.  If one attempts to be all things to all people, its a open invitation at failure.

Originally posted by Dana

Originally posted by Khaunshar

I am sorry, but I think this one is making it too easy.

GTA: San Andreas had no low reqs. GTA 4 has pretty high specs.

 Sims 3 is quite hardware hungry, Spore is despite its looks not that happy with a low-end machine either. CoD4 sold like hot buns, yet wants quite a machine. Oblivion, The Witcher, Fallout 3...... there is a huuuuge number of gamers and interested people who do have good machines.

There is accessability, and there is laziness. The latter one is the problem. Age of Conan and especially Warhammer ran like crap because their engines are not well-coded. They are not well-made, and are not suited to the demands of an MMORPG. Look at Aion: It runs BETTER than WoW once about 20 people are on screen, and looks infinitely better. Look at Guild Wars, a game that can handle basically anything without dying.

WoW isnt even particularly well-coded. As soon as you got more than about 20 to 30 characters on screen, anything even remotely near the minimum reqs just dies. I had guildmates who met the recommended reqs, and couldnt enter Dalaran during Primetime, and we had to move their characters on our machines to Naxxramas.

The relatively lower system specs may well have helped WoW at its launch, but today, anything but empty zones full of solo quests requires much more power than can be justified with the bad graphics and tech.

What matters is using an engine, using tech that is suited to the demands of a MMORPG. You dont have to have it run on a calculator to be successful, there are millions of players out there whose rigs are not hamster-wheel-powered with wooden dial-up and a broken bathroom mirror as screen. What you need is to do what Guild Wars did, what Aion did, create a game engine that isnt a rip-off of a singleplayer shooter, but that works for 60 people on screen.

And that means scrap the 20 shaders, real-time physics and 30-layer-textures, leave those to the powerhouses that can make them manageable like a good Shooter. Hire the best of the best texture artists, use a decent netcode, polish the hell out of your code, and your game will both look excellent, and run well. Maybe it could be prettier, yeah. But crappy graphics with the excuse of accessability is not the way to go.

Today is not 5 years ago.

Well, I did make it simple, I will add that the core logic was that the sheer time investment/fees make the MMO pool smaller. People will buy the Sims and shooters because you play them, and put em away. They have a much wider captive audience.

The MMO audience itself is a lot smaller. Thus, don't limit yourself to high end PCs.

I agree there is more to it than not packing in the polys, but that is a start.

Yeah, to even take it out of context for a second...cellphones. Let's assume all cellphones are unlocked for a second.

You start a new cell phone company, and you want to look cool and elite, like one of the big boys, so you design your service around the iPhone. However, more people have cellphones than just iPhones, so you automatically limit yourself to that market, and you can't hope to grab every single person in that market. Sure, Timmy might love your service inside and out and he really wants to buy it, but he'd have to spend $200 on an iPhone, and he's just not willing to do that. If you were to expand your service to all phones, you'd pick up much more people.

Same concept here. When you have someone who wants to play your game so badly, but they can't, it does nothing but hurt you, because hopes and dreams don't buy subscriptions, or a behemoth PC to play the beastly game.

Originally posted by Dana

F2P MMOs are all the rage, while subscription games appear to have fallen on tough times. Dana thinks he knows why and it has nothing to do with how people pay for them. It's all about accessibility in this week's edition of Dana Massey Asks "Why Not?"

Ask yourself this: What do World of Warcraft and virtually every F2P game have in common? And what do Age of Conan, Warhammer Online and others have in common?

Many people say Funcom and Mythic copied WoW, but if they did, they forgot to rip off the single most important thing. Blizzard even published that top secret design document on bottom of the box.

It was the system requirements.

This is what F2P games and WoW share the most. Forget design, forget art style. They can all be run by a wad of chewing gum and a rubber band.

Read it all here.

yep you pressed on the big red magic button of succes in todays mmo world

Originally posted by TitanTen

I agree whole heartedly man. People who can't run or play your game arn't going to buy it. People are not going to pay 500-1000 bucks everytime a new MMO comes out just to play it.

Couple that with the fact that every configuration is different and you see why consoles are doing better than the PC. It's not piracy it's barriers to entry.

Give me SW:TOR that will play (at over 15fps) and look nice on a $500 laptop and you have a winner. If it only runs at 15fps on with 4gb of ram and a quad core processor... well.. .you'll sell 5 copies.

This is why free trials are so important, and also why people want into betas so bad. Most want to try to see if the game's fun, sure, but if it's fun and it runs like shit they either don't spend the money or try and justify spending the cost of the game, monthly fees, AND the massive upgrade costs.

I don't care what game it is. If I have to spend $500 just to play it... i'm not going to. Now all you "hardcore" gamers are thinking "well quit playing on an intellivision" but you are the same people that whine and cry like premature babies when the servers are empty on the biggest baddest games... and then quit 2 months later.

 

 

your right if i got to spend 500 $ to play my next gaming fix might as well just get rid of my comp and just buy a wii and invite family over for big insanity party lol

Originally posted by Brynn

You make some good points, but I've played both subscription and FTP and much prefer a good subscription game. It isn't just for the better  graphics, but for the overall gameplay that is much better. I have played Runes of Magic and found that to be pretty decent gameplay. The subscription games are running into problems pulling in numbers of players, but it isn't all because of the higher system requirements. I've been in a few betas and when I chose not to buy the game at release, it was because I didn't enjoy the gameplay style.

I see one of the main problems is that the games are released in unfinished states. The developers don't have the time to do everything needed before release. They claim that after release certain things will be added later. One of the danger signs is when beta testers try to tell the developers what they don't find fun, but aren't listened to. I'm not referring to single poster gripes, but when several posters say the same thing. The beta testers are going to be the backbone of the game at release and most are veteran players who understand what makes a good game fun. I knew Tabula Rasa would be a flop when they made the dumb changes they did just before release. That game had good potential, as have others that didn't become as popular as the developers had hoped. Some games do still survive and become niche games with a small but solid core of players.
 

i agres witth you when you say that often p2p game feel  like they are unfinished

and a lot of f2p game have gotten so decent or will be when school start , gamer became very shy to spend on another game on walmart shelves

and to make it worst ,gw2 isnt very far from lunch,diablo3 same thing etc 

the result is what you see all gaming comunity holding their breath till their next game fix

without  changing their 4 year old  computer

Interesting read. I have probably played as much, if not more, FPS than MMOs and the one thing that I've always loved about FPS multiplayer is that it's free. And oddly enough, the PvP is more balanced, and you can switch servers or teams instantly in many of the games. Strange how FPS multiplayer is leaps and bounds beyond MMOs as far as multiplayer accessability and variety as well, without any charges other than the initial purchase. You could argue that perhaps FPS are not as deep or immersive, but as I said before, I've played them pretty much equally, and the only common denominator for me is fun, so...

Originally posted by Palebane

Interesting read. I have probably played as much, if not more, FPS than MMOs and the one thing that I've always loved about multiplayer is that it's free. And oddly enough, the PvP is more balanced, and you can switch servers or teams instantly in many of them. Strange how FPS multiplayer is leaps and bounds beyond MMOs as far as multiplayer accessability and variety as well, without any charges other than the initial purchase. You could argue that perhaps FPS are not as deep or immersive, but as I said before, I've played them pretty much equally, and the only common denominator for me is fun, so...

mm kind of oftopic 

not a lot of player care with reasonable cost(exemple .wow)

but they do care about initial cost  and having the feeling they got their moneys worth

if you buy a game kit for 100$ but then you find out you ll need new computer or hardware to run it 

and it cost 500$ +to upgrade, i bet most people wont feel like they got their moneys worth even if the game is great

Originally posted by drbaltazar

Originally posted by Palebane

Interesting read. I have probably played as much, if not more, FPS than MMOs and the one thing that I've always loved about multiplayer is that it's free. And oddly enough, the PvP is more balanced, and you can switch servers or teams instantly in many of them. Strange how FPS multiplayer is leaps and bounds beyond MMOs as far as multiplayer accessability and variety as well, without any charges other than the initial purchase. You could argue that perhaps FPS are not as deep or immersive, but as I said before, I've played them pretty much equally, and the only common denominator for me is fun, so...

mm kind of oftopic 

not a lot of player care with reasonable cost(exemple .wow)

but they do care about initial cost  and having the feeling they got their moneys worth

if you buy a game kit for 100$ but then you find out you ll need new computer or hardware to run it 

and it cost 500$ +to upgrade, i bet most people wont feel like they got their moneys worth even if the game is great

Who buys a 100$ game THEN realizing that they need to upgrade their computer? Isn't it the other way around for 99.9% of people? Looking at a game and finding if their computer can run it? I would say that most people are turned off at the point they realize that their machine can't handle it.

I'm likely in the minority here, but when a mmorpg that really is interesting to me is coming that will require a better PC than I currently use, I am starting to look for a better PC.  F2P MMO, while some may very well be fun to play, are not for me. 

To best explain how I fee about F2P mmos vs. Subscription based mmos . . . I love baseball.  I live in NY and the LI Ducks play practically in my back yard, but I don't step foot inside that ballpark even though its only a few dollars for a ticket.  I am going to Yankee Stadium.

Originally posted by drbaltazar

Originally posted by Palebane

Interesting read. I have probably played as much, if not more, FPS than MMOs and the one thing that I've always loved about multiplayer is that it's free. And oddly enough, the PvP is more balanced, and you can switch servers or teams instantly in many of them. Strange how FPS multiplayer is leaps and bounds beyond MMOs as far as multiplayer accessability and variety as well, without any charges other than the initial purchase. You could argue that perhaps FPS are not as deep or immersive, but as I said before, I've played them pretty much equally, and the only common denominator for me is fun, so...

mm kind of oftopic 

not a lot of player care with reasonable cost(exemple .wow)

but they do care about initial cost  and having the feeling they got their moneys worth

if you buy a game kit for 100$ but then you find out you ll need new computer or hardware to run it 

and it cost 500$ +to upgrade, i bet most people wont feel like they got their moneys worth even if the game is great

Not completely off topic, considering multiplayer FPS is free and accessable. I was merely trying to point out that perhaps the MMO genre could learn a thing or two from the way FPS get players together and lets them have fun.

Also, it has occured to me that many players have come to expect a subscription fee from AAA MMO titles, while AAA FPS titles, which are arguabley superior in many aspects in this discussion (in my opinion), are all free to play because that is what players expect.

 Good article!

*remembers firing up GTA 4 for the first and only time* It only loaded the moving objects...Fail on the graphics requirement.....

I want my Radeon x1300 to last forever....I'll be sad the day it becomes obsolete. MMOs definately don't need more requirements. Heck, no one likes buying a new video card every couple of years :(

 In my opinon, a games success has little to do with the system requirements. Most of the games that you mention have glaring flaws and just do not appeal to most gamers and this is why they dont draw in a large audience. I consider my PC to be a mid to low range system. Most of my pc parts can be purchased for pretty low prices on newegg, yet I can play AOC and WAR on a 47 inch lcd at 1920x1080.  Just to be clear, most of this junk in my PC can be replaced with much cheaper and better components...

phenom 9950 black edition   130$                              

MSI  K9A2 platinum                    70$

2x 3870 toxic                               200$     2 cheap video cards or get one 4890 for a bit more

ocz 4gb 1066                                50$

antec 900                                     100$    can find a cheaper case, but I love this one

Xion super nova  800w            124$    modular power supply, you can cut costs here easily                                 

500 gb HD                                     80$    i have 2

  I mean seriously, this isnt that expensive. Also, its not like people dont have computers to scavenge parts off of already. Already have a case and hard drive, there is 180$ saved. The problem isnt the hardware. The problem is how shitty games are coded. WoW for example, No amount of hardware will fix the fact that a player on an epic mount riding straight at ya will be hugging your nuts before you see him. No amount of hardware will stop WoW or WAR from crashing when you get more than X number of people in  a single zone.

 These games are supposedly massive multiplayer, but when you cant have a 50 vs 50 fight with out the server fucking up (I dont consider 50v50 massive anyway), you wasted your time on a shit engine. Maybe it isnt the developers fault. Maybe server technology just isnt up to the task.

In the end, it all comes down to the developers making a game that the players want to play, instead of making a copy of WoW with small differences here and there. People just dont want to waste houirs upon hours when they already have a level 80 shamlockrogue, raid/arena gear, 3 twinks, and 666,000 gold, just to try and do it all over in a game that feels strangely familiar. Hmm, havnt i played this game before?

Originally posted by Palebane

Originally posted by drbaltazar

Originally posted by Palebane

Interesting read. I have probably played as much, if not more, FPS than MMOs and the one thing that I've always loved about multiplayer is that it's free. And oddly enough, the PvP is more balanced, and you can switch servers or teams instantly in many of them. Strange how FPS multiplayer is leaps and bounds beyond MMOs as far as multiplayer accessability and variety as well, without any charges other than the initial purchase. You could argue that perhaps FPS are not as deep or immersive, but as I said before, I've played them pretty much equally, and the only common denominator for me is fun, so...

mm kind of oftopic 

not a lot of player care with reasonable cost(exemple .wow)

but they do care about initial cost  and having the feeling they got their moneys worth

if you buy a game kit for 100$ but then you find out you ll need new computer or hardware to run it 

and it cost 500$ +to upgrade, i bet most people wont feel like they got their moneys worth even if the game is great

 

Not completely off topic, considering multiplayer FPS is free and accessable. I was merely trying to point out that perhaps the MMO genre could learn a thing or two from the way FPS get players together and lets them have fun.

 

Also, it has occured to me that many players have come to expect a subscription fee from AAA MMO titles, while AAA FPS titles, which are arguabley superior in many aspects in this discussion (in my opinion), are all free to play because that is what players expect.

mm f2p isnt as great as big aaa success game 

but they are erasing the the line betwen p2p and f2p so much in fact that is probably the reason 

lot of player are on one side being pulled by the arm by p2p and on the other side are being pulled by f2p

so player end up feeling torn apart between those mmo

Originally posted by t0nyd

 

 In my opinon, a games success has little to do with the system requirements. Most of the games that you mention have glaring flaws and just do not appeal to most gamers and this is why they dont draw in a large audience. I consider my PC to be a mid to low range system. Most of my pc parts can be purchased for pretty low prices on newegg, yet I can play AOC and WAR on a 47 inch lcd at 1920x1080.  Just to be clear, most of this junk in my PC can be replaced with much cheaper and better components...

phenom 9950 black edition   130$                              

MSI  K9A2 platinum                    70$

2x 3870 toxic                               200$     2 cheap video cards or get one 4890 for a bit more

ocz 4gb 1066                                50$

antec 900                                     100$    can find a cheaper case, but I love this one

Xion super nova  800w            124$    modular power supply, you can cut costs here easily                                 

500 gb HD                                     80$    i have 2

  I mean seriously, this isnt that expensive. Also, its not like people dont have computers to scavenge parts off of already. Already have a case and hard drive, there is 180$ saved. The problem isnt the hardware. The problem is how shitty games are coded. WoW for example, No amount of hardware will fix the fact that a player on an epic mount riding straight at ya will be hugging your nuts before you see him. No amount of hardware will stop WoW or WAR from crashing when you get more than X number of people in  a single zone.

 These games are supposedly massive multiplayer, but when you cant have a 50 vs 50 fight with out the server fucking up (I dont consider 50v50 massive anyway), you wasted your time on a shit engine. Maybe it isnt the developers fault. Maybe server technology just isnt up to the task.

In the end, it all comes down to the developers making a game that the players want to play, instead of making a copy of WoW with small differences here and there. People just dont want to waste houirs upon hours when they already have a level 80 shamlockrogue, raid/arena gear, 3 twinks, and 666,000 gold, just to try and do it all over in a game that feels strangely familiar. Hmm, havnt i played this game before?

 

mm yep when wow made dalaran avail i was likle cool

till i found out that theres was way more peopl;e playing horde then i ever thot ,and nomather 

what kind of accrobatic feat blizzard do will permit me to play dalaran if i leave full eye candy on

lol even wintergrasp was a nighmare, i stoped playing wow on june 6 ,even with everything set to low 

i just couldnt get more the 4 fps in wintergrasp  event,and when both side went beseark of 5 second lag spike is the norm

plus add to that player who love to lock kill you (alt-tab trick)

it makes for an unfun experience

Originally posted by Dana

F2P MMOs are all the rage, while subscription games appear to have fallen on tough times. Dana thinks he knows why and it has nothing to do with how people pay for them. It's all about accessibility in this week's edition of Dana Massey Asks "Why Not?"

Ask yourself this: What do World of Warcraft and virtually every F2P game have in common? And what do Age of Conan, Warhammer Online and others have in common?

Many people say Funcom and Mythic copied WoW, but if they did, they forgot to rip off the single most important thing. Blizzard even published that top secret design document on bottom of the box.

It was the system requirements.

This is what F2P games and WoW share the most. Forget design, forget art style. They can all be run by a wad of chewing gum and a rubber band.

Read it all here.

I can agree here for the most part. as I see it, though, going along with the "copied WoW" line of thinking, graphics is the "easiest" way that they latch onto to differentiate themselves from WoW. Sure, they could lower the polys (and make the game available to more folks) and substitute graphics as their keystone that they can harp on and PR blitz to death as to how they are different with other creative takes on other gameplay systems. But that creative path requires work...and thought. Again, much easier (and less time consuming) to put a nice sweet view on it and draw in the flies. After all, that gets you a box sale and maybe 1-2 months subscription before the flies figure out it's very sour/putrid under that thin layer of visual sweet.

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

Originally posted by Dana

F2P MMOs are all the rage, while subscription games appear to have fallen on tough times. Dana thinks he knows why and it has nothing to do with how people pay for them. It's all about accessibility in this week's edition of Dana Massey Asks "Why Not?"

Ask yourself this: What do World of Warcraft and virtually every F2P game have in common? And what do Age of Conan, Warhammer Online and others have in common?

Many people say Funcom and Mythic copied WoW, but if they did, they forgot to rip off the single most important thing. Blizzard even published that top secret design document on bottom of the box.

It was the system requirements.

This is what F2P games and WoW share the most. Forget design, forget art style. They can all be run by a wad of chewing gum and a rubber band.

Read it all here.

 

I can agree here for the most part. as I see it, though, going along with the "copied WoW" line of thinking, graphics is the "easiest" way that they latch onto to differentiate themselves from WoW. Sure, they could lower the polys (and make the game available to more folks) and substitute graphics as their keystone that they can harp on and PR blitz to death as to how they are different with other creative takes on other gameplay systems. But that creative path requires work...and thought. Again, much easier (and less time consuming) to put a nice sweet view on it and draw in the flies. After all, that gets you a box sale and maybe 1-2 months subscription before the flies figure out it's very sour/putrid under that thin layer of visual sweet.

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

Originally posted by Dana

F2P MMOs are all the rage, while subscription games appear to have fallen on tough times. Dana thinks he knows why and it has nothing to do with how people pay for them. It's all about accessibility in this week's edition of Dana Massey Asks "Why Not?"

Ask yourself this: What do World of Warcraft and virtually every F2P game have in common? And what do Age of Conan, Warhammer Online and others have in common?

Many people say Funcom and Mythic copied WoW, but if they did, they forgot to rip off the single most important thing. Blizzard even published that top secret design document on bottom of the box.

It was the system requirements.

This is what F2P games and WoW share the most. Forget design, forget art style. They can all be run by a wad of chewing gum and a rubber band.

Read it all here.

 

I can agree here for the most part. as I see it, though, going along with the "copied WoW" line of thinking, graphics is the "easiest" way that they latch onto to differentiate themselves from WoW. Sure, they could lower the polys (and make the game available to more folks) and substitute graphics as their keystone that they can harp on and PR blitz to death as to how they are different with other creative takes on other gameplay systems. But that creative path requires work...and thought. Again, much easier (and less time consuming) to put a nice sweet view on it and draw in the flies. After all, that gets you a box sale and maybe 1-2 months subscription before the flies figure out it's very sour/putrid under that thin layer of visual sweet.

I can mostly agree here...except for a couple things.

Sure, it might be easier to market pretty graphics, but it's also a much heavier load on the development team, both pre-launch and post-launch, because an advanced graphics engine is always something a developer has to wrestle with. More work goes into developing the graphics rather than developing content, because it isn't as simple as designing for something like WoW.

You simply can't have a strong art direction with advanced graphics in an MMO, because, as they say, you can't have your cake and eat it too. This has been said and proven many times over, with World of Warcraft, The Old Republic, Guild Wars, etc. Too much is needed with an advanced engine, and you have to choose between art and content. The downside to that is, in reality you don't really have a choice, because content has to come first.

In any case, this is an interesting topic namely because of the swarm of MMOs coming, and most of them can be logically expected to have high system requirements. People have been playing MMOs for years on their old computers, and those very same people are being asked to upgrade by the developers of these new games. Let's see how many actually do, instead of just sticking with that they have.

Originally posted by Ghostmind

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

Originally posted by Dana

F2P MMOs are all the rage, while subscription games appear to have fallen on tough times. Dana thinks he knows why and it has nothing to do with how people pay for them. It's all about accessibility in this week's edition of Dana Massey Asks "Why Not?"

Ask yourself this: What do World of Warcraft and virtually every F2P game have in common? And what do Age of Conan, Warhammer Online and others have in common?

Many people say Funcom and Mythic copied WoW, but if they did, they forgot to rip off the single most important thing. Blizzard even published that top secret design document on bottom of the box.

It was the system requirements.

This is what F2P games and WoW share the most. Forget design, forget art style. They can all be run by a wad of chewing gum and a rubber band.

Read it all here.

 

I can agree here for the most part. as I see it, though, going along with the "copied WoW" line of thinking, graphics is the "easiest" way that they latch onto to differentiate themselves from WoW. Sure, they could lower the polys (and make the game available to more folks) and substitute graphics as their keystone that they can harp on and PR blitz to death as to how they are different with other creative takes on other gameplay systems. But that creative path requires work...and thought. Again, much easier (and less time consuming) to put a nice sweet view on it and draw in the flies. After all, that gets you a box sale and maybe 1-2 months subscription before the flies figure out it's very sour/putrid under that thin layer of visual sweet.

I can mostly agree here...except for a couple things.

Sure, it might be easier to market pretty graphics, but it's also a much heavier load on the development team, both pre-launch and post-launch, because an advanced graphics engine is always something a developer has to wrestle with. More work goes into developing the graphics rather than developing content, because it isn't as simple as designing for something like WoW.

You simply can't have a strong art direction with advanced graphics in an MMO, because, as they say, you can't have your cake and eat it too. This has been said and proven many times over, with World of Warcraft, The Old Republic, Guild Wars, etc. Too much is needed with an advanced engine, and you have to choose between art and content. The downside to that is, in reality you don't really have a choice, because content has to come first.

 

In any case, this is an interesting topic namely because of the swarm of MMOs coming, and most of them can be logically expected to have high system requirements. People have been playing MMOs for years on their old computers, and those very same people are being asked to upgrade by the developers of these new games. Let's see how many actually do, instead of just sticking with that they have.

 

mm i bet the majority of online gamer will stick to their old computer

with the gm issue and all the other bad news in america

most just wont buy a new computer just for an x title that might never gain  a lot of player

expacially when blizzard already showed verious of thei content will be working on their old machine

its like sony whenthey made ps3 ,lol a lot of game sticked to ps2 sony had to make new game for ps2 even tho

it was supposed to have stop in favor of ps3

that had made so many ps2 it was a too big market to just let it die

its the same for computer ,if x company doesnt support 4 year old computer 

A  company will support it ,so gamer will get very good game anyway