Originally posted by DamonVile

Originally posted by jpnz

That's a bit like saying art is better now than it ever was because more people are making it.

This is not art. This is entertainment.

Originally posted by Greyface

Assumption #1 Developers should listen to the players:  Henry Ford once said "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."  Developers who design based on player feedback get a lot of praise.  They really shouldn't.  What do players ask for?  More of the same: more raids, more gear, more levels, more buffs, more nerfs, more convenience.

The truth is that the players don't know what they want, because they've never seen it before.  Verant (now SOE) took a lot of crap back in the day for talking about their "Vision."  Sure, they sounded like jerks, but they also built a landmark game in Everquest.  Back in 2004, no one was demanding more quests.  Blizzard did it anyway, and you got the runaway success of WoW.  When was the last time a game feature came out of left field like that?  The reason why there's never been a WoW-killer is that the AAA developers can't move past the WoW-clone.  Players aren't game designers -- they're going to ask for a slightly different version of what they know.  Innovation comes when a developer takes risks.

I'm not saying there should be no communication between the people who make games and the people who play them.  But the industry has gotten into the habit of trying to please everyone, and the players have gotten into the habit of expecting it.

   

 Left field huh well funny thing alot of left field plays have been made by mmos lately

swtor's compainion system actual got quiet alot of people attached to their compainions , even though the games other short coming pushed people away many people will still say they miss their compainion.

TSW's investigation quest, finding clues ingame and on the internet the game for quest was a nice change of pace for lot of mmo gamers who have seen every incarnation gather this/kill this many quest. However, the games less than staler combat has alot of player going else where

GW2's dynamic event/quest system was very promising in changing up the flow of questing and to some extent did.  Strange thing was it also made forming parties/groups nearly pointless out side of dungeons.  This has made a huge social wedge in the game.

Then theres the action mmo movement Vindictus, Tera, RaiderZ, and I think Blade & Souls aswell have all tried to push the mmo world away from tab targeting and to a more hack and slash combo like combat systems. 

So there has been alot of left field moves but often those weren't enough.  Alot of the reason has to do with the fact the gaming industry it self has changed since the days when WoW was released. Because of this its become alot like the movie industry taking very few risk and only making small changes to stale formulas.

It sounds like the OP wants to play an open world themepark / hybrid MMO that rewards player interaction instead of gear grind.

Why doesn't he go play Vanguard then?  It's F2P now.

/endthread

Originally posted by Greyface

LJust spitballing here, but imagine a game without a level cap.  As you progress, the cost to level up increases and the benefits shrink.   Eventually, players would hit a de facto cap, but it would take a long time, even for the worst content locusts.  How would players respond to that?   In practice, there wouldn't be much difference from the current status quo: slow advancement coming in tiny steps.

No one (amongst the vets) advocates for the New Player.

It's typical, really, for us to see Newbs as a Problem That Intrudes On OUR World, rather than something to be nurtured.  So we don't tend to have an issue with putting them out of touch with ever reaching the Lofty Heights our veteran toons have been hanging out at for years.

But the level cap keeps being raised.  Or your proposed alternative, the gap just allowed to continually widen.

The propietary feelings that "I've paid this company for a long time, so they must listen to my aged vetness" is just one of the biggest issues that companies face from players.  Presumed ownership of the title is really one of the most common bad attitudes.

But in case you haven't noticed, Blizzard isn't giving you any special treatment.  If the world changes to be more accomodating to New People (against your wishes), well, it's just is.  And it's player's insistence upon continually raising the level cap (just propose not doing it, some expansion, sometime) that's resulting in the destruction-via-fast-forward of the early game.

Originally posted by apocoluster
   Disagree with #4...I do want to be the special little pony.  

Same here.

Originally posted by Navek
This whole thread is an interesting read, I agree with nearly all that the OP says,  but even in a perefect gaming world, which fills all his ( our ) dreams, i fear the content locusts would be the loudest voices on this and other forums.

Well, no.  If you want to market a new game with a decade average time-to-cap, I'm up for it.  I have already played that game, and for more than ten years.

I think your bean-counters will have to be forgiven when they (inevitably, correctly) point out that your small player base will only get smaller in the long term.

Originally posted by Greyface

...  

Assumption #4 Story is important:  After the failure of Star Wars: the Old Republic and The Secret World, I'm amazed that the takeaway seems to be that the subscription model is the problem.  Subscriptions are fine -- players will pony up for a game if they think it's worth the money.  The problem with both games is the notion that voice-acted cut scenes are the magic bullet for a smash hit MMO.  If we, as gamers, want this sort of thing we'll play single-player games.  They still make those. 

Being the Chosen One in an MMO is just dumb, because there are 500 other Chosen Ones pouring out of the same instance right behind you.  Context, not story, is what we need.  Make the world and its back-story live, and give the players the tools and freedom to create their own story. 

...

The story is important, TORs problem is that it focused the story on the single player instead of the guild, the town or the world.

A game with no story is just a bunch of pointless randomencounters unless you have a Minecraft sandbox where nothing is prebuilt.

A great story can save an average game, but the story needs to be about the entire world. Players should add their own touch to the story in games with sandbox elements of course but MMOs is a group thing, not a single player experience.

Still, story is important and games like UO actually had a rich story. 

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by DamonVile

Originally posted by jpnz

That's a bit like saying art is better now than it ever was because more people are making it.

This is not art. This is entertainment.

And sometimes they both converge.

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by Greyface
 

The story is important, TORs problem is that it focused the story on the single player instead of the guild, the town or the world.

Not really. Just that the combat was boring and the story couldn't carry the straightforward and repetitive quests. The "next KOTOR" was practically shat on by the basic MMORPG design.

Originally posted by Loke666

The story is important, TORs problem is that it focused the story on the single player instead of the guild, the town or the world.

A game with no story is just a bunch of pointless randomencounters unless you have a Minecraft sandbox where nothing is prebuilt.

A great story can save an average game, but the story needs to be about the entire world. Players should add their own touch to the story in games with sandbox elements of course but MMOs is a group thing, not a single player experience.

Still, story is important and games like UO actually had a rich story. 

That's exactly what I was saying.  My header was deliberately provocative -- I apologize if it was also misleading.  Single-player type stories, with cut-scenes, personal instances, and mary-sue heroics have no place in an MMO.   Having a voice actor tell you that you're a special little pony does not make it so. 

However, a game world absolutely needs story -- but it needs to be told in a way that acknowledges the fact that the space is being shared by thousands of other players.  And within that context, players need the tools to make their own stories.

Originally posted by Adamantine

About #2: Sorry, but thats just "oooh past games have been better" jibber. AFAIK Ultima Online still is running, so if you like that experience, just play it. If you however want more contemporary graphics, well: newer graphics is much more development intensive, thus nobody builds an Ultima Online with upgraded graphics. It just wont yield any profit. Sorry, but you'll have to directly oppose capitalism to get such a game.

I stuck with it for a long time.  Eventually I left because the game was a mess.  The sandbox elements worked, but it has little else to recommend it.

I would argue with your assumption that sandbox elements equal financial failure.  Just because no one has pulled it off, does not mean it can't be done.  They said the same thing about airplanes and personal computers.

About #4: A request for sandboxes. Honestly ? After he just established that sandbox are a niche ?

Pure sandboxes are niche when it comes to the core game.  Story is a different matter.

agree with the op on every point.

/clap

Agreed and signed.

Agree almost completly one thing i would like to mention is world Lore is realy important imo its is nice to have back ground and history in a game that sown by NPC and so on, but you shouldnt have a player story set out for you, your story is there for you to find not to walk along a predetermined route :).

Again world lore is realy important, the game world history and character history is shown in the game (everquest was realy good with this), but character story like GW2 isnt that great because it makes u feel like u cant make your own story in the game world.

Originally posted by Greyface

Originally posted by jpnz
 

Growth was there in 2011.

1. We have no right to expect anything. We can speak with our wallets and so far, people don't want 'risk taking games'.

They want something familiar like the next Madden / FIFA / COD / WOW expansion EPIC LEVEL 9000!! etc. It just isn't realistic to expect companies to spend $$$ on risk taking when the market is saying something else.

2. What people like and don't like is up to each person. I make no judgement on that. Who are you to say which aspect of 'MMO' should be focused by the players?

3. Pure themepark game called WoW is making millions. WoW-Clones are making $$$ / profits as well.

Pure Sandbox has EVE-Online and a few niche games. Those too are making $$$ / profit (smaller though). 

Seems to me like they are working fine.

4. Once again, what people like and don't like is up to each person. What's the point? The answer is that MMOs are a video game; a disposable entertainment product for a lot of people. Some people like a good story in their MMOs, I am one of them.

5. Players can ask for something different, but I have not seen any action done so the developers know about it as players keep on buying the same thing on a yearly basis.

Originally posted by jpnz

Growth was there in 2011.

1. We have no right to expect anything. We can speak with our wallets and so far, people don't want 'risk taking games'.

They want something familiar like the next Madden / FIFA / COD / WOW expansion EPIC LEVEL 9000!! etc. It just isn't realistic to expect companies to spend $$$ on risk taking when the market is saying something else.

2. What people like and don't like is up to each person. I make no judgement on that. Who are you to say which aspect of 'MMO' should be focused by the players?

3. Pure themepark game called WoW is making millions. WoW-Clones are making $$$ / profits as well.

Pure Sandbox has EVE-Online and a few niche games. Those too are making $$$ / profit (smaller though). 

Seems to me like they are working fine.

4. Once again, what people like and don't like is up to each person. What's the point? The answer is that MMOs are a video game; a disposable entertainment product for a lot of people. Some people like a good story in their MMOs, I am one of them.

5. Players can ask for something different, but I have not seen any action done so the developers know about it as players keep on buying the same thing on a yearly basis.

I admire how adamant you can be in you conviction about "the player", when i play different games i tend to notice quite a number of people who do not fit your "fifa/cod/wow/9000" stereotype, just look at Skyrim.

As far as what profitable is and what the market says, it depends on interpretation and people like you make sure that the interpretation constantly shifts in your favor, is 200k people for a 50mil project good or bad, 1m for a 300mil project?

Just remember how we discounted asia subs until wow surpassed the number, when they have suddenly become legit.

This is the same thing, just because wow is just one number and there are several of non mainstream games around 1m subs, we discount them, until one will come along which will have a significant number.

Even McDonalds (which gets bad rep in mmo discussions) does constantly new burgers, salads, and even changes its sortiment based on country, so it is kinda funny to claim "devs know what they are doing, people want always the same". That is the argument of a burned out, cynical person.

Flame on!

:)

Originally posted by jpnz

5. EVE essentially does this with the whole 'skills' thing and I don't think its a good template. It creates a fairly large level gap between the new players and veterans but now the new players can never 'catch up' with the veterans.

This is a myth. If anything, EVE is one of the easier MMORPGs in which you can be productive, viable in a corp, and equal to veterans (in certain respects) quickly. Because EVE has caps for each skill, if a new player focuses on a specifc set of skills (such as those required to fly a certain type of ship), then that player can fairly quickly gain equal footing to a veteran who flies the same ship.

Contrast that to someone who just starts playing WoW/Rift/Aion etc and wants to compete with level-capped characters in raids and pvp.  First they have to get to max level, then they need to run instances or battlegrounds repeatedly to gain the necessary entry-level gear, then they need to run more advanced instaces or rated arenas/battlegrounds to upgrade their gear further. I'm definitely not opposed to this progression scheme, I'm just pointing out that it actually takes longer to "catch up to veterans" in the more traditional MMORPGs than it does with EVE. 

Originally posted by jpnz

Originally posted by Greyface

Originally posted by jpnz
 

 

Growth was there in 2011.

1. We have no right to expect anything. We can speak with our wallets and so far, people don't want 'risk taking games'.

They want something familiar like the next Madden / FIFA / COD / WOW expansion EPIC LEVEL 9000!! etc. It just isn't realistic to expect companies to spend $$$ on risk taking when the market is saying something else.

2. What people like and don't like is up to each person. I make no judgement on that. Who are you to say which aspect of 'MMO' should be focused by the players?

3. Pure themepark game called WoW is making millions. WoW-Clones are making $$$ / profits as well.

Pure Sandbox has EVE-Online and a few niche games. Those too are making $$$ / profit (smaller though). 

Seems to me like they are working fine.

4. Once again, what people like and don't like is up to each person. What's the point? The answer is that MMOs are a video game; a disposable entertainment product for a lot of people. Some people like a good story in their MMOs, I am one of them.

5. Players can ask for something different, but I have not seen any action done so the developers know about it as players keep on buying the same thing on a yearly basis.

1. people are speaking with their wallets. thats why alot of games wich start out with subcription fees move to F2P because we dont think its good enough to pay a monthly fee.

you cannot compare an MMO to any other genre because an MMO cannot get a sequal (like a CoD franchise) you can only expand it so wanting something familiar is false because you wil keep playing your unending MMO if it would be actually good enough to play it. All these WoW clones would be thriving with sub fees if we wanted more familiar things.

2. What people like and do not like is diffrent yes. What makes an MMO(RPG) an MMO and a FPS a FPS is factual. we come back to the bubble discusion if you want to be in your own special snowflake bubble then go play a single player MMO's should mainly focus on the massivly multiplayer aspect of the game if not why would someone create an MMO, actually it would not even be an MMO without those features.

3. WoW clones are not making alot of profit they are staying alive. thats a whole diffrent thing. Sanbox games like EVE are also staying alive yes but a Game like EVE is not for everyone. not evryone likes spaceships or scifi in general so their market is much much smaller.

4. an MMO disposable? what? MMO's are made with a long life expextancy in mind. People see them as diposable because wlel they jsut are not good enough. more of the same aint good because ultimitly WoW does it all better. on The story. Story and Lore are not the same a MMO can have a rich Lore filled world without any actually progresing story. as long as that world is rich enough or if we develope our own story by being a community wich current day MMO's lack.

5. we keep buying the same thing yes because you want to try it out. people are getting your hopes up by saying certain things. but in the end alot of people unsub and will return to WoW leaving the game to once again fallback onto F2P in order to survive.