Originally posted by tro44_1

1)How did EQ manage to get Sandbox to switch over to Theme Park mmos, back in the day?

2) Was EQ hated on by Sandbox fans, like they currently do now when it comes to WoW?

3) What do you think made the MMORPG industry convert over into Theme Park style, rather then sticking with the traditional Snadbox gaming, that many Old School MMO players enjoyed soo much?

 

I was wondering. How did EQ manage to be soo succesful as a more Theme Park oriented MMO, around the time that Sandbox Mmos were dominate? Anybod have an idea as to what unfolded during those ages?

You are assuming that circa March '99 when EQ launched "sandbox" meant anything at all. It did not. Actually the themepark style has far more pre-UO/EQ history than sandbox, none of the earliest graphical online RPGs were "sandbox". So EQ was not strange, it was actually more familiar to most players in terms of content and gameplay than UO.

So...

1. There was no "switch". Sandbox was not even an MMO term at the time.

2. EQ was not hated on by "sandbox fans", there was not very much cross game hate back then. People were more excited about new games than protective of old ones back in the late 90s.

3. Circa '99 when EQ launched sandbox was not "old school". Theme park was "old school". Look at all the MMO's and breakthrough online multi user RPG's that came before. Not a single one was sandbox. "Old school" was, and always will be, themepark. UO was the new kid on the block, and themepark was a brand new concept.

I think you have some of your basic conceptions about the development of the MMO world backwards. The mindset of the MMO community in the late 90s was vastly different than it is now, or even was five years ago.

@OP, I'm curious why someone who disliked NWN, KOTOR and ME (and BioWare's style in general) would have even bothered to buy this game. It should have been patently obvious to you, from even the briefest googling, what kind of game this was and that you would be disappointed.

Clearly there is a crowd of people bred on open world Oblivion type gameplay that have no time or patience for BioWare's style. And that's fine, that's the great thing about our hobby... something for everyone. So perhaps you should save your hard earned dollars in the future and buy the kinds of games that you already know you enjoy, and stay away from the ones you already know you won't.

 Eventually we will see "best" customizations that everyone will strive for, and the real variation in players - at least those that are somewhat competetive - will seriously decrease. Every MMO with any sort of customization promotes/hypes it as "no two characters will be alike" or other similar ad-speak. That may be true from a purely theoretical standpoint but realistically, Aion's customization will be no different than any other game once we figure out what works best and how to get it.

Originally posted by Jurzu

 I think thats a load of bull. No way average gamers are 35, I would say 13 or 18. Or even between those ages. I doubt the video games are making them depressed, but more like frustrated from not accomplishing a goal they wanted in a game. Other than that they should be more than mature enough to understand their priorities. I'm 16 years of age and games only frustrate me that moment that I'm playing. Then when I'm off, it's back to normal life o.o

 

-Jurzu

Sorry to burst your bubble but the average age of the average gamer in the United States was 33 in 2006, and it is inching up every year. The average age of someone that bought a videogame was 39 (some studies report 40).

The notion of the average gamers being children is an old myth. Guess who bought Pong in the 70s? "Old people". Guess who bought Atari 2600s and Colecovision in the early 80s?  "Old people". Guess who bought Commodore 64's for gaming? "Old people". Guess who buys Xbox 360s and video cards and MMOs, yep... you guessed it... "Old people". The main reason that so many people seem to think it is 13 year olds playing all these games is because for so many years video game publishers only openly marketed to this very under-represented demographic.

Are there kids playing computer and video games? Yes. Are they the norm? No. And year by year they are becoming LESS the norm than ever before.

 Not my cup of tea but it was obviously created with care. I hope it takes you places, whether it be financial or career success.

What to do?

This is the easiest question I've read on MMORPG.com so far.

1. Apologize to your girlfriend for being a douchebag. 

2. Explain to her that you are at least marginally addicted but are trying to improve.

3. Spend less time playing WoW. Let your GF be part of the solution, not the problem.

4. ???

5. Profit!

If you do anything differently you are well on your way to becoming a professional basement dweller for life. Fear the sun.

Originally posted by Adam1902

for WoW in China, it probably works the same way Korean MMOs work in the US. The publisher pays a yearly lisence fee to Blizzard, and that's it. All the rest is handled by the producer.

Isn't that how it's done? So Blizzard themselves will be getting only that fixed yearly wage from china.

Yeah, that's my understanding. I am not sure how much $$$ is actually involved, but the fact that The9, China's blizzard partner came close to bankruptcy this year (or did, not sure) despite being the sole proprieter of WoW in China seems very strange. Either they were paying a lot of their profits to Blizzard, or the amount of money they were actually making off millions of Chinese subs (time cards) was much lower than even my estimate. Who know... only them. lol

Originally posted by bmdevine

Sorry, but I feel unenlightened by anything in this post.  It sounds like you took people's comments out of context and just spouted a bunch of your own theories with a few numbers thrown in that were pulled from nowhere or from someone's nether regions.

Even the way the question you're attempting to answer is phrased begs too many questions to be informative or educational.  What exactly is a western MMO?  How is its western nature relevant to arguments about success?  How do you define success?  If you flesh out the question you want to answer a little better, you might find something to go on.  Once you get that, there are a lot of internet sources where you can get more accurate numbers to support whatever theory you're trying to prove.  There's no need to make any up.

 

My own theories. lol ok. Go look up Chinese MMO subscription models. Look up the hourly yuan rate standard. Convert.

What is a western MMO? An MMO developed and/or published with the North American and European markets in mind. Western MMOs often expand into Asian territories. How is its western nature revelant to arguments about success? There was no speculation on the relevance of the western nature of any MMO. Learn to read. The observation was about the revenue disparity between NA/Euro and Chinese subs/players. How do I define success? Were you reading another post? Success is not an issue.

And by the way, the subject line is not a "Question" that is asked, it is a "Statement" that is explored.

I feel unenlightened by anything in your post as well. So I guess we are even.

Originally posted by luciusETRUR

You're also ignoring two important regions. South Korea and Japan. They are not like China, they are 2 of the top 14 best economies in the world.

I don't disagree, I think MMO companies do just fine in the West, and I like Western MMOs far more than Eastern. I'm just saying, that if you can get a game popular in South Korea, it'll get popular in China. Korea gives you a good amount of money and Chinese inflate your game numbers.  

Yeah, South Korean and Japanese markets are different. There is a huge amount of money to be made in both markets. Their per capita incomes are also somewhat comparable to that of the US and most Euro countries.

I was speaking specifically to the Chinese market, though. All too often people see Chinese sub numbers and directly compare them to those of other regions, even South Korea, and think that each sub is equal. Which of course they are not.

In the case of travel cards, etc I agree. I think that in this case it couldn't possibly be 80-90% because it is the local Chinese partner that handles infrastructure (servers, GM's, etc). I could be wrong, I don't know how much it costs to keep servers running in China

I've seen all kinds of comment that in order for an MMO to be "successful" or to somehow be "competetive", that it must rock in China. People seem inclined to discount the importance of NA and Euro players to the financial success of a modern MMO. They are wrong, and here's why.

Chinese MMO players do not, generally, pay monthly subscriptions. They pay by the hour. A Chinese player that plays an average of 21 hours per week (the maximum allowed by Chinese law if you are under the age of 18, IE 3 hours per day) of the World of Warcraft, for instance, will expend $5.47 in one month.

So it takes roughly three Chinese players, playing WoW 21 hours per week, to equal 1 North American or Euro subscriber in terms of EXPENDITURE (not revenue yet). Further complicating matters is the fact that China's hourly point system is rife with abuse, the true extent of which may not be known even by the companies that produce Chinese MMO time cards.

Actual revenue is dilluted by the multiple layers of middle-men that come between the players expenditure and the developer/publisher's revenue. First there is the local store from which the time card is purchased. So there is one layer of profit sucked out of the system. Then there is the Chinese "partner" that produces the time cards and manages subscriptions. Second layer. And any number of additional layers provided by various intermediary distributors.

At the end of the day there may be well less than 50% left to pass on. So, really, if you compare regions playing equal time, it can REALLY take 7 or more Chinese players to produce the revenue of 1 NA/Euro players. And that is assuming no decrease in Chinese playtime EVER, or that the player is not playing on a gamed/stolen time card and not paying a cent.

What it all boils down to:

Player by player comparisons of NA/Euro and Chinese game populations is comparing apples to oranges. With equal play time and assuming all players are paying what they owe, it takes on average 3.5 millon Chinese players to generate the revenue of 500,000 NA/Euro players (final dev/publisher revenue).

And this is assuming 50% profits at the end of the pipe, which is probably IMPOSSIBLE. So it is probably a bigger Chinese-NA/Euro disparity, maybe even as much as 500k to 4-5 million.

Just some thoughts.

Originally posted by cukimunga

Originally posted by Vinterkrig

DFO has the potential to be a great game, don't get me wrong, but theres a lot wrong with it

AND IT IS NOT A SANDBOX, ... ffs.. do you guys know what that means?

 

FFS = Fucking Full of Shit?    DF ins't a sandbox? I could have swore AV and everyone else claiming it is one.   But OP im glad you found a game you truely enjoy..... Im still looking. Got my eye on Aion and Fallen Earth........ Hopes one of those 2 will be my next FFXI. lol

lol yeah well North Korea considers itself a Democratic Republic, but that don't exactly make it one does it?

Originally posted by dristanmord

Credit Adventurine and Darkfall.  They just showed the rest of the MMO makers out there how NOT to do a sandbox MMO.  It's only going to make the other guys make better games.  Thanks Adventurine!!!!!!!

Actually, dristanmord, you are exactly right. There is one unintended benefit. lol

Originally posted by Adrammelech

Games in general are increasing in complexity and player-demand exponentially with each generation and passing year. This is clearly demonstrated by books like "Everything Bad Is Good For You" and "Smartbomb". The MMORPG genre is not an exception to this rule. Simply, the problem is misguided nostalgia for older (simpler) times clouding judgement.

Something like a "death penalty" is a good example. Death penalties are old hang-overs from simplistic early game design that placed arbitrary, time-consuming punishments on death to artificially extend the life of a game. A well designed modern game has no need for such a thing. The "penalty" for dying is dying, meaning - you lost. Get up and try again. There's no reason to waste time by making me do 50 jumping jacks before I can play again. It's the equivlent of "Insert Another Coin to Continue".

Modern games are being streamlined, meaning old, unecessary features and outdated design concepts are being removed. It's easy to confuse this as "dumbing down". There's no reason to continue with oldschool pseudo-difficulty by forcing the player to wander around with no map, making them repetitiously click every NPC to see if they have a quest to offer or making them hit auto-run and wait 10 minutes to reach a corpse because these are old ideas in regards to adding "depth" to a game which are being slowly booted out of game design along with grinding and other antiquated concepts

In short, I don't think that you're going to see many new games like the OP desires anymore, because they've already been done; and games, like all forms of entertainment, are evolving. There's nothing stopping you from continuing to play games with the old designs you enjoy and there will always be a niche for oldschool games to exist in. I enjoy them plenty myself. I just recognize that my enjoyment is primarily from nostalgia and not some misguided concept of Old Guard elitism.

Very insightful post. I couldn't agree more.

Originally posted by robertb

Originally posted by prow

Also...

 

WHY NOT ALLOW THEM TO CHANGE THEIR NAME????????????

 

Permanently banning people for this is ridiculous... 

 

Was actually one of my suggestions.

 

Glad to see the dev team listens... ;)

lol you never fail to deliver mr. fanboi supremo

Well... you didn't need to have been a nazi in 1942 to realize how much it sucked. Extrapolation here we come...

Ragnar is easily FunCom's ace card. If they placed him in charge of this project then it is probably their highest mid-long term priority.

None of FC's previous missteps can be attributed in any way, shape or form to Ragnar and that is good news for this game.

Originally posted by javac

...and actual players create FAR more content than Blizzard developers ever could. WOW has tons of SCRIPTED quest and boss fight content and tons of ways to make you grind for miniscule rewards. Darkfall has tons of player-created content.

Why is it that only fanboys keep bringing up WoW in these threads? What's your point since this thread doesn't have anything to do with any PVE vs PVP argument to begin with?

the only reason you would not "get" Darkfall's content is if you're not into PVP and you'd rather fight dumbed-down AI.

Darkfall fanboys apparently need to retake English 101. "Getting" PVP has nothing to do with this thread. Nice try at redirection, though. Darkfall fanboys have gotten very good at that. 

i'm really getting tird of having to say it: if you want to fight stupid AI, scripted bosses and grind out repetitive quests, then get a fucking clue and GTFO of Darkfall. you will *never* convince us that PVE is better than PVP.

This thread is not about people's interest in PVE or PVP, so take it to another thread. Fanboys like you keep saying PVE was never an intentional component of Darkfall. Several intelligent posters have corrected you, with quotes directly from the Darkfall website. If you can't see the forest for the trees I think nobody can help you at this point.

My responses 

Originally posted by Abrahmm

Originally posted by Katrar

That this is even being discussed is silly.

The antithesis of a story or quest based MMO (or any game really) is a sandbox.

The ANTITHESIS.

Like... the polar opposite.

As in... you can't get further from.

And Bioware has made it abundantly and crystal clear that they intend to not only make SWTOR a story based game, but they intend to make it more story based than any MMO in history has ever attempted.

So.... uh... I understand that people hold on to their cherished (SWG) memories... but if this isn't setting yourselves up for huge disappointment I don't know what is. This would be like taking your wife to a monster truck rally on her birthday. Huge disappointment (hers, if I need to clarify that ).

 

Why are people so closed minded that they can't even imagine anything different than what they have already seen? What magical limitation is preventing any game from having mechanics that allow people to do anything, like a sandbox, and optional stories/quests, like a quest based MMO? It's all about options. No, a standard quest based MMO that FORCES you to quest is no where near and never could be a sandbox. But add in that same content as an option, and give people the tools to make their own content if they so wish, and bam, you have a combination of both that could make both crowds happy.

Ok, you asked, so I'll say it. There is no metaphysical restriction on such a game. It is possible for a game to be designed that accomodates every playstyle. Players that are not fanatics in one direction or another would love such a game to death. I would. That would be the greatest game ever. However, if we as consumers have learned one thing over the past decade+ of MMO releases, its that developers have a hard enough time just getting a niche game right. I don't think that TOR is going to go through its entire development cycle, be released, and we poof magically discover that not only have they made an awesome story telling MMO but unknown to everyone they have also secretly coded all these other myriad systems and gameplay styles and in-so-doing created the perfect game for everyone.

We have to go off what has been released in order to gauge what this game is going to be. And everything thus far indicates it will not be sandbox even in the slightest. I'm just being a realist.

If that perfect mesh of PVE/PVP/Sandbox/Crafting/Political/Social/etc ever gets made, and its good, we'll all sing halleluja. But until then, its an unrealized ideal that SWTOR is not (to our knowledge) intended to confront.

That this is even being discussed is silly.

The antithesis of a story or quest based MMO (or any game really) is a sandbox.

The ANTITHESIS.

Like... the polar opposite.

As in... you can't get further from.

And Bioware has made it abundantly and crystal clear that they intend to not only make SWTOR a story based game, but they intend to make it more story based than any MMO in history has ever attempted.

So.... uh... I understand that people hold on to their cherished (SWG) memories... but if this isn't setting yourselves up for huge disappointment I don't know what is. This would be like taking your wife to a monster truck rally on her birthday. Huge disappointment (hers, if I need to clarify that ).