Hmm, brought up a good question and need to think on this for a sec...

Ok, now the metagame elements your talking on is the socio-political body called Goonswarm. If I remember my goon history right, there was a group called BoB who were the ruling party of EVE. They were taken out by the goons, now the goons are the predominant ruling party in EVE. Its an ongoing cycle.

The inherent flaw as you are saying is: How did it come to pass that the Goons have so much power? You can look at the players themselves. They are the ones to drive the meta. If 7000+ (estimate) goons just up and leave EVE, or don't log in for a month or two, then who is the ruling party? They eventually will be taken out by DCF or Shadow/Legion or The Red Alliance(, but I think RA is now DCF.) I lose track, but the point is SOMEONE will step up and fill the power vacuum.

Its not the mechanic as much as its the people who drive it along. I liked that about EVE, you can make your own path any way you choose. The goons are not just all pirates and gankers. They have a deep infrastructure of miners, planetary interactionists, researchers and builders. Without all that to build and sustain capfleets with parts, ammo, fuel or territorial tech then they wouldn't be  as functional or as powerful. Anything you do at that magnitude of the Goons needs to be funded and supplied somewhere, in EVE its all about resources.

Its not only them, but the players around them that supply them as well. Thinks that was part of the problem of NA was that they were supplying the invading fleet with parts unkowingly off the market.

For the tl;dr crowd: Don't hate the game, hate the player.

On Aion: I can't really support a game with bad customer service and faulty security. I also don't like the fact that its months behind in updates compared to Aion Korea. 

Maybe its because I'm old or something, I have zero tolerance for bad CS. If I am having a problem and get attitude or the company refuses to resolve the issue, I take me business elsewhere.

Originally posted by LeepeFox

God OP is sooo right, back in late 2003, I joined Final Fantasy 11. My very first mmo, that was an amazing game and I experienced just about all that OP went through. I think these pre-wow era mmos made us players more tolerable to mmos and we understand that end game and such is made to be difficult, these games are made to be fun and there is no reason to get angry while playing. (I left wow after 1 year of playing, I have been in Everquest 2 now for 2 1/2 years.)

 

Hye FFXI was my first MMO too! Back before they added easymode, abyss and faster leveling. It was great! A game that you really had to rely on your social skills because NOTHING was soloable back then.

Sounds interesting, thanks for the info.

Buuuuut...CCP...Greed is good...no thanks.

CCP is now a zeropenny company meaning I'll never spend a cent with them.

kthxbye

Runes of Magic

Played the closed, into open then to launch. Endgame raiding was a joke, people 2 manning instances for stones. Cash shop dominant in pvp. 

Balanced? Nope.

Poor mans WOW? Yep.

Moving on...

Aion

Played the closed into launch. PvP non existant. Incredible grind. So bad that they had to raise the drop rates in an update.

WoW's pretty girlfriend? Yep.

Worth 15 smacks a month? Play wow instead or Guild Wars if you like to grind.

Moving on....

TERA

Korea gets it first, then NA later. WoW without tab-targetting with big Monster Hunter Swords and elvish girls in skimpy costumes.

Worth the wait? Wait for Guild Wars 2 instead.

Stop!

ArchAge

What's this? An eastern sandbox style game? Sacrilage!

If they get it right and keep RMT down to a dull minimum, charge a monthly fee and keep the cash shop out of my face they might have my business. However...the east gets it first, no beta for the west and we get it much later...on a separate server.

IF and only IF they keep it to a single server then this game is a true sandbox. Even if they don't, I'll still give it a shot.

Gambling? I'm in!

Planar Attunement! Yes, thats the change I've been looking for! 

A death attuned rogue or a fire attuned mage...Mhaurahahahaaaa

No instances please. I'd rather them take a page from the Original Warhammer that was adopted and improved on by Trion. I think that GW2 is going to run with that to some extent. I'd rather everything be open and out there.

Idea: You and your space marine party are marching across an alien wasteland, all of a sudden...I wild Necron Monolith appears! Gauss cannons in your face and you start fighting. In the middle of the battle, a group of ( insert enemy faction here) show up and then things get really interesting.

This is the type of dynamic pvp/pve that Trion was shooting for, however, there just isn't enough people in the zones to make it work. As what I am told.

Hey, whats going on in this thread? Am I late?

I do like the original 5 and agree with every single one of them, but I would make some adjustments as a retired WH40K TT player and a veteran MMO player.

5) As an MMO player: I want to start the game Faction-less.

Yes, I don't want to immediately walk into the game with bioengineered superhuman with  implants or the ability to cast chaos magic off the bat. Really... start me off as a noob and then give me a tutorial that will able to sense by my actions and decisions which path I'm most suited to take and then let me make the final decision. The ability to play as any class from the start would take a huge chunk of personal lore developement out of the game for me. I don't want to be spoon fed my characters background, I want to create it myself.

4) As a WH40K player: Vehicles and vehicle customization.

If you are going to do vehicles then do all of them and do it with the option to build it the way I want to. Maybe I want a possesed predator with dual lascannons but a melta gun in the front. Give me the bonuses and the drawbacks of having to drive and take care of that tank too. What book was it...oh Storm of Iron, where the tank and vehicles had to be chained up because the demons possessing them were unstable. Maybe also the option to own and fly ships for interstellar travel? Thats whats up! 

3) MMO player: Blur the faction lines and give the good players a chance to commit evil acts and cross over.

Because thats where the original CSM came from. Like the Going Rogue feature in City of X.  How about an Inquisitor that practices chaos magic (Radical) rather than a puritan. By giving a player differnt option of what end of the Ordos they fall into will be better than just aesthetic changes, giving an Inquisitor an option between Ordo Heriticus, Malleus or Xenos that gives the character bonuses vs that particular type of enemy. Creating these different types of avenues in character development will open many more types of customizations and class distinctions rather than just changing the color of my armor or how many ribbons I wore. 

There were assassins, but there was also 5 different types of assassins you could use. Don't pidgeonhole me out of developer laziness, this is a huge IP they bought, use every stitch of it.

2) MMO player: Hmm...on leveling, I'm going out of the box here to prove a point.

One of the things I did like about Mortal Online was the limited amount of skill points that a character had ( it was the only thing I liked about MO btw). This connects directly with the rest of my list because when a player is given an unlimited amount of skillpoints this creates a mass of characters with cookie cutter builds along the lines. If someone wants to be an Ork Choppa, they will have a certain amount of points to use in specialization, to make the best dang choppa they can make...or...make the best dang lasrifle crafter they can make. See what I did there?

This does open the doors for the flavor of the month build metagame and the min/maxers love it, but I don't want to be like every other ork in the room. The downside is, you will need to find a diversity of classes to round out your pve party/pvp group; if everyone plays the same build it will create a leverage against them. In the TT version, if your army didn't have wide area blast damage going against a tyranid or ork zerg, you were done. That was one of the first hard lessons I learned while playing WH40K.

1) Both: Two words here - Sand Box.

'Nuff said.

Originally posted by BarCrow

Originally posted by Inktomi

Originally posted by BarCrow

Originally posted by Inktomi

No, because this is the same company that is shutting down Star Wars Galaxies. When the SWG community begged them to make it F2P their answer was, "No, because it would take an incredible amount of resources to do so, resources that are going to be used somewhere else" meaning DC Universe Online. 

SOE would probably shut it down before they convert it.

      I agree that SOE is unlikely to convert Vanguard to F2P. The only case where they might change their minds is if everything on their station pass has a F2P version....which is almost a reality. Who knows.

     Comparing Vanguard to SWG is moot. SWG galaxies required SOE to re-license from Lucas...and I'm willing to bet Lucas wasn't willing . Even if they were...it just wasn't worth costs..the license is probably more than 5 years worth of revenues from SWG..and that's being conservative.. That coupled with the security/privacy issue costs SOE incurred recently....and you can hardly cast blame. Well..you can always cast blame I guess..thats easy for fans of an MMO these days.

    Vanguard is owned outright by SOE. They could run that game forever on fumes and probably still make a small profit because they dedicated very,very few resources towards its maintenance. Or so it seems. Its seems they could funnel a bit of money to convert it to f2p and make a killing but it unlikely to come close to their other fantasy mmo..EQ2..which already has a F2p model  that does fairly well.

I don't think it is a moot comparison when they refuse to spend the resources on VG as you said in your post as of currently. SOE also posted that it would take a large portion of resources to convert SWG over. Now on the subtopic of resources, when SOE refuses to spend on VG or SWG now, why would they do so in the future? Just because they own the IP outright means that they want to spend the 1) time and 2) money in the conversion process.

Is past performance indicative of future results?

Edited to say: I really hope I am wrong. I would hate to see the faithful community of Vanguard fall to the same fate as SWG's.

   I get you. My "moot comparison" was mostly the fact that SWG requires an IP license whereas Vanguard is owned outright.  Both were relatively ignored by SOE it's true .

   SWG..i believe was ignored mostly because..after they screwed the pooch initially  (and by "they" I mean both SOE and Lucas..but I believe Lucas greed was mostly the culprit in this case..despite the "official" statements by any SOE employee or Lucas rep) ..and especially after the announcement of TOR a few years ago..SOE never intended to renew the License due to monetary factors. (and again..I don't think Lucas sincerely offered a renewal).

    Vanguard was ignored mainly because they could. It probably cost little to maintain and still brought in some small profit without seriously interfering with the EQ franchise populations and revenue

I am not going to harp on the compare and contrast of SWG to VG. But one thing we do agree on is that SOE has a habit of ignoring games that aren't doing too as well as they would like and leaning resources to ones that are. KNowing this brought me to my initial reaction to the OP's question.

Again, I really hope I am wrong on this, since there was a thread here in support of VG, showing some people still like the game. If SOE sundowned VG regardless of IP ownership or not would show me that they really don't care about their userbase. I would hate to see that. I'd rather see them (SOE) make it free.

Originally posted by BarCrow

Originally posted by Inktomi

No, because this is the same company that is shutting down Star Wars Galaxies. When the SWG community begged them to make it F2P their answer was, "No, because it would take an incredible amount of resources to do so, resources that are going to be used somewhere else" meaning DC Universe Online. 

SOE would probably shut it down before they convert it.

      I agree that SOE is unlikely to convert Vanguard to F2P. The only case where they might change their minds is if everything on their station pass has a F2P version....which is almost a reality. Who knows.

     Comparing Vanguard to SWG is moot. SWG galaxies required SOE to re-license from Lucas...and I'm willing to bet Lucas wasn't willing . Even if they were...it just wasn't worth costs..the license is probably more than 5 years worth of revenues from SWG..and that's being conservative.. That coupled with the security/privacy issue costs SOE incurred recently....and you can hardly cast blame. Well..you can always cast blame I guess..thats easy for fans of an MMO these days.

    Vanguard is owned outright by SOE. They could run that game forever on fumes and probably still make a small profit because they dedicated very,very few resources towards its maintenance. Or so it seems. Its seems they could funnel a bit of money to convert it to f2p and make a killing but it unlikely to come close to their other fantasy mmo..EQ2..which already has a F2p model  that does fairly well.

I don't think it is a moot comparison when they refuse to spend the resources on VG as you said in your post as of currently. SOE also posted that it would take a large portion of resources to convert SWG over. Now on the subtopic of resources, when SOE refuses to spend on VG or SWG now, why would they do so in the future? Just because they own the IP outright means that they want to spend the 1) time and 2) money in the conversion process.

Is past performance indicative of future results?

Edited to say: I really hope I am wrong. I would hate to see the faithful community of Vanguard fall to the same fate as SWG's.

Originally posted by WhiteLantern

Originally posted by Inktomi

No, because this is the same company that is shutting down Star Wars Galaxies. When the SWG community begged them to make it F2P their answer was, "No, because it would take an incredible amount of resources to do so, resources that are going to be used somewhere else" meaning DC Universe Online. 

SOE would probably shut it down before they convert it.

If I read the SWG notice correctly, it was LA that made the ultimate decsion to stop SWG. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

I think the possiblity is good for F2P Vanguard because of some of the stuff Smed said in the Massively interview:

"John Smedley: Not at all. We have a very strong belief in the future of the F2P business model. We've got our own ideas, and we feel very strongly that this is the future of the industry. We're certainly exploring it ourselves very deeply, and you can expect more announcements in the near future.

Massively: Does that mean that all SOE games will be free-to-play at some future point?

John Smedley: The statement I would make is that we view free-to-play as the future, and we're very interested in it and excited about it. I'm leaving a little bit of room there because business models evolve over time. You can look for some announcements about current games in the future, and we're really looking closely at it. We like the model."

I believe that this quote is from the same massively article :" The decision to shut down SWG is first and foremost a business decision mutually agreed upon between SOE and LucasArts. LucasArts has a new game coming out, and the contract would be running out in 2012 anyway, so we feel like it's the right time for the game to end."

So, in turn, all the players that stuck with SWG through thick and thin get a pink slip because SWTOR is coming out. But wait! They have Clone Wars to turn to!

Smedly is right, F2P is the crutch of the future.

Anarchy Online. Because the world needs a really good ground based MMO. When I played AO, I loved the sheer massive scale of it and the fact that you could use items way beyond your level. If they would redo this, I would love to get back on my Martial Artist.

Hiiiiiya!

No, because this is the same company that is shutting down Star Wars Galaxies. When the SWG community begged them to make it F2P their answer was, "No, because it would take an incredible amount of resources to do so, resources that are going to be used somewhere else" meaning DC Universe Online. 

SOE would probably shut it down before they convert it.

John Smedley says, "This is the right business model. If I can be honest, the game ended up costing a lot more than we thought it would, and this was our preferred business model from day one."

Well, why didn't you make the decision to launch with this business model?

I could answer that: So they could make the money on the client and box sales until it was clear that the sub model wasn't going to bring in enough sustained revenue. Switching to the item shop model gives SOE two more avenues of revenue - 1) is the "premium" subscription rate that is the gatekeeping mechanics that keeps the F2P leeches in their place and the item shop that always seem to be apparent in the games mechanics. I feel bad for the people coming off the beta and paying the 50-60 bucks only to find out that little johnny will be downloading the client for free in a few months.

"It cost a little more than we expected" he also said. Do your research, know your industry and plan accordingly. Pathetic business decisions. 

Another reason is that when SOE was taking out loans, asking investors to buy into this game and acquiring the DC IP, its easier to show a forward earnings curve with the sub model. That is something I learned when the Big Freaks interviewed Jack Emmert from Cryptic Studios. Another bunch.

Now, that the game has probably paid off its loans etc, they can lift the lid by jumping on the F2P bandwagon. The F2P switch is quickly becoming the crutch of the MMO industry. I would respect a developer more if they had the cahones to release it as a F2P and make a game well enough to sustain itself without having to resort to plan B...or C... or D.

SOE, when are you going to realize that you don't have what it takes to hold a candle to Blizzard. You had it back in the day, but you lost it and since then, always been a second rate house with second rate games (excepts for EQ).

Enough.

/rant off

Originally posted by DarkPony

Originally posted by Inktomi

Originally posted by DarkPony

"Boobs in mmorpgs are always unrealistically large"

MYTH BUSTED!

Get em pony! 

2nd Myth: Female armor increases its armor value as it gets smaller and smaller.

 

Spent some time googling for girls in skimpy armor cut in half but couldn't find anything. So for the time being:

MYTH PLAUSIBLE!

Oh, ho! Before you support that myth, watch this video: female armor s(*^cks.

Originally posted by DarkPony

"Boobs in mmorpgs are always unrealistically large"

MYTH BUSTED!

Get em pony! 

2nd Myth: Female armor increases its armor value as it gets smaller and smaller.

As a man of my word, I downloaded the client, created an account and I'm playing under Xabu for now. Making my way through all the tutorials before I hit the mainland.

The game is definately sandbox and very interesting so far. No where as near sleek and visually impressive as some of the newer games, however they (the devs) did a few things that I really am impressed with.

1) Released a scenario editor so now the community can start making their own content. I'm very supportive of amatuer community creativity like mods etc.

2) Released the source code for free and to the GNU free software community: reasons stated above and I also support the GNU Community.

3) Lowered monthly fee without any initial client costs. $11 bucks a month or $60 for 6 months makes sense to me. The fact that they didn't attach themselves to the free-to-play (edit) means I can play for 6 months whenever I want to without the mechanics nipping at my pockets.

Which is one of the reasons that we (the mmo community) does not like F2P games is because I don't want to constantly be reminded that I need to spend money on this or that. I know that at endgame, if there is an endgame in Ryzom, that it isn't pay to win and a more level playing field.

4) There is a TON of database information out there. TONS... I found a really good website: http://ballisticmystix.net/ that gives all the info in easy to read form.

What I've noticed so far is that Ryzom has depth without being overcomplex. Many sandboxery style games try to make things so incredibly confusing ::cough Mortal Online cough::: that the newcomer gets overwhelmed. 

5) 3 shards, 1 is german speaking and 1 is the newly established francophone (french) version. That shows some growth and I do see people, its not a barren wasteland as I expected, haven't hit the mainland yet, but its not a complete ghostown.

Day 2: so far, so good. Hit me up on Xabu if you want to group up.

Cheers,

~Ink

Oh Ryzom....

I'm a sucker for these plea bargain threads and articles. "Try me, I'm not so bad" or "Hey, this game is worth a second look" is how it starts and I actually end up enjoying the game in spite of itself.

First it was FFXI, I enjoyed that. Then it was Mortal Online, didn't enjoy that at all, but that game has some promise. Last week I almost fell for a "Vanguard is really GREAT!" thread. Now its Ryzom.

The problem I have with older games like Vanguard and Ryzom is not the outdated graphics, I like nostalgic games. Its that there is really not as many people playing as say a newer game. The population is low and a new player will miss out on a lot of group content. I am not a soloer, I will solo, but I work much better with groups. The entire reason for me playing an MMORPG over a SPRPG is the human contact, I enjoy the laughs. 

When Ian Stolz said, "allow your vendors to sell the stuff you sell to them on to the player-base",  you need the player base to be able to buy those items. Considering I'm a new player, I'm not going to be crafting stuff that older player-base might need or even want over a growing player base that has new players coming in behind me looking for my junk.

Not that junk.

Population and community is where the rubber meets the road in online games, without it you are better off playing Elder Scrolls which is what I've been doing lately. Not laughing as much either.

You got me, Ian, I already did the 14 day trial way back when Beau Turkey (Hindman now) was campaigning for Ryzom, but I'll give it another go round for 2 weeks.

I am such a sucker. >.<

Good article and its not as much as a Debbie Downer as you think. The industry is showing growth and if I can recall, the analysis said it would reach over 5B in 2015, I read an article stating it would be over 10B at the end of 2011. So someone was off the mark a little bit, IHS seems a little more on the conservative side. the video game industry has been growing exponentially over the past 5 years as is, I think 5B is a little on the low end.

As far as the sub model giving way to microtransaction, we could have seen that from space. Adopting an MT model lifts the ceiling for revenue as long as the content is there and hits the right triggers, causing bells and whistles to go off when players look at them.

Case in point, recently I did a little research on that Spectral Tiger mount that is only attainable by pulling a loot card from the WOW TCG is still worth over 500 big ones. Thats a lot of potatoes for a virtual item, even though its cool as all hell, and bought with a real-time product, still falls under the MT standard. In a way, Blizzard is fueling their TCG with cash-shop like items as well as offering items in a virtual cash shop as well. Not a bad idea when someone will pay over $10 just for 100 grenades that make people dance in front of a disco ball.

Secondly, EVE...Incarna...Greed is Good...I don't want to go down that road again but, every game developer is seeing the handwriting on the wall. I think Richard AIhoshi once wrote an article saying RMT and F2P were inevitable, I took the opposing side, boy was I wrong on that one.

It comes down to raw psychology and the pyramid of needs, we need to feel a part of and to be accepted. So having the coolest new items or the best gearscore or the best record in pvp sets off certain bells and whistles in our head that make us open our wallets.

Everyone knows this now, I wonder why its such a surprise to everyone to read this report.

Ah nope. I need to upgrade to a Intel Core 2 Quad and Windys 7 64 bit before GW (and Skyrim hits).

Just ordered another 4G of ram will bring me up to 8. Little bit at a time.