All Posts by Mitara

It is not the feature set that is really the big part of the development of an MMO. It is the technology for the graphics engine, the server and the contents of the world. The two first you can find engines for, even for free although those are not the best in the world, on the internet.

The 3rd one, if you want a great and interesting world, takes a huge amount of time to design. It is not unseen that a single dungeon can take from 1 to 2 months to create and polish. Quality matters for the player and quality takes time.

With the right team, you could get an MMO up and running in its raw form within 6 months. The next 2 years you will do alpha testing and polishing the world. After that the Beta test and gold version comes, thats another 6 months, hopefully.

If  my memory is not failing me, the original DAOC was done in 18 months and had a fair launch. On the other end of the scale a game like Anarchy Online took 7 years and ended up as rubbish when it got launched (I still feel sympathy for that poor Gaute, now fired for his work with the rather unpopular AoC, despite actually being an ok new game).

It is incredible that developers can still think that click-to-move interfaces are any good. This is SO terrible that it shouldnt even be allowed on this site. The game itself? Who knows, how could we, without a proper interface to move around in the world, we will never discover it.

It is possible, my company just did it.  I can only say to you, try it !!! Follow your dreams of building a good mmo, there sure is room for one atm.

Originally posted by Raston

sorry, even if they did everything on your list, the game would still be pathetic.

The whole foundation of the game is flawed and unless they somewho mystically grow a clue, they won't fix it.

Massive PvP seiges my arse, 40x40 is NOT massive, sorry.

Shame they didn't take the good things from SB and rework them with modern tech to fix the exploits, but I guess that would of taken far more skill than they really had...

I completely agree with this. AoC is SO like WoW and Warhammer (beta) that its pathetic and it just has to fail. Gaute didnt see that, he wanted a new WoW..... that was his mistake and now his job... Poor guy.

Originally posted by GreenChaos

Originally posted by Z3R01

You know somethings wrong with a genre when the good games are 4-5+ years old.

I'm getting frustrated with the lack of quality games in this genre.

In every game I played there is always some flaw that bugs me so much it makes me leave.

I know i'm not the only one that feels this way, I know that others are waiting for that one mmo that's going to knock this genre on its ear.

Can we survive the wait? when this game does finally come will we even care anymore?

/frustrated mmogamer rant off

 

 

 

And you are not alone.  Many people on this forum feel the same exact way you do.

And it's really sad that people who haven't liked a MMO in 5 years still hang out in a MMO forum, doing nothing but complain.

it's beyond sad.

My favorite genre is the dungeon keeper genre. And there have only been 3 games in this genre, DK 1 and 2 and Evil Genius. And no evil overlord does not count.

But do I sit and complain for 5 years? No I moved on. There is nothing I can do about it other than make my own. Which I may do some day.

After 5 years you need to except the fact that the kind of game you want isn't gong to be made, and you need to move on.

 

 

DM games... then thsi game might be for you, whenever it comes out. http://trimiongames.com

If this was so, why on earht would anyone hire Ybarra, to make Stargate. This guy sucks, just check the Matrix online. A game possibly worse than the author of the phrase "YOU'R WINNER". But he does, Ybarra is actually still hired by someone to produce something. God help us!!!

Actually cudos to SOE for saving the Vanguard title.

I did, and it sucked. thats why this post.

The results are interesting though, 50/50 on who are naive enough to think a new MMO can right away compare with a test 5 year old thing. I like that. that gives us hope, maybe we can make another WoW clone and earn a little extra money, before that era is gone. yay !

I completely agree, the graphics suck, big time. Well... not all the graphics, they are getting the look of the surrounding trees right... but combat, animations, OMG !!

Cutscenes was presented in Turbines games a looong time ago, and its in AoC as well. ITs a good thing, it does add to the immersiveness and I hope Aion's will as well.

Aion's flight thing, is a good idea, a completetly this-had-to-come-sooner-or-later, but still a good idea.

http://www.trimiongames.com - sandbox game

Second Life is a virtual world with no content at all.

Definitetly never give up on your dreams, but while your dreaming.... take your MBA, youll need it, cause one thing is for certain, unless you work your way up inside companies like Blizzard or NCSoft, YOUR idea is never going to happen unless you finance it yourself, thats how life works. Get your degree, work like hell for 15-20 years, THEN you might stand a chance with the investors.

There are only about 1 million members of these forums and probably only 1/3 of them are active and 1/10 of the actives are actually writing about it. So judging from what you see on these forums, thats not really the way to go.

In my opinion the WoW style will always be out there, the only thing that will stop it, is another game that does the same or more numbers, and thats not going to happen until 2012.

Hi Brian um.. OP

Did you receive the check yet?

NCSoft

Sounds like a very dull and empty world to me and completetly missing the point of meeting new poeple in the game. SOE tried this with SWG, and the artists hated it.

On the other hand, when you look at the otherwise beutiful terrain of games like WoW and AoC, the terrain is really crappy and unrealistic, because it was controlled by an artist. hmmmm, maybe you got something. Just has to be really really really sophisticated coding, or the variation will not be great.

The best world I have ever seen in an mmo, is present in Entropia. Very varied and beutiful (well... it is an old game). Unfortunately that game didnt have really that much else to offer. The word moneymachine springs into mind somehow...

Now now plasuma we dont all work for bioware or funcom.... Some of us are making a fair pay from our games, even those that didnt make top 10 (*searches her inventory for one, unsuccessfully*).

The game industry is like any other industry when it comes to success, moneymaking etc. You need a degree or a good track record to be successful. Ideas are generally NOT welcome, which is actually possibly the bane of the industry.

Community, yes.. I can count to ... let me see... um... hmm... no games out there that supports a good community, ugh !

The only reason people like non-instanced PVP is becaues they never met me in the game....

If you constantly get killed by others who just happened to start that single day before you, just happens to be part of that bigger, but really stupid guild. Your life in the pvp game is over. Thats why 70% of all MMO playres prefer PVE.

On the other hand, the 30% who loves PVP, can find the challenge, the anxiety, the good feeling of revenge, once they get their character in shape, thats why people love pvp as well.

The competition on the epic monster, why does that exist? Because so far all worlds have been static. The epic monsters, you know where they are, what they can do, you can plan for it. The day the new generation of MMO's start to come out, you will not be able to forsee the battel with X the Cruel and his siblings, you will be surprised, possibly outnumbered, possibly a real hero.

When we had to decide on our new mmo title, we researched the single player market to find some of the best experiences there. We loved the graphics in Assasins Creed, so we decided to go for that in our production. But we also loved the freedom of the old Ultima Online, and felt that we had to tell a really  immersive story that had an impact on our dynamic world. We went with that and also added the ability for players to create their own missions, which made our mission guy happy, cause he now has a very good interface to create his work. It is possible to get both the graphics, immersive atmosphere and the gameplay. But there are more to the MMO life than just another dead pvp opponent, despite some peoples opinion, so we wanted to add something really extra there and came up with the idea of making it possible for players to actually build up an evil empire, playing the evil guy. Im not saying this isnt an expensive thing to do, it certainly is, but the money is actually out here, you just have to look for it. We shall see in a few years how this is going to turn out.

It is a practical problem to make the game able to handle from 2000 to 30000 people, it has to have some kind of flexibility. Thats the reason for instancing.

There is no doubt that instancing kills the immersiveness of the game however, but whats the solution, how else can we make the game so scaleable.

World instancing might be a choice, but again if anything it will reduce the immersiveness. The size of the world is another choice, but while being able to handle more people, if the world does an "AoC", the world will quickly fill very empty, destroying it for the players that did find the joy in playing the game.

So whats the technical solution? Well.. my company is currently working on a new MMO that will have no respawn, no levels, no end-game and no epic instances. Hopefully that will turn out well...

NCSoft... Dungeon Runners... a small game, but not so small that they didnt expect many players to play it at the same time. So they made world-instancing. Instances based on the amount of people that would be online playing at the same time. They notibly did not block players from selecting the instance they wanted to go into, making everybody able to meet everybody. Was this a solution for others to use as well? What do you think?