Originally posted by morbidlymystic

Originally posted by nerovipus32

WOW is shit in my opinion....

Thus, your opinionis bad.  The market has spoken, and no other MMO has ever come close to its level of success. 

 

PS:  I like how you extrapolated the reasons for WoW's success, but don't like it.  lol, that makes sense.

Exactly. Don't listen to what people *say* watch what they *do*.  WoW for all its faults (which are legion at this point) is a good game all the way up to level cap (currently 90). It has years worth of content, and when Ghostcrawler isn't up to his usual antics, at least some of the classes are entertaining to play.

WoW has made Blizzard billions upon billions of dollars, over years and years.  Anyone who respects the concept of a free market (of which there is damn little in reality) has to respect that aspect of Blizzards operation.

That having been said, WAY too many business suits/investors have been dazzled by those mountains of money.  At one point, all it took for them to throw truck loads of money at you, was to whisper the mystic phrase; "Its just like World of Warcraft"... ^^

Thankfully, after many failed games, the edge is starting to wear off of that.  I'm hoping we do not see a crash like we did in 84, but given various trends thats possible.

Bottom line, there are many, many different ways of making an entertaining game, but it requires Dev's who have the experience/knowledge/wisdom/resources and time to do it right.

Originally posted by nerovipus32
Having endgame rading will just make the vocal minority rush to end game and then start complaining that there isn't enough content once they have done the raids. This happens with every mmo that has raiding..it's rush rush rush.

QFT.

I'm LONG past tired of dealing with the GO! GO! GO! crowd.  Take a few moments to read the quest text, so you have a sense of what needs to be done, and some people go into hysterics.  Hell, I've even seen some of those nut cases want to kick the tank, because they didn't pull everything in LOS at once.  With a 45 minute wait just to get here, are you out of your mind?? GO! GO! GO!...<rolls eyes>.

Don't even get me started on the dps meter/Min/Max Gscore fanatics, who turn any given game into a second job...<face palm>

Raiding is just another tactic used to extend the time people will stick around a game. It gives a sense of progression (which is good, its one of my focus points as well).  But its been badly abused by people who by this point should have the experience/knowledge to know better.  Its the natural result of the design decision to have hard (rather than soft) level caps.

But thats an entirely different can of worms.

Originally posted by Sephiroso

Originally posted by Vorthanion

Originally posted by Livnthedream

Originally posted by Vorthanion

The numbers are close enough to view the trend, bud.  This isn't isolated to WoW either, it's fairly common in any game that has similar layers of content.

That is completely false. More people raid (especially at a high level) on only a single, or sometimes 2 toons, though many of them have many many alts. That is the problem with guaging by percent of characters instead of percent of accounts.

If that were the case, then why don't more developers reveal this information in order to sell their penchant for raid content?  Why reveal it in the way they have so far, when they usually try to reveal things in the best light possible to justify their reasons for focusing on specific content for end game.

Why don't you ask them? Most developers are stupid in the first place. Case in point to all the WoW clones that fail to capture what made WoW a success and continue to put out utter crap year after year.

 

And to throw your tactic right back at you. Why do developers continue to make raiding a big deal and continue to spend so much time and effort into designing new and more raids if only such a small portion of their players ever experience it? Obviously because a hell of a lot more than 25% people experience the raids.

I'd not say stupid, as much as inexperienced in dealing with all of the variables involved.  Not to mention, that its typically the suits who make many of the decisions that result in clones.  The suits are typically the direct representatives of the investors (or publisher), and tend to be quite risk adverse.  Thus they look at what has been a success before, and attempt to follow it. Its ironic, that such a focus tends to result in one failed game after another.

As for raiding, I suspect that one would find that games that have a heavy raid focus, tend to have head Dev's or a raiding faction, driving the internal development policy focus.  Even though only a small fraction of the general player base has any real interest in raiding.  Look at WoW's attempt to spread raiding to a larger percentage of their player base, with the LFR system, as an example.

Originally posted by jtcgs

Originally posted by Aelious

Why? Well that's the core point in all of this. Speaking from a players standpoint F2P is the future, viva revolution! But.... word coming back is not so promising for this making the MMOs we love to play for free so much. Huge leap in players since the F2P boom but the revenue hasn't "clicked" yet. Time will tell.

 Hasnt clicked yet?

Name me the ONLY gaming company that spent around 400 MILLION DOLLARS aquiring or buying a stake into other companies in the last 2 years.

Only one...Nexon.

In fact, only Nexon and Perfect World, two FREE 2 PLAY COMPANIES have gone on spending sprees spending almost as much money as most of the subscription based MMO gaming companies MAKE A YEAR.

Remove SoE, EA and Blizzard and Nexon makes more than the entire industry combined. 1.3 billion in revenue. Throw in PWE and they make mroe than Blizzard even outside the MMO world....on free games.

Turbine, F2P is the future. Funcom, F2P is the future. SoE, F2P is the future. EA, F2P is the future.

The only company that matters that hasnt said it publicly is Blizzard.

Yes, we know... Korea, and F2P are the future of gaming...  Nexon has one of the worst reputations in the gaming industry.  Even worse than NCsoft and SOE.  I'd hardly consider them being involved in something a glowing recommendation.

As for PWE, I like some of their games, but others are little more than the typical re ruled, repurposed shovel ware, that we've all seen way too much of.  While F2P is simply a different business model, many of those using it are guilty of seriously abusing it.

Originally posted by psiic

Sure..

 

1) Conquer a technologically advanced nation with pre-exsisting game studios

 

2) Impose slavery in violation of UN resolututions

 

3) Capture and force some game designers into slavery

 

4) Force your slaves to code your game

 

5) Capture more slaves because the first batch starved to death because you did not spend money to feed them

 

6) Rinse and repeat until your game is finished

 

Totally boggles the mind how ignorant and selfish this new generation of " gimme" gamers has become. 

 

I just can not believe we have now managed to raise a whole generation of young people who now truly feel they are 

 

entitled to anything and everything they DEMAND and should not have to do anything for it at all.

 

I am really starting to see the whole picture and it really scares the hell outta me.

As well it should to any thoughtful, rational individual.  We have now had several generations of people with that entitlement complex.  As gaming has become more main stream, it more clearly reflects a cross section of that general population.  You do know why its called the main stream? Because its too shallow to be a river... ^^

F2P is simply another business model. If you don't like it, don't play games that use it. Its really just that simple.

Originally posted by SysFail

Originally posted by Wraithone

Originally posted by SysFail
Funcom killed what should have been the most brutal open world ever created in Conan, with the instanced themepark route and it looks like Zenimax are going to do the same with TES.

Perhaps because there is a rather limited market for "brutal open world" games?  Games of that type auto niche. Given the millions upon millions that these games take to create, I can well understand why they wouldn't want to drastically limit their potential ROI.

We're never know now will we, but what we do know is, is that Conan did a big belly flop into the themepark pool and never resurfaced.

I played Age of Conan at launch.  It was fun up to level 20. Then it really dropped off.  I suspect it was pushed out way too soon, without proper development of the areas after the starting zone.

Originally posted by BillMurphy

Originally posted by Panzerbase
And I'm hearing direct opposites on many of these points, that it is not living up to the name, that the character creation is asinine and needless with current implimation, and the closed world is telling of the departure from it's Skrim roots. My estimate is one of too much hype and too one too many biased opinions in the favor of the game. I guess money is the universal language of the world, well money under the table. 

OR, Mike liked the game.

/rolleyes

Given my experience over the years, MikeB has always seemed to be fair and even handed.  I've always respected that of him.  But lets not forget, that fan bias can impact anyones judgement.   Look at my support of Firefall, as an example of hope over reason... ^^

I've never been any great fan of TES series, so if its not like that series, I'd not count it a negative.

Everyone should do their own research on games, and make their own decisions.

I doubt that MikeB (or you) would allow money to bias your columns, but that possibility does exist out and about, so I'd not take it personally when someone mentions it.

Originally posted by SysFail
Funcom killed what should have been the most brutal open world ever created in Conan, with the instanced themepark route and it looks like Zenimax are going to do the same with TES.

Perhaps because there is a rather limited market for "brutal open world" games?  Games of that type auto niche. Given the millions upon millions that these games take to create, I can well understand why they wouldn't want to drastically limit their potential ROI.

Originally posted by tintilinic

Originally posted by Wraithone

Originally posted by tintilinic

Originally posted by Wraithon

 Who knows what game they will axe next?

A game that doesnt do good. Its a no brainer. I approve of their approach, MMO should die as imo going to maintenance mode and milking/nickle&diming is a far worse faith for an MMO.

Some would call it living dead.

"That doesn't do good" Is my point.  It tends to be entirely subjective when it comes to NCsoft and western games.  Its to the point that any western studio that would have them for a publisher has to be naive/ignorant and/or desperate. None of those are a good sign for a studio or their potential players.

Mix that in with Nexon being one of their major investors these days, and it doesn't look good.

Eh? How it is subjective? They have their standard and if game falls below that it goes down the crapper. They dont drag it out and try to squeeze every penny out of their players while investing almost zero in a game.

You can disagree and have husks of MMOs that are a maintenance mode and suck money of few people that play them.

Have you ever done business analysis? The internal simulations/projections are based upon various assumptions.  Those get weighted according to the persons experience/bias/agenda.  That impacts the results.  That is what I mean by subjective.

As for the rest, the emotional loading of your statement indicates your positional bias, just as mine does.

Originally posted by tintilinic

Originally posted by Wraithon

 Who knows what game they will axe next?

A game that doesnt do good. Its a no brainer. I approve of their approach, MMO should die as imo going to maintenance mode and milking/nickle&diming is a far worse faith for an MMO.

Some would call it living dead.

"That doesn't do good" Is my point.  It tends to be entirely subjective when it comes to NCsoft and western games.  Its to the point that any western studio that would have them for a publisher has to be naive/ignorant and/or desperate. None of those are a good sign for a studio or their potential players.

Mix that in with Nexon being one of their major investors these days, and it doesn't look good.

Originally posted by Kuinn

Actually no-raids is new information for me, I havent followed TESO too closely, and my interest in the game just exploded. The last time I seriously did raids was in vanilla WoW, it was fun until the pattern got revealed that I lose basically everything I worked for every time an expansion hits the shelves.

 

Since then I have grown to dislike raids because it really seems just like an easy way for devs to say "hey here's raids for you for end-game content, now stop whining and asking for anything else", so many mmorpgs suck because the main thing seems always to be raiding in the WoW-pattern, and very little meaningful content besides that, making me quit the game or join the exhausting PvP arms race.

I know how that is. Those shiny purples get replaced by quest greens/blues in just a few weeks, after the expansion hits. Then the cycle starts all over again. I finally burned out on raids.  I'm hoping that TES turns out to be an entertaining game.  Thats all I'm looking for these days.

Originally posted by DashiDMV

There is actually a pretty sizeable movement against NCSoft and anything they publish. There are people who just will not take another chance on games that will get shut down if they don't fit the mold. It has been most noticeable with the City of Heroes (former) players but players of other games shut down after 1-2 years have the same mindset.

Obviously GW2 has done well but for a straight sub game, it will be interesting to see what the market will be on this. Maybe by the time the game comes out it will have subsided enough to not have any kind of impact but as we saw with SOE and SWG, some people will never forgive or forget.

 

Good points.  NCsoft has axed way too many western games for it to be a simple case of cutting their losses.  Either they had really bad judgement to start with, or their high level suits have totally unrealistic expectations (or both).  As for me,  I still fault them for axing Tabula Rasa (I also fault RG for splitting his focus).  Many people are well past annoyed with them about how they handled City of Heros/Villians.  Who knows what game they will axe next?

Originally posted by Betakodo

Too much cartoon, not enough poon.

No joke, it's too cartoony and there's not enough decent looking character designs. Additionally the combat and PvP looks like run of the mill stuff. Yeah, people shouldn't judge by graphics, but they do. Look how badly Wizardry Online got booed out because of it's graphics.

It wasn't just graphics. Perma death in a PvP game turns a lot of people off.

Originally posted by funcon
I have a feeling, this game is really gonna be big. Bigger than Rift and GW2. And will be bigger than Elder Scrolls Online. It will challenge ArcheAge for the 2nd biggest MMORPG behind WoW.

You must be new around here. Otherwise you would know that its not normal to say anything positive about a game, especially one that hasn't launched yet. ^^

I'm quite looking forward to Wildstar myself. I want to see how it plays, before I make any judgement calls on it.  What concerns me most is that their publisher is NCsoft. Thats NOT a good sign for a western game.

Originally posted by acidblood

Originally posted by Skuall

the characters can FLY? wth? Oo

No, that's just the devs be dirty, filthy cheaters.

Thats to be expected. Dev's almost always cheat, its one of the perks of being a Dev. ^^

Originally posted by Margulis

Here is the 30 minute video where you can see the UI and also the questgivers - didn't even try to avoid the wow comparison with that one.   And you can see as he picks up quest they did indeed go with their "130 characters or less quest text" - so that's even more bland.  See for yourself.

 

30 minutes of gameplay ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DCqgowlTKo

Yellow !?? Oh, the horror, the HORROR!!... ^^  From what I've seen, Wildstar looks like a great deal of fun. The only thing that really concerns me is that their publisher is NCsoft. Which means that at the slightest sign of weakness, they will be axed, like NCsoft has done to four or five other western games at this point.

Nice list, and good points to remember. But much of that becomes victim to the political games that get played in the typical studio.  All too often the lead Dev has a Vision(tm) problem, and the producers lack the people skills (experience) required to manage the creatives, in order to actually get things done, in a timely fashion.

Mix in suits who are in general clueless about the creative process (that this is very much an art, NOT a science, with all of the inherent implications), and lack any real understanding of games in general, coupled with investors who panic if their hand holders aren't up to the task, and the only wonder is that things don't turn out worse than they usually do.

Originally posted by Vorthanion

Originally posted by Nanfoodle

Originally posted by Torvaldr
Progression raiding is one thing that I think holds back the themeparks of the genre.  If it has raids, then it's all about raiding.  All the other progression is secondary and second rate.  Either a game has raids and is about raiding or it doesn't have them at all.  I really hope they won't add progression raiding to the game.

Why cant there be both?

....as seen from past games, raiders cannot stand the thought of other play styles / non-raiding content getting equitable rewards to raids.  For such a minority of players, they are incredibly noisy and quite frankly, hateful.

Exactly.  Anything anyone else gets is called a "welfare epic" by all too many of those clowns.  It doesn't matter what the system is, if its not a raid drop, its "welfare".  I doubt many of them even understand the term, let alone its proper application.

Obsession with dps meters and gear score has corrupted what was once an enjoyable activity.  I fault the Devs as much as I do those who endlessly chase after the latest shiny purples.  Its their designs that aid and abet these types of obsessions, and exclusions.

Given the time/talent and experience it takes to create this type of content, and the small percentage of a given player base that ever sees it, one wonders if its a good application of that time and talent.  But thats up to the Dev's to determine (shrug).

Originally posted by CalmOceans

I know it's possible because I played Street Gears and the only thing you could buy was outfits, cosmetic items.

But all other F2P games I played are ,for all intended purpose, Pay2Win games. I think it's purely greed tbh.

What is this "greed" you speak of?  That people want to make a profit from their investment? What is the difference between profit and "greed"? Its been my experience that many people use the word "greed" to mean; "you have more than me" or "you want more than I think you should".