Being a newer Game Designer because I got tired of seeing Bad games, I  turned a hobby into a career but when this happens, people like us see the other side to why, they aren't gonna make the next UO and such...

 

There are to many games that you can make and make more money off of, like IOS, facebook games etc, so looking at MMO's your like screw that, it takes to long and cost to much, would I like to do it sure I wrote a game for 10years and everything about it I see now in some games, but small parts.   We do see games that can be good the issue is like myself we do not have million of dollars to do it.

 

Also some gamers only have themselfs to blame, because do you think an investor will take a chance with a nobody no, fat chance, also a new idea, again no.... The AAA companys aren't gonna do it because they do not make money as these Themeparks do, they are easy to play you can jump on for 30 mins and play the game , sadly most indies do not have the money that these AAA companys do, also the staff. So most gamers who end up going to school and before they went wanted to make MMO's come out and dislike MMO's... I still like them but I see why... SO the day of games made my gamers are not gonna happen as much as they did...

 

Yes we have kick starter which is a great thing but some of those people from kickstarter do not have the correct staff to begin with, and some don't have any buisness sense ...

 

Only way we will see better games is if you people stop spending so much on Themeparks and support indies more, I'm not just saying that because I'm a new Dev its what I see as a gamer to....

this ^

 

Well said Sir. Well said.

It IS the dev's (our, if a can go that far) right to decide to go for financial security, especially in respect of age (you can live on cheese toast only so long) and family.

But they are NOT entitled to blame the customer for this decision.

Flame on!

:)

The thing is though that even the big publishers are starting to see that 'Emergent Gameplay' and Sandboxes are ways to make money and do keep people in game longer.

They are looking specifically at Mine Craft and EVE online.

Take  look at this article http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/11/future-of-mmo-games/

Building a world to just sit and look at it is not going to keep people playing. These kind of games need the 'watch the world burn' players just as much as Mine Craft needs creepers. Blowing things up every once in a while forces you to re-build, it gives you something to do.

Even the PvP in EVE gives you something to do and forces you to make sure the insurance on your ship is up to date. Mining to just mine would become incredibly boring if people didn't ninja your cannisters or try to shoot your barge. Endlessly transferring cargo from one sector to another would just be a grind if people didn't try to shoot at your cargo ship.

Yes it sucks when you lose. Yes you feel like you've been griefed by annoying kiddies. If none of these things were in place, the game would get boring after a while. 

I may be crazy for seeing this, but it can be quite a rush.

Originally posted by karat76
Worlds would be great but unfortunately the best part of gaming worlds is also the worst the other players. A world game would definately need different server types to help spread the douche bags out.

THe community breaks or makes the world. Doesnt matter if you have a 10v10 world or a 5000x5000 world, if your community is bad it doesnt matter what game or where they play. I would rather be in a larger world so i can avoid these people. No matter what genre or what platform you will always bump into bad people. But for the most part, the ones that stick around and help create a better game environment far out wiegh the bad ones.

Originally posted by Darkcrystal

Being a newer Game Designer because I got tired of seeing Bad games, I  turned a hobby into a career but when this happens, people like us see the other side to why, they aren't gonna make the next UO and such...

 

There are to many games that you can make and make more money off of, like IOS, facebook games etc, so looking at MMO's your like screw that, it takes to long and cost to much, would I like to do it sure I wrote a game for 10years and everything about it I see now in some games, but small parts.   We do see games that can be good the issue is like myself we do not have million of dollars to do it.

 

Also some gamers only have themselfs to blame, because do you think an investor will take a chance with a nobody no, fat chance, also a new idea, again no.... The AAA companys aren't gonna do it because they do not make money as these Themeparks do, they are easy to play you can jump on for 30 mins and play the game , sadly most indies do not have the money that these AAA companys do, also the staff. So most gamers who end up going to school and before they went wanted to make MMO's come out and dislike MMO's... I still like them but I see why... SO the day of games made my gamers are not gonna happen as much as they did...

 

Yes we have kick starter which is a great thing but some of those people from kickstarter do not have the correct staff to begin with, and some don't have any buisness sense ...

 

Only way we will see better games is if you people stop spending so much on Themeparks and support indies more, I'm not just saying that because I'm a new Dev its what I see as a gamer to....

If there was any evidence that themeparks make money this might be acceptable.

But by and large they don't. The only really successful themepark was WoW. But that's all the mindless publishers ever see anyway.

Originally posted by DavisFlight

If there was any evidence that themeparks make money this might be acceptable.

But by and large they don't. The only really successful themepark was WoW. But that's all the mindless publishers ever see anyway.

So you're saying that AoC, DDO, LOTRO, EQ2, Wizard 101 and all the other themepark style MMOs that have been running for five or more years have been doing so at a loss each year?

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by DavisFlight

If there was any evidence that themeparks make money this might be acceptable.

But by and large they don't. The only really successful themepark was WoW. But that's all the mindless publishers ever see anyway.

So you're saying that AoC, DDO, LOTRO, EQ2, Wizard 101 and all the other themepark style MMOs that have been running for five or more years have been doing so at a loss each year?

Weird isn't it, yes for some there were reductions in staff.  But they have made expansions, made new games and been running for several years.  Hard to do if they weren't making money.

It may have something to do with the fact that their yearly and quarterly earnings are not posted in major gaming magazines and perhapse not to the players themselves. 

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

Originally posted by Reklaw

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

Regarding the whole players create their own story.  To me this is largely bs. 

The stories that individuals tell in sandbox games including eve is, "I started at this time, I got these skills, I joined this clan and then repeated ad nauseum we attacked this outpost, we crafted this item, we attacked this outpost, we defended this outpost, we attacked this traveller..."

That is not a story.  Or rather it may be the literal definition of story, "A statement of events" but there is nothing there that will entertain another person.  It is the weakest form of story there is.

Now if the game let you create more of a backstory, and decide on a plot that can grow and change over time.  That may be interesting but as of today, no Sandboxes do not let you create a story.

Probebly people who experianced Lego/Playmobile/StarWars figurines/GIJoe's/Martel type of toy's understand how one may tell his/her own story as we did with our toy's back then. Now or atleast with the more virtual type of MMORPG we're back at our childhood again creating our own story's. Shame Themeparks don't allow for this freedom. And understandeble that those who grew up during mainstream internet might find it hard to graps players own created story in a MMORPG.

So NO it's not BS, it's just that you might not have experianced playing with things where you needed to use your own imagination instead of being told what to do.

Same with your view on EVE, I mean there are countless of story's told and experianced by players/corps. It's just that you might not get them. noting wrong with that really. But just don't say it's BS.

I do agree with having the way a players play's or wants to tell a story would be awesome if it had real impact thru out the gameworld.

But I stand that sandbox creates the oppertunity for a player to create his or her own story.

 I did play all those things.  But no you can't do that in MMO's.  With legos we could build anything we want.  With GIJoe we could use the action figures and use anythign eles in our room, backyard, forest, build to enhance that.  We could even alter the toys themselves, make them superheroes if we wanted.

We cannot do that in any MMO to date.  We have very very very limtied ability, if any to alter the world, rules, gameplay.  Everything we do is completely in our imagination and not in the world.  Lego's and action figures started in our imagination and we would translate that into the real world.  MMO's so far don't. 

What I stated about the player stories is exactly what goes on. Oh players might create their own backstory and roleplay something else but you do that in every game including WoW.  The only thing that goes in the gameworld is exactly what I stated, player craft, player attack, player defends.  That isn't a story.

Sorry VengeSunsoar you might have misunderstood me, I was talking pure about story, not every possiblity we had with our toy's, cause then obviously I agree with you as we can not do all those things, but that's not what I "tried" to say.

So I still stand that in a sandbox MMORPG you are able to create your own story, your own adventure, your own missions/quests.

But then again these day's people seem to rely on everything handed to them, they need  tools/feature's to be able to create a story. They lack the use of their own imagination and perhaps are afraid to share thoseidea's of story with others.

But like I also have said I wished that our personal made story would impact the gameworld or even changed certain things in the world. Eve is a good example, I mean there are dozens of website's with player made stories in the EVE universe.

And well my backstory and roleplay was completely different in SWG then when I played the themepark game WoW because my backstory and roleplay actually meant something in the SWG universe towards other players, in WoW it meant nothing other then to read it but it had no effect in the gameworld.

Originally posted by Reklaw

 

...

So I still stand that in a sandbox MMORPG you are able to create your own story, your own adventure, your own missions/quests.

But then again these day's people seem to rely on everything handed to them, they need  tools/feature's to be able to create a story. They lack the use of their own imagination and perhaps are afraid to share thoseidea's of story with others.

But like I also have said I wished that our personal made story would impact the gameworld or even changed certain things in the world. Eve is a good example, I mean there are dozens of website's with player made stories in the EVE universe.

And well my backstory and roleplay was completely different in SWG then when I played the themepark game WoW because my backstory and roleplay actually meant something in the SWG universe towards other players, in WoW it meant nothing other then to read it but it had no effect in the gameworld.

No one lacks anything and I suggest turning away from making such claims to avoid making yourself look even more foolish.

Look, I played with Legos, I played PnP games, and I could say "I've grown past that age", but I know better. You liking what you like and me liking what I like has nothing to do with imagination, maturity, intellect, laziness or anything else - so just drop it. Patronizing gets you nowhere.

Does the game concept described in the link in my signature ressemble what you would call a "world"?

The backstory and roleplay you had in swg had just as much effect on thegame world as someones backstory and effect in Wowe. Namely none. In both games you can create your own back story and choose to a certain extent how you choose to play. Same as eve.

All of my best MMO stories come very evenly split from two general activities -

Stuff that happened during a dungeon or raid (scripted content)

Stuff that we did for shits and giggles (emergant content)

So don't tell me I can't make my own stories and memories from content the devs put into the game.

There is a dynamic nature to well designed content - it's called variance and chance - or simply put a combination of RNG and human error.

Sometimes you have the most fun and the best memories doing stuff in a way that isn't supposed to work, or recovering from mistakes made in a glorious fashion, or simply a random chance RNG series of moments that combine to spectacular effect.

Yet on the other side of the same coin, lots of good memories doing stuff that had no impact on the world OR on my character, but rather just for fun and/or just to see what would happen.

They don't need tools to create a story, they need tools to play and show their story. When we say we want to create our own story what we are saying IMO we want to play that story we create, that idea we have of our character, and games including sandbox gve us very little ability to do that other than create a backstory roleplay and choose your skills. Again I submit that isn't a story.

Bah sent from phone sorry about spelling

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar
The backstory and roleplay you had in swg had just as much effect on thegame world as someones backstory and effect in Wowe. Namely none. In both games you can create your own back story and choose to a certain extent how you choose to play. Same as eve.

You know what our problem is, you don't know how I play, you are NOT able to asume that my backstory had no impact in SWG as again you have no idea how I played SWG. If I was able to creat such stories in WOW aswell I bet I would be playing WoW. Yet WOW does not allow me to have that much freedom or to actually effect the world. SWG gave me that option due to the freedom the game gave me.

Let me be clear I am not stating you are wrong cause I am sure that the way you see it is the way you see it. Same as how I see it which is different then how you are seeing it. So best is to drop it as we are not able to get to a understanding.

Originally posted by Reklaw

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar
The backstory and roleplay you had in swg had just as much effect on thegame world as someones backstory and effect in Wowe. Namely none. In both games you can create your own back story and choose to a certain extent how you choose to play. Same as eve.

You know what our problem is, you don't know how I play, you are NOT able to asume that my backstory had no impact in SWG as again you have no idea how I played SWG. If I was able to creat such stories in WOW aswell I bet I would be playing WoW. Yet WOW does not allow me to have that much freedom or to actually effect the world. SWG gave me that option due to the freedom the game gave me.

Let me be clear I am not stating you are wrong cause I am sure that the way you see it is the way you see it. Same as how I see it which is different then how you are seeing it. So best is to drop it as we are not able to get to a understanding.

Fair enough. However I did play swg for awhile, I know what you could do and what you couldn't do.  I know what effect a backstory could have. 

 

Don't feel like reading all the replies but I asume EVE has already been brought up and that gives us a universe :P.  People don't want a sand box in reality.  They want a hybrid sadly that normaly leads to both the themepark and the sandbox parts of the game failing so ya.

If we want to tell a story we need more tools.  We can allready get a backstory and choose how we play, that is only part of it.  That gives the reason as to why we are doing it.  However a story is not a static event, a story changes and evolves over time.  Reapeating ad nauseam craft this, attack this, defend this, attack this isn't a story.

If we could pick an enemy and change our faction/affiliation to that enemy over time that would help.  If we could affect changes in the world (someone mentioned settting accessibility for certain structures), that would help as well.  In your story there should be a reason as to why you are the way you are now, there should be conflict of some kind that can actually be played in the world and not in some imaginary rp chat channel session.  There should be growth and evolution in the characters involved.  And maybe just maybe at some point resolution to the conflict.

Now you have created your own story. 

Until we are able to do that I maintain that we are not creating our own stories in the game, no more than the imaginary chat channel that is done in every game.