- Status
I always say that WoW and the standard it set and what many MMO developers have imitated since, is one that should not be followed, anymore. And it's definitely a good idea for the devs, here, that they would even break not just from that standard, but from the term MMO itself. I cannot and will not ever be able to fathom how anyone can praise the combat-mechanics, alone, of such major titles. And how it not only survived, but thrived.
I can sort of equate this to how many writers of television series and games are still operating on the "common wisdom" of male-protagonists being the selling point and that female-protagonists aren't as appealing to an audience. That seems to be changing, too. And we're seeing more and more shows, live-action and animated and video-games, where female protagonists lead.
I can sort of equate this to how many writers of television series and games are still operating on the "common wisdom" of male-protagonists being the selling point and that female-protagonists aren't as appealing to an audience. That seems to be changing, too. And we're seeing more and more shows, live-action and animated and video-games, where female protagonists lead.
Once you have the Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian all else is pointless. The game ceiling, people move on, poor game patches, gripes with other players, clans etc, not enough spreadsheet management. Another thing is the skill ceiling. I regularly play Planetside 2, a game where death is inevitable. I see a lot of low level people not wanting to play becuase it was too hard to commit to. I recently played a session of WoW and well, it was easy. Too easy. Even FF was easy but hard to gain high level items, which for me kept me busy.
There needs to be a balance in a game, not to easy, not to hard. That's one of the hardest things to accomplish in a game. It it was easy, every game would be awesome.
There needs to be a balance in a game, not to easy, not to hard. That's one of the hardest things to accomplish in a game. It it was easy, every game would be awesome.
meh... i never liked teh standard WoW shit....
Lvling fine and nice... but i aint the type that wastes 10 hours a day just to grind shit... i rather explore, challenge the environment or do achievements...
You ever climbed the volcano in DT? I climbed it with my fucking Mammoth and glided more than 7.5km without touching the ground. People said it was impossible to climb the volcano with a mammoth. Or i climbed the big coral in CF and the Sertao plateau in the CF instance... i climbed the OCT and the abandoned Base between Sertao. i Went to the deepest spot helder's mine. i wasted 1/3-2/3 of the whole playtime exploring the maps and in my opinion it was worth it.
You can easily have in 2 hours more fun while running around exploring than in 1 day grinding.
Even crafting can be more fun than grinding... You don't need levels for fun... you don't need to have vertical progression to have fun. The WoW principe is jsut kinda overhyped and it only is still alive cause so many tried to make games with the old WoW "Tried 'n' True" principe.
Lvling fine and nice... but i aint the type that wastes 10 hours a day just to grind shit... i rather explore, challenge the environment or do achievements...
You ever climbed the volcano in DT? I climbed it with my fucking Mammoth and glided more than 7.5km without touching the ground. People said it was impossible to climb the volcano with a mammoth. Or i climbed the big coral in CF and the Sertao plateau in the CF instance... i climbed the OCT and the abandoned Base between Sertao. i Went to the deepest spot helder's mine. i wasted 1/3-2/3 of the whole playtime exploring the maps and in my opinion it was worth it.
You can easily have in 2 hours more fun while running around exploring than in 1 day grinding.
Even crafting can be more fun than grinding... You don't need levels for fun... you don't need to have vertical progression to have fun. The WoW principe is jsut kinda overhyped and it only is still alive cause so many tried to make games with the old WoW "Tried 'n' True" principe.
Problem with imitating WoW is that WoW already does a very solid job doing what WoW does. It's established and it isn't going anywhere. So many people have played it or are still playing it there isn't a reason to abandon all your hard work in WoW to go play something that plays just like WoW. It's like shooting yourself in the foot to create a clone WoW. That's not to say that what WoW does is worth overlooking. Obviously it retains its players and has gotten so large and draws everyone's eye is that it is doing more things right than it is wrong.
MMO's fail these days because they are in large numbers and the biggest ones follow the WoW path but once you get in and go they simply don't challenge what WoW already offers to WoW players and they return. There are so many MMO's and they all require so much attention and time you can't really dedicate too much time to more than two. Even two can be a stretch if you're trying to do all the content. Add in the cost of subscribing to many or the simple fact free models with subs offer benefits someone who would play two MMO's at once would want, it's like having two subs.
Fun is subjective. What you describe as having fun there in Firefall of climbing things is totally boring and a waste of time to me. Some enjoy levels, some enjoy exploration, some enjoy quest hubs, some want open world dynamic, some like grind, some hate grind. It is all about achieving balance and subtlety to create as seamless a transition between all of the things players like and offer a wide variety of objectives and tasks that are not dictated by the player base as 'Necessary'. If something is necessary it will automatically negatively impact a portion of your player base that does not like it.
If you hated rep grinds and killing single mobs for reputation and that was the only way to to get reputation to acquire good items and you hated it, you'd resent the game. However, if rep was gained 1-5 points at a time killing mobs, but was also given out 500 per daily quest, 100 per standard non-repeat quest, 50 for turn in of special items, you've gone and removed the pure grind and made it more naturally occurring through a wide variety. A grinder still has things to grind and will achieve victory at their desired pace. A causal doing whatever whenever will also achieve it but is no longer forced to go kill mobs as their only path to achieving the item they want.
Whew... Now, the above is what happens to a lot of MMO's or games in general. They don't broaden their horizons and expand the depth of some things. They focus too much on a single aspect and alienate various player pools. Some games highly promote Hardcore raiding. Which is a tiny, tiny, tiny, pool of players. Some games focus on Grinds. Some games give out things too fast and content is burnt out in a week. I haven't played more than a few games with solid well rounded activities list and a more casual calm approach. FFXIV, WoW are the only two that really stick in my mind. There are some other valuable mentions I enjoy, but they suffer from repetition in bulk and or are focused on things, after my early access support, that turned the game into something that doesn't hold my interest for long; Trove for example looked neat, but the combat is bland, spam, and the game is experienced 90% within the first 30 minutes, and becomes pure gear grind, and collectible grind. There is very little game play but it's a collectors wet dream.
MMO's fail these days because they are in large numbers and the biggest ones follow the WoW path but once you get in and go they simply don't challenge what WoW already offers to WoW players and they return. There are so many MMO's and they all require so much attention and time you can't really dedicate too much time to more than two. Even two can be a stretch if you're trying to do all the content. Add in the cost of subscribing to many or the simple fact free models with subs offer benefits someone who would play two MMO's at once would want, it's like having two subs.
Fun is subjective. What you describe as having fun there in Firefall of climbing things is totally boring and a waste of time to me. Some enjoy levels, some enjoy exploration, some enjoy quest hubs, some want open world dynamic, some like grind, some hate grind. It is all about achieving balance and subtlety to create as seamless a transition between all of the things players like and offer a wide variety of objectives and tasks that are not dictated by the player base as 'Necessary'. If something is necessary it will automatically negatively impact a portion of your player base that does not like it.
If you hated rep grinds and killing single mobs for reputation and that was the only way to to get reputation to acquire good items and you hated it, you'd resent the game. However, if rep was gained 1-5 points at a time killing mobs, but was also given out 500 per daily quest, 100 per standard non-repeat quest, 50 for turn in of special items, you've gone and removed the pure grind and made it more naturally occurring through a wide variety. A grinder still has things to grind and will achieve victory at their desired pace. A causal doing whatever whenever will also achieve it but is no longer forced to go kill mobs as their only path to achieving the item they want.
Whew... Now, the above is what happens to a lot of MMO's or games in general. They don't broaden their horizons and expand the depth of some things. They focus too much on a single aspect and alienate various player pools. Some games highly promote Hardcore raiding. Which is a tiny, tiny, tiny, pool of players. Some games focus on Grinds. Some games give out things too fast and content is burnt out in a week. I haven't played more than a few games with solid well rounded activities list and a more casual calm approach. FFXIV, WoW are the only two that really stick in my mind. There are some other valuable mentions I enjoy, but they suffer from repetition in bulk and or are focused on things, after my early access support, that turned the game into something that doesn't hold my interest for long; Trove for example looked neat, but the combat is bland, spam, and the game is experienced 90% within the first 30 minutes, and becomes pure gear grind, and collectible grind. There is very little game play but it's a collectors wet dream.
Likes:
NanoTechnician
Most MMOs just use the generic Unreal-MMO layout with little to no reskinning. So quests and NPC dialogue is almost 100% " Tinyass box with hard to read text, optionSpam, and doesn't scale at all with large monitors ". It is very unengaging.
And the first few missions are ALWAYS fetch quests. Also very unengaging. A bit insulting maybe, the last thing you want to do after running around is come home to do MORE fetch quests... in a videogame...
I think the reason why most MMOs fail is because they try way too hard to appeal to EVERY demographic instead of sticking to a niche. (I assume this is because corporations think that 'familiarity sells' ?) There's no point in commissioning artwork if it can't express itself for itself.
Generalizing often makes your game immemorable, because it's too similar to everything else. Having an intended audience helps alot.
So you end up with games that try to cater to one crowd and then immediately shooting itself in the foot by dumbing down the game the moment any aspect of the game is ....for some reason.... allowed to be voted on by the non-dev general public. (No, not things pertaining to bugfixes and general suggestions. I'm pointing torwards devs allowing the general public to decide on actual game-mechanics instead of they themselves deciding and only using the suggestions as advisory)
\
\
\
With the advent of the internet, and how normal it is for everyone to have internet, "familiarity" being a selling-point doesn't work well. This isn't the industrial era anymore, it's the internet era.
The internet allows people LOTS of freedom to simply compare your game to others and choose the better one. Baaaaad for business! ^_^
And the first few missions are ALWAYS fetch quests. Also very unengaging. A bit insulting maybe, the last thing you want to do after running around is come home to do MORE fetch quests... in a videogame...
I think the reason why most MMOs fail is because they try way too hard to appeal to EVERY demographic instead of sticking to a niche. (I assume this is because corporations think that 'familiarity sells' ?) There's no point in commissioning artwork if it can't express itself for itself.
Generalizing often makes your game immemorable, because it's too similar to everything else. Having an intended audience helps alot.
So you end up with games that try to cater to one crowd and then immediately shooting itself in the foot by dumbing down the game the moment any aspect of the game is ....for some reason.... allowed to be voted on by the non-dev general public. (No, not things pertaining to bugfixes and general suggestions. I'm pointing torwards devs allowing the general public to decide on actual game-mechanics instead of they themselves deciding and only using the suggestions as advisory)
\
\
\
With the advent of the internet, and how normal it is for everyone to have internet, "familiarity" being a selling-point doesn't work well. This isn't the industrial era anymore, it's the internet era.
The internet allows people LOTS of freedom to simply compare your game to others and choose the better one. Baaaaad for business! ^_^
Last edited:
Interestingly, when our outfit first played together there was a notion that we needed to return to a location to do things, not realizing that you didn't need to "go back to town" to do things. That forms part of the expected part of games. Having something quirky like Kouyioue mentions is part of that this game has this. I personally think a game should confuse you from the start, making you realise that you're in a different realm and start to think and act in that world, that develops escapism.
But, to be honest, the FF storyline was too short. The environments where small and really lacked that scale, although you could see the potential to develop the other spaces to be as compact and interesting as New Eden. But back to the op question, people get tired of playing some games. Just like at one time I was in a fleet of friends in Battle Pirates & Had a very large farm in Farmville, I don't use Myspace (hahaha!!) or icq. With WoW, they re released the game with updated graphics and gameplay. Some hated it, some liked it and some started to play again. With Mark aiding the process of a vanilla WoW this will be interesting as it might divide the community into two groups unless they allow a way to integrate the login.
But, to be honest, the FF storyline was too short. The environments where small and really lacked that scale, although you could see the potential to develop the other spaces to be as compact and interesting as New Eden. But back to the op question, people get tired of playing some games. Just like at one time I was in a fleet of friends in Battle Pirates & Had a very large farm in Farmville, I don't use Myspace (hahaha!!) or icq. With WoW, they re released the game with updated graphics and gameplay. Some hated it, some liked it and some started to play again. With Mark aiding the process of a vanilla WoW this will be interesting as it might divide the community into two groups unless they allow a way to integrate the login.
the greatest challenge of story based MMO development is this one:
other than that, you have to have the ability to keep people hooked to your content through interaction, stimulation and rewards.
other than that, you have to have the ability to keep people hooked to your content through interaction, stimulation and rewards.
Likes:
NanoTechnician
- Status