wtf you talking about. SWTOR has added content faster than practically any MMO. They already have another raid coming in less than a month after just releasing one.
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BioWare doing anything and everything to keep players logging in to SW:TOR
- Thread starter vaelic
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wtf you talking about. SWTOR has added content faster than practically any MMO. They already have another raid coming in less than a month after just releasing one.
RIFT was faster
World of Warcraft in about three months or so.
MMO devs need to get real.
MMOs are getting less and less popular. Their time has pretty much passed. Only a few big players remain. There has been pretty much ZERO innovation for as long as I can remember and people wonder why their new grinder fetch quest MMO isn't making them millions.
MMOs are getting less and less popular. Their time has pretty much passed. Only a few big players remain. There has been pretty much ZERO innovation for as long as I can remember and people wonder why their new grinder fetch quest MMO isn't making them millions.
The most popular online game at the moment is probably League of Legends, which surpassed WoW concurrency over a year ago. It's a F2P game built from the ground up as a F2P game, and it doesn't really penalize players for not paying. It's also still wildly profitable.
There's nothing saying that F2P MMOs also need to gouge wallets, be grindier, or make free players second-class citizens like you see in the SoE F2P games.
I'm looking forward to the possibility of SWTOR going F2P, as it's the type of MMO where the model could potentially work really well. I'd feel comfortable spending $8 to permanently unlock a planet of quests on my account. I wouldn't (and didn't) feel comfortable spending $15 a month for what felt like a single player game that I felt pressured to play to not 'waste' my subscription payment.
Mauricio_Magus
Banned
I never even cared of the game, and I play almost every MMO...
I don't remember them launching with much raid content, just the Greenblight raid. They did move fairly briskly after launch though.
Hopefully GW2 successfully addresses some of these issues.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
There's actually a large variety, but a potential player has to leave their comfort zones and be ready for small hyper-sociable communities that they gather about themselves.
I will, I've been following it but I am not convinced I'll enjoy it. Mostly because of how much I hated the original, but we'll see.
Rift had a lot more to do still at Max. the dungeons were challenging and fun, lots of questing with real rewards, etc. SWToR I maxxed my character aside from raids extremely quickly. Also, Swtor had the shortest levelling curve I've seen in any mmo, making the content even shittier feeling (Yeah, I'm a 'power' gamer when it comes to MMOs, but Rift still took more than 3 days /played to max out... that's pretty pathetic in terms of return on investment).
Alex
Member
MMO popularity hasn't really changed, WoW was the exception. Prior to WoW, 500k was a top tier subscriber base.
However, I do agree that the genre could've expanded a lot more naturally, post-WoW if more studios took advantage of the strengths of the genre. I also think subscription fees are going to start acting like poison for any MMOs unless you're talking the ones with immense pedigree. (ie; basically just the blizzard ones)
Just can't justify em in 2012, same with most end game schemes, it all combines to act as a giant wall that prevents you from playing the game on your own time.
Really curious to see how GW2 shapes up in the wake of everything. With its non-sub and some really inviting systems for some really sore areas it'll probably look really appealing. I don't think it'll smash the genre open or become the second coming of Christ like some people think, but I do think it'll wind up as one of the much needed foots into the modern space.
Game ain't very much like the original, like at all. If it was a normal sequel I wouldn't be interested in it either.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Desperate.
The sound they'll make rattling their cage will serve as a warning to the electronic old men.
blizzardjesus
Banned
I think they should bring it to 360/ps3/wiiU. Someone could benefit from putting a good mmo on a consol for once. Either leaving it an mmo, or reworking it to have an exclusive single player campaign.
Im starting to wonder if this genre will ever see some goddamn innovation again or just fizzle out. Im talking bout a game changer here.
Well, if you've been following it, you probably know how different it is from the original.
There are plenty of wildly creative MMOs out there, they just don't get mainstream exposure because their developers don't have multi-million dollar marketing budgets.
the original line would have served well as bioware's fuckup would have served a warning to others trying to mimic WoW
you fucked up
you have fucked it all up
Yup
I would like the game if I didn't need to spend months of my life to finish 1/8 of it.
Maybe it's not the game, and just your ability to play it successfully.
Well thought out post, thank you.
Maybe sleep once and a while.
Angry Puppy
Member
The second one is completely different in mechanics. Only thing that follows through is the guild wars universe.
Yea that was awkwardly written. Meaning is that if they wanted to make an MMO, they shouldn't have made it like an mmo where I feel like I am the only one playing. If they focused on on making it a single player game, where the world would be focused on one player, then it would've been better.
Well, if you've been following it, you probably know how different it is from the original.
but, it's a game coming from the same people, and I did not like the original at all... regardless of how different it is. Hard to be hyped in that situation.
I abhorr the original, do some research/watch some good videos on the sequel, it truly is NOTHING like the first. /gethyped.
Ive looked around, but I really need that AAA polish
Im talking about some new big thing with fresh ideas that will shake things up.
I have seen and read plenty.
Maybe I'm the only person that doesn't get hyped based on what they see and what they're told? =p can blame the last several years of mmo failures for my way of thinking.
MMO's need to go back to basics or something, cause the max lvl 'raid only' model is a very shallow concept, and it forces you to play with loads of other people if you want to experience the higher lvl content. The fundamental gameplay mechanics of World of Warcraft, for example, are built around working with other people -- the mechanics are limited in such a way that soloing is usually impossible, or extremely inefficient if it is possible to solo (Heroic elites in World of Warcraft, for example.)
Once you've gotten some epics at max lvl in WoW, done most of the quests, or atleast the interesting ones, then there's not much else to do -- besides raiding, which turns into a chore very, very fast, and the rewards will only make you slightly more powerful.
But for what? To ease the progress into the next raid tier, but I think a lot of people raid because they want the epics for the status. Whether or not a player is aware of his personal motivations for raiding isn't the issue, but the need to be special and get recognition, especially among peers, is part of human nature, so it's not a huge leap.
And since you eventually become part of a community (With peers, and also many other 'classes' of people, like the real world; it has its very own society.) in WoW, the basic gameplay facts don't really matter anymore, since it has hooked you with such a powerful psychological incentive. But when observed from a distance, the max level gameplay is boring and pointless.
Clothes are a big deal in real world society, cause, people in general think they indicate a persons wealth and success. Of course, they can also indicate or state many more things about an individual, and how they want to be judged.
Most people think that the clothes you wear will change how people perceive, or even treat you to varying degrees - The correlation between money and good clothes is obvious (Expensive.). However, there are many more styles/statements that are commonly known that you can sport nowadays.
So, perhaps epics are like clothes. Vanity items, items to signify your stature!
A couple of years before WoW, MMORPG's like Asheron's Call offered extreme amounts of gameplay; you could choose which skills to raise out of hundred(s) and shape your character however you wanted.
The very best players could solo raid content pretty much, or 8 person (Fellowship.) dungeons.
It required lots of practice of course, but that's the point; games that reward the amount of time you play/practice with some sort of significant "gameplay reward" like getting a new ability, or points to put into an attribute like strength are extremely satisfying. Of course, this 'mechanic' is present in most games in some form or another, but usually somewhat dilluted. (Ie; Uncharted type of game where you basically play through a story.)
Games have been dilluted, or streamlined to the point where the 'you give (practice), game rewards' aspect is hardly noticeable anymore, but it's still an extremely important part of gaming, even if most games nowadays are so streamlined that they effectively 'hide' that fact. Without this mechanic, gaming wouldn't be gaming anymore; it'd lose out on what makes it so different from movies, books or even music; a sense of mastery of a particular game.
People may feel a sense of mastery with movies as well, but that typically won't extend beyond the static facts/trivia of the movie; it'll typically be related to the mastery of memory, or knowledge.
But games let you interact, shape the world, and continually improve; usually to be prepared for other players who might challenge you - similar to how, for example, mastery of a movie would merely extend to, for example, something like; a couple of "moviefans" might argue over the reason for why/what/when in a movie, while gamers might fight to determine who's best. Out of the 2 scenarios (Movie discussion, gaming match.), I think the gaming match is many times more rewarding for the winner, cause it's a practical, 'physical', obvious event, whereas a discussion will be much more theoretical, and also because it's pretty much impossible to rank arguments as fact, so.. even the winner might be wrong.
Once you've gotten some epics at max lvl in WoW, done most of the quests, or atleast the interesting ones, then there's not much else to do -- besides raiding, which turns into a chore very, very fast, and the rewards will only make you slightly more powerful.
But for what? To ease the progress into the next raid tier, but I think a lot of people raid because they want the epics for the status. Whether or not a player is aware of his personal motivations for raiding isn't the issue, but the need to be special and get recognition, especially among peers, is part of human nature, so it's not a huge leap.
And since you eventually become part of a community (With peers, and also many other 'classes' of people, like the real world; it has its very own society.) in WoW, the basic gameplay facts don't really matter anymore, since it has hooked you with such a powerful psychological incentive. But when observed from a distance, the max level gameplay is boring and pointless.
Clothes are a big deal in real world society, cause, people in general think they indicate a persons wealth and success. Of course, they can also indicate or state many more things about an individual, and how they want to be judged.
Most people think that the clothes you wear will change how people perceive, or even treat you to varying degrees - The correlation between money and good clothes is obvious (Expensive.). However, there are many more styles/statements that are commonly known that you can sport nowadays.
So, perhaps epics are like clothes. Vanity items, items to signify your stature!
A couple of years before WoW, MMORPG's like Asheron's Call offered extreme amounts of gameplay; you could choose which skills to raise out of hundred(s) and shape your character however you wanted.
The very best players could solo raid content pretty much, or 8 person (Fellowship.) dungeons.
It required lots of practice of course, but that's the point; games that reward the amount of time you play/practice with some sort of significant "gameplay reward" like getting a new ability, or points to put into an attribute like strength are extremely satisfying. Of course, this 'mechanic' is present in most games in some form or another, but usually somewhat dilluted. (Ie; Uncharted type of game where you basically play through a story.)
Games have been dilluted, or streamlined to the point where the 'you give (practice), game rewards' aspect is hardly noticeable anymore, but it's still an extremely important part of gaming, even if most games nowadays are so streamlined that they effectively 'hide' that fact. Without this mechanic, gaming wouldn't be gaming anymore; it'd lose out on what makes it so different from movies, books or even music; a sense of mastery of a particular game.
People may feel a sense of mastery with movies as well, but that typically won't extend beyond the static facts/trivia of the movie; it'll typically be related to the mastery of memory, or knowledge.
But games let you interact, shape the world, and continually improve; usually to be prepared for other players who might challenge you - similar to how, for example, mastery of a movie would merely extend to, for example, something like; a couple of "moviefans" might argue over the reason for why/what/when in a movie, while gamers might fight to determine who's best. Out of the 2 scenarios (Movie discussion, gaming match.), I think the gaming match is many times more rewarding for the winner, cause it's a practical, 'physical', obvious event, whereas a discussion will be much more theoretical, and also because it's pretty much impossible to rank arguments as fact, so.. even the winner might be wrong.
Ive looked around, but I really need that AAA polish
Im talking about some new big thing with fresh ideas that will shake things up.
No, you're looking for something with an insane budget that also does some new things.
If creativity was what you valued, you'd be able to see it behind second-tier production values.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
No no no.
"The sound they'll make rattling their cage will serve as a warning to the electronic arts men".
Yeah, but where's the fun in thinking like that? Far more enjoyable to look at everything from the point of view of a bitter cynical jackass.
The TORtanic bandwagon is rolling deep in these threads.
Jump on, and trololololol.
Ive looked around, but I really need that AAA polish
Im talking about some new big thing with fresh ideas that will shake things up.
Go take a look at Continuum. It's a pretty snazzy sandbox game with high production values, a player driven economy and story, and giant robots.
I agree completely. After being in a guild that ran a major player city in Star Wars Galaxies, my experience in World of Warcraft felt... Hollow. It was a procedural wash/rinse/repeat cycle of loot, titles, levels, and points that didn't mean anything. The "theme park" label is apt, because nothing in the world was really in the players' hands. You had to wait in line, get on the ride, have your "experience," then go do another, and all of it had to be left in perfect condition for the people in line after you. It's not much of a world, just a series of attractions that are built into giant time sinks.
Yeah, well to be fair I never bothered subbing for the game after the beta. I couldn't see my way clear to pay $15 a month for what I saw as essentially a pretty good single player game but not much more.
I'm not surprised at all that yet another MMO has come out and had the 'time to endgame' completely wrong, so there's an ever growing pool of players with nothing of substance to do, but they're doing what they can to keep numbers up. Every MMO dev is doing that - look at WoW offering a free level up to anyone coming back.
I think youre right.
This is the MMO genre, with a business model with the intent of actually keeping people playing beyond the first play through. No matter how great you think MMO's can be based on whatever the fuck you people are drawing on - the game needs to be updated, the content needs to keep rolling. Them actually doing that, is not an indication of impending demise, but shockingly just them trying to deliver a continually fresh, fun gameplay experience as any subscription based game should.
Now, that said, clearly this game needs to improve in terms of the endgame content, and they are actually addressing that with new dungeons, Story arcs, and ranked warzones.
doubleplusgood
Member
Oh man, SWTOR better go f2p by the end of the year or else I'll loose all my faith in the many industry analysts on GAF.
I played SWTOR for about a month, it was decent enough fun. However like all MMOs, I can't really get excited about them anymore. So after a month I was tired of it, like many others probably. I don't know how SWTOR will fare, but Star Wars is a powerful franchise and coupled with what(as far as I'm concerned) passes as a decent enough MMO system should be able to keep afloat.
I played SWTOR for about a month, it was decent enough fun. However like all MMOs, I can't really get excited about them anymore. So after a month I was tired of it, like many others probably. I don't know how SWTOR will fare, but Star Wars is a powerful franchise and coupled with what(as far as I'm concerned) passes as a decent enough MMO system should be able to keep afloat.
Alex
Member
I'm keeping my prediction that nothing post-WoW that banks on traditional raiding as an end game is going to have anything other than niche retention. The raiding boom is over, and making content that people can log in and work on with their own time with their own configurations for groups, etc is the future.
WoW did a pretty good job into repurposing it's content with all their new finder systems and upcoming crap, or rather to say they would have if all their content that isnt traditional raiding wasn't now completely toothless garbage. Scaling, scaling, scaling is what is needed.
End game in general is a thought that should probably be taken down a few notches, though, no matter how well you do it. It's an amazing thing that designers will make these vast, expansive and fucking EXPENSIVE worlds then completely throw them out the airlock in favor of finding methods to keep people grinding a few dungeons at cap.
WoW did a pretty good job into repurposing it's content with all their new finder systems and upcoming crap, or rather to say they would have if all their content that isnt traditional raiding wasn't now completely toothless garbage. Scaling, scaling, scaling is what is needed.
End game in general is a thought that should probably be taken down a few notches, though, no matter how well you do it. It's an amazing thing that designers will make these vast, expansive and fucking EXPENSIVE worlds then completely throw them out the airlock in favor of finding methods to keep people grinding a few dungeons at cap.
This is the other thing that has me really excited about Guild Wars 2. Instead of having a singular "endgame" at max level, all of the content from 30 to 80 scales to the levels of the participants. You're not supposed to level up to get to the fun stuff, because all of it is accessible to you quite early.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
You'd think that, wouldn't you?
1st paragraph: I agree whole-heartedly with this. If a dev makes a raid game based on equality of outcome, the playerbase is disincentivized from getting better, and why should they? As doing that doesnt get them anything but "done" faster. A raiding game based on equality of opportunity, years of the former would cause howls of protest (Ulduar! 4.0!), as if the quality of the actual playing of the dungeon is not even a criteria, just the loot.
2nd paragraph: No they most certainly did not. It's still Raid Or Die, only it's accounts dying instead of guilds. Disinterested warming over of PvP and rendering everything pre-85 a channelized blur sealed this. For a game with such a huge long lifespan so far, and so many veterans of so much of it, that's an inelegant recipe for problems and it has been.
3rd paragraph: Hence my pointing out of how speeding up the journey to end game puts way way WAY more emphasis on that fact, renders end-game something that somehow must be palatable to every single player (read: impossible), renders leveling a chore (exposed Skinner Box), renders being at end-game an expectation, and like you said, makes of a leveling world, whether shit or brilliant, a waste of time, despite this as the game's crucial very first impression to a new player.
World of Tanks is also supposed to be a wildly popular F2P (more so in Europe).
Still, I think there's always going to be a market for that classic, persistent large scale MMORPG, for those who are drawn to them as a form of escape, and pick-up-and-play-a-few-rounds-or-so games like LoL or TF2 aren't going to meet that need.
Im the opposite, I got hyped reading what GW2 was going to do. Then the gameplay and pvp videos started to emerge, and it doesnt look fun to me, same thing with the first one. I just didnt enjoy playing it.
Sorry to hear that. If you'd like, try and read my impressions on the game on RPG Site. I go into detail a bit beyond just the explanation of systems/mechanics. Also, GW1 wasn't really an MMORPG. The sequel is. I can't really prove it to you otherwise, but I hope you keep up with the game and have the opportunity to try out. It really is an awesome MMO and I have high hopes for it.
I came in here to say this. Turn it into a singleplayer RPG and release it on the consoles. I'd even prefer they favor an early release date over a more extensive reworking. Game sounds ripe for this type of treatment.
There's a huge difference between offering incentives to get players to RETURN to a game (which makes huge sense for all publishers, although after only 4 months one wonders why they left so quickly in the first place), and basically begging people not to quit. They had no reason to give a free month to everyone who plays, unless they're afraid of those players quitting before they get a chance to see this 'light' at the end of the tunnel. Hemorrhaging subs, straight up. only explanation that makes sense.
You can get excited about it, but I'm willing to bet the player base won't like this. It's still just running through the same dungeons over and over again. Won't matter if it scales or not.
Bottom line is, MMO players are weak sauce pansies now. When the MMO genre was new and exciting, their was a great variety of things to do. Now, players are stuck in a WoW-like comfort zone, but claim they want something to be a game breaker. I believe that's bullshit.
Essentially, it's bitching to bitch.You want something different, but you really don't. MMO players just enjoy talking and thinking about it. Take them out of their comfort zone and they scream at the top of their lungs.
Here is a perfectly logical reason to give away a free month that doesn't involve doom and gloom.
1.2 basically just came out, it adds a lot of features. Many people quit because of not enough end game content, bugs, UI customization etc... This free month is to hook the subs that they lost because of missing content.
Now they simply could not give a free month to people who quit because it would alienate people who were there the entire time. So they gave a free month to everybody.
That is a ton of money just to be giving out for free. So I doubt that it is somehow a sign of despair.
I would imagine that if they were truly hurting for subs then they would offer a discounted monthly fee.
An entire month free is 15$ they will never see from every single player. It's a pretty big move to make.