5punk

Joose wrote:I think the biggest problem with MMO's at the moment is that everyone bar CCP seem to think that MMO's *have* to be basically WoW with knobs on.

Mostly but not entirely true, Joose. Tabula Rasa tried to be something between WoW and your general FPS, but that's like trying to create a religion that appeals to both christian activists and muslims jihadists. Anyway, my point is that if you try to mix something up, it probably won't be as good as the materials separately*. See: transvestites.

*with the exception of food and cocktails.

Baliame wrote:Anyway, my point is that if you try to mix something up, it probably won't be as good as the materials separately*. See: transvestites.

*with the exception of food and cocktails.

Yeah, cos that *never* works in games. Apart from, you know, the squillion times it has worked.

Anyway, doing something different != mixing two things together. Is EVE different from WoW because its two things mixed together? No, its different because its not just WoW in space. That's all I'm saying here.

Joose wrote:Yeah, cos that *never* works in games. Apart from, you know, the squillion times it has worked.

Anyway, doing something different != mixing two things together. Is EVE different from WoW because its two things mixed together? No, its different because its not just WoW in space. That's all I'm saying here.

I really didn't see anything drastically different that Tabula Rasa did. It had none of the hardcore of Eve, but all of the grinding of Warcraft and none of the atmosphere or variety.

What I mean by games wanting to be Eve or Warcraft is that they either cater to PvE or PvP, but never both. Warcraft does PvE very well, but this gives it a fluffy feeling that PvPers hate. There's not a lot to be lost or gained by the actions of other players. Conversely, Eve does PvP very wel - the whole game revolves around huge numbers of players and their political and military wranglings, but if you want to avoid PvP you're never going to get a decent ship and never going to see anything other than Empire. I really don't think it's that hard to have both working alongside each other. In some thread where I bleated on about a load of MMO ideas I had, I touched on a version of RvR where people who wanted to PvP could ally to a faction and fight for territory and power. Those who wanted to stay PvE stayed as a private citizen and could meander around the lands of those factions while the PvPers fought around them. Like the Warcraft and Eve mechanics working in parallel.

A lot of the problem is down to investors rather than developers. No businessman in their right mind will commit to an expensive undertaking with very limited returns for 5 years, regardless of how successful it might later become (Eve). Of course they all want to emulate the business model of WoW, but if they can get away with selling 3million copies off the shelf and it dies 6 months later (Conaids), then profit's been made no more investment is needed. That's a win from any business point of view.

I never meant EVE as something mixed together, in fact it's the PvP extreme of the MMOs opposed to WoW's PvE extreme (and admit it, it does PvP pretty bad). What I meant was attempting to mix those two would definitely not cure cancer, maybe just mitigate it.

Yeah, let's forget the 2million active subscriptions of a game that's 7 years old....

It's got how many

What game are we talking about now?

Dog Pants wrote:What game are we talking about now?

Well, its far too low a number for WoW, but far too high for anything else...

I would see wow at around 8-10 million subs and eve around .4 million.

Are you talking about a japano mmong that we don't play?

i think its the final fantasy MMO.

Oh yeah. I've always found FF to be filled with cartoons of reet girly boys so I don't figure the mmong into the braining of numbers.

Still, 2 million is a good number. Wonder what the demographics are on the players?

Anhamgrimmar wrote:i think its the final fantasy MMO.

nah, according to mmogchart.com, FF is pretty steady at about 500k.
EVE has about 300k.
WoW has about 10-11 Million.
Lineage (and, wierdly, Lineage 2) *had* about 2million each, around '05-'06, but the arse has dropped out of their userbase.

Those charts are over a year old, Lich King has happened since then, and Final Fantasy and Phantasy Star have rereleased on the new consoles, tricking some into thinking they are new games.

Yeah it's FFXI, sorry holiday over here in the states and was out all day.

It was a holiday here, too.

Well, late to the party, but with a bit to say:

WoW had a couple of advantages that gave it a nice boost as well:

A: Blizztard made it. They probably had a couple or more peeps on board that had a clue, and had other games raking in steady piles of moola to keep the WoW devs pizza-fied and chained to their workstations nice and proper.

B. They had 3 prequels to lay down story and make people think they were playing Warcraft 4 and get a huge player base started.

3. They're dirty cheats. You can't rub 100 players together before they squirt out some new servers. Big loss in my eyes, not being able to have a larger player base and more broadly based. I know that you can't have an extremely dense player concentration in that world, but I would challenge them to find a way to allow for higher populations and more international diversity.

D. Any game that offers MASSIVE amounts of people to play together, imho, helps us all, (gamers that is). It brings us together so that we can compare notes, expose each other to new ideas, and help evolve as players and as influences in future games.

E. There is lots and lots of room for games to add both simpler content for the 12-yr olds, while still allowing the DIE-HARDS room to have their brain bashing fun. The real obstacle there, (imho, yet again) is the consumers themselves. As long as there are whiny prats and griefers to prey upon them, there will be 'The game is too hard!!!' and 'There's no challenge left, I got to 80 in 3 DAYS!!!' The trick is getting the balance right. Would a group of level 80 Deathknights gather regularly if they discovered a magical pool that transports them to a differnt plane if they're all wearing wedding gowns where they'll be battline level 90 dragons for a chance to get an uber weapon that will never take damage? HELLS YEAH!!!!

6. Who's gonna make it? I don't know of many companies like Blizzard that have a solid following of a product and deep pockets to do what they've done. That being said, is it going to come from an indy source? We've seen some browser games do a pretty good job of dragging people in, they just need to get hooked up with the right business people and grow it up into a full-fledged game perhaps. Our job is to help them by playing the good games, and giving up on the ones we can't stand the smell of after 3 days on the coffee (or tea) table.

There's games for every taste. I've loved FF for years, but haven't gotten around to FFXI. I loved Eve, but technical issues and playtime took me away from it. Now technical issues and time are fighting me again and have taken me away from WoW, but inadvertantly gotten me to work on drawing a comic strip for a summer project with my kids. But the MMO's of the world have brought many of us here, together, where we wouldn't be without them. Playing together is a helluva lot better than where we could be without them!!!! Here's to the next MMO that I CAN play!!!! Even if it's one I've played before!



Ok, as I read back through, I realize my focus went all wonky, but meh, daughter had a meltdown midpost, and it's not bad post-fodder, so I'll leave it!

Walls'o'text always go off topic, or mine do anyway.