The Elder Scrolls Online

[Mrbloodworth]

MMO development is only an unhealthy industry because money is slow to recognize iterative behavior even when it fails. Making the same thing as something successful, even when it's failed countless times to produce those results, is still considered a safe bet for years and years until the money machine finally turns. It's like a cruise liner.

Yet, many on this very board turn your noses up at those who are doing something differently.  For all this talk on this forum, I am quite comfortable in saying, its all talk. Many here are the problem, and you want more "Wow clones". Anything that steps outside of "the same" you chastise with no abandon on one side of the mouth, and talk about "will someone make something different" on the other. While rushing to the next derivative thing.

No, you're projecting because your special snowflake project is getting plowed.

Also, nobody is rushing to this project. Or Wildstar. If you can't read between the lines on that, I'm not sure what to tell you.

Nope, my comment can also be applied to the game public at large, at least those who live on the net and forums. The cycle repeats itself over and over again here. The same discussions, like what this thread has turned too repeat themselves.

Sampled on a larger level, we get more derivative stuff. IE: That's where the money goes.

Also "different" does not necessarily mean "something good" or even "something any given person would enjoy." I know my tastes well enough that some innovations floated would probably not please me. That doesn't mean I'm sneering at people doing different shit, it just means the game isn't for me. Oh no.

That's a given.

Yeah, you don't get a pat on the head just for being different.  Your game also has to actually be good.

Of course, but some of the responses are simply robotic at this point. Details be dammed.

[Paelos]

I disagree, you can point to the exact point in this thread early in the project where people saw it was a derivative wow clone and the interest tanked. Now it's just waitingfor  train to got the station and kill everyone still on board.

[Mrbloodworth]

I disagree, you can point to the exact point in this thread early in the project where people saw it was a derivative wow clone and the interest tanked.

Yeah, that's where the conversations generally start about "Why won't any one make something different" and "What we want is...". The Cycle continues.

[palmer_eldritch]

The killer ap that I honestly think would be a huge hit would be:

a) extremely large procedurally-generated world.
b) world filled with tons of miniplots, quests, NPC factions, and autonomous-agent AI NPCs with a constant flow of DLC adding new stuff on a monthly basis, seeded into existing worlds or into new ones.
c) intended for groups of trusted friends between 5-50 people or so to participate in a single persistent iteration of such a world.
d) maybe allow for the initiating 'host' of a given generated world to hand-edit, customize and otherwise mod a world.

And I think it's possible. But getting even close to this requires forgetting every MMO that has ever existed, and it requires abandoning the idea of thousands of strangers playing together in a given world.

So you're basically saying that the last, best hope for MMO development is...SOE?

Unironically yes. Are there any high budget MMOs which look as if they're even trying to do anything really innovative in the works, except for EQNext? At least, if we exclude games made in Korea which may or may not ever be relased in the West.

[Ingmar]

Different is not the same thing as good, and iteration is not a dirty word - neither is derivative.

If TESO's only flaw was that it was "derivative" people wouldn't be chewing off the insides of their cheeks for not being able to talk about this.

[kildorn]

I disagree, you can point to the exact point in this thread early in the project where people saw it was a derivative wow clone and the interest tanked.

Yeah, that's where the conversations generally start about "Why won't any one make something different" and "What we want is...". The Cycle continues.

There's wanting something different, and there is also seeing something different that has been done before and sucked. Being not a WoW clone is an awesome starting idea, but then going "we'll just add permadeath and full corpse looting to it and call ourselves hardcore!" is not a good second step for a lot of people.

Anywho, some of my favorite games are derivative. Because simply polishing the concept of something people know is fun makes a polished fun game (.. usually). People bash on the endless unchanging series where there is no iteration, just the same fucking thing released over and over. But if you're still actually adding new shit to it I usually won't bag on you.

TESO seems to have a bunch of problems where it's actually trying to be different and from the leaks it's just not that fun. Wildstar seems to have the opposite issue where it's basically asking you if you really really loved WoW 1.0 with maybe a few additional features, and would you like to play that again.

Personally, I don't see MMOs as in very much trouble as a genre. While we're all bitter jaded assholes here, I still go to work and listen to people breathlessly discuss their MMO exploits, or gaming sessions of things that came out years ago. I suspect that we, the pissy people who think TESO and Wildstar sound like nothing to get too excited about may not actually be the target audience.

[Sjofn]

The killer ap that I honestly think would be a huge hit would be:

a) extremely large procedurally-generated world.
b) world filled with tons of miniplots, quests, NPC factions, and autonomous-agent AI NPCs with a constant flow of DLC adding new stuff on a monthly basis, seeded into existing worlds or into new ones.
c) intended for groups of trusted friends between 5-50 people or so to participate in a single persistent iteration of such a world.
d) maybe allow for the initiating 'host' of a given generated world to hand-edit, customize and otherwise mod a world.

And I think it's possible. But getting even close to this requires forgetting every MMO that has ever existed, and it requires abandoning the idea of thousands of strangers playing together in a given world.

So you're basically saying that the last, best hope for MMO development is...SOE?

 

I think he's actually saying the last, best hope is to go back to playing MUDs. Or maybe NWN.

[Draegan]

Your best hope for enjoying an MMORPG again is stop playing and thinking about them for about 2-5 years (your mileage may vary) then pick one up again that you never played before. I'm also assuming something shiny will come out in that space of time.

[Simond]

Yeah, a WoW expansion. 
(I was originally going to say 'two WoW expansions' but, well, Blizzard)

[Falconeer]

You know when we stopped caring about subscription numbers around here? About 5 years ago.

Too bad you missed it, new guy, you would have had a lot of fun on f13 in 2007 or so.

[LC]

At least one industry will profit from this game's release.

[Wizgar]

You don't know what you're even arguing. You're just really mad that there's this thing you like and you wish it was better but you don't know how and you sort of want to define success by comparing it to this thing that happened and even though LOTRO, the repeated example, is doing just fucking fine for a ten year old sub game it's apparently really a gigantic failure because FAAAARRRTTTT.

It's a genre with zero innovation and a business scene so dire that a would-be defender has to repeatedly flog the very mild success of a game from 2007.

That's about all that needs to be said.

[kildorn]

You don't know what you're even arguing. You're just really mad that there's this thing you like and you wish it was better but you don't know how and you sort of want to define success by comparing it to this thing that happened and even though LOTRO, the repeated example, is doing just fucking fine for a ten year old sub game it's apparently really a gigantic failure because FAAAARRRTTTT.

It's a genre with zero innovation and a business scene so dire that a would-be defender has to repeatedly flog the very mild success of a game from 2007.

That's about all that needs to be said.

FPS games?

Actually: any non indie gaming?

[Senses]

Once you extricate yourself from the hype chain, perpetrated as much by the fans as the developers, you stop being disappointed so often.  I understand why the guys with money are looking for the next WoW, but why does the average gamer care so much?  Are you also waiting for the next Twilight inspired romantic tween trilogy?  The next 6 year long dramatic television event?  The Cowboys to win the Super bowl?  Stop worrying whether or not a game is perfect and whether or not 10 million other people like it and just worry about whether or not you do.

[Sir T]

It might stun you, but you wont hear of they whom the judges on "the X Factor" or "American Idioto"l are saying stuff like "I was totally Amazed" and "you are the real thing" ever again.

[Modern Angel]

It's a genre with zero innovation and a business scene so dire that a would-be defender has to repeatedly flog the very mild success of a game from 2007.

That's about all that needs to be said.

I don't know how to tell you this but you're talking about video games

[rk47]

Sub is the first on the road to disappointment in MMORPG.
Honestly, I can't be bothered to pay full price for single player games anymore, you want me to pay full box price at launch and on top of that pay $15 monthly subs?
Get out of here.

[ajax34i]

I'm the opposite of that; there are so many things in my life that are a "service" now and require subscription, from music to internet access to movies on the TV to health and car insurance and other various bills, that I'm at the point where I think "what's another $15"?

From the MMO industry point of view, I imagine that $15 is an issue, because there will be an uproar if they dare try to charge $20 or $30 to match inflation, so I think many of them are switching to the "free to play" model simply because they can get more money out of their customers that way.  I'd rather not have to pay more than the $15-$30 per month, and it would suck if I had to deal with disabled interface elements, a quarter of the bag storage space, inability to wear purples, etc., in order to not spend more than $30 per month to play the MMO.

[Numtini]

I long ago reached the point where my mentality was "eh, it's $15, another sub." However, since there are high quality games (Rift, TSW) that don't require me to pay, I'm a lot less likely to subscribe to something unless it's massively compelling.

[satael]

While I have no problem paying $15/month I expect to play any such game actively (and will quite quickly stop paying the sub if I find myself not playing almost daily). 
As for paying a full price for a game I have no problems with that either if I really want to play some game though such games are getting rarer and rarer it seems. 

[LC]

From the MMO industry point of view, I imagine that $15 is an issue, because there will be an uproar if they dare try to charge $20 or $30 to match inflation, so I think many of them are switching to the "free to play" model simply because they can get more money out of their customers that way.

It's funny because I was paying $10 for a subscription in 1997. That same $10 adjusted for inflation is still less than what I'm being charged today.

http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

[Falconeer]

I really don't have a problem paying 15 a month. What REALLY bothers me about a subscription model is that I now know the moment I stop playing the game I am done with it forever, cause no I am not gonna resub and shell out 15 just to see if I like the new changes or if I still want to play that kind of game. And these days, knowing that, I feel much less interested in a game if it has a sub because I feel it's too much "all or nothing", "now or never". Case in point, Final Fantasy XIV: I wanted to play it, but considering the sub, I decided it was going just another game I play for the first two or three months (paying the sub) and then I leave it behind to never come back because of the sub wall.

[Threash]

That's it, WoW is the only sub game i have ever came back to.  GW2 is my "default" game now because of this.  Also if you ask for sub money your players are going to expect more.

[Modern Angel]

Same. I've come back to WoW and yeah, that's about it. I kept trying EQ2 periodically because I wanted to like it but it makes me motion sick. Maybe Rift once?

Just recently, the SWTOR starfighting thing coming up had me really curious. I have to reroll, though, because my guild is gone on my old server. So I go to make a new character on my secondary (more active, weirdly) guild's server of choice. So many restrictions on choice that I'm more or less forced to resub. I fucked off and did something else with my time.

[Simond]

If you want space combat, you're playing the wrong franchised MMO.

[Sir T]

Yeah, the Jury is out on STO ground combat (though I kinda like it) but there is zero complaints about the space combat other than cannons being far more effective than beams. But in PVE who cares really.

[Khaldun]

I guess it wouldn't be f13 if we didn't have to have the "but really what people want is open world" conversation around every game. Based on this discussion I assume you all backed Pathfinder.

I think open world fails miserably in the mass market.  Today's MMO consumers prefers a theme park that has the illusion of an open world.  I just don't think most of them know it.

I think nobody's really tested it for a long time, so I think there's no basis for thinking it. Also "today's MMO consumers" basically equals WoW player plus a few handfuls in other games. It's like saying, "Today's Call of Duty players prefer Call of Duty". It's a tautology.

Also, again, massive multiplayer with strangers anything will suck a certain amount of cock, open world or otherwise.

[Sjofn]

The game I subbed to off and on most was CoX, but I will pop back into games I stopped playing on occasion to see what's what (although most of them have gone F2P so I don't have to sub, but I would if I did).

For me, it's not the sub that keeps me from trying a game I'd stopped playing so much as the "uggggh, I don't want to relearn how to play that game." I have some sort of weird mental block where if I'm playing a new game, not knowing wtf I'm doing is part of the charm. If it's something I've played before and a bunch of shit has changed, I knock over the game board really quickly.

[K9]

and we were all 10 years younger.

I think this is one of the most relevant points made here.

[Tannhauser]

I long ago reached the point where my mentality was "eh, it's $15, another sub." However, since there are high quality games (Rift, TSW) that don't require me to pay, I'm a lot less likely to subscribe to something unless it's massively compelling.

I agree with this.  There are now two fantasy (Rift, GW2) and two space (STO, SWTOR) f2p MMO's out there I play when I get an itch.  That makes it hard for a new $15 sub to entice me.  Been off of WoW for at least a year now.  For the first time in my modern gaming life there's no MMO or game really where I'm chomping at the bit for it.  I used to buy 2-3 $60 games a month.  Guess I'm getting old.

[Numtini]

I think the big thing about free to play alternatives is I may feel like I want to try a particular game that has a sub, but I can click an icon on the desktop and start playing it's F2P second cousin long enough for that itch to be scratched.

[Merusk]

I long ago reached the point where my mentality was "eh, it's $15, another sub." However, since there are high quality games (Rift, TSW) that don't require me to pay, I'm a lot less likely to subscribe to something unless it's massively compelling.

I agree with this.  There are now two fantasy (Rift, GW2) and two space (STO, SWTOR) f2p MMO's out there I play when I get an itch.  That makes it hard for a new $15 sub to entice me.  Been off of WoW for at least a year now.  For the first time in my modern gaming life there's no MMO or game really where I'm chomping at the bit for it.  I used to buy 2-3 $60 games a month.  Guess I'm getting old.

Yep, you're old. Next you'll move on to other hobbies with the rest of us old farts.  Puttering around in games once in a while but finding it's less and less of your free time.

[Malakili]

Well, that might be the case, but I think the more interesting observation is that games are giving a comparable experience for free that other games are giving for 15 bucks a month, at least to a lot of people.  I have no problem paying a 15 dollar monthly fee for a game that's great, even if I'm going to play it a lot less than I used to play WoW or EVE.  15 bucks is only twice what I'll spend getting a coffee and a bagel sandwich for lunch at Brueger's.  The money isn't the deciding factor at that point.  But if I can get a good enough substitute for free, why not.  It's more an indictment of no one being able to make a good enough game to separate it from the scores of free to play alternatives.

[Hawkbit]

Meh.  I prefer dinner to dim sum.

[Tannhauser]

Fifteen bucks is a very good value for a month of gaming.  Don't get me wrong.  Right around 50 cents a day.  But there's no 'shut up and take my money' MMO's out there for me.