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Author Topic: MMO Dev whines about Casuals  (Read 57949 times)
Riggswolfe
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Reply #105 on: November 23, 2015, 11:46:11 AM

Since all of you are about as jaded as it is possible to be...

What WOULD be magical for you, these days? I often wonder about it for myself as a player, much less as a designer.

To start:

Stop trying to be all things to all people. There are two binary decisions that need to be made right off of the bat:

1) PVPers vs PVEers.
2) Raiders vs "Casuals".

My ultimate MMO that would bring the magic back?

No raids. No pvp. Push that shit aside. No gear grind. Gear is for cosmetics only. Think CoX or the uniforms in STO. Asheron's Call had no raids that I remember and I still spent hours in that game just exploring.
No more than 8-10 abilities on my action bar. TOTAL. If I can't fit them on my Razer gaming mouse, you have too many abilities. The Secret World does a good job of this with having a huge selection of skills to mix and match but you can only use 7 at a time. Perfect balance between ease of play and depth.
QOL stuff. Look at current STO for a good example of this. Instant recalls to bind spots. Unlocked speeder routes from the start. Quick and easy travel from planet to planet.
Player housing with as much customization as humanly possible. Hell, give me a system like Fallout 4 has where I take raw materials and build walls and furniture from a menu and unleash my creativity. I believe this is one of the few things Darkstar did right. (I just realized, I can't remember if that is actually the name of the game. I tend to think of it as "Red shit on the ground to dodge- The MMO" )
Robust guilds.
Ability to solo OR group with neither option forced on me. Make the content dynamically adjust based on the number of players.
No classes. Look at the Secret World again for a great modern version of this. It sort of has levels but those just give you another skill point to earn. Again, perfect.
Give me some randomness. Look at Bethesda games for a good example of this. People constantly tell stories about weird stuff NPCs do or events that caught them totally by surprise because it just happened in the spur of the moment. Basically give me the Bethesda radiant AI where I can randomly come across NPCs robbing each other or fighting in the streets. Make the world feel alive.

Though from looking at this thread I think you have your answer. I'm not sure any two people had the same reply.
« Last Edit: November 23, 2015, 11:48:19 AM by Riggswolfe »

"We live in a country, where John Lennon takes six bullets in the chest, Yoko Ono was standing right next to him and not one fucking bullet! Explain that to me! Explain that to me, God! Explain it to me, God!" - Denis Leary summing up my feelings about the nature of the universe.
Nonentity
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Reply #106 on: November 23, 2015, 12:32:14 PM

Since all of you are about as jaded as it is possible to be...

What WOULD be magical for you, these days? I often wonder about it for myself as a player, much less as a designer.

I mirror the sentiment made earlier in the thread about smaller player counts. The 'massive' part of the MMO doesn't do much for me. The thing I love about MMOs is the attention to detail and ongoing updates. Spending hours and hours playing Minecraft has shown me it HAS to be possible.

I don't know what the audience for a game like what I would actually want would be, but I want to basically be able to spin up the equivalent of an MMO server for just me and my friends. Maybe have a very small slope for player progression, or have time = flexibility instead of power. Give us areas where we can build structures ala Fallout 4 or Minecraft, and have some structured content for us to do as group, scaled to how many people we have. Let us blow up the world if we want. Since it's just people you trust, let us have some politic system for large decisions where we decide to crater this one city, or integrate it into our nation or something.

Maybe give the ability to link up or cluster worlds temporarily. Let us be able to queue into some kind of structured PvP or PvE stuff cross-realm, but our world is our story - to the point where one group's world would end up looking entirely different than another person's world, and we all have our story. As the game would go on, the content added would keep spiraling out from there.

Obviously there are a million different scenarios and use cases, but I have more money than time as I get older and I would LOVE something like this.

But that Captain's salami tray was tight, yo. You plump for the roast pork loin, dogg?

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[20:42:41] The spirit touches you and you feel drained.
Venkman
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Reply #107 on: December 08, 2015, 04:06:38 PM

Make us all 15 years younger so we can be the kinds of people who can immerse ourselves in a virtual world without needing to be burdened by the real one. And return the flat monthly fee only we'd be willing to pay, so we can get back to consuming content without worrying about the constant need to put quarters into the machine incentivized ads/MTX.

Of course, neither is possible. So instead I feel we just need to accept it. MMOs are not a thing anymore. They're whatever game system is already possible, played alone or occasionally with others, and with a strong outer loop of compulsions to play again.

Since that applies to just about every popular game there is now, MMOs can either be weaker versions of anything, or we just accept that MMOs are now everything.
IainC
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Reply #108 on: May 27, 2016, 12:54:01 PM

Just in case anyone had forgotten what a colossal dick, Mark Kern was, he gives us a handy reminder. Basically the Tl;dr is that he wants people to stop playing Firefall so that it will close and he can buy it from The9 at a bargain price to have another shot at fucking it up. Which of course is a thing that is likely to happen in any sane reality.

Happily, a bunch of former Red5 devs come out of the woodwork to call him out.
Quote
Mark, as someone who worked FOR YOU, at Red5, on Firefall: You're full of shit. Or maybe you're so delusional at this point that you really believe yourself.
There was no "Executive Team" making actual decisions. Nobody except Mark could make real decisions. Mark rarely showed up to work though, so lots of decisions were made in absentia, and many were countermanded when he decided to show up. The state of Firefall is the result.
The eSports focus? Mark. Founders Packs? Mark. Higher-tier frames? Mark. (He wanted to sell a new one monthly, so he could be like League.) Real-money, per-use paint jobs? Mark. Vehicles, Pets, and dozens of other random features that were irrelevant to the core gameplay? Mark. The completely fucked up UI? Mark. He thinks he's a UI genius, and put himself directly in charge. Stage 5 and the clusterfuck that was the bus? All Mark. Cutting PvP? Mark again (and he told the forums before the devs).
The vaunted "story"? All bullshit. Was in constant flux. Major rewrites to support whatever feature was the flavor of the month.
https://m.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1tuf3c/this_is_why_mark_kern_was_removed_as_ceo_by_red_5 - I don't know who wrote this, but it's all legit from where I was sitting. I witnessed it personally in my time there. The9 can also go fuck themselves, especially for what they did to the staff that hung on [Did you know that they hired people, had them move to CA, then fired them without severance AND demanded the moving expenses back? Got to admit that even Kern wasn't that shitty.] but the game was already screwed before they took over.
As an aside, even if Mark managed to buy all the code and IP, there's no way on earth he would ever get that game running again. With the team they have left, I doubt that Red5/The9 could get that game running again from scratch either, and there's no way that any of the key devs would ever work for Kern again.
You don't have to believe me though. I could be lying about being a dev, and am not willing to "prove it". But Kern burned his bridges pretty thoroughly, there's lots of former Red5 devs out there. Ask them, privately, about his post. Nobody will want to talk about it publicly, so just ask them if they think Mark is a good dude to work for, or if they'd invest in any of his future projects. Then you'll have your answer.

Quote
Also just a personal fuck you for being Mark Kern

Quote
Fuck you. Here's a list of bullet points for why, if you care. But fuck you.
Fuck you for turning this into a social media stunt
Fuck you for making this about you and your ego.
Fuck you for for your utter lack of consideration for the shell of the team that remains at Red5 and what "letting it crash" means for them.
Fuck you for being a delusional, egomaniacal asshole.
Fuck you for playing on the tiny shred of hope that anyone remaining in the community might have left.
Fuck you for attempting to manipulate the disappointment of your former customers into some kind of weird passive corporate espionage.
Fuck you. Get the fuck out of this sub.
For anyone else who reads this, this is the kind of person Mark Kern is. A narcissistic loser who can't let go of something he fucked up so bad that they kicked him out of the company so they could even have a shot at finishing it.
Edit: And before anyone comes at me for not understanding, maybe I don't. But only a still-bleeding cunt would write a post like he just wrote.
« Last Edit: May 27, 2016, 12:59:14 PM by IainC »

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ezrast
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Reply #109 on: May 27, 2016, 01:19:41 PM

I didn't know who Mark Kern was 20 minutes ago, yet somehow seeing that whole thread shit all over him brings warmth into my heart.
Rendakor
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Reply #110 on: May 27, 2016, 01:21:41 PM

Popcorn

"i can't be a star citizen. they won't even give me a star green card"
Goreschach
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Reply #111 on: May 27, 2016, 01:42:39 PM

At this point MMOG Discussion is just starting to feel like Groundhog's Day. Can we graveyard?
Sir T
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Reply #112 on: May 27, 2016, 03:07:54 PM

Hes all over the comments there white knighting himself, posting as Grummz. Heres a representative sample to a guy that said that the doors at Blizzard are closed to him.

Quote
[–]Grummz 2 points 1 day ago

Actually I'm going through the front gates of Blizzard tomorrow, to have a meeting with my former boss, the CEO. We're discussing the possibility of bringing Legacy servers back to WoW.


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SurfD
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Reply #113 on: May 28, 2016, 01:44:24 AM

Just in case anyone had forgotten what a colossal dick, Mark Kern was, he gives us a handy reminder. Basically the Tl;dr is that he wants people to stop playing Firefall so that it will close and he can buy it from The9 at a bargain price to have another shot at fucking it up. Which of course is a thing that is likely to happen in any sane reality.
Dont suppose anyone has an archive link to the original post from Kern.  The Reddit link appearently shows he deleted the post, and only the comments are there.

Darwinism is the Gateway Science.
SurfD
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Reply #114 on: May 28, 2016, 05:41:16 AM

Hes all over the comments there white knighting himself, posting as Grummz. Heres a representative sample to a guy that said that the doors at Blizzard are closed to him.

Quote
[–]Grummz 2 points 1 day ago

Actually I'm going through the front gates of Blizzard tomorrow, to have a meeting with my former boss, the CEO. We're discussing the possibility of bringing Legacy servers back to WoW.
Yeah, somehow he has become the figurehead around which the incredibly vocal tiny minority of people who want blizzard to release official legacy servers have decided to rally around.  Never mind that they literally have almost no coherent idea what they actually want in a legacy server (other then "bring back vanilla"), but they actually expect Blizzard to seriously entertain the idea of opening that pandoras box, and Kern, of all people, has somehow become the spokesman for their insanity (mostly due to him using the tenuous connection he has to the WoW dev team as some sort of magnet for attention he can then use to shamelesly self promote).
« Last Edit: May 28, 2016, 05:43:11 AM by SurfD »

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Trippy
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Reply #115 on: May 28, 2016, 08:54:01 AM

Mark Kern was the original Team Lead on World of Warcraft until he left in 2005 to form Red 5 Studios.
Rendakor
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Reply #116 on: May 28, 2016, 09:20:13 AM

As someone who would love a WoW progression server, it saddens me that this dickbag is the one leading the charge.

"i can't be a star citizen. they won't even give me a star green card"
MahrinSkel
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Reply #117 on: May 28, 2016, 10:41:38 AM

Just in case anyone had forgotten what a colossal dick, Mark Kern was, he gives us a handy reminder. Basically the Tl;dr is that he wants people to stop playing Firefall so that it will close and he can buy it from The9 at a bargain price to have another shot at fucking it up. Which of course is a thing that is likely to happen in any sane reality.
Dont suppose anyone has an archive link to the original post from Kern.  The Reddit link appearently shows he deleted the post, and only the comments are there.

archive.is/03B0V

And this one will let you see the deleted comments, since he deleted the account those are all gone at Reddit (unfortunately only works for comments, so the original post is only visible at the archive):

https://unreddit.com/r/firefall/comments/4l1agq/what_buying_back_the_firefall_ip_really_means_by/
« Last Edit: May 28, 2016, 10:45:20 AM by MahrinSkel »

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Margalis
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Reply #118 on: May 28, 2016, 05:39:30 PM

Kern is weird.

You figure, just based on his resume, that he must have some talent and not be a blithering idiot. But he clearly is a blithering idiot - it's not an exaggeration to say that he has the mental capacity of an 11-year-old.

vampirehipi23: I would enjoy a book written by a monkey and turned into a movie rather than this.
Sir T
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Reply #119 on: May 28, 2016, 06:12:36 PM

I decided to repost his op statement here in case something happens to the archive for some reason. Its under the spoiler

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Morat20
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Reply #120 on: May 28, 2016, 06:16:57 PM

As someone who would love a WoW progression server, it saddens me that this dickbag is the one leading the charge.
I admit I'd be a bit curious to try it myself, although I can't help but wonder what they'd do with all the class balancing issues and multiple changes.

I suppose the easiest would be to roll out the last stable version pre-TBC, run that for X amount of time, then roll out the last stable pre-WoTLK version, etc.

I kind of wish they'd stop dicking around with class structures in general. There's more than one MMORPG I couldn't get back into because I came back six months later and found everything was incredibly different. Starting from level one isn't an issue, but dropping in a mid-level or higher character? "Oh I guess I have to reassign all these skills/powers/talents whatever, but I don't know what any of them are or how they work in concert. I'm still trying to remember what the hell I was doing".
SurfD
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Reply #121 on: May 28, 2016, 06:27:25 PM

As someone who would love a WoW progression server, it saddens me that this dickbag is the one leading the charge.
I admit I'd be a bit curious to try it myself, although I can't help but wonder what they'd do with all the class balancing issues and multiple changes.

I suppose the easiest would be to roll out the last stable version pre-TBC, run that for X amount of time, then roll out the last stable pre-WoTLK version, etc.
Yeah, thats one of the things you nevver get a straight answer out of the legacy crowd about.   If they get Legacy servers, what kind are they expecting?  Do they want a progression server (ie, start from patch 1.0 and release every patch on the same timeline as the orignal?), a "last patch" server (ie, Start with the last patch in Vanilla and that is it).  Some kind of hybrid between the two?   And what about bugs?  Some people think they should release vanilla AND fix the bugs (in which case, it isnt really vanilla any more is it, since the bugs were part of what made the game the game at the time).  And it goes on and on an on.

And then there is the entire pandoras box that they just dont want to acknowledge of "well, if a tiny minorty of whiners get official Vanilla servers, whats to stop everybody else who wants a specific flavour out of the current 6 potential flavours demanding their specific flavour as well?".   I mean, running a few Vanilla servers might not be that hard for blizzard.  It beccomes an epicc shitshow however when you add the possibility of having to run a couple dozen different builds of the game simultaneously.....

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IainC
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Reply #122 on: May 29, 2016, 04:21:25 AM

Kern is weird.

You figure, just based on his resume, that he must have some talent and not be a blithering idiot. But he clearly is a blithering idiot - it's not an exaggeration to say that he has the mental capacity of an 11-year-old.

The games industry in general and the MMO industry in particular are full of people who continually failed upwards.

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Rendakor
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Reply #123 on: May 29, 2016, 07:48:31 AM

Yeah, thats one of the things you nevver get a straight answer out of the legacy crowd about.   If they get Legacy servers, what kind are they expecting?  Do they want a progression server (ie, start from patch 1.0 and release every patch on the same timeline as the orignal?), a "last patch" server (ie, Start with the last patch in Vanilla and that is it).  Some kind of hybrid between the two?   And what about bugs?  Some people think they should release vanilla AND fix the bugs (in which case, it isnt really vanilla any more is it, since the bugs were part of what made the game the game at the time).  And it goes on and on an on.

And then there is the entire pandoras box that they just dont want to acknowledge of "well, if a tiny minorty of whiners get official Vanilla servers, whats to stop everybody else who wants a specific flavour out of the current 6 potential flavours demanding their specific flavour as well?".   I mean, running a few Vanilla servers might not be that hard for blizzard.  It beccomes an epicc shitshow however when you add the possibility of having to run a couple dozen different builds of the game simultaneously.....
If I were Blizzard, here's how I would do it:
  • Release 3 servers, beginning at 1.0.
  • Every month, release a new (major, final version) patch. So assuming we launched Jan 1, Feb 1 would be 1.1.2, March 1 would be 1.2.4, etc.
  • Two months after we've completed Vanilla, 2 of the servers get BC; the third remains Vanilla 1.12.2 forever.
  • Repeat the monthly patch process for BC, wait two months, release WotLK for 1 server, the other remains BC 2.4.3 forever.
  • Release WotLK's patches monthly until 3.3.5a, remains WotLK forever.
Assuming they still have all the old code laying around somewhere, this seems like the easiest solution that would also please the largest amount of players. You could even make a fourth server that continues the process through all of the expansions, although I'm not sure there's a lot of interest in replaying Cata and Pandaria.

"i can't be a star citizen. they won't even give me a star green card"
KallDrexx
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Reply #124 on: May 29, 2016, 09:09:31 AM

The old code is probably "worthless" for a vanilla server purpose, as it's unlikely the old code will work with current clients anyway, so then they would have to update their launcher to support 4 totally different clients and make sure all the old crap still works (and I see this wreaking havoc with mods).  So they will have to implement legacy servers within the confines of the current server and client architectures (and be patched alongside current WoW).

I think everyone asking for legacy servers doesn't understand how much of an undertaking and how complex that really is.  I would not be surprised that even adding code so that only legacy servers gate content from specific areas and server specific xp curves (since everything is normalized now) is probably non-trivial effort.

*Edit*
Also didn't they completely redo the damage modelling at some point due to mud-flation and totally redo talents.  That's also not a trivial thing to revert I'm sure.
« Last Edit: May 29, 2016, 09:13:28 AM by KallDrexx »
Rendakor
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Reply #125 on: May 29, 2016, 09:28:30 AM

I was assuming you would need a totally new (old) client; separate download, login, etc. If you wanted mods you would need to go find old versions of them (or they would need to be remade).

"i can't be a star citizen. they won't even give me a star green card"
Morat20
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Reply #126 on: May 29, 2016, 10:26:38 AM

The old code is probably "worthless" for a vanilla server purpose, as it's unlikely the old code will work with current clients anyway, so then they would have to update their launcher to support 4 totally different clients and make sure all the old crap still works (and I see this wreaking havoc with mods).  So they will have to implement legacy servers within the confines of the current server and client architectures (and be patched alongside current WoW).

I think everyone asking for legacy servers doesn't understand how much of an undertaking and how complex that really is.  I would not be surprised that even adding code so that only legacy servers gate content from specific areas and server specific xp curves (since everything is normalized now) is probably non-trivial effort.

*Edit*
Also didn't they completely redo the damage modelling at some point due to mud-flation and totally redo talents.  That's also not a trivial thing to revert I'm sure.
I was thinking something like that as well. Even if they had pristine version control (which I'm sure they do), getting it up and working is not trivial.  Nothing with software ever is.

Even if they dusted off the old versions of the launcher, their old server code, and set it up completely separate (start the legacy launcher, not the regular one) they'd probably run into numerous headaches just getting it up and running.

I suspect the demand simply isn't high enough to justify it, especially when (and they're probably right) best case you have a bunch of nostaligics playing maybe 6 months tops before dropping out.
Azuredream
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Reply #127 on: May 29, 2016, 10:50:07 AM

Vanilla WoW would never have tons of people playing it (today), but it would have a dedicated core of probably ~50-100k that would absolutely stay longer than 6 months. If people are still playing EQ and Runescape, they'll play vanilla WoW. The question is how much it would cost Blizzard to get a legacy server up and running, and nobody but Blizzard themselves would know. So far they've indicated it wouldn't be worth it, but maybe that will change.

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K9
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Reply #128 on: May 29, 2016, 03:23:39 PM

Y'all made me go look and it turns out that Anarchy Online is still chugging along somehow.

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Sir T
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Reply #129 on: May 29, 2016, 05:32:59 PM

Conan is still going as well.

Hic sunt dracones.
Surlyboi
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eat a bag of dicks


Reply #130 on: May 29, 2016, 07:26:27 PM

As is Secret World.

Tuned in, immediately get to watch cringey Ubisoft talking head offering her deepest sympathies to the families impacted by the Orlando shooting while flanked by a man in a giraffe suit and some sort of "horrifically garish neon costumes through the ages" exhibit or something.  We need to stop this fucking planet right now and sort some shit out. -Kail
Mandella
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Reply #131 on: May 29, 2016, 08:56:28 PM

Say what you will about Funcom, but they keep their properties going as long as possible -- which to date has been, well, to date.

Hell, isn't LEGO MiniFigs still going?

And apparently they just secured a new investor, so, maybe even more to come.
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