Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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Essentially, the only non-asian triple AAA game for the next two years is Amazon's New World. That's it.
And the only non-asians, non-triple AAA games are crowdfunded/early access scammed shits.
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2 years later... the almost sad state of MMOs in the new era
- Thread starter Ukerric
- Start date
And the only non-asians, non-triple AAA games are crowdfunded/early access scammed shits.
Raes
Vyemm Raider
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Someone posted about how game development should be much easier/cheaper now with advancements in tech and tools. In some ways it is, but what you get is the crap in that vid, indie/kickstarted shit that looks and plays like ass. These people aren't making MMOs they are making pay-my-bills-while-I-pad-my-resume. Even triple-A titles with huge dev teams and $100+ million behind them launch with issues and bugs and people rake them over the coals for all of it. Thinking some tiny team with shit funding has any chance is a pipe dream.
We are still a long way from the MUD boom days when anyone with the time and a bit of talent could put out a decent game. We need a Diku equivalent, one engine to rule them all.
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Ravishing
Uninspiring Title
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Flobee
Vyemm Raider
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I've been thinking about something and curious to see what opinions you all have. How important is the 'Massive' portion of MMORPG? Like, would a game designed around 1.5-2k person servers work in today's market? Aim at the community building and name recognition factors that we actually care about rather than the lolmorenumbers instancing method we've been having?
Seems like a decent change in direction for the genre to me. I can forsee some technical limitations w/ scaling but like, maybe fuck worrying about scaling issues when designing a game? Curious what you think.
Seems like a decent change in direction for the genre to me. I can forsee some technical limitations w/ scaling but like, maybe fuck worrying about scaling issues when designing a game? Curious what you think.
Ravishing
Uninspiring Title
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Personally I wish games focused on the 50-100 people raids like EQ.
Smaller numbers feels like whack-a-mole / instanced content.
I liked GM events in EQ where zones had 250 people and then it crashed.
Nowadays they "instance" the zone if it goes over 50.
I also liked the 50+ vs 50+ raid races and seeing over 100 people in a zone.
EQ worked because it technically was PvP in a PvE world. Scarcity added to the appeal.
Unfortunately you can't really do that in today's game... so how do you add Scarcity without the frustration? Tough problem to solve imo.
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Why studios continue to put out super-realistic-HD-super-duper graphics is strange. The success of wow shows that nobody cares about that. And its a colossal waste of time. Just make them cartoon graphics.
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Flobee
Vyemm Raider
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Can you create scarcity with content difficulty instead? I think the answer to that would depend on if you can create content difficulty that is reliant on something other than reflexes. EQ did this in a lot of ways that were probably incidental but I think they did some stuff intentionally that really landed and we've overlooked it over time.
Ravishing
Uninspiring Title
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I actually think GuildWars had a lot of good ideas and did a lot of things right in this regard, but their game was trying to do too much.
The Structured PvP & WvW systems took a lot of resources from the PvE...
Even still, the PvE in that game was very highly regarded.
However, the Loot/stat caps kinda ruin your traditional MMO experience of continually acquiring power.
They had massive raids, instanced content, and really hard-to-acquire legendary "skins".
I think you could take some of the ideas there and come up with a pretty fantastic PvE MMO game with good progression for all involved.
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TJT
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Information overload is also an extremely limiting factor. One of my favorite things about EQ was not even in the game but because of the time period it existed. No in game maps so players would draw out maps of the zones and put them out on the internet. EQmaps was the source to understand these things. Recipes and quests weren't datamined like they are today as datamining was in its infancy in comparison.
You had to go around and ask other players how shit worked. Discuss in forums or in game. Especially early vanilla spell research. You and other scholars of the arcane had to figure out how to craft those spells and hunt down the information yourselves. The world was dangerous and terrifying.
That won't happen anymore. MMOhead will datamine everything months before release and you'll just easily search for whatever you want. Kills the wonder and what you can discover unless you intentionally limit your interaction with the rest of the web which just isn't that realistic anymore. A game that captured the magic of early EQ and to an extent wow classic just isn't possible now.
To this day I absolutely love shit like this:
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I think everyone had an EQ folder back then. I know I did, with infos I printed out from general forums bullshit to maps and other things like loot and mob lists from allakhazam.
I still think they could do it somehow, im not a programmer but could they not encrypt some of this shit?
But definitely this added to the mystery and mistique of the game. You start in some noob zone and slowly expand your horizon as you level up. Then you hear someone mention that zone XXX is the one to go to. Loot is good and plenty of groups, etc... So then you have to find out how to get there. This made the whole leveling an experience a game that does nto exist now. I know I had plenty of game sessions in EQ just trying to get from zone XXX to get to zone YYY. Now its all about getting to cap as fast as you can so you can then start to play the REAL game. Usually solo to boot.
Ravishing
Uninspiring Title
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I don't buy the EQ mystique as much as some, that's rose-tinted glasses stuff when EQ was <1 yr old.
EQ had so many resources available.
EQAtlas, Allakhazam early
Then you had ShowEQ which gave people tons of info
And you had sites like Lucy, which also had a cool bot for MIRC, which was in the FoH Room at the time. Just mention a spell / item / quest and get a full readout.
Personally I do want some direction in my game. I don't want themepark questing, but to avoid feeling like I am wasting my time I'd like to know what objectives to pursue.
I'm one of those people that will lookup info and I'm fine with that.
I do think game designers can avoid adding quest logs, map system, etc. Let the players decide to look it up on a fansite or not. Having it always present on the screen screams "DO THIS NOW"... I don't like that.
EQ had so many resources available.
EQAtlas, Allakhazam early
Then you had ShowEQ which gave people tons of info
And you had sites like Lucy, which also had a cool bot for MIRC, which was in the FoH Room at the time. Just mention a spell / item / quest and get a full readout.
Personally I do want some direction in my game. I don't want themepark questing, but to avoid feeling like I am wasting my time I'd like to know what objectives to pursue.
I'm one of those people that will lookup info and I'm fine with that.
I do think game designers can avoid adding quest logs, map system, etc. Let the players decide to look it up on a fansite or not. Having it always present on the screen screams "DO THIS NOW"... I don't like that.
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TJT
Mr. Poopybutthole
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I think you overestimate how many people used ShowEQ and all that shit. I was not that retarded of a 13 year old when EQ was released. But I was limited to what I could easily find online or what I could get out of other players in game or what I could discover myself 99% of the time. I would argue that this is the average player's experience.
While it was very present in the higher levels of play and places like this the average person wasn't hunting down MIRC chatrooms using bots. They'd search Allakhazam sure or EQAtlas to a degree but that wasn't as in depth as WOWhead is today.
While it was very present in the higher levels of play and places like this the average person wasn't hunting down MIRC chatrooms using bots. They'd search Allakhazam sure or EQAtlas to a degree but that wasn't as in depth as WOWhead is today.
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Cant deny that some of it is nostalgia and the first mmo thing, sure. But like TjT mentioned if you think that what you did was the experience of an average EQ player, you are sadly mistaken. EQ was for the most part a big fucking mystery to most people which unraveled the more timethey spent in it.
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TJT
Mr. Poopybutthole
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For real. Many zones and items were a complete mystery. It would go something like this:
- Find out you had a level 56 spell. Like say Servant of Bones that is ideal for the class and you really need it.
- Look it up on Allakhazam and discover it dropped deep in Old Seb or Skyfire Mountains only.
- You've been doing whatever leveling in Karnor's Castle and don't really know much about those two zones.
- Find out Skyfire is death and nobody really groups there a lot so you go to Old Seb and start looking for groups and figuring the zone out. Go on the adventure of getting there and getting keyed up for Seb and grouping down there.
- Or go to the EC Tunnel and see if anyone is selling it. Discover that certain spells like Servant of Bones are mega expensive
- Find out a way to get enough money to buy it.
Raes
Vyemm Raider
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3301
Wake Up Man
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I don't think a slow paced EQ-like game would prosper in today's world of instant gratification. Just isn't a market for it, and EQ was never wildly successful like say WoW. EQ was a hard game that "Nintendo Hard" aka "that was our normal" youth grew up to be able to master. Today's gamers grew up playing find yer pokermons! then go jerk it to instantly available free HD porn and then sit and stream every episode of whatever crap shows are out now.
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Flobee
Vyemm Raider
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Is the only reason it won't work that it won't make enough money? If we removed that requirement, is there anything else that makes a slow paced EQ style game not work? Specifically I'm talking about it being an enjoyable game that people would have fun playing.
3301
Wake Up Man
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Who’s gonna play it? 40+ year old dudes with families that don’t have time to game for 8+ hours straight?
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Pharone
Trakanon Raider
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Technically, there is an engine out there ready to go right this second for anybody that wants to dabble with creating their own MMORPG... EQ Emulator.
Aside from new zones and artwork, you can do just about anything else you want with it. You can arrange the zone connections anyway you want, populate the zones with what ever mobs you want, create any quest you want, etc. If you think that combat is too slow in EQ, you can make it faster. If you think that mobs die too fast, you can make the combat longer. If you think that the predetermined classes are too restricting and you want to develop your character yourself, you can do that.
I just really don't think that people realize just how much you can customize EQ Emu.
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