Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

Its honestly very aggravating as a player to see some MMOs like WAR come out so close to being fun and having a large player base, only to be killed because of a decision to end development a mere 2 months before it could have been ready to generate subs instead of bleed them out. Especially because these titles come out once every fewyears. If I was an executive and was that dumb, I"d kill myself for throwing so much money out the window, especially when Blizzard"s successful business model is very much transparent.

But I do agree that the next good shot the industry has at expanding is going to be Blizzard"s next MMO, whichever decade that is.

Warhammer could"ve spent 2 more years in development and ended the same way. They didn"t understand how to maintain a playerbase, it had nothing to do with "polish".

A successful game also doesn"t need to be superior to WoW or beat WoW"s 4 years of polish, it just needs to be comparable in the core game design. Other developers would be smart to copy their system of positive reinforcement because it"s led to what, 10 million people playing?

You guys are looking at this like a game needs to be better and everyone will jump ship, which isn"t how it works. If people are happy, they aren"t going to leave even if another game is "slightly better". It"s called brand loyalty, which does exist in the MMORPG market. Basically, as long as WoW is keeping players happy the majority of their playerbase will not leave for any competition.

The players up for grabs are the ones playing WoW that are not happy, but are only playing because there is no other quality competition on the market. While they might not be the majority, there is likely a few million that would leave simply for something as good but different.

It"s unlikely for any company to produce an MMORPG that will end up with more subscribers then WoW anytime soon because a good portion of their players are happy and will stay due to brand loyalty / brand recognition (Blizzard"s name, which pulled a lot of people INTO the MMORPG industry in the first place).

However, a title that is comparable in core game design could retain its playerbase and would be able to take some of Blizzard"s playerbase that is simply looking for change. A solid PVE game mirroring WoW could pull 1-2 million customers from WoW along with players they pulled in from other games. A quality game could easily have 2-3 million subscribers after one year, a portion of which were taken from WoW that were simply looking for something different. WoW would still be the market leader, but 2-3 million customers after one year with the opportunity to grow would be quite successful and should be what new MMORPG"s are looking for. That market share is available and it"s more likely to be obtained by copying WoW"s game design then trying to avoid it. Copy their shit that worked, just make it different.

Palum said:

High fantasy != fantasy. AC was unique fantasy done well. It had great story, lore and characters without feeling too alien. Not even counting WAR, LotRO, EQ(2) and others WoW is enough to have "done it to death".

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You think the majority of MMO players make any distinction between the different genres of fantasy?

Utnayan said:

Tldr: Blizzard will most likely have to be the innovator in a new genre within the gaming MMO space. They are the only ones that have a chance at doing it right. And for probably the next 5 years, are the only ones able to get trust from their management when they say they need time.

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Blizzard and innovation are not synonymous.

Blizzard is not on the cutting edge, ever. They take existing properties and retool them and make best of breed, like WOW from EQ.

So, unless someone makes a sci fi product worthy of re-engineering then I doubt it"ll happen. The other option is making Starcraft Online be a WOW clone. Doubtful.

A better group right now for a Sci Fi MMO would be the id/Bethsoft people. They have the background with id, DOOM, Fallout, and other titles and talent.

Gecko said:

So, unless someone makes a sci fi product worthy of re-engineering then I doubt it"ll happen. The other option is making Starcraft Online be a WOW clone. Doubtful.

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The problem with sci-fi or post-apoc is, someone needs to do it right.

Many were turned off by the ultra meta-gaming of AO. Others by the training mechanics of Eve-O. TR and HG:L really did a lot more harm than good. But as you said, it can"t just be a patch off WoW"s ass. Even if it were Blizzard themselves building it. Someone needs to find that cushy spot somewhere in the middle and run with it.

Either of the aforemention sub-genres is rich with possibility. Potentially more rich than fantasy imho. As others have said, the problem is a lack of real success in those fields makes it seem like a tremendous risk. We"ll see how much damage upcoming titles like STO and SGW (if it ever launches) cause before i"ll write it off completely. Or at least until Blizz decides to do one of them right themselves.

Sci-fi MMO? No thanks.
Seriously, I can"t really be interested in a game like that, unless it"s like a fantasy one with different names for skills and even then I wouldn"t care too much.

I just hope that one day I"ll get an MMO with a very good storyline and interesting lore, good mechanics for combat and nice raids and group stuff to do. It has to have rogues and necromancers (or warlocks) and some more interesting way to play healers. At that point I"ll be happy for a good while.

As far as doing a sci-fi MMO right, I guess we"ll get to see if that can be done when Bioware releases their Star Wars and Cryptic releases Star Trek. I"ll be trying them both to see whether it"s yay or nay.

Miele said:

Sci-fi MMO? No thanks.
Seriously, I can"t really be interested in a game like that, unless it"s like a fantasy one with different names for skills and even then I wouldn"t care too much.

I just hope that one day I"ll get an MMO with a very good storyline and interesting lore, good mechanics for combat and nice raids and group stuff to do. It has to have rogues and necromancers (or warlocks) and some more interesting way to play healers. At that point I"ll be happy for a good while.

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You already have the closest thing to what you described. And its going to be a good long while before anyone tops it. And if somehow it could, Blizzard will trample it with an expansion, or something entirely new, as soon as it looks like it might threaten a noticable chunk of thier market share.

Sci-fi is an acquired taste for sure. But I have little doubt that a good sci-fi or post-apoc game done right could reside right alongside WoW at this point. Why bother with another fantasy game when you"re already playing the best there is? Its pretty well accepted that its going to take a extremely well built and compelling game to topple WoW, or even scratch its market share by any noticable margin. That means a seriously huge chunk of change.

Personally, I can"t think of any dev house with that kind of cash on hand. No, the smart money would go with something thats built as solid as WoW, but different. A lot different. Slaying gods and dragons in one fantasy game holds little difference than slaying gods and dragons in another. Its mostly aesthetics.

"it"s mostly aesthetics" as a cop-out would apply even if you changed genres. It"s all just big pixel-blobs that you wack until they fall over.

Story and setting exist to differentiate things, although the RPG part of MMORPG seems to have vaporized in the current generation

Gimme my floating quest arrow, glowing red quest map, and click-thru lore shortcuts so I can get to hitting Random Blobs of Pixels I Don"t Have Any Context For.

If a "genre" could be "done to death" it wouldn"t be a *genre*.

If you have a compelling story/setting, it"s compelling regardless of its genre. If you don"t have a compelling story/setting, it"s just randomly hitting pixelated blobs, regardless of whether it"s with guns, swords, or pewpewmagikz.

Just going "to space" or "after civilization explodes" (An entire game of empty, depressing zones? My god, it"s Midgard, Dark Age of Camelot: The MMO) won"t instantly make something "more interesting," much like *not* being in space doesn"t automatically make something dull.

It comes down to individual preferences and whether or not a setting is well crafted.

For the record, I"d love to see a well-done SciFi MMO. Anarchy Online had a lot of good in it (and I include the inventory/equipment management in this, even if it was Newb Kryptonite), and more choices of setting "flavors" is good for the customer base. MMOFPS seems like an infeasible project until network code is much better than current MMOs manage, though, unless you cap the # of people who can enter an area.

Wolfen said:

As far as doing a sci-fi MMO right, I guess we"ll get to see if that can be done when Bioware releases their Star Wars and Cryptic releases Star Trek. I"ll be trying them both to see whether it"s yay or nay.

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From what I can see, Bioware"s game has a lot more fantasy than Sci Fi. It leverages the "Jedi" and a lot of story, and it doesn"t look like it has space combat. It looks more like EQ in space with a rich storyline, nothing revolutionary.

STO looks more intriguing, but based on their "everyone is a captain" FAQ entry I have fears it"s Earth and Beyond resurrected.

I"d personally like something different. Eve has the right idea but their setup doesn"t seem conducive to large audiences to me.

Someone needs to hit the right balance of character development, space trading, piracy, war, and growth in a Sci Fi MMO.

Something like Privateer"s trading system, with Jump to Lightspeed"s flight modeling, with Planetsides ground combat, with Freelancers universal travel and organization coupled with character and ship advancements.

Kuro said:

For the record, I"d love to see a well-done SciFi MMO. Anarchy Online had a lot of good in it (and I include the inventory/equipment management in this, even if it was Newb Kryptonite), andmore choices of setting "flavors" is good for the customer base. MMOFPS seems like an infeasible project until network code is much better than current MMOs manage, though, unless you cap the # of people who can enter an area.

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Yeah. Thats more or less what I meant by aesthetics. I loved AO, but I can also see why many didn"t care for it. Its level of metagaming was above and beyond anything else, but I was really into it at the time. I still go back for a few weeks at a time every now and then.

Personally, i"d just like to have the choices like I had back then. A good fantasy game, and a good sci-fi game. I juggled EQ and AO for 6 years straight. It was nice to jump into something completely different when you got bored with one or the other.

Currently, i"m keeping an eye on STO and Star Wars for my sci-fi"ish fix.

Just going "to space" or "after civilization explodes" (An entire game of empty, depressing zones? My god, it"s Midgard, Dark Age of Camelot: The MMO) won"t instantly make something "more interesting," much like *not* being in space doesn"t automatically make something dull.

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Really? I loved Midgard, and while it had a lot of darker zones it certainly had it"s share of interest locales as well.

Anyone who says that don"t bother with the fantasy MMO because Blizzard has already perfected it is a tool. Tell that to Blizzard themselves about 5 years ago.

There is always room for improvement and it is always possible to kill the "elephant in the room".

The problem is most studios aren"t willing to put in the same effort/time/money as Blizzard. Hence if they want to beat or even compete with Blizzard, they"re going to have to produce somethingdifferentto produce market share instead of trying to steal all of it. The easiest way to do that is simply to make a new setting rather than truly innovate.

Rayne said:

Sci-fi is an acquired taste for sure. But I have little doubt that a good sci-fi or post-apoc game done right could reside right alongside WoW at this point.

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The game that had potential - real, shattering potential - was Stargate. Except it was ran to the ground due to... what? We"ll know probably someday. But when the producer of the show tells you "if there was a game, it would already be out", you know it"s joined the Duke in the valhalla of vaporware.

I don"t know any of the details about the game, but having seen the film and show, I"d agree that it"s an excellent platform for an MMO.

Quince said:

Anyone who says that don"t bother with the fantasy MMO because Blizzard has already perfected it is a tool. Tell that to Blizzard themselves about 5 years ago.

There is always room for improvement and it is always possible to kill the "elephant in the room".

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Thanks for that Captain fuckin" Obvious.

No one said anything about "perfection". But Blizzard HAS done it best up to now. Only a moron would deny that at this point.

Blizzard makes it harder and harder with every content update for anything new to gain any real ground. I can just imagine what some of these dev houses must discuss every time WoW gets a substantial patch....

"Shit people... Blizzard released that patch with a bunch of cool shit we were going to launch with in our game! Time to get back to work..... Oh yeah, you STILL have to come up with some more new cool shit by the original target launch date. Good luck!"

Ukerric said:

The game that had potential - real, shattering potential - was Stargate. Except it was ran to the ground due to... what? We"ll know probably someday. But when the producer of the show tells you "if there was a game, it would already be out", you know it"s joined the Duke in the valhalla of vaporware.

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As I understand it (directly from someone who was working on the game), is that they got into debt with some vendors, and were having trouble meeting salaries. A few were working for free because they figured they were close to launch when others left or got fired, but something else went wrong (not sure what).

Rayne said:

But Blizzard HAS done it best up to now.

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It"s not just that Blizzard have done it best. It"s that Blizzard are the only ones to deliver a polished, fun product.

Their standards should be the baseline for the industry and not the pinnacle everyone else aspires to.

Due to that it"s a valid argument that fantasy hasn"t been done to death. What"s been done to death is fantasy delivered poorly.