Monsters and Memories (Project_N) - Old School Indie MMO
- Thread starter Flobee
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Kirun
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You're misunderstanding the issue. Nobody is claiming that their opinion is objective fact, we're pointing out that certain outcomes aren't subjective. Nobody here is claiming their preferences are objective facts. What's being pointed out are predictable outcomes tied to certain design choices:
If you build a game around forced grouping, you need a large, stable population.
If you build a game around tedium as friction, modern players will bounce.
If you build a subscription MMO with no modern monetization, 5k subs will not sustain development in 2025.
If you spread your playerbase across massive zones, grouping becomes harder, not easier.
These aren't "feelings." They are historically observed results across dozens of MMOs over two decades. Calling design "art" doesn't magically remove it from the laws of player behavior, economies, or market realities. If that were true, every failed Game could just say, "The audience didn't understand our art." Shockingly, the people on this forum didn't have that opinion of games like Concord, did they? Because we all know deep down that's not how games work. Games are systems. Systems can fail. Systems can be inefficient. Systems can produce predictable negative outcomes. And pretending otherwise is exactly how projects repeat the same mistakes forever.
The MMO graveyard is full of projects whose communities used these exact lines of defense: "It's art." "It's niche." "If you don't like it, leave." "The devs are making the game THEY want." "People criticizing it are just negative or insecure." Sound familiar? Every single one of those games collapsed because no one wanted to acknowledge that certain designs align with how players behave today, and certain designs simply don't.
So no, nobody is presenting preferences as universal truths. What you're really doing is confusing criticism with absolutism. Nobody is saying "everyone who likes this is wrong." We're saying, "These systems have failed every time they've been attempted in the modern era, and here's why." And rather than engage in discussion and offer counterpoints on why I'm wrong or point to success stories, I get brainiac response like, "FAGGOT FAGGOT FAGGOT LOLOLOLOL!!!". I guess it's just easier to throw around ad hominems or attribute malice to me so you can brush me off as a "hater", rather than engaging in an actual discussion.
You can like the design choices in MnM. Totally fine. But that doesn't magically make them functionally sound or sustainable in 2025. That's not an "opinion stated as fact." That's acknowledging how MMOs actually fail. Which is historical, not hypothetical. I'm not telling you what you should enjoy. I'm telling you why these choices tend to blow up for indie MMOs every single time. Whether MnM follows that path or not is up to the devs, but pretending criticism is automatically invalid because "art is subjective" is just a convenient way to avoid discussing the actual mechanics.
If you disagree, great. Bring counterpoints instead of semantics. That's how discussion works.
Mahes
Silver Baronet of the Realm
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Interesting, you just summed up the largest problems currently with Ashes of Creation.
Hekotat
FoH nuclear response team
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Im having a great time playing with 3 people, I dont need a large population. While a large population will help its not super necessary. Ive already met several cool people from playing in the tests and thats a bonus.
My friends and I will keep one character near the same level that we play when we all can get on together. That's all I really need and im betting the devs expect this type of community as well.
However, I do think there is a small chance this game might do better than we all expect. There are no other mmos worth a shit to play and people are fiending for one.
My friends and I will keep one character near the same level that we play when we all can get on together. That's all I really need and im betting the devs expect this type of community as well.
However, I do think there is a small chance this game might do better than we all expect. There are no other mmos worth a shit to play and people are fiending for one.
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Kirun
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Another "indie" MMO imploding under the weight of its own hype, fanboy echo chambers, and total disconnect from modern gaming realities? So weird.
Pharone
Trakanon Raider
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Maybe they are not trying to make the one game to rule them all, but rather they are making a game that they want to make regardless of how many players it gets or keeps?
What if they are just trying to make something they want to make because its what they want to play?
They never hired you, me, nor any of us to analyze their design and make sure it would meet the needs of the market and have longevity in the industry.
Let's be real here, when you say that their design is flawed, what you are really saying is "their design is not what I want to play."
General Antony
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Its thinking like this that breeds a lot of dead games.
You don't need to do an analysis on whether this meets the needs of the market. You can observe historical attempts to do something similar and watch how they all failed. What is materially different with this?
You don't need to do an analysis on whether this meets the needs of the market. You can observe historical attempts to do something similar and watch how they all failed. What is materially different with this?
Flobee
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Design targeting what is fun and scratches the devs own itch vs targeting what is meta, popular, or otherwise casts the widest net? I disagree, this is the mindset that created the best games before this industry was all about $$$. Will it work, dunno we'll see
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Hekotat
FoH nuclear response team
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Fun and depth are all that matters. Look at all these slot machine games that are produced today with no depth or the illusion of depth. Battlefield 6, the new skate game, etc.).
These indie devs that are failing keep creating the same game over and over again as "the game that they want to play" but I can't tell the difference from the previous rogue lite or Base building game. Its just a new coat of paint with typically no depth. There are too many game developers today that simply dont lack the vision or ideas to create the depth. They think systems create depth but it is much more than that.
This game has both depth and fun and its a great time. I hope they can figure out the amount of content because that will be the main issues for these people putting in 100+ hours the first week.
These indie devs should really look into how things were going in the 90s and early 2000s before the suits got involved. Have your community help create maps, dungeons and enemies to reduce dev time, this would save tons of hours and money and help keep their focus on other issues that are more important. This was the future I expected in my teens and it just went away. Those make something unreal contests pumped out some really cool ideas, as did all the Battlefield conversion mods. The people exist that want to help, it just takes someone to figure out how to leverage it.
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Quaid
Trump's Staff
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What do you believe the design philosophy behind EverQuest was in 1998?
Why was there no instancing?
Why was the corpse run/xp loss death penalty chosen?
Why was soloing effectively impossible for almost everyone, but easy for a few?
Why no LFG tool/system?
Why no auction house?
Flobee
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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You're missing my point. These things may or may not work in MnM, but what I'm trying to say is designing purely for income, retention metrics, or whatever you want to attribute modern design to clearly doesn't work*. A return to making something because you think it is cool is going to create much better games broadly speaking. Part of this is disregarding what other people say and trying out what YOU think because you're not beholden to a board room, player pre-sales, or whatever. The dorks in the 90's that made all the cool stuff we still talk about weren't worried about this stuff, they wanted to bring their DnD campaign to life.
Everyone today seems to want to try to maximize efficiency for everything and minimize risk, its why everything sucks.
I'm not saying MnM is making all the best decisions, I'm saying I fully support them making the game they want regardless of what you, I, or anything else thinks because they've financially positioned themselves to do exactly that. The future of the gaming industry is Indie for precisely this reason. That doesn't mean every attempt is going to succeed, I just hope this one does.
* Doesn't work to make the type of game I want to play
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Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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Look, nobody is arguing that the devs aren't allowed to make whatever passion project they want. Of course they can. If they want to build a museum exhibit of 1999, that's their prerogative.
But the moment you put that project into the public, marketed as a commercial MMO, open a Discord and a Reddit, run stress tests, start taking subs for early access, and talk about long-term support? You have entered a space where critique isn't just allowed, it's necessary. Your entire argument falls apart on that axis. You're treating game development like a child's art piece pinned to a fridge, not a live service MMO that needs years of upkeep, a stable population, and ongoing development resources.
And no, "their design isn't what I want to play" is not the same as "their design is flawed." Those are not interchangeable ideas.
A design is flawed when:
1. It contradicts its own stated goals
2. It relies on audience behavior that no longer exists in the modern gaming landscape
3. It imports 1999 mechanics without the 1999 social environment that made them tolerable
4. It demands population density while designing systems that guarantee population thinness
5. It requires retention levels that the systems themselves actively suppress
6. It builds longevity on friction instead of content
7. It misunderstands why EQ worked when it did, and why it wouldn't if released today
These aren't personal preferences. They're observable outcomes repeated across Pantheon, Embers Adrift, Vanguard, Ashes of Creation's meltdown, and a graveyard of failed "old-school revival" projects by teams who also insisted they were "just making the game they want." And every single one of them said EXACTLY what you're saying right now: "We're not trying to make a game for everyone." "We're making the game we want." "We don't care about mass-market success."
And every single one of them learned the hard way that once you leave the garage and enter the MMO marketplace, you don't get to hand-wave criticism as mere "personal dislike."
Their attempt may not succeed but its much more refreshing of an attempt compared to the rest of the garbage out there. At least they are trying to make something in the vein of an MMO classic with modern features(all or not). Once again, people's perception of what is good and successful is based off the games THEY like, which is beyond flawed.
I stand by my point that they can achieve 5k subs for EA, and if EA is developed at a good pace with more good things to do, they can keep that number during their version of a full release. Once again, you don't need 500K subs a month to have a successful, niche game. The idea that you need armies of people to make, market, and maintain a game is delusional. I can make my own gd mmo and sell it on steam and hire AWS to host it. I don't freaking need to scam people out of money like some teams do.