Pan'Theon: Rise' of th'e Fal'Len - #1 Thread in MMO

Whether he does or not is not yet seen , but some in business do not shoot for the maximum profit they can make, but instead choose to make the product they want to make.

Be it a single restaurant that could never be franchised due to the complexity of the dishes , a film geared to specific small audience , or music that the artist knows the common idiot will never buy but a certain few might , there are some who make a product with the idea that it's something they love , and not willing to change it to make more money.

My hope is he makes a game that gets enough subs to keep the lights on and continued development over the years , slowly , and fuck going the "maximize profits" route. That he makes the game he'd like to play , and doesn't give a shit if the masses like it or not. Just enough to be viable , pay his and his employees salary and continue the game , and never be a fucking Forbes article.

Tmac47_sl said:

For whatever reason you're drawing lines at the two extremes. The choices here aren't poverty vs scrooge mcduck. You can make millions of dollars and still never even compete with WoW...

Either way, I hope he makes money. Because that will mean he made something worth playing.

Click to expand...

that I can agree with

Tmac47_sl said:

For whatever reason you're drawing lines at the two extremes. The choices here aren't poverty vs scrooge mcduck. You can make millions of dollars and still never even compete with WoW...

Either way, I hope he makes money. Because that will mean he made something worth playing.

Click to expand...

Honestly , I've got no issue with that , and am not as far away from your view as it appears.

My concern is wanting him not to look at say mechanic X that's been in the game since launch , and is "harsher/old school" one , and run the numbers and say , "Hey if I eased up on this X mechanic , we'd maybe get 100k more new subs , but likely lose 20k of original ones , so let's do it".

Just too many games have gone for the easy idiot extreme lately , I'd prefer one at least lean old school extreme and stick to it is all.

this thread has become unreadable. toxic.

couple of things based on what i've read over the past few pages:
1. fuck yes to a sub based game. free to play is never fucking free. they try and nickel and dime you to death for the shit in the game and anyone with an IQ over 10 should be able to realize that you will wind up spending more money buying the sword you want to loot for $2.99 and the dungeon you want to enter for $4.99 than you would if the game just charges $10 or $15 a month (seriously, if less than twenty dollars a month is a hindrance to you, you shouldn't be playing video games in the first place).

2. i think popsicle mentioned something about how to create another feeling of friendship like that which existed in EQ. it's very simple: long leveling curve and class interdependency. if it takes a long time to level, and you need others in order to help you level up and get the items you covet, friendships will occur. yes, there are drawbacks to this, but nothing is perfect. give people the option to solo, but grouping up should lead to much faster and safer leveling, which in turn will be a great incentive to group up. this leads to my next point,

3. death penalty. yes, there has to be a fucking death penalty, and it should sting like a mother fucker. why? because if death leads to exp loss or some other type of tangible loss, then you are more inclined to group with others (safety in numbers). the world outside of major cities should feel truly dangerous, and depending on others to help you CR or to travel to far off places forges friendships. if there is no death penalty, and you can just summon your corpse to a GY, then there is no fear of playing the game solo, because dying doesn't mean anything and therefore others are not needed as well. people should be dependent on others, it forces people to interact in the game, and it cuts down on the number of players who play like assholes.

4. contested content. rivalries create conflict, conflict builds friendships, and friendships create alliances. if everyone in the game gets their own version of a dungeon or a raid zone, no rivalry is created. yes, there is a huge sense of satisfaction when you beat the other guilds to that server first, just as there is a huge sense of contention when they beat you. that adversity is what made EQ great. when you give everyone their own world to play in, that tension is lost.

that's it for now. i'll get off my soapbox. thanks for reading.

arallu_sl said:

Yes, 9.89 / mo. =)

Click to expand...

I see what you did there

shabushabu_sl said:

If there is content enough to level that takes on average more than a month and the game is based on player interactions ( group combat and non combat interaction ) then yes I absolutely want a sub based game. I feel like games like VG, and older style with ALOT of content can support subs but if you release a themepark-y small game with I am at level cap solo in a week, then f2p it is.

Click to expand...

Good point.
Player on/off combat interaction. We need different layers of player-interaction and without that a sub-based model would be pointless. No one would play a disguised lobby-arcade-game.

If there's Economy, Trade, Factions, Survival, Difficult Content, Slow Progress and no hand-holding then players will take time to actually BE in the world doing many possible tasks that they chose to do. Feeling attached to the world, their characters and their online friends. Then and only then a sub-based business model would make sense.

etchazz_sl said:

couple of things based on what i've read over the past few pages:
1. fuck yes to a sub based game. free to play is never fucking free. they try and nickel and dime you to death for the shit in the game and anyone with an IQ over 10 should be able to realize that you will wind up spending more money buying the sword you want to loot for $2.99 and the dungeon you want to enter for $4.99 than you would if the game just charges $10 or $15 a month (seriously, if less than twenty dollars a month is a hindrance to you, you shouldn't be playing video games in the first place).

2. i think popsicle mentioned something about how to create another feeling of friendship like that which existed in EQ. it's very simple: long leveling curve and class interdependency. if it takes a long time to level, and you need others in order to help you level up and get the items you covet, friendships will occur. yes, there are drawbacks to this, but nothing is perfect. give people the option to solo, but grouping up should lead to much faster and safer leveling, which in turn will be a great incentive to group up. this leads to my next point,

3. death penalty. yes, there has to be a fucking death penalty, and it should sting like a mother fucker. why? because if death leads to exp loss or some other type of tangible loss, then you are more inclined to group with others (safety in numbers). the world outside of major cities should feel truly dangerous, and depending on others to help you CR or to travel to far off places forges friendships. if there is no death penalty, and you can just summon your corpse to a GY, then there is no fear of playing the game solo, because dying doesn't mean anything and therefore others are not needed as well. people should be dependent on others, it forces people to interact in the game, and it cuts down on the number of players who play like assholes.

4. contested content. rivalries create conflict, conflict builds friendships, and friendships create alliances. if everyone in the game gets their own version of a dungeon or a raid zone, no rivalry is created. yes, there is a huge sense of satisfaction when you beat the other guilds to that server first, just as there is a huge sense of contention when they beat you. that adversity is what made EQ great. when you give everyone their own world to play in, that tension is lost.

that's it for now. i'll get off my soapbox. thanks for reading.

Click to expand...

These are definitely important factors when it comes to the combat part of any MMORPG.
Inconveniences forced upon the player which the player can overcome by bonding with other players is a key to any game that wants to retain its player-base. Player interdependency is important and you can't do that without at least implementing what you just mentioned.

It makes the player feel part of the world.

You know there's a chance it wont even show up. Like if he does a kickstarter and not enough people put their money down. If it was me I would be inclined to just lie. Do a kickstarter campaign, pitch for 15 million, and talk about how it will be the awesomest wow clone ever, with a high tech auction house, epic instances, 40 battlegrounds, and loads of raid content. Then just make a new EQ and fuck all those people.

Dahkoht_sl said:

Whether he does or not is not yet seen , but some in business do not shoot for the maximum profit they can make, but instead choose to make the product they want to make. My hope is he makes a game that gets enough subs to keep the lights on and continued development over the years , slowly , and fuck going the "maximize profits" route. That he makes the game he'd like to play , and doesn't give a shit if the masses like it or not. Just enough to be viable , pay his and his employees salary and continue the game , and never be a fucking Forbes article.

Click to expand...

Unless you are independant financially that seems to be a difficult goal in this business, moreso then for a restaurant or the like. Nobody is going to tell a specialty restaurant that McD makes alot more money (no shit sherlock), but for video games the suits dont think that way, here everything is compared to the very top of the genre. The problem I see is getting enough money to actually set up an independant operation, and if has to go in bed with a publisher I would worry that what I consider my game for the next decade turns into a mass-market product within 3 years.

What kind of funding does he need to not crawl to a publisher hat in hand a year later? Because that leads to the dark side. Is that kind of funding in any shape reachable? It's a wild guess and maybe we are all blown away by another Star Citizen phenomena but I really struggle with the idea of him getting more then 2 mill out of it, which I cluelessly think is not nearly enough. Am I wrong there?

I just smoked a bowl and was playing some games, here are my thoughts:

1) They should make it have just 4 person groups. So you have one tank, one healer, one dps, and one control. That way everyone has to pull their finger out and get involved and there is no slacking off. Like in Vanguard, partly because it's so easy and partly because there are 6 spots, people usually get a tank and healer and then just make up the rest of the group with whatever they can find. So sometimes you have 2 tanks or 2 healers. But it just makes things too easy. Dps never needs to really worry because with 6 people, you can be half asleep and stuff still dies fast. Healers dont need to be on the edge of their seat because half the time theres a second healer anyway, and even without a second healer, 2 of the 3 tanks can heal themselves anyway. Keep it 4, make it so that everyone has to play well and do their role or someone dies.
It also means that everyone is more significant. So you get a group with 3 other people and you set off to a dungeon. If some fucker says oh I need to go, my wife just got home or whatever, that needs to actually be significant. They are fucking the group and if they do it a lot, maybe they will get a reputation for being unreliable. And that group now needs to tread very carefully until they find another person. It pisses me off in Vanguard when you go to a dungeon and someone leaves like that, and the group just carry on going with 5 people. Nobody can be bothered looking for a 6th, and it's not even necessary anyway because the combat is so easy. People should be forced together more, that's what happens if you join the military or a company or something, you are forced to work with people and you develop real friends that way or real enemies. Modern MMO's don't work like that anymore because people are so anonymous and disposable and replaceable. You join a group in Vanguard and you are just "the dps" or whatever. Nobody remembers your name, even if you are an exceptional player. Also - this will remove some of the disparity between solo and group content, and hopefully bring it back to being more like EQ where people can solo some of the group content, but would just much prefer a group most of the time.

2) Add lots of text conversations to the NPC's. Like in Vanguard you make your way up to the highlands and the NPC's are standing around bitching about food. You hear one say something like, "You call this food?" And then another one says something like the food looks good today. But there should be fuller conversations that the NPC's have, and maybe if you hang around and listen long enough (or maybe the player can even get involved in the conversation), you can find out about a quest that you would never otherwise know about. GW2 works sort of like that, if you help a guy clear some bears from the nearby area, eventually a big attack of bears can trigger and then if you beat that, there is some other thing where the little boy gets involved and you have to save him or something. I think it's too much to do all this in a budget MMO, but you could do the same thing with just dialogue. Have a conversation that lasts 2 minutes between a few NPC's so it feels more like a real world, and do this on almost every city or hub in the world. Sometimes a player might overhear something they can use from the conversation, but sometimes it's just a conversation. Either way, it makes it a better game.

3) Make it so that real life weather and stuff matters again. Make it so that when its dark you cant see shit, just like in real life. Someone will have to either carry a torch or use a spell to light the way, and make it so that their light source is visible to others - unlike Vanguard where everyone just has their own independent light source. Also, there should be bad weather sometimes. So sometimes its fine, sometimes it rains, but sometimes a real storm comes, really heavy rain or sleet and high winds and it can have an affect on the player. Maybe your clothes get heavy from the wetness, maybe you lose some agility and dexterity like when your fingers get really cold, maybe there are times when you will just end up going in to a cave somewhere to get out of the storm, or you and your group decide to travel somewhere more hospitable. But these stormy areas maybe have some of the best loot and xp if you can man up and survive there with a good enough group.

Mr Creed_sl said:

Unless you are independant financially that seems to be a difficult goal in this business, moreso then for a restaurant or the like. Nobody is going to tell a specialty restaurant that McD makes alot more money (no shit sherlock), but for video games the suits dont think that way, here everything is compared to the very top of the genre. The problem I see is getting enough money to actually set up an independant operation, and if has to go in bed with a publisher I would worry that what I consider my game for the next decade turns into a mass-market product within 3 years.

What kind of funding does he need to not crawl to a publisher hat in hand a year later? Because that leads to the dark side. Is that kind of funding in any shape reachable? It's a wild guess and maybe we are all blown away by another Star Citizen phenomena but I really struggle with the idea of him getting more then 2 mill out of it, which I cluelessly think is not nearly enough. Am I wrong there?

Click to expand...

You're absolutely right.
I really doubt Brad can even top 2 mil with his kickstarter project; not without a genius PRing campaign.
And I honestly think he needs not less than 10 millions to make a game like EQ/VG unless he's getting funds somewhere else and if does I would like to know who/what is the source of funding.

Mojang created MineCraft without the need of a publisher and look how successful the game is.

And because of that he managed to create his dream project. Notice how original and bold the game is? Complete sandbox/survival game with bad graphics. No "suit" is going to give a "go" to a project like this and they would have no clue how successful it can turn out to be.

That's the problem with Corporations and their Research, Marketing, Business, Planning...etc. You end up with an artificial, life-less, game. When you give designers freedom to create their ridiculous (on paper) games; we might end up with a masterpiece.

Question: What do you guys think of Survival Mechanics (like hunger, temperature, thirst, tiredness...etc)?

Each one has its own drawbacks if not maintained.
We know EQ had hunger/thirst which affects your HP/Mana regeneration.

What about Tiredness; Say your character needs to sleep in an Inn (for a fee) or Personal House to restore tiredness. Say three hours per real-day (you may go offline when you rest). Not mandatory but if you fail to fulfill your tiredness gauge your character becomes less efficient?

Temperature or Weather affects your character in any way? Maybe you need to set a camp-fire for five minutes if you're in a cold wilderness.

With things like some game design ideas (like Inns, Houses, campfires, fishing, cooking) might get some meanings to them besides just being fluff.

Sounds like a milestone once funding and ALOT of other goals have been met, like Star Citizen does it. But as I said I dont see him getting that far and other things are far more important at the early funding stages. For example, I would put weather and seasons as more important then your suggestion, and compared to a working base game both of those are stretch goal material.

Tmac47_sl said:

Okay, I see your point.

I think the measuring stick for that, however, has been WoW game mechanics. The biggest misunderstanding is that WoW is successful for:
1. Linear quest lines
2. Leveling on rails
3. Solo accessibility
4. Gear treadmill
5. UI design

When, I believe that the biggest reasons WoW was successful was because (obviously these aren't all the reasons, just what I feel are the biggest):
1. Any machine can play the game
2. Best IP in PC gaming
3. Nearly flawless launch
4. Smooth-as-silk controls
5. Solid art style

I'm going to go ahead and say that designing the game around EQ + Blizzard being awesome goes into #2. So, when other games launch, you tend to see a focus on the former, rather than the latter. Server stability suffers, code suffers, and gameplay (literal) suffers. After that, the things that they did nail aren't really enough to carry the game anyways. Hence, high WoW clone failure rate.

This is why I think Wildstar will be a hit and feel more half-glass-empty with Brad.

Click to expand...

I think you are right too. I would even pull back another level and look at what those mechanics and features did to the player that made WoW such a popular game. Looking through both your lists I can put everything into probably 3 broad categories.

1. Low Barrier to Entry, Stability, and IP
These are very simple but very important, nothing really more to it than if people can't play your game they won't play your game. So, to start with people need to hear about your game, they need to be able to run your game, and they need to be able to keep running your game. This is sort of a bare minimum to have a hugely successful game, and isn't conceptually complex, it just needs to work.

2.Flow
WoW was a master-craft at generating flow states. Nearly everything on the list contributes to it; the smooth controls, the art style, the animations, and the UI design. For me this is the #1 reason the game blew up the way it did. Flow is one of the most difficult to achieve but rewarding psychological states and if a game can even semi-reliably help you achieve it, it will probably be very successful.

3. Purpose
Blizzard did a lot to give players a sense of direction and most importantly purpose. You can argue withhowthey infused purpose (mostly through quests) but it worked very well in instilling players with a clear sense of what they needed to do and why early on (as well as functioning as operant reinforcement). This allowed them to stick around long enough to get into the more subtle and detailed ins and outs of the game, get good enough to enter a flow state, form social bonds, and otherwise find their own meaning and purpose to the game beyond the quests. Not everyone does this of course, but by giving players a clear and immediate purpose right from the beginning they were more likely to stick around long enough to find a deeper one.

Laura_sl said:

Question: What do you guys think of Survival Mechanics (like hunger, temperature, thirst, tiredness...etc)?

Each one has its own drawbacks if not maintained.
We know EQ had hunger/thirst which affects your HP/Mana regeneration.

What about Tiredness; Say your character needs to sleep in an Inn (for a fee) or Personal House to restore tiredness. Say three hours per real-day (you may go offline when you rest). Not mandatory but if you fail to fulfill your tiredness gauge your character becomes less efficient?

Temperature or Weather affects your character in any way? Maybe you need to set a camp-fire for five minutes if you're in a cold wilderness.

With things like some game design ideas (like Inns, Houses, campfires, fishing, cooking) might get some meanings to them besides just being fluff.

Click to expand...

The problem is sometimes those things can become tedious. There's a smart balance between fun realism and just being a pain in the ass. I like the idea of a rested bonus, or fishing/hunting enabling a stat bonus but I never was a fan of the EQ food/drink design.

I do like the idea of weather playing more of a role in the game, however.

Laura_sl said:

Question: What do you guys think of Survival Mechanics (like hunger, temperature, thirst, tiredness...etc)?

Each one has its own drawbacks if not maintained.
We know EQ had hunger/thirst which affects your HP/Mana regeneration.

What about Tiredness; Say your character needs to sleep in an Inn (for a fee) or Personal House to restore tiredness. Say three hours per real-day (you may go offline when you rest). Not mandatory but if you fail to fulfill your tiredness gauge your character becomes less efficient?

Temperature or Weather affects your character in any way? Maybe you need to set a camp-fire for five minutes if you're in a cold wilderness.

With things like some game design ideas (like Inns, Houses, campfires, fishing, cooking) might get some meanings to them besides just being fluff.

Click to expand...

I think those ideas area awesome for the "imersive virtual world". Sometimes they translate into "fun game" though, or get boiled down to boring mechanics like "oh let me buy 10 stacks of water and rations at the vendor".

Generally speaking though, I'm all for it. Breaks up the monotony and straight-forwardness of the game. Makes playing well less about just managing a rotation of hotbar buttons. Hell, I'm happy with less focus on combat even.

Tmac47_sl said:

Okay, I see your point.

I think the measuring stick for that, however, has been WoW game mechanics. The biggest misunderstanding is that WoW is successful for:
1. Linear quest lines
2. Leveling on rails
3. Solo accessibility
4. Gear treadmill
5. UI design

When, I believe that the biggest reasons WoW was successful was because (obviously these aren't all the reasons, just what I feel are the biggest):
1. Any machine can play the game
2. Best IP in PC gaming
3. Nearly flawless launch
4. Smooth-as-silk controls
5. Solid art style

I'm going to go ahead and say that designing the game around EQ + Blizzard being awesome goes into #2. So, when other games launch, you tend to see a focus on the former, rather than the latter. Server stability suffers, code suffers, and gameplay (literal) suffers. After that, the things that they did nail aren't really enough to carry the game anyways. Hence, high WoW clone failure rate.

This is why I think Wildstar will be a hit and feel more half-glass-empty with Brad.

Click to expand...

Playing FFXIV, which on the surface seems to have TONS of polish, taught me how horrible telegraphs could be, and made me want to play WoW again (which I haven't played in about 3 years). So responsive, too.