The MMO genre is going to implode!

"the old republic" im looking forward to it, and i think it will be great, has the potential and great universe for an mmo-rpg.

mmo is just a genre that in teh past few years started getting big lol.... rpg's did it as well.. so did cart/car combat/racing..

diddy kong racing, extreme g,  wipeout, twisted metal, mario cart, vigilante 8.

not to mention the metal gear rpg, and super mario rpg. final fantasy , legend of dragoon,  dragon warrior. 

not to mention tetris..... testrisphere, wario tetris, mario tetris, denist tetris. so on and so forth.

"the old republic" im looking forward to it, and i think it will be great, has the potential and great universe for an mmo-rpg.

mmo is just a genre that in teh past few years started getting big lol.... rpg's did it as well.. so did cart/car combat/racing..

diddy kong racing, extreme g,  wipeout, twisted metal, mario cart, vigilante 8.

not to mention the metal gear rpg, and super mario rpg. final fantasy , legend of dragoon,  dragon warrior. 

not to mention tetris..... testrisphere, wario tetris, mario tetris, denist tetris. so on and so forth.

Lach0121

its as simple as this, dont like the game, dont play it, if you have ever been a gamer, then there will always be a game out there for you.

cause i hate, hate grand theft auto, most overrated franchise in gaming.... but i just dont play it.. so problem solved.

no, either all the MMO's will fail and everyone will go back to WoW, or one will gain the huge fanbase that WOW has and will become the new target. All the rest will fail, and everyone will go to the one that's successful. Hardly the doomsday scenario that you describedMediocre_man90

(Maple Story has 85 million active users world wide believe or not, but they make a lot less money than WoW.)d yes, the free MMOs count. Nerkcon

And just because there are a ton of MMOs doesn't mean there all going to die or this will mean the fall of MMOs or gaming in general. It just means we will see a lot more Tabula Rasas or HellGate Londons (the online portion anyway) out of this. I mean i don't doubt we will hear in a year or so that AoC has bit the dust (of course they are pushing that expansion to pick up some money quickly) and free MMOs arn't really hurting the market much. I meani play them and you want to know why? Because i won't pay a monthly fee. If i wasn't playing a free MMO then i still wouldn't be playing something like WoW because i don't want to pay. Either way they see no money from me.

Oh and since many P2P MMOs are having trouble ganking people from WoW... then i can't imagine what it for Free Ones. Of course there costs are so small they can stay a float longer than P2P MMOs.

[QUOTE="Nerkcon"](Maple Story has 85 million active users world wide believe or not, but they make a lot less money than WoW.)d yes, the free MMOs count. Agent_Kaliaver

And just because there are a ton of MMOs doesn't mean there all going to die or this will mean the fall of MMOs or gaming in general. It just means we will see a lot more Tabula Rasas or HellGate Londons (the online portion anyway) out of this. I mean i don't doubt we will hear in a year or so that AoC has bit the dust (of course they are pushing that expansion to pick up some money quickly) and free MMOs arn't really hurting the market much. I meani play them and you want to know why? Because i won't pay a monthly fee. If i wasn't playing a free MMO then i still wouldn't be playing something like WoW because i don't want to pay. Either way they see no money from me.

Oh and since many P2P MMOs are having trouble ganking people from WoW... then i can't imagine what it for Free Ones. Of course there costs are so small they can stay a float longer than P2P MMOs.

Yeah it is, but no because of any of those games. APB will be out in 2009 and it's at least partially mmoKaelken

1. Shin Megami Tensei Online: Imagine http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/shinmegamitenseionlineimagine/index.html - http://megaten.aeriagames.com/ Nerkcon

I LOVE SMT games, but cant see myself playing the MMO version. I'm playing SMT: Nocturne right now. 

The only MMO I would consider playing is:

Guild Wars 2

1. Because I really enjoyed the original 

2. No online/monthly fees

3. But honestly I am somewhat scared of what effect it may have on me. Wow was the only other MMO I have ever tried, but it just didn't do it for me.

4. Plus I got way too many other games I want to play/finish to even consider an MMO, except GW2, I gotta at least see what it has to offer, when it comes out.

Well lot of these new MMO's are trying to cater to niche markets (ie. Darkfall, Mortal Online, Stargate, etc). If you come in to the market expecting ~100-200k subscribers, and work that budget into your business plan, I'm sure you can manage to turn enough of a profit and establish a loyal playing fanbase as long as you deliver on what you are advertising. The only reason games are failing in this market is because they all use the same cookie cutter template that WoW established. And that market is already locked, people need to realize that they are not going to steal from WoW's market for a long time. At least not a noticeable dent. Developers like Capcom (see Age of Conan) released a MMO that was nothing but hype and they fell short on half of the features they promised before launch. Same thing happened with Vanguard but it was bug ridden to hell also. The list goes on.

The MMO market has PLENTY of room to grow, the issue is just that developers are to afraid to take a risk with some innovation so to speak, and try a new model for their games. Or they don't give us what they promise, releasing their games with stuff on the box that's not in the game (cough vanguard). You don't need 10mil+ subscribers to succeed. ALL (and I mean EVERY SINGLE ONE) of the pay to play MMO's before WoW succeeded with LESS than one million subscribers. See Everquest and Ultima Online. This games STILL have a loyal fanbase, because they are something different. They arn't really WoW clones. I mean WoW is similar to both games in some respects, but in actuality these games came first so WoW really borrowed a lot from the previous generation of MMOs from the late 90's and early 00's.

most mmos that started development in the last few years will fail. This is another reason (on top of the subscription fee and the addiction) that I will never buy a mmo, if they don't succeed the servers get killed and you have a useless game disc. I don't really see any MMO succeeding, KOTOR MMO could get enough push though.nutcrackr

im hoping you mean other than WOW, cause regardless who thinks otherwise, it succeeded, easily.

and yes, i have high hopes for "the old republic"  has the potential to be legendary.

I'm starting to hate the MMO genre....the $15 a month is starting to take a toll on my wallet.

If I add up how much I've spent on just WoW

$540 just on monthly fees

around $150 in character transfers

$10 for a name change

$50 for the game when it came out

$40 for the burning crusade EXP

$40 for wrath of the lich king EXP

I've spent around $830 just on WoW since I started playing it 3 years ago....I want to cry.

There are a HUGE amount of MMO'S, like people have said, everyone wants to cash in on blizzards recipe, i actually hope there will be to many and then the companies withdraw, or fail (of course there is the competition aspect.. and the fact that the mmo's being released may better the current ones). Hopefully F2P mmo's, (one comming out called runes of magic, looks like wow, draws heavily from it, but adds so much more too, looks like it could be a hit, in those circles at least, and hopefully more), will become the new thing.

That's the thing with MMO's, and wow n' that... there to greedy, i don't like how one has all the population, the players are like mindless drones, they stick because of loyalty, and because that's "what they do", they don't know any different.. personally, it would help the mmo market i believe if they were spread more evenly, althought, thinly and evenly, needs to be a line drawn there.

I'm starting to hate the MMO genre....the $15 a month is starting to take a toll on my wallet.

If I add up how much I've spent on just WoW

$540 just on monthly fees

around $150 in character transfers

$10 for a name change

$50 for the game when it came out

$40 for the burning crusade EXP

$40 for wrath of the lich king EXP

I've spent around $830 just on WoW since I started playing it 3 years ago....I want to cry.

Ballroompirate

Thats why I think Guild Wars 2 has the potential to be such a great MMO game. But what they do with it, is up to them. I have high hopes. Only time will tell.

There are a HUGE amount of MMO'S, like people have said, everyone wants to cash in on blizzards recipe, i actually hope there will be to many and then the companies withdraw, or fail (of course there is the competition aspect.. and the fact that the mmo's being released may better the current ones). Hopefully F2P mmo's, (one comming out called runes of magic, looks like wow, draws heavily from it, but adds so much more too, looks like it could be a hit, in those circles at least, and hopefully more), will become the new thing.

That's the thing with MMO's, and wow n' that... there to greedy, i don't like how one has all the population, the players are like mindless drones, they stick because of loyalty, and because that's "what they do", they don't know any different.. personally, it would help the mmo market i believe if they were spread more evenly, althought, thinly and evenly, needs to be a line drawn there.

rik666

Cant really say MMO dev's are greedy, sure we got games like Diablo etc with good old 8 man campaigns for free but that was it. What you see is what you get. Some 20-30 odd quests in the whole game, COMPLETE linearity, 8 man max online, and the occasional bug fix. No new content additions, no live support, etc etc. In MMO's you're paying for a piece of mind. No one makes you pay the monthly subscription, if you don't like it play another game. I will give you this though a lot of these MMO's are starting to get greedy. Yes I realize I just contradicted myself but this is kinda different. It has nothing to do with $15 a month. We pay $15 a month for the content additions, regular updates, live support, etc.. But then, these guys get it in their heads that it is OK to charge us $50 for EXPANSIONS... WAIT a minute... Arn't we already paying for "expainsons" with our $15 a month?

[QUOTE="Nerkcon"] 1. Shin Megami Tensei Online: Imagine http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/shinmegamitenseionlineimagine/index.html - http://megaten.aeriagames.com/ GPAddict

I LOVE SMT games, but cant see myself playing the MMO version. I'm playing SMT: Nocturne right now. 

The only MMO I would consider playing is:

Guild Wars 2

1. Because I really enjoyed the original 

2. No online/monthly fees

3. But honestly I am somewhat scared of what effect it may have on me. Wow was the only other MMO I have ever tried, but it just didn't do it for me.

4. Plus I got way too many other games I want to play/finish to even consider an MMO, except GW2, I gotta at least see what it has to offer, when it comes out.

[QUOTE="GPAddict"]

[QUOTE="Nerkcon"] 1. Shin Megami Tensei Online: Imagine http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/shinmegamitenseionlineimagine/index.html - http://megaten.aeriagames.com/ Nerkcon

I LOVE SMT games, but cant see myself playing the MMO version. I'm playing SMT: Nocturne right now. 

The only MMO I would consider playing is:

Guild Wars 2

1. Because I really enjoyed the original 

2. No online/monthly fees

3. But honestly I am somewhat scared of what effect it may have on me. Wow was the only other MMO I have ever tried, but it just didn't do it for me.

4. Plus I got way too many other games I want to play/finish to even consider an MMO, except GW2, I gotta at least see what it has to offer, when it comes out.

I played WoW for 2 months but I did not like it, especially considering they wanted $15 a month. So I tried Guild Wars and I thoroughly enjoyed it, and wow guess what, no monthly fees. I too think the graphics of Guild Wars are much better than that of WoW, but of course that is always a matter of opinion. Guild Wars is good because you can group with people or take heroes/henchman (computer controlled, but you have control somewhat) or bring some people and fill remaining spot with heroes/henchman. The PvP and GvG was very good and the PvE was worth it, at least to me. I have played for over 2 years and thoroughly enjoyed it, but I only play maybe 1 or 2 days a week since now I spend time playing console games, and Fallout 3, Witcher, King's Bounty, etc. But to me Guild Wars was and will always be a great gaming experience. I eagerly anticipate what GW2 will bring to the table. And I'm sure ArenaNet will not let me down. :) 

The great part about APB (www.apb.com) is, all the static garbage you usually get from the rpg genre, 2D camera, scripted combat, 5000 pages of text to read etc, won't be in APB. Sort of like Oblvion online, in a GTA world :D

You hold the gun, you drive. Imagine a script going *you honk the horn for 23 mana" lmao

Look at Diablo 3, I can't believe they're still holding on to that old school dungeons and dragons text based game in the rpg genre - and I can't believe people sit there and point-click with their mouse, it's straight up windows solitaire.

In conclusion, APB is one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse

The great part about APB (www.apb.com) is, all the static garbage you usually get from the rpg genre, 2D camera, scripted combat, 5000 pages of text to read etc, won't be in APB. Sort of like Oblvion online, in a GTA world :D

You hold the gun, you drive. Imagine a script going *you honk the horn for 23 mana" lmao

Look at Diablo 3, I can't believe they're still holding on to that old school dungeons and dragons text based game in the rpg genre - and I can't believe people sit there and point-click with their mouse, it's straight up windows solitaire.

 

In conclusion, APB is one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse

Kaelken

[QUOTE="Kaelken"]

The great part about APB (www.apb.com) is, all the static garbage you usually get from the rpg genre, 2D camera, scripted combat, 5000 pages of text to read etc, won't be in APB. Sort of like Oblvion online, in a GTA world :D

You hold the gun, you drive. Imagine a script going *you honk the horn for 23 mana" lmao

Look at Diablo 3, I can't believe they're still holding on to that old school dungeons and dragons text based game in the rpg genre - and I can't believe people sit there and point-click with their mouse, it's straight up windows solitaire.

 

In conclusion, APB is one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse

Lach0121

F the money, just make a good game!

[QUOTE="Lach0121"][QUOTE="Kaelken"]

The great part about APB (www.apb.com) is, all the static garbage you usually get from the rpg genre, 2D camera, scripted combat, 5000 pages of text to read etc, won't be in APB. Sort of like Oblvion online, in a GTA world :D

You hold the gun, you drive. Imagine a script going *you honk the horn for 23 mana" lmao

Look at Diablo 3, I can't believe they're still holding on to that old school dungeons and dragons text based game in the rpg genre - and I can't believe people sit there and point-click with their mouse, it's straight up windows solitaire.

 

In conclusion, APB is one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse

GPAddict

F the money, just make a good game!

I didn't like WoW because I thought the art was dull and there was no one play with unless you HAD to group.Nerkcon

Guild Wars is good because you can group with people or take heroes/henchman (computer controlled, but you have control somewhat) or bring some people and fill remaining spot with heroes/henchman.

GPAddict

That's one thing been meaning to ask: how many spots can henchman fill up? Can you run groups with no one but you and henchmen? How many people only go with henchman?

A little back story: My first MMO was Runscape, I thought it was the coolest thing ever because other people were real people! (I didn't know about other MMOs) When I heard about WoW I left to go play that and guess what... I actually found it worst than Runescape because of the cartoon style graphics and the core gameplay is very, very, very dull. (World of warcraft would be a 1.0 if it was a single player RPG, IMO the core gameplay is that bad.)

So if I get Guild Wars, will I be garateed that I will get the epic group of heroes group of REAL people taking down a gaint demon I been looking for for three years?

One question. What did you dislike about the gameplay in WoW?-Unreal-

[QUOTE="GPAddict"]

F the money, just make a good game!

Lach0121

Money always were, not just important, but vital to devs. Thats how they get paid, it's how they pay for the machines used, the time spend, the production and development etc. No money .. no games that goes much beyond flash games.

To put in in perspective. If the 'devs' said F the lack of money, lets tripple the prices.. people should pay $150 for games! Wouldnt that affect you?

One question. What did you dislike about the gameplay in WoW?-Unreal-

* Your character is weak on his/her own. You're not even suppose to be fighting groups of monsters, but one or two at a time. Any more and you'll need a group. Unless you are fighting a group of monsters that are completely weak compared to you.

* Most the weapons feel the same. I know it's a RPG and you don't really directly control your character like in an actiong made even in turn base games like KoTor if you were using using a lightsaber or a sword, it at least felt different. (Mostly just their sound effects, but they did make a big difference.)

* Dispite all the talk about how you get connected and close to your character, WoW was the first game were that wasn't true to me. The appearance options lacked things I reall would had liked like body shape and size. 3 out of 5 races are hunched back (Undead, Trolls, Orcs) and it looks really stupid. All races (per gender also have set personalities wuth there own jokes, dances, and voices for their set steriotype so emoting got boring with each character after 5 minutes (To be fair, 5 minutes for 10 races x 2 for each gener is 100 minutes worth of fun! Yaaaay!!!)

There are more I'll have to sit and think about but those are the main reasons. It's been a while since I last tried it so if there are any other major ones I'll have to play it again to remember. There are some problems with the core gameplay I didn't explain... because I don't know how. All I can say is auto attack with a special attack here and there is borning that that it is infact, not a single player game.

[QUOTE="Lach0121"]

"the old republic" im looking forward to it, and i think it will be great, has the potential and great universe for an mmo-rpg.

mmo is just a genre that in teh past few years started getting big lol.... rpg's did it as well.. so did cart/car combat/racing..

diddy kong racing, extreme g,  wipeout, twisted metal, mario cart, vigilante 8.

not to mention the metal gear rpg, and super mario rpg. final fantasy , legend of dragoon,  dragon warrior. 

not to mention tetris..... testrisphere, wario tetris, mario tetris, denist tetris. so on and so forth.

Lach0121

its as simple as this, dont like the game, dont play it, if you have ever been a gamer, then there will always be a game out there for you.

cause i hate, hate grand theft auto, most overrated franchise in gaming.... but i just dont play it.. so problem solved.

[QUOTE="-Unreal-"]One question. What did you dislike about the gameplay in WoW?Nerkcon

Well yeah.

I'd comment on everything you said but I can't really be bothered any more. 

[QUOTE="Nerkcon"]

[QUOTE="-Unreal-"]One question. What did you dislike about the gameplay in WoW?-Unreal-

Well yeah.

I'd comment on everything you said but I can't really be bothered any more. 

There have been hundreds of online games on the Internet for years, from simple MUDs to fully-3D games, free to monthly fees, stand-alone to browser-based. South Korea alone makes a lot of free MMOs with pay content and seems to be very successful at that. I think there will always be a lot of MMOs for gamers to choose from, with 2 or 3 popular ones and thousands of crappy ones as there always has been.

Sorry for the long rambling post, it's an area of interest to me (I wrote my thesis on MMO's)

Regarding the MMO genre Imploding, I think we're already seeing it and have been seeing it for some time. In addition to looking at the games that are planned and the games that have closed down, look at the number of MMO's that were canceled before they were released.. it's a pretty risky business to get into.

Some random thoughts and comments in no particular order

- Don't judge an MMO's success, by comparing it to WoW. WoW is an abnormality in the MMO scene. It would be like judging software developers by comparing them to the success of MicroSoft. You don't need millions of subscribers to run a successful MMO. Consider EverQuest, the original 'giant' MMO. It toped out around 500.000 subscribers.. less than 1/20th of WoW and it was considered a CRAZY success.. no one beloved it was even possible to take online gaming that far!

A lot of MMO's have less than 100k subscribers and are doing just fine. EVE is considered a big success with 250k subscribers.

- The toughest hurdle financially for an MMO is to make it out the door in the first place. MMO's in general are harder to make, takes more money, more time and more resources than 'regular' games. That doesn't mean that the smallest MMO cost more to make than Halo 3 or Crysis. But your still looking at 50-100 full time professional programmers, designers, producers, artists, sound people, marketing experts etc. working for a typical 4-5 years (sometimes longer). Add server costs, bandwidth cost, the cost of 100's of computers for the workers to use, renting facilities and so on and getting an MMO out the door is VERY expensive. Once it's out the door (if you make it that far) you're in a much better position.

You can start to reduce the number of people (either let them leave over time, fire them or move them onto different projects). You get an instant boost in funds due to box sales and most important (and why companies are so hooked on MMO's) you get a regular income. 

However while you might need fewer people post launch you still need to keep updating and maintaining your game. You still need a fair team of designer programmers and artists. In addition you need customer service and support (much more so than you do for standalone games).

Making MMO's is the most expensive thing you can do as a game developers, cost about as much 'pr month' as it costs to develop a standalone title, so it's a big risk to undertake. The profits on the other hand are potentially very good (and not just for WoW. Take EVE with its 250k subscribers. That's roughly the same as them selling 250k boxed games every 3 months. Without having to pay a percentage to retailers! That's a million 'boxes' a year for an MMO that could be considered very successful.

Of course all this doesn't mean too much without more specific numbers, if you're interested in looking into it further I'd recommend Jessica Mulligan and Bridgette Patrovsky's 'Developing Online Games: An Insider's Guide.

- WoW could turn out to save a lot of the games that might otherwise go under. Odd as it sounds WoW is (at least in my opinion) not killing the MMO market but rather feeding it. Most MMO's are hard to get into and somewhat obscure. While that has been changing over the last couple of years, until WoW came along MMO's had a very hard time enticing new players to try the genre. People were and still are put off on the idea of the monthly subscription and the often complicated game rules. WoW broke down that barrier and got millions of people who've never played an MMO to try it out.

Now this is where it gets interesting for the other MMO's. Traditional MMO players have by now tried WoW or decided not to try it at all. WoW is not taking away subscribers from 'the other games'. While I don't know the 'churn' numbers for WoW (Churn refers to the number of people who leave every month in any MMO). If for example you have a 'Churn' of 4% that means that 4% of your people are leaving. A successful game will get in more new players than they lose to Churn and thus grow overall.. Lets say for the sake of the argument that WoW has a Churn of 4%, people do leave WoW even if the overall number continues to grow. Thats 800.000 people who's decided to cancel their subscription. Now a lot of these people have now been introduced to MMO's so games that are not as polished or as beginner friendly as WoW won't seem as intimidating to these people. Some of course won't play another MMO but a lot of them might well take a good look at some of the less famous MMO's. Some wasn't harder and more PvP and might be tempted by WAR. Some want more of a social open world kinda game and might check out the old Ultima Online. Others love the idea of the unbridled capitalism and brutal reality of EVE. In other words, a lot of MMO's can survive simply by feeding off the the people leaving WoW.

- With the above in mind, I think trying to make 'WoW clones' is not just boring but also a bad idea from a business perspective. I think development companies need to get over the dream of making the 'new WoW' and instead focus on being something different from WoW. Let's be honest here, no one are likely to be able to compete with WoW on equal footing. Instead, offer something different. Something that might interest the people growing a bit tired of WoW. If your just offering the same.. who would people leave their friends and characters in WoW? 

- Free MMO's. First, the most obvious observation. These games do need to make a profit. They either have a plan for doing so or they will close again within months of opening (more likely they will never be released). The profit might come from micro transactions (maple story), sales of expansions and upgrades (Guild Wars), advertising (Hellgate London). Those games also tend to reduce costs by having less updates and free patches.

Note, when some of the free MMO's state that they have X number of subscribers it can't really be compared to subscription based MMO's. In a free MMO, you just sign up once, you never leave again (why close your account when it's not costing you anything). So when Maple story claims to have 85 million subscribers, what they are really saying is that 85 million people have tried their game at one time or another. while still impressive, it's not the same as currently active players.

To go back to the whole imploding topic. I'm sure we're going to start seeing more MMO's close own as they stop becoming profitable, at the same time we're probably also going to see more and more cancelations of MMO's. I wouldn't be surprised if a third of the MMOs mentioned earlier never make it to the market. We're going to see less new MMO companies breaking in. Instead the market will be dominated by studios that have made other MMO's (like SOE and Turbine) or have enough experience from other genres to have sufficient reputation, experienced people and acces to enough funds break into the market (Bioware for example).

[QUOTE="Nerkcon"] 1. Shin Megami Tensei Online: Imagine http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/shinmegamitenseionlineimagine/index.html - http://megaten.aeriagames.com/ GPAddict

I LOVE SMT games, but cant see myself playing the MMO version. I'm playing SMT: Nocturne right now.

Forgot to tell you, it's going be free to play! :D It's going to be the last FTP MMO I try besides maybe Guild Wars. If I don't like it I will give up MMOs forever until I get a computer to try Everquest 2... but I heard they made it like WoW so I may not like it anyway. :( When is Diablo 3 coming out?

[QUOTE="Lach0121"][QUOTE="GPAddict"]

F the money, just make a good game!

Mazoch

Money always were, not just important, but vital to devs. Thats how they get paid, it's how they pay for the machines used, the time spend, the production and development etc. No money .. no games that goes much beyond flash games.

To put in in perspective. If the 'devs' said F the lack of money, lets tripple the prices.. people should pay $150 for games! Wouldnt that affect you?

and what i mean is, i really hope they show what all this money is for with their upcomming games or whatever.

same for other companies as well, money has always been there yes, but now the green in they eyes has become alot more dominant.

[QUOTE="Lach0121"][QUOTE="Lach0121"]

"the old republic" im looking forward to it, and i think it will be great, has the potential and great universe for an mmo-rpg.

mmo is just a genre that in teh past few years started getting big lol.... rpg's did it as well.. so did cart/car combat/racing..

diddy kong racing, extreme g,  wipeout, twisted metal, mario cart, vigilante 8.

not to mention the metal gear rpg, and super mario rpg. final fantasy , legend of dragoon,  dragon warrior. 

not to mention tetris..... testrisphere, wario tetris, mario tetris, denist tetris. so on and so forth.

stripes_green

its as simple as this, dont like the game, dont play it, if you have ever been a gamer, then there will always be a game out there for you.

cause i hate, hate grand theft auto, most overrated franchise in gaming.... but i just dont play it.. so problem solved.

lol seems like it huh... no i was half asleep and hit quote instead of edit.  but didnt realize it until it already happened.

and everyone has multiple personalities to a degree, the people that say they are the same 24/7  just dont pay enough attention to theirselves..

but thats another issue, 

what i stated in the two post are of two different opinions, but do not conflict with one another..

That was a very interesting reply, Mazoch. I enjoyed reading it. :) But I didn't say a MMO needs WoW success to be any good (At least, I didn't meant to.) But some of these MMOs are only being made because of WoW.

And you're wrong about most free MMOs. Free MMOs are a lot less massive and made a lot differently since they make a lot less money. But you know most of the free MMOs that we have? Like 2 moons or Metin 2? Those may be fun to some people but they are actually online games that came out years ago and are way past their prime and now are open to be bought out by publishers to remake the game how they feel (mostly they only translate it) then release it where ever they are. As I was saying, Maple Story has (or had) 85 million players. They make around $370 million something a year from that game. It gets updates and events on a good time frame, it has good support, and it is not publish by some random publisher who happened to get the rights first. Those are the signs of a good quality, healthly, sucessful free MMO. And if done right, can be a main source of profit.

Why I think the market will implode is because it is only getting this kind of investment because most are aiming for MS/WoW's success. And like I said, this might be a good thing. I like the idea of paying monthly for a game that never ends, I just don't like the gameplay that most of these MMORPGs have.

That was a very interesting reply, Mazoch. I enjoyed reading it. :) But I didn't say a MMO needs WoW sucess to be any good (At least, I didn't meant to.) But some of these MMOs are only being made because of WoW.

 

And you're wrong about most free MMOs. Free MMOs are a lot less massive and made a lot differently since they make a lot less money. But you know most of the free MMOs that we have? Like 2 moond or Metin 2? Those may be fun to some people but they are actually online games that are way past their prime and now are open to be bought out by publishers to remake the game how they feel (mostly they only translate it) then release it where ever they are. As I was saying, Maple Story has (or had) 85 million players. They make around $370 something a year from that game. It gets updates and events on a good time frame, it has good support, and it is not publish by some random publisher who happened to get the rights first. Those are the signs of a good sucessful MMO. And if done right, can be a main source of profit.

 

Why I think the market will implode is because it is only getting this kind of investment because most are aiming for MS/WoW's sucess. And like I said, this might be a good thing. I liek the idea of paying monthly for a game that never ends, I jsut don't like the gameplay tha tmost of these MMORPGs have. (I have been unfair only attacking WoW, but it was the only P2P one I have tried so far.)

Nerkcon

Just to clarify. My rambling wasent ment as a counter point to your post :)

Regarding the Free MMOs, (I'm not sure what you mean by me being wrong?) I agree that Free MMO's as a rule are smaller and in general designed diffrentlysine they are designed to work on a diffrent profit model. My coment about Maple Story wasent ment to suggest that it's not a hugely successful game, there is no doubt that it is. the comment was mainly to explain the 85 million number.

While I do agree with the market impolding to some extent, I do think most investers are smart enough to realize that they shouldnt expect WoW like numbers (with some exceptions, I'd imagine Lucas Art / Bioware will be gearing up to try and take the top spot). I think the problem is more that the type of games being developed dosent try to set themselves apart from WoW but rather tries to emulate it.

I'm starting to hate the MMO genre....the $15 a month is starting to take a toll on my wallet.

If I add up how much I've spent on just WoW

$540 just on monthly fees

around $150 in character transfers

$10 for a name change

$50 for the game when it came out

$40 for the burning crusade EXP

$40 for wrath of the lich king EXP

I've spent around $830 just on WoW since I started playing it 3 years ago....I want to cry.

Ballroompirate

... $850 / 3 years is almost nothing but yea some of your charges are... silly. I mean why pay for xfers and name changes? But seriously, divide that sum by hours wasted and then look for another activity that can keep you that entertained for so long at the same price. Even if i were a parent, id rather my kids be playing stuff than going out every day, spending money he didnt earn with worthless friends in middle/high school.

* Your character is weak on his/her own. You're not even suppose to be fighting groups of monsters, but one or two at a time. Any more and you'll need a group. Unless you are fighting a group of monsters that are completely weak compared to you.Nerkcon

Weak is completely relative.... in the majority of MMOs i've played, a character isn't expected to take on throngs of enemies at once, unlike single player games.  Of course, I've never played runescape, so I don't know if they're any different.  However, despite all that, WoW does have a few character/spec options that allow you to deal with large groups of mobs at once if necessary.  Protection paladin, feral druid, and ice mage come to mind.

* Most the weapons feel the same. I know it's a RPG and you don't really directly control your character like in an actiong made even in turn base games like KoTor if you were using using a lightsaber or a sword, it at least felt different. (Mostly just their sound effects, but they did make a big difference.)Nerkcon

I'm not really sure what you mean about feeling the same.  I mean yes, a 2hd sword won't feel much different from a 2hd axe or 2hd mace, unless you're a specific class/spec (See: warrior mace stuns vs warrior extra sword attack).  But there was a significantly different feel between weapon sizes... daggers to 1hd weapons to 2hd weapons to staves.  Of course to give a different feel between weapon classes altogether, blizzard would have to impliment damage types (blunt vs slashing vs piercing), which we all know they aren't going to do.

* Dispite all the talk about how you get connected and close to your character, WoW was the first game were that wasn't true to me. The appearance options lacked things I reall would had liked like body shape and size. 3 out of 5 races are hunched back (Undead, Trolls, Orcs) and it looks really stupid. All races (per gender also have set personalities wuth there own jokes, dances, and voices for their set steriotype so emoting got boring with each character after 5 minutes (To be fair, 5 minutes for 10 races x 2 for each gener is 100 minutes worth of fun! Yaaaay!!!)Nerkcon

From personal experience, I played for almost a year before I rolled a character I really got attached to (tauren druid).  I don't know why it took that long, maybe because he was my first level 70, who knows.  But I agree with the emotes, and appearance options... there were always way too few, I don't know why they waited till the second expansion to impliment more.

There are some problems with the core gameplay I didn't explain... because I don't know how. All I can say is auto attack with a special attack here and there is borning that that it is infact, not a single player game.Nerkcon

That's MMO's.  If you don't like that sort of gameplay, I'd suggest sticking to action or FPS games.  Though it's obvious you didn't try pvp, though, or you'd have a bit of a different opinion on the "stand there and press buttons" thing.

That's MMO's. If you don't like that sort of gameplay, I'd suggest sticking to action or FPS games.Nerkcon