[SOE] Announces new free kids MMO in dev.

[cyanbane]

Originally Posted by Maxxius

But no reasonable person would agree that M59 is
basically the same as WOW.

Login In.
Utilize Actions (spells, combat arts, songs, whatever you want to call them) against Mobs.
As you kill more Mobs, you gain advancement on some primary track (levels, grades, etc) whihc increases some base statistics to be compared against random rolls. You can also gain items that can attach to your characters to increase your stats (armor, weapons, items, attunments, charms, etc)
After you get to a high enough level and the primary leveling starts to slow down there is a secondary level attainment system in play to keep you from getting bored and give you smaller "mini-dings" (specialization trees, AAs, some type of character defining point system) and keep you interested in the game.
Characters are also customized by some other meta layers of information (class, race, diety, religions, etc) that the player chooses. It is hopeful that the game is balanced so that you need a certain array of these meta attributes to progress through higher content.
You can choose to solo (1 player) group (X players) or Raid (A (num of groups)*X) where the mobs change (either in place or their location in the world) based on how many people they are fighting.

Take out graphics, sound, environment, increase in access to the general populous and MMOs as a genre really have not come far from muds and door games. WOW, M59, EQ, EQ2 are all VERY comparable. Same core, just a different shell and each has different subsystem in place to deal with the "meta" layers I described above.

[Maxxius]

Cyan, now you are arguing in circles again. What you are really describing is PROGRESSION. Games building off of older games, constantly advancing the genre, moving in different directions in accordance with the market. M59 is no more comparable to WOW than the boardgame Risk is to Monopoly (tho both are board games, both use dice, both involve moving pieces around). They are literally apples to oranges, despite your generalizations.

Now I wish you would just pick one side and stick with it and stop flip flopping. Either stick with cycles (in which case you can't give any existing examples) or stick with progression (which is the correct choice to make afterall).

[cyanbane]

M59 is no more comparable to WOW than the boardgame Risk is to Monopoly (tho both are board games, both use dice, both involve moving pieces around).

Hi my name is gameplay, I am what makes Monopoly a metric shitton different than Risk. I am also what makes M59 very similar to WoW. If you don't know me, then you don't know me, and thats that and not worth debating anymore.

[Maxxius]

There never was a debate. I have asked twice now for you to give an actual example of existing games that show the cyclical nature of these games, and twice now you avoided the response. Hi the gameplay of monopoly is rolling the dice. Hi the gameplay of risk is rolling the dice. It is generalizations and nothing more. The actual game of WOW is leaps passed the 2 dimensional M59. Hence M59 to WOW is a clear example of how the games, for the final time, PROGRESSED.

[Teger]

If i had enough money I'd so invest in an online Lego Star Wars MMO marketed towards young kids, with the option to buy (for a special premium) a model of your own character, your vehicles and the stuff you fight.

Holy shit goldmine.

[tad10]

Originally Posted by Maxxius

There never was a debate. I have asked twice now for you to give an actual example of existing games that show the cyclical nature of these games, and twice now you avoided the response. Hi the gameplay of monopoly is rolling the dice. Hi the gameplay of risk is rolling the dice. It is generalizations and nothing more. The actual game of WOW is leaps passed the 2 dimensional M59. Hence M59 to WOW is a clear example of how the games, for the final time, PROGRESSED.

I think you guys are two ships passing in the night. Yes WoW is a progression of M59 (well I assume it is -- never played M59). But yes things in life tend to be cyclical.

Take movies, people get sick of a type of movie, but in ten years they've forgotten and are happy to have slasher/teen sex comedy/etc to see again.

People are getting sick of class/level based high fantasy MMOs. In ten years if there aren't a ton more they'll be happy tos ee class/level based high fantasy MMOs again.

Me -- I could give a fuck about WAR and am only interested in AoC insomuch as I can waste a little time until the Agency or other non-Fantasy MMO shows up.

In ten years I'll be happy to see a fantasy MMO.

[Maxxius]

Fashion is cyclical. Industries are cyclical. These games never have been. The closest examples were the ones I gave and both failed. The point originally started with Cyan saying 5 years from now EQ will be in vogue again. It just won't. It won't because the genre has just passed it by, like it did with M59 and others; and like it eventually will with WOW. That was one of the points of this thread, namely where is the market heading now. Now if he wants to change the argument to totally generalize, then the discussion is pointless. But that wasn't how it started.

[Cuppycake]

I like you Maxxius.

[cyanbane]

Originally Posted by Maxxius

The point originally started with Cyan saying 5 years from now EQ will be in vogue again.

What I actually said:

In sometime in the next 5-10 years, someone will create a generic fantasy MMO with up to date graphics (playing the WOW safe card by not being too overdone), UI, the whole shebang, BUT it will use (with a few small exceptions) the same level grind cookie cutter game mechanics that eq, eq2, wow and other games do today


Quite different.

[Maxxius]

Originally Posted by cyanbane

MMOs are now cyclical. For the next 5 years or so everything that will come out will be RMT/hyperdemographicly targeted niche MMOs till someone comes out with an EQ clone in 2013 (what we all bitch about now) and everyone falls in love with it because it feels "old school". SOE just happens to have one of each (ie they know/knew the divide is/was coming).

THAT was your first one Cyan, and that was the one I initially responded to. I reposted this twice now, and yet you just don't seem to remember typing this one.

Hehe and thanks Cuppy.

[Himeo]

Hot dog bun, not too young.

[Nerion]

Well, in regards to dealing with e-molesting, there will probably be very little need to talk in the game. I bet there will be a fuckton of parent settings available where you can literally cut off all text and the game will be just emotes. Also, I could see some other setting where the parent has to ok people first before they can talk to the player.

[lumberjack]

maybe this is why they hired that IGE guy?

[Goltana_R-Zek]

My little sister played ToonTown for awhile, it's some kind of disney mmo. From what I gathered, you could pick select phrases from a list to say to people, but you couldn't actually type to them yourself. No idea if this has been changed though.

[Larion]

Originally Posted by Maique

No, it's about the money. if those runescape numbers are right, they have 1 million players that pay 5$ a month, EQ2 has what 300k? that pay 15$, while runescape has a lot more subscription/users in the end they make more or less the same money.

They might but they could do a lot more and that is what smed is looking at.

This is actually a subject that I have a clue of so I am not going to be an asshole but tell you how business works to an extend.

One of themost valuable things companies can today collect on the market is not the pure subscription cash, but they can collect identities and likes and dislikes of users and they know their target audience well.
If a company was to make advertisements anywhere it will always want to know where the adverts go to and if you utilize being able to target your audience directly you are a winner.

For marketing this is so brilliant and useful you can't even really value this with money.
Just imagine SOE making this pony and teddybear game for little girls... the market for adverts in this market would be INSANE. Little girls are sooo vulnerable to shiny things you could milk them for money so hard it would not even be funny, because they would just use "that face" to make daddy buy another fluffy pony or whatever product advertises on that site.

They will be able to extract direct cash from their customers AND on top of that have the even more lucrative advertisement market on their side.
They could even allow certain companies (like for example "hello kitty" or other silly crap girls like to have their own "areas" within the game offering free things to the little girls and giving them a positive experience with the brand...

They could also use it as a very potent vehicle to introduce new brands on the INTERNATIONAL MARKET!!! Wich is btw one of the hardest tasks in general and you could easily BUY IT directly targeted to your customer base.

They would need the extreme numbers to make it work though, but I am pretty sure SOE will figure something out to get these numbers.

And while we are at it... smed? can I get some of that hello kitty in game online presences revenue since I came up with it?