Attention all you MMORPGing Wierdo Dregs! You. Are. Offically On notice!

[Tancred]

I see Dumar is still a fucking idiot ranting about shit he has no clue about.

Scaling games code up to MMO levels isn't that complicated if you know what you're doing. I've worked with people more than capable of doing (who came to the games industry from banking networking) so and yes they were hamstrung by incompetents above them.

But whatever. The OP and idiots like Dumar can wank on about "innovation" to their heart's content and it won't change 2 facts: (1) MMOs generally CANNOT handle the complexity required by "innovation" especially when it requires massively increasing the amount of persistent data or the computation loads. Anyone who claims they can and don't due to developer incompetence is a moron. And (2) the mass market doesn't give a crap about innovation anyway and is in fact very conservative in taste. Which is why 3/10 shit like Spiderman and Transformers were the biggest sellers of last year.

The games you idiots want made would have subscription costs in the hundreds of dollars per month and stringent population caps, mainly due to massive hardware costs and the need for constant intervention from human GMs (within a few minutes, 24/7 of course).

[Bixxby]

Kind of off topic but it was kind of innovative, whatever happened to the Legends idea? It seems like you could milk 50 bucks a month off people in WoW for a server with actual human beings for gms and events and wacky titles and all that shit.

[kedwyn]

My thoughts on this are this. PC gaming is slowly on the way out and all it will take is for Consoles to pull their heads out of their asses and include keyboards / mouse style accessories.

Exclude WoW and PC gaming doesn't look nearly so good. Seriously what are odds of us seeing another WoW over the next 5 years? The rest of PC gaming is fairly mediocre aside from the normal power house hits that come every 5 years or so. But those are all mostly on consoles now.

The only true advantage PC gaming has is MMO's and those days are numbered IMO.

The biggest problems with PC gaming are:

1. Expense. New hardware is pretty expensive and if you want to play the best games even the best systems get taxed. WoW being the exception which developers can learn a lot from that. Most people already own a nice TV and consoles are relatively cheap for the life span. For approximately the cost of a great video card you are nearly future proof for 3 years and your games will run and look better as your system ages unlike on a PC

2. Piracy. Enough said. Sure MMO's are difficult to pirate but just about everything else is in the cross hairs. Developers know it and as a result you are seeing games being released on consoles first and then the PC. This in itself is bad because waiting for the game to come out on PC isn't something any hardcore gamer is going to want to do. On top of that when they do come out they tend to be shitty ports so again this puts the favor towards the consoles.

3. Development costs. Its easier to develop for the console. One set of hardware. The more marginal the PC market becomes the more likely it is developers will begin ignoring it.

4. Microsoft. Vista's issues aern't helping and its no surprise that Apple is gaining considerable market share. The average person has no use for PC gaming and Macs while expensive are nice looking machines with nice software which is appealing. Walk by an apple store and the fucking place is always slamming packed. They are on the way up.

5. Ease of use. Your console auto updates, no driver issues, no compatibility issues. Its just works. Macs are like that too because their hardware is set for a year or so at a time. The average Joe likes that because the average Joe barely can find his ass with toilet paper.


PC gaming isn't dead. Its just on a slow decline and will die a slow death as consoles take more and more of the PC's exclusive abilities over and put them on the big screen in HD.

[Valaden]

Originally Posted by kedwyn

My thoughts on this are this. PC gaming is slowly on the way out and all it will take is for Consoles to pull their heads out of their asses and include keyboards / mouse style accessories.

QFT. Im just waiting for the PS3 to make keyboard/mouse support mandatory to switch over and use my PC for nothing short of MMOs and Starcraft. Sadly, I think Sony and console developpers underestimate that playerbase.

[Gnome Eater]

Why do the people who nobody gives a shit about speak out, while the genuinly intelligent and interesting people never actually post anything?

Smed/Pardo/Gallenite can you share your thoughts on design/MMORPG sometime?

[Miele]

Originally Posted by Gnome Eater

Why do the people who nobody gives a shit about speak out, while the genuinly intelligent and interesting people never actually post anything?

Smed/Pardo/Gallenite can you share your thoughts on design/MMORPG sometime?

It's better to shut and let people think you're a fool, than speak and prove them right. Or something like that.

[BurnemWizfyre]

I think the quote is "Better to be thought a fool, then to open your mouth and remove all doubt"

[Kreugen]

I love spewing about how everything sucks and is done wrong without giving any example whatsoever of what the right way would be. Is he just sucking Raph's cock here or what? Hi, Star Wars is the most popular IP ANYWHERE. You can shit in a box and call it Star Wars and sell. And hey, he made a game that everyone hates and hardly anyone plays, despite being Star Wars. And yet everyone else is wrong? Har dee fucking har har. Having your name attached to SWG instantly invalidates anything you have to say here.

What does piss me off is the genre of games that do not work well on console aren't even made any more. The tactical RPG has been replaced by the first person RPG with shitty ass lame combat. Perfect for consoles, fifty steps backwards for PC. The main problem with consoles is the input device. FPS without a mouse? Fuck you. RTS with a fucking gamepad? Gimme a fucking break. Even simple shit like moving junk around in an inventory is a goddamn nightmare on the XBOX (mass effect)

So to come here and say that the console is the God of gaming for ALL things is just plain fucking stupid. Sure, for some genres.

Weirdo dregs indeed. Fuck you. Madden and Halo bore me to death. You can keep your dumbed down shit. Some games simply play better on the PC, and those happen to be the ones I like.

Oh, and I agree, fuck pirates.

[Nilden]

Seriously just put this guy in a giant blender and then bottle him and sell it as potions of stupidity.

I enjoyed reading the comments to his little "All on Notice" bullshit. I mean wow talk about having no idea. This guy should just change his legal name to Captian Clueless.

[The Ancient]

Originally Posted by Kreugen

What does piss me off is the genre of games that do not work well on console aren't even made any more. The tactical RPG has been replaced by the first person RPG with shitty ass lame combat. Perfect for consoles, fifty steps backwards for PC.

Slight derail, but can you give me some examples of what you are talking about here? I haven't had a difficult time finding any type of console RPG.

[Gallenite]

Originally Posted by Gnome Eater

Smed/Pardo/Gallenite can you share your thoughts on design/MMORPG sometime?

If you want to read a really good enumeration of the reasons that PC is a far better platform than any console for MMOs for the foreseeable future, read Joe Ludwig's blog post that just became an article on Gamasutra: Gamasutra - Analysis: Why Aren't There More Console MMOs?

Usability and gameplay issues (like the ones Kreugen points out) aside, there are a large pile of reasons to avoid consoles that Joe goes into, which all hold true.

The day will probably come when the usability issues are worked out, but the business issues will remain, and they're pretty gigantic barriers.

The magnitude of the flaws "being unable to patch on a reasonable schedule" and "having to cut a whole new entity in for a significant chunk of your revenue for access to their audience" cannot be understated.

There are far better (and more efficient) ways to reach audiences, and deliver entertainment to them on the ideal schedule, without having to go near a console.

The economics only have the possibility of making sense if you're a first party console developer (e.g. If you're Sony, if you're Nintendo, if you're Microsoft), or are being treated by them as if you are first party.

They make much less sense if you're outside of those entities. There are far better ways to make a respectable return on an investment than barking up the console tree, when PCs have the dominance and continuity that they do, compared to the "generation" length of the average console. MMOs are a long term play - Consoles are generational.

New console comes out, which is totally out of your control, your audience moves on to the next console. That doesn't happen in the PC world.

As far as the PC in general, analysts are just now catching up to what people here on this board have known for at least a decade if not more: It's not the PC that's dead, it's retail that's dying. NPD is just now finally starting to track online subscription revenue. Surprise! It's not just healthy, it's booming. Gamasutra - NPD: Online Subscriptions Generate $1B Annually

It's going to be perceived to be booming even further if they can figure out how to track the rise of non-subscription revenues, which is going to become even more dominant. (Whether that's downloaded content, virtual goods, premium services, or what have you.)

While console companies have been busy savaging each other "vying for control of the living room," more and more users have been ignoring them and spending more time on their PCs, playing all kinds of things online.

Look at the kind of world that we live in - Console companies are still trying to get into every household, and meanwhile the PC is so dominant that we make fun of presidential candidates who don't know how to use them, news of which generated a half million google finds in a couple days. Would we be making the same kind of noise over a candidate who's "never used an xbox 360?" I doubt it.

Given all of that, I do like consoles. I have two of them. I think there are ways the console model can work for online games. I think there are online experiences that can play to their strengths and succeed phenomenally.

But, from the point of view of what an "MMO" audience expects from their experience, the PC will remain dominant for quite some time.

- Scott

[Maleficence]

Originally Posted by kedwyn

My thoughts on this are this. PC gaming is slowly on the way out and all it will take is for Consoles to pull their heads out of their asses and include keyboards / mouse style accessories.

Something like this? Amazon.com: Xbox 360 Text Messaging Kit: Video Games

Back when Vanguard still had many of us hopeful, I went to Sigil Studios to visit. They had an xbox controller with one of those hooked up. Of course, that was back then when they were still with MS and I believe were trying to make the game for both the 360 and PC.

At any rate, the Xbox 360 can handle any USB keyboard just fine.

I really doubt that's what's holding back developers from making any console based MMORPG's. It's more likely some marketing guy convinced that people with consoles aren't hardcore, and won't be willing to join a subscription model of play and/or pay for additional hardware to play the game.

[kasey]

Originally Posted by Kreugen

I love spewing about how everything sucks and is done wrong without giving any example whatsoever of what the right way would be. .

+ that dude who said what we "whine about would cost hundreds of dollars per month subscription"

I want a non restrictive system with depth and immersion for example i want a Pvp world with areas with real penalties and areas for people who cant stomach huge penalties(similar to eve, but better. I dont like that the carebear areas in eve suck soo much)

I dont want trivial loot code. Its retarded and cheats the players from their earned rewards. I became strong trough leveling, why shouldnt i harness that? If i want to kill a level 20 mob for my twink at 60 so be it, if this affects other people in a negative way thats a whole different issue and can be solved(who thought it would be unbalanced if a player who leveled already once to the top should not be allowed to twink? In fear the player who wants to twink would level to fast and get bored to quickly with the game??)

I dont want a system like WoW with The burning crusade where you basically reset the whole looot table to zero and make greens from trash vastly superior to a LEGENDARY SUPER HAMMER ( i forget the name). Because if you do that and your rewards and interaction with the gameworld mostly consist of gearing up then you destroy the gaming world you created minus the new zones you introduced. Who would go to molten core if a single player non elite trash drops are superior? Not even new players.

It also means alot of feeling is destroyed. The previous world is totally trashed and turned into wasteland. This destroys immersion, it focuses the whole population on a few viable hotspots. It should be a multi layer tier system with ways to catch up easily without this huge gap between the expansion. It was way too much. And as it looks Wotlk will just do the exact same, but in 1 year it will become appearant even for the monkeys that a huge part of the world sucks and is empty. There could be different rewards, something other then loot. There are many possibilities. Its about retarded design decisions not about giving every player their personal GM.

I could go on raging for hours about 20 mmos and their main mistakes but its not my job.

The beta testing sucks, the end product is barely halfway finished, the balancing is lacking, tell me another industry where this would be accepted. I am sure there is one, well may be not. But it is the rare exception. I have yet to see an argument convincing me and make me go "ahhh so thats why this mmo sucksballs, my spells arent balanced and this and that design is retarded. Okkk mmm i will just go with that and wait 3 years so they can catch up. No way, fuck this. I stopped playing seriously like 4 years ago and since then it was a constant downward spiral of pure fail(with better graphics, yeepee). I have to admit tho, WoW is a nice game, not perfect but its close. Just not my cup of tea, what about the 20 others? VG? Tabula Rasa? eq2? LOL. Epic fail. Gah now its 15minutes

[Tancred]

Originally Posted by kasey

+ that dude who said what we "whine about would cost hundreds of dollars per month subscription"

I want a non restrictive system with depth and immersion meaning i want a Pvp world with areas with real penalties and areas for people who cant stomach huge penalties(similar to eve, but better. I dont like that the carebear areas in eve suck soo much)

I dont want trivial loot code. Its retarded and cheats the players from their earned rewards. I became strong trough leveling, why shouldnt i harness that? If i want to kill a level 20 mob for my twink at 60 so be it, if this affects other people in a negative way thats a whole different issue and can be solved(who thought it would be unbalanced if a player who leveled already once to the top should not be allowed to twink? In fear the player who wants to twink would level to fast and get bored to quickly with the game??)

So what you want is a load of old-school, niche-interest bullshit that's been done before?

This game would have 10k subs maximum. So yeah, $100+ per month subs might just about make it viable for a 5 man team.

[kasey]

Why? There could be lots of areas for carebears, it could fully focus on casual play and drawing in the masses. Just leave a backdoor open for the topend. Hardcore players are satisfied even with little rewards as long they have their Epeen. Casuals pay the bills. Hardcores still have their edge over not-so-serious players even in equal gear. It was quite shocking to see with how little players with too much freetime are satisfied in WoW, but it works.

Example: Instanced version of stratholme with much faster respawn, less trash on the way to the bosses,a debuff upon death to prevent zoning in again (may be a stacking debuff, 10% all stats/dmghealing, after a few deaths it becomes pointles to zone in). The loot is mostly the same+ 10% stats+ very nice toy items and horde plus alliance can be there at the same time. Only one instance of this exists so its got a "permanent world feel" to it.

Casuals don't need to zone in, they can just do their pickup groups and the bored hardcores can battle eachother. Also you built on on prebuilt areas so the amount of work needed isnt that big. The amount of work needed to get this done is in relation to the expected profit.

And anti trivial loot code stance/pro twinking is something that will attract casuals rathen then the opposite. And 100$ subs per month? You want to give me a chinese underpaid secretary full time? :P