I stand by this. That crowd (us) isn't the main demo anymore. You know that. And I'm not talking about 'borrowing' parts from games because it's practically impossible to take all the good things from each game and then roll it into one product, which people keep asking for.
When you were 10 or 15 years younger, you were the prime demo. Most gaming companies were making console and PC RPGs, not MMOs or even thinking about it. MMOs were still fairly new as a product to even that crowd. MMOs are a dime a dozen nowadays not to mention all the pseudo MMOs out. Remember when people used to debate whether GW1 was even a real MMO? Now those types of games are everywhere.
Sure there is room for a niche MMO; there always is, but back then those sandbox/PvP centered games weren't niche. They were the norm. Now they are niche, just about every last one of them. Even EvE is that way because it's a space game and most people don't view it the same way as 'typical' PvP. FFXI, UO, Lineage, EQ... you don't have people going back to revisit them and you certainly don't have any of thenewMMO players even considering trying them out at all. The people still playing those games never left.
Companies don't want to try and make a new sandbox game that costs 40 million+ to try and pull that niche base away from games those people are already locked into, that's stupid as fuck. They also don't want to spend that money and then try and convince all the newer questborn MMOers that the 'old way' of playing was actually better. That's twice as dumbfuck.
FFXI only did well because it was a huge IP in Japan, but the game was basically a copy of EQ in many ways. Funny thing was, it came out two years before WoW and EQ2 did and guess which way the industry (and the players) went? There wasn't anyone who was in the industry who said"Hey, this FFXI is doing pretty good with thousands of subs for two years and it's basically a fresh take on EQ. Let's copy a sandbox model for our game."Even SE with a successful non-WoW type game didn't want to recreate that EQ model again on their next one.
For reference:
Since gamers are interested in new games that go in a different directions than what came before, that's what companies make for them. It's like television. There's some really good, niche television shows out there... well written, well acted, well received and reviewed. Yet, these same shows get shut down all the time because they are niche and lack wide mass appeal for income. Meanwhile, the major television stations still put out the reality shit of every type, and it sells like hotcakes.
Again, people SAY they want that good shit but honestly you'd see more people playing (or even trying) the bunch of niche sandbox/PvP games already out there now. But Fallen Earth, ATITD, Darkfall, Ryzom, Wurm, Xsyon, MO, etc never had tons of people clamoring for them or even sprung to try them out. Even now the games in beta like The Repopulation, Pathfinder O, have people with little interest in them. The only two I even see any interest in is Star Citizen (because they want an updated EvE) and AAge (because it was hyped in Asia forever and it's new here).
I feel like you only took what you wanted from my post and really didnt even realize that I gave you the reasons it would do well. Restating, in different words, the exact same thing you said is not going to further prove your point. Continuing to claim that you are one of the people that enjoyed those aspects doesnt help to further your argument and actually makes you sound full of shit like a politician.
There are quite a few MMO's that cost much less than 40 million and have even been brought up recently in this very thread. Yes, they are niche. But niche numbers now, 15 years ago, would be wildly successful. Sticking to that "niche" that you call thesesuccessfulgames, they have quite a few emulator servers that you can go to at any time. But I guess that's the same people that have been playing those games for the last 15 years. Dont forget these emulators are based mostly off of the EverQuest that you and I played and not that horrendous mess that EQ is now. You've disillusioned yourself into thinking that just because you wouldnt go back and play these games, that no one else will.
Disregarding all that other shit about playing old games, which wasnt my original point at all, people will play a!*!**!*!**!*!NEW!*!**!*!*!*!game that has very strong ties to EverQuest and similar games of that time period. I played P99 four years ago and can tell you every piece of gear I have on. I have a heroic geared monk tank in WoW right now and I know what the shit looks like, but I couldnt for the life of me tell you what that shit is called or recall what boss it dropped from. I just know where I am in a raid difficulty that a very small percentage of players are at - and I play less than 10 hours a week. What do ya know!
Just because we're not fucking 12 anymore - doesnt mean we're not the demographic. In my opinion, the demographic is the fucking person that doesnt have time sit on his ass for 50 hours a week. But WoWs fuck up is that you get "shinies" just for fucking logging in. Why can I remember gear in Classic and BC, but gear since then is just a fuzzy fucking memory. Oh right, it actually took fucking effort to do. Most 15 year olds arent going to play an MMO but will play League of Legends or Destiny. The majority of people Ive met while playing WoW hasnt been little teenagers, but Moms, fathers, family oriented people, people that travel for work.
(ps, EverQuest1 makes more money than EverQuest2 for example. Source is on MMORPG.com sometime early this year.)
There are two niche old school MMOs in development and we will see how successful they are. Both should do well and be fun to play. I don't know what else anyone really wants here? Maybe play those when they come out? SOE isn't going to make an old school EQ EVER and most of their developers are just fine where they are. We can't really guess at the player base for these games until they release. Basing niche off today's market just isn't realistic just like thinking they won't do well just because EQ has a small base now.
I can see we'd just go round and round so last post on this for me to let people get back to EQN.
We'll see what happens to the sandbox genre and why we can't go back when the people in AAge have been playing a few months and realize the amount of time it pulls. Half of those morons still think it's a pure sandbox PvE game with PvP thrown in.
That was some weird stuff about 12-15 yrs olds from you. Perhaps some strawman I guess but btw; lots of kids do play MMOs. Hello Kitty, Wakfu, Dofus, Pirate 101, all those kid games are what their parents will agree to pay for lest they get games you/I play and get all chatty with the 7 dudes trying to talk up that one chick in the guild run in TeamSpeak. I think you knew I wasn't talking about them anyways but w/e.
I already stated"So, a shitload more games that are specialized with many ways to play and pay (or not) for them compounded by a totally different playerbase... oh and don't forget the babes and Gramma's now"which you ignored but thanks for agreeing with me finally.
Filthy casuals. All kinds of em. That's the market, not this "No more shinies" drivel. If WoW fucked up so bad with that, tell that to their accountants. Better yet, tell that to those poor sods making those hilarious personal appeal "get to know me" videos to get any hobo they can find to give them some Kickstarter nickels to fashion that 'cool old school feel' game with some unique hitch. I'm sure when they finally hit that wall and apply at Bioware/Ubi to work onDestinyorThe Division, they'll appreciate your heartfelt sentiment that they had great ideas, they were right and the industry was wrong.
You and the other 5.482 people who though it was cool will make him feel better.
I can see we'd just go round and round so last post on this for me to let people get back to EQN.
We'll see what happens to the sandbox genre and why we can't go back when the people in AAge have been playing a few months and realize the amount of time it pulls. Half of those morons still think it's a pure sandbox PvE game with PvP thrown in.
That was some weird stuff about 12-15 yrs olds from you. Perhaps some strawman I guess but btw; lots of kids do play MMOs. Hello Kitty, Wakfu, Dofus, Pirate 101, all those kid games are what their parents will agree to pay for lest they get games you/I play and get all chatty with the 7 dudes trying to talk up that one chick in the guild run in TeamSpeak. I think you knew I wasn't talking about them anyways but w/e.
I already stated"So, a shitload more games that are specialized with many ways to play and pay (or not) for them compounded by a totally different playerbase... oh and don't forget the babes and Gramma's now"which you ignored but thanks for agreeing with me finally.
Filthy casuals. All kinds of em. That's the market, not this "No more shinies" drivel. If WoW fucked up so bad with that, tell that to their accountants. Better yet, tell that to those poor sods making those hilarious personal appeal "get to know me" videos to get any hobo they can find to give them some Kickstarter nickels to fashion that 'cool old school feel' game with some unique hitch. I'm sure when they finally hit that wall and apply at Bioware/Ubi to work onDestinyorThe Division, they'll appreciate your heartfelt sentiment that they had great ideas, they were right and the industry was wrong.
You and the other 5.482 people who though it was cool will make him feel better.
As you mention, it could be considered niche based off all of those definitions. As long as a game is making money, it's successful and can claim whatever it wants. It's a poor standard of definition so why use it at all?
As you mention, it could be considered niche based off all of those definitions. As long as a game is making money, it's successful and can claim whatever it wants. It's a poor standard of definition so why use it at all?
There are numbers that fans and players say are 'good enough' and then there are numbers that people who actually run the companies say are far too low for the effort. In those cases I'm pretty sure if the companies freely released the actual sub information, most people would agree there are a lot of niche MMOs based on what other games are doing.
Every game could be considered niche from the standpoint of it trying to garner a certain type of player. But the definition changes when they grab up so many of those types of players that it transcends from being niche to being mainstream. I mean if you think about it, EvE is a niche game by definition (space sim) but the playerbase size defies that definition (was #3 I think at last tally).
Possibly even WoW would have been considered niche when it launched since most of the previous games were sandbox or sandboxy PvP related titles. But because they gobbled up so many players that wanted something different than the usual norm, they changed the definition and now if you're not WoW or WoW-like, you're niche in description.
Ask the CoH fans about their successful game that was making money. Well.. it wasn't makingenoughmoney and wasn't footingenoughsubs. Pretty sure they can't claim whatever they want as they are now all trying to buy the source code from NCSoft. At one time that game was pretty mainstream as far as populations went, but still niche in being a superhero MMO.
But truth be told, I think when most people refer to niche they are purely talking about how many numbers of people playing it, not necessarily the popular classification of it. That could be wrong but it's how it's usually viewed.
I don't know why I'm letting you troll me like this, but...
1) Those numbers I made up aren't any kind of an analogy at all. They're ballpark numbers indicating how many people are interested in the kind of game you want to see. How did you not understand that? Are you mentally retarded?
2) You're a fucking idiot and your analogy sucks. Ease or difficulty of acquisition doesn't automatically make anyone less or more appreciative of anything. The billionaire could be a spoiled trust fund brat who would rather be driving a Rolls Royce but bought a Ferrari because he's trying to "act his age." The person who saves for years to buy a Ferrari could only drive it a couple times a year because he's afraid of getting it dirty and scratching the paint. Neither of these situations has a goddamn thing to do with MMOs because you're a fucking idiot and your analogy sucks.
Are you fucking retarded? Do you know what the word analogy means? I'll try and explain it to you, and I'll use small words so you can attempt to follow along. The analogy I'm making applies to MMO's because The billionaire in this example are games like WoW and every other modern MMO that has come out that shoves loot up your ass just for logging in for more than 5 minutes. Because it's so easily attained, it has no intrinsic value (oops, I used a term you'll have to look up). The other guy, the one who works hard to achieve things in life represents EQ; a game that actually took time and effort in order to achieve something of value. Because it was more difficult to achieve, you appreciate it more when you receive it. That's why the loot in EQ is so memorable, and even people 15 years later when someone mentions a COF, a yak, SMR, a fungi tunic, a mana stone etc. know exactly to what they're referring. Go ahead a name me another MMO where people even give a shit about the loot? You can't, because loot no longer means anything in any game. It's discarded and replaced every other hour and has no value whatsoever.
hose types of players that it transcends from being niche to being mainstream. I mean if you think about it, EvE is a niche game by definition (space sim) but the playerbase size defies that definition (was #3 I think at last tally).
The "Playerbase" of eve is likely around 25-60k active players, maybe 10-20k in North America. It's a really bad example of how well a niche game can do because it's unlike any other mmo in so many ways.
1. The game encourages multiboxing like nothing else. Literally everyone I know has at least 2 accounts, usually more. People like kadm with over 30 are not so uncommon.
2. You gain skills passively, hence many inactive people keep accounts active.
Overall you get a game with 400k+ subs that has 19k accounts logged in US prime time, a more more "normal" mmo with a similar sized niche would be lucky to have 100k subs.
Go ahead a name me another MMO where people even give a shit about the loot? You can't, because loot no longer means anything in any game. It's discarded and replaced every other hour and has no value whatsoever.
I could go on and on. I have a massive amount of stories connected to these items that are just as special to me as my stories about my first Paw of Opolla, FBSS, Water Sprinkler etc.
Stop diminishing everyone's experiences just because you never gave anything but EQ a chance.
This is the core of your argument, and it's incorrect. You know what's difficult to achieve? Eating nothing but insects and tree leaves for a month straight. Do you know how much a normal person appreciates that insane feat of mental and physical fortitude? Not one goddamn bit. Degree of difficulty is NOT the only factor in appreciating the results. Do you know how much a person stranded on a deserted island appreciates the fact that they're kept alive by insects and tree leaves for an entire month? They're fucking stoked that they didn't die, that's how much they appreciate eating insects and tree leaves. A big part of the reason why people remember COFs and Yaks and Fungis is because holy shit this item actuallydoes somethingunlike all the rest of this shit that has +2 Bigger Worthless Number more than my last generic filler item. Combine that with the fact that EQ was people's "first girlfriend" in the MMO world, and yeah, you're going to remember more about that game. Do you remember what perfume your fifth girlfriend wore? What did your first girlfriend smell like? Which one sticks out in your mind more strongly?
Sorry to derail from the "inane tired argument about how successful a vanilla EQ clone would or wouldn't be", but I was watching some streams of Albion Online, and it's "progression" system made me think a lot of how they talk about EQ Next's should be.
You have a "destiny board", which is basically a system of achievements. You meet the achievements (like say, kill 40 monsters that give fame), and you get bumped to the next tier. Then you can make that tier's weapons/armor, which gives you your skill layout (no classes), and you do the achievements to get to the next tier, and so on.
That's basically what they're saying EQ Next will be, correct?
I don't know that they laid out any specifics beyond "something something storybricks".
They have laid out specifics in that you'll have sets of 4 sets of 4, inter related and interdependent, you'll have a limited loadout, and you'll unlock them through gameplay. And then laid out some absurd number of total sets which pretty much ensures that nothing will be balanced and quite possibly not even animated. Or you'll wind up with 5 different colors of fireball.
But it will be more gameplay/achievement focused than level/grind/standard questline focused. That's the pitch at least. So in that way... basically. No one is really trying to move away from the level grind, they're trying to move where the focus of that level grind is. Which is overdue, and I hope they manage it.
There are a lot of ways that they could be overselling the basic idea of the thing though, regardless of how well or poorly they implement that idea. And if Landmark/DCUO are any indication... EQ:N will be absolutely rotten with micro transactions from the very first alpha. It is possible that they finally manage to make a good game, and then shoot themselves in the dick because of their marketing.
DCUO was so close to being good that it's painful. They're not -all- talentless hacks.
The "Playerbase" of eve is likely around 25-60k active players, maybe 10-20k in North America. It's a really bad example of how well a niche game can do because it's unlike any other mmo in so many ways.
1. The game encourages multiboxing like nothing else. Literally everyone I know has at least 2 accounts, usually more. People like kadm with over 30 are not so uncommon.
2. You gain skills passively, hence many inactive people keep accounts active.
Overall you get a game with 400k+ subs that has 19k accounts logged in US prime time, a more more "normal" mmo with a similar sized niche would be lucky to have 100k subs.
Interesting. I remember something last year that said CCP announced EvE had around 500k subs. I figured there might be some people boxing and guessed their real number was around 300k. (figuring -200k was a good number of bloat to take off considering everyone possibly would have at least one alt). Possibly even 250k.
You're saying it's far worse than that and they are sub 100k 'real' accounts (meaning one main not counting alts)?
I could kind of see that happening in EQN since it's launching as F2P and people like me have Lifetime subs from DCUO that can just pump out as many beefed up alternate free accounts as we'd like. Of course since there's no PLEX, it wouldn't be near as much bloat as Eve has.
Interesting. I remember something last year that said CCP announced EvE had around 500k subs. I figured there might be some people boxing and guessed their real number was around 300k. (figuring -200k was a good number of bloat to take off considering everyone possibly would have at least one alt). Possibly even 250k.
You're saying it's far worse than that and they are sub 100k 'real' accounts (meaning one main not counting alts)?
I could kind of see that happening in EQN since it's launching as F2P and people like me have Lifetime subs from DCUO that can just pump out as many beefed up alternate free accounts as we'd like. Of course since there's no PLEX, it wouldn't be near as much bloat as Eve has.
I dont know the numbers that are being quoted? But I do know my account is still active based off of time that I bought with ISK and I havent played it in.. a while? I had forgotten it was even active until I got an email telling me my time was about up.
