Pan'Theon: Rise' of th'e Fal'Len - #1 Thread in MMO
- Thread starter gogojira_sl
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Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
Go here and give us your nominations!Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
Big Flex
Fitness Fascist
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I don't think anybody is insisting that Everquest in and of itself needs a resurrection, clearly doing the same style of content in the same system with aging graphics, etc, will make one prone to trying the next big new thing. Having said that, the principals and mechanics of Everquest "Classic" are solid, regardless if they came into being via accidents (likely) or implemented out of sheer genius (unlikely). Just because WoW dwarfed Everquest financially for any number of reasons, or people left Everquest for WoW doesn't negate the fact that the "old school principals" are still desirable in a market which has rejected them wholesale for well over a decade.
WoW likely rekt EQ because it was the first title to introduce the MMO to a wider audience. I was playing pool at a bar with a group of coworkers in the early 2000's and found out everybody there played WoW except me. Not one of them had heard of Everquest. In an contemporary environment where "hard" games are increasingly popular (not to say EQ was hard, but it was harder than any MMO of recent memory) and in a market desperate to try "new" things to stay relevent (read as voxels and MOBA classes), there is enough room for someone to try a look backwards if they have the balls to do so.
This sort of game will come out of the indie development community, and likely on a shitty engine thats more plug and play such as Unity, but just because Bad McQuaid is far too inept to accomplish it doesn't reduce the value in the idea or the potentially playerbase it could draw.
WoW likely rekt EQ because it was the first title to introduce the MMO to a wider audience. I was playing pool at a bar with a group of coworkers in the early 2000's and found out everybody there played WoW except me. Not one of them had heard of Everquest. In an contemporary environment where "hard" games are increasingly popular (not to say EQ was hard, but it was harder than any MMO of recent memory) and in a market desperate to try "new" things to stay relevent (read as voxels and MOBA classes), there is enough room for someone to try a look backwards if they have the balls to do so.
This sort of game will come out of the indie development community, and likely on a shitty engine thats more plug and play such as Unity, but just because Bad McQuaid is far too inept to accomplish it doesn't reduce the value in the idea or the potentially playerbase it could draw.
Big Flex
Fitness Fascist
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idk I skimmed the last few pages and saw a ton of it so I figured I'd chime in with my bullshit.
Vitality
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These assholes in here forgot what it was like to bonechip into an FBSS. Item value baby. Bronze Armor, Lockjaw Vest, these dudes will never remember the real struggle.
Accessibility is the chaos factor WoW injected into the genre, now everyone is trying to chase it's rollercoaster high without compensating for the pitfall lows of devaluation of content and sacrificial communities.
PS: I still play both games. EQ for when I want that value struggle. WoW just because my dumb ass friends don't know what to do with themselves.
Big Flex
Fitness Fascist
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That shit sucks man, I liked starting fresh in UO, go get a quarter staff, 50 mace fighting, 50 hiding, rob people's houses until you're got some cash. Throw explosion potions at afk people in town. Scam people and shit.
Doin dat newb dirt.
zzeris
King Turd of Shit Hill
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Actually, the market supports what sells. Everyone can say the mechanics are sound and be perfectly correct or incorrect but those same mechanics aren't going to sell or they would have. EQ was left by most players as soon as something decent was available. WoW is not successful just because it caters to the masses of casuals. It is a well made game with a few very good hooks. Support the hell out of Shroud and Camelot if you hate the current market.
Vitality
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What is this? The civil war? Shroud is pretty poop and Camelot isn't close to being out yet.
WoW is successful for the same reasons McDonalds is successful. It's the Fast Food of the genre.
WoW is a good game. McDonalds argument doesnt work with it. Most mmos are 15 a month and 7 million people are still choosing WoW for their entertainment
bixxby
Molten Core Raider
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WoW is successful because it is the best product on the market. Real talk. No other game plays as well or as consistently as woahcraf. I can't wait until someone does it better, but so far every attempt has just been shit. Either too close to WoW, played poorly, or just a combination of the two. The only MMO in the last few years that really did something awesome was the secret world, and that still played like shit most of the time.
Vitality
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I feel you on this one, although some of your statements are subject to opinion, I do enjoy WoW's ui and animation responsiveness and consider it top-tier. The actual game it interfaces with though leaves much to be desired for me. Doing things in WoW means absolutely nothing to me. Events/Achieves and gear (wows primary reward structure) have no weight for me.
Maybe it's just me. It's one of those "just because my friends are" situations.
Let me ask this:
How fun would you think a game mode in WoW would be where it mimics League of Legends item purchasing decisions during a 30 minute match.
You start naked with starting gold and accrue over time/kills, your item purchases hold weight on how well your character performs certain actions.
I personally think I'd rather play that version of WoW than the current one.
I'm tired of being a McDonalds Hero.
Jysin
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Lets not also forget what the fuck was wrong with Everquest by 2004. PoP was wrapping up with us big raid guilds dealing with about 3 months of cockblocking the Rathe Council by SoE before they tuned it to be killable. In Feb 2004, Gates of Discord launched which was possibly the biggest clusterfuck in the history of MMOs. This was the xpac that was supposed to have a level cap increase to 70, but it never happened. The entire xpac was broken as fuck and completely bug ridden.
As soon as I got my EQ2 Beta invite, I bailed on the steaming shitpile that was EQ1. I am sure tens of thousands left for Beta of both EQ2 and WoW. Once the two games released, that was pretty much the end of EQ1 as most of us EQ Vets know it.
Point being, SoE can only blame themselves for the state of EQ when everyone jumped ship in 2004. I don't think many regret leaving that mess of an xpac to this day.
Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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Yup. My point wasn't that WoW was good, it was that, once a valid alternative was available, the vast majority left and never came back. EQ went from 500k subs at end of 2004 to 200k subs at end of 2005. With an installed base (which is always resistant to change).
Try to launch a game similar in design to EQ1 today, without an established IP nor a large fan base and you're looking at less than 100k subs potential. Add the F2P rage and you're not going to get even that. That's what investors are looking at, and why you're not going to get an established studio to make one ever.
Vandyn
Blackwing Lair Raider
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What bixxby said is correct, WoW is successful because it is simply the best product on the market for what it does. This isn't any different when EQ was riding high, at the time (1999-2003) it was successful because it was the best product on the market. A better product came out in 2004 and the players never looked back. Vanilla WoW was exactly what EQ players were looking for, especially from a company not named SoE. The fact the Blizzard was behind it (at the time - Diablo 2 and WC III) gave you even more reason to jump ship.
This isn't about WoW though, it's about if the market can support a game that captures the EQ 'essence' and I'm not so sure. It would have many things going against it right off the bat (small (likely unknown) team, unknown IP, smaller budget than a AAA MMORPG, etc). Something also to think about, is the team that's going to be behind it going to be strong and not cave in when they start seeing sub/player numbers going down. What I mean by 'cave' is start putting in casual friendly elements to which point it doesn't feel like the game that originally was conceived.
Vitality
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Is P99 not a fair benchmark for the eq classic market? 1k concurrent each day. Shrug. Seems niche to me, in the current market atleast.
Bruman
Golden Squire
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And that's at a cost of zero. I wonder how many unique persons have actually leveled a toon above, say, 50 though. I'm sure it's several thousands. But still, zero cost. Negatives of dealing with really old UI / graphics, and issues playing on modern PCs (I have to run it as admin, for example, to get push-to-talk to work in Ventrillo).
Although they did a fundraiser thing recently and raised over $15k. That's pretty crazy.
Would it be viable to have an MMO which was pay-per-hour? A lot of people don't want to pay a subscription and cash shop always seems to be a kludge or P2W. What if paying for game time worked like a pre-paid phone? You pre-pay a certain amount into your account and then game time is deducted at some rate (25 cents per hour?). There could be a maximum amount deducted per month ($15?), so if you play a lot it works just like a monthly subscription. But for people who are more casual, they would only pay for the time in game.
