Well, now what?

Draegan_sl said:

Just because it's fun I'll answer.

First, let's assume you're not paying your team of developers the $50,000 to $150,000 a year for art assets, world development, QA, Project Management, IT, Network Engineering, Systems Engineering, UI development, not to mention class balance, class development, mob AI scripting etc. etc. etc. etc. Let's also assume you're not buying hardware, or computers for all these people that are working on the game (tons of money).

You still have to pay for bandwith, server hardware which I guess can be inexpensive if you're looking at only 10 or so people playing your game.
You still have to pay for all the backend server network code and stuff.
You still have to pay for a already developed game engine and set of development tools.

Wasn't there a failed kinda sci-fi ish old MMO that released their game assets to the public a few years ago?

Anyway, you could probably do it if you had a group of friends that were super tech friendly. But if you don't, you would probably need 5-10 million depending on the scope of the project.

Edit:
Kitsune probably has the right answer, and picking up some old as fuck game engine that is 2D would probably be the way you could go. You can do a cheap as hell flash or 2D sprite game for much less.

Or you can make a MUD like this:http://www.kaldana.com/

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Ryzom released their assets. I assume that was the referenced game.

On May 6, 2010, Winch Gate announced the full release of source code and artwork, and a partnership with the Free Software Foundation to host a repository of the game's artistic assets. Ryzom offers a portal for open source development of their GPL licensed engine NeL, on which the game Ryzom is based

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Yup that's exactly what I was thinking about.

Playing Path of Exile, and they have a crazyridiculous skill tree, but it makes it so pretty much any class can play however they want. Some classes will start closer to skills that give them more attack power, health, defensive stuff, etc. While others are closer to magic and whatnot - but they can branch out and after a few levels end up going down whatever route they wish. It got me thinking about MMOs - a new type of class system like this. Guild Wars tried to get rid of the holy trinity, but I personally and quite a few others despised it. What's not to say though that they can still let everyone play any role they want to, as long as they spec into it. There will still be tanks and healers and dps, etc. Obviously there will be a lot more DPS but if it is setup along the lines of the way Path of Exile has it, even healers could dish out some decent damage.

Unfortunately, I know there will still probably be cookie cutter builds, but the point is to bring everything to the table for everyone. I'm still a fan of defined roles, but I'm just surprised nobody has really bothered with this? Closes I can think of is Rift..

TSW is kind of similar, but they don't have starting points, just one.

Hai!

Caliane_sl said:

yeah, I feel that is completely wrong as well. Right off the bat, suggesting UO and EQ weren't built in the effort to make money is just stupid. Sub fees started for a reason right from the start.

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There?s a big difference between, ?hey I have this great idea, how can we make money off it? and, ?hey, I wanna make some money, got any ideas??.

The later is how games, movies and music are made today and why they suck. It?s one thing to do it that way with technology. It gives you efficiency, advancement, optimization and lower prices for consumers. But games, movies and music are art and you can?t make ?good art? when your only motive is money

I think as has been noted here, the genre needs some new blood. It seems we have so much recycling of game designers and project managers that we aren't moving the MMO genre forward enough. Even games that have some innovation still use most of the same design of previous games.

I believe with EQN that no information besides "SANDBOX!" and "NEVER SEEN BEFORE" and other silly buzzwords and shit with nothing actually available to view/critique til later in the year. TESO has revealed some underwhelming (to this board) mechanics/videos/ideas that rustle the shit out of some jimmies. EQ Classic isn't EQ during the 99-02 era, how that is largely would derive from how -you- felt about the 99-02 era in relation to all games that have been released since then. FFIVX is getting more upbeat reviews than it did the first time around, but the current consensus seems to be more of a wait and see sorta deal. Wildstar, comparatively, is building the hypes based upon the expanded MMO audience since WoW's release. It's not doing much that is "new" but it is taking the WoW path of refinement and making shit that already exists "better."

So, from someone who hasn't actually played any of the games I just mentioned and just encapsulating what is in the threads surrounding them, Wildstar and FFIVX are the frontrunners at the moment. With EQN... it really is anybody's guess, as nothing minus a couple of troll-ass tweets from Smedley and the same type of insider information (lawlz) that we had about how AWESOME 38S' game was going to be and how we are all gonna be blown away by it. Beyond that? Not a drop of actual info.

And then Dumar.

The only really different game out there is Second Life. Most other MMOs are still firmly locked into DIKU MUD style. Second Life is about as sandboxy as you're going to get but most people log on, don't have a clue of what to do and log off.

Grim1_sl said:

..and Pandas.

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You mean Blood Elves?

Wildstar certainly has my interest at the moment, but I'm sure two months after release I'll either be bored or banned, we'll see.

I have to wonder if they're doing anything in EQN like territory control that they do it Planetside. I know planetside is its own game, but Smed has actually been doing a really good job with his team on PS2 IMO. Cash shop is sorta lame, but you can earn everything by just playing the game as well, or buy them with money and save yourself a day or two. Of course that's mostly PvP but who says there can't be some sort of territory control anyways even for pve? It'd be neat.

The psychological effect of paying a subscription fee somehow elevates MMO into the realm of "It has to be completely perfect and so engrossing that I dedicate every minute of my free time to it." When really what you pay is simply proportional to the amount of content you are getting.

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So much this. Because of the psychological effect of a monthly fee, I feel as though if I'm not playing every single day and getting my "money's worth", I'd rather not play at all. This is a big part of the reason why I'm sticking to F2P MMOs from here on out. It's also a big part of the reason why I quit every new MMO within a month(them generally sucking after that doesn't help either). I just don't have the time commitment available to play daily anymore.

Kirun_sl said:

So much this. Because of the psychological effect of a monthly fee, I feel as though if I'm not playing every single day and getting my "money's worth", I'd rather not play at all. This is a big part of the reason why I'm sticking to F2P MMOs from here on out. It's also a big part of the reason why I quit every new MMO within a month(them generally sucking after that doesn't help either). I just don't have the time commitment available to play daily anymore.

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Yep. Why pay for WoW when there are a baziilion clones that offer the same crappy PvE for free.

Although, if a mmo was different enough, I wanted to play it and no F2P mmo provided the same experience, then a sub would be fine. EVE is an example, every now and then I sub up for a few months.

And areally goodRvR PvP mmo (not in space) I would gladly pay more than 15 a month for.

I'm looking forward to titan... that's about it.