SWTOR: Random Complaint thread. F2P means P2Win

[Ambrosia]

Well so is Ultima Online, Lineage II, EVE Online, and several others (1997-2003). Those games were never catered to the casual crowd since those players were focused on console games, and companies didn't attempt to attract those type of players anyways: post 2004 things drastically changed.


Part of the complaint is the lack of "The Grind" but I think it goes much much deeper than that. I do wholeheartedly agree that the lack of a community (because games post 2004 made it very accessible to solo and duo in most situations) that many no longer care about building or maintaining any sort of community. Obviously it is never perfect since you have to take in the good with the bad (such as drama etc).


Many folks here who have played FFXI, and especially folks in MMORPG.com, have been waiting for that next MMO to capture their hearts like the so called "first love." This is especially true if your first MMORPG game was released somewhere between 1996-2004. Companies trying to "bridge" the casual and hardcore has ultimately failed in almost every regard post 2005. One of the very few companies that still tailors (to some extent) to the hard cores is CCP. One of their upcoming MMO titles called "World of Darkness" will have perma-death for example. Everyone's definition of casual/hardcore varies and that isn't the point of this post.


But the problem goes much deeper than grinding, or community, or the PR talk of having "challenging encounters" which almost has fallen flat post 2005. I think "One" of the main problems are the ingredients used in a MMORPG title: especially for 2012-2013 and beyond.


If you add the following ingredients (especially for a large company having a team of 150-200-300 or more):

1A. P2P model or 1B. P2P model with cash shop.

2A. EverQuest I/II/WoW clone or 2B. Lineage I/II/Aion clone (Clone being defined here as taking 90% or more and making it virtually the same with subtle differences). Nothing wrong with having "some" familiarity, but you need to separate yourself from the pack unless you are an indie company.

3. Going the theme park: extremely overused route [medieval fantasy or futuristic fantasy] MMO instead of going the sand park route.

4. Generic endgame content.

5. (Optional) Bring in maybe 1 brand new thing to the table (or a feature rarely used by other online games).


If you add all that up you will have a product that will most likely fail in the long run, especially if it follows a P2P model. It reeks of the been-there-done-that. And the majority of the people leave these types of theme park MMO games in under 6 months (fatal for P2P companies that employ a large team) since it needs a considerable amount of revenue to keep them P2P. Hence the flavor-of-the-month.


Key Point: Trend


Note that the majority of P2P games that run from the standard $12.00-$15.00 range have gone F2P or are using a hybrid model with a cash shop. The P2P model that FFXI players are used to has become so unpopular that from the year 2010 till now there has only been 5 MMO games that released as P2P (there are over 550 MMORPG currently). Rift, SWTOR, Xyson, FFXIV (although everything is riding on Version 2.0 and Yioshida has said he is open to the F2P model in a recent interview) and I am sure I am missing one other game. So there are 5 in total.

The genre has become stale, in part because of these reasons. And all of this is just the tip of the iceberg.

[Zerocool]

It's hard for me to be unbiased about FFXI as it was really my first MMO, as I'm sure is the case for most people here. Everyone longs for that "first love" feeling again, but it's never going to happen. The thing is, when we think back on our memories from FFXI, we usually only think about the good parts. But, there was just as much bad, if not more. Waiting hours on end just for a party invite to MAYBE get some exp if the party was even halfway decent. Camping kings for 3 hours a night.

I think the best thing FFXI did was bring people together to cooperate and accomplish things, which is the main reason people play an MMO in the first place. That's why people could put up with shit like LFP and kings, because they had other people around to do it with. I think one of the other things that really helped FFXI's social aspect was that it was very chat based. The chat window damn near took up half the screen and combat wasn't as fast paced as most other MMOs, so you had a lot of time to type in chat and socialize. But I'm not too sure if I agree with FORCING people to group up just to do a simple thing like level your character.

GW2 has the best shot at combining group gameplay and accessibility with it's open world dynamic events and WvW. The former will get people to actually play together without forcing them to do so and the later will bring the server together as they'll need to cooperate to compete against the other servers. I can't really say if GW2 will be the next big MMO that people play for years and years, but I do think it has the best shot at bringing that feeling of community back to MMOs.

FFXI really was one in a million, and I am a bit surprised that nobody ever tried to copy their ideas for end game with multiple ways to progress with very unique and varied end game activities. But some of the things like forced group leveling I can really do without.

[Cleverness]

Alot of good stuff

Pretty much agree with everything you said. I grew up finding P2P the standard for MMO's but nowadays that doesn't ever stick, alot of MMO's that get called the new thing or the WoW Killer(I really love this phrase, the minute you start drawing comparisons to WoW you know there's a problem)start with it like DCU, D&DO, LoTRO, etc, end up fluttering out and resorting to F2P with cash incentives. And to me I find that model to actually be a successful one, because people like free things, if its F2P and doesn't cost money to start off(not an MMO but similar to what League of Legends does) people will try it out and then you pretty much get free money from the cash shops for virtual goods.

I think a major issue with alot of recently released MMO's is that companies nowadays are not really aware how much people will actually play and burn through their content. Star Trek Online came out and was buzzing and people ended up clearing the content that was available fairly quickly. The reason that FF11 and WoW could go awhile with the PvE content they had was because you either had to farm MC -> BWL -> AQ40 -> Naxx in Vanilla WoW because of gear requirements for the following instances, and the 1 week lockout + waiting for shit to drop extended how long people had to spend there. It was the same in FF11, people had to wait on lockouts for dyna/limbus/ein/assaults/salvage/etc. In between these lockouts if you had freetime outside of these time extensive events there was still farming for money/items/etc that would partly go toward your progress in these events but also towards things that you could only get through crafting or the AH.

I'm not going to try and classify Vanilla WoW as hardcore, but MMO's these days tend to really cater to casuals and alot of the stuff you would spend time on before like farming gold is suddenly alot easier. While casuals are obviously a big demographic, if you anger the hardcore players and make a game they won't enjoy or even 1 that will outlast them a month they will simply leave after the free month is over and you're just another game that ends up going F2P and probably lost alot of money until that happened.

And agreeing with Zerocool, the fun thing about FF11 content was there was such a diversity and so much that you could pick and choose which you wanted to do. There are some people who never did Dynamis, and I never even touched Salvage until the level cap increases. The objectives, party layout and progression of all these events was different and it really helped endgame from feeling stale if you did more than 1(except for 4hr Dyna, fuck 4hr Dyna). Most games don't offer these many alternatives and pigeonhole you into a handful of options, most normally the "work through a dungeon and kill some bosses and then a big boss for the final loot", and it's surprising noone decides to think that far ahead in launching an MMO and do something similar to FF11 besides saying you either do PvE dungeons or PvP.

People aren't really willing to stick around an MMO nowadays because there's no clue where the game is headed. Reason WoW and FF11 can still get away with P2P is they have been out a long time and people know what they are getting into, there's no real surprise. Which is good for the consumer because it lets you know whether it's what you want in a game. Unless a company is willing to go through an extended development phase to mesh out a REALLY detailed endgame design and not go with "just go with the barebones and we'll build it as we go", similar occurrences of launches failing to meet their hype will occur. But people tend to have ridiculous expectations regarding new MMO's also and that also plays a factor.

[Grey Jorildyn]

I agree with a lot that has been said as well. It sucks TOR didn't do anything good for the genre (VA is just bogus /spacebar). No game will ever capture the "feeling" early XI had because it was indeed a different era. With the change in eras also came a change in the type of player methinks.

Back then there was the 80/90s gamer crowd, which had a lot of imagination. We read books, played MUDs, grew up mostly without internet or had dial-up (wtf is broadband??). Those games that encouraged teamwork stuck with us and it's what we wanted. Nobody cared about graphics or flashy shit. Sure seeking for 2-3h wasn't fun but you did it because you had no choice. To some degree you actually liked it, believe it or not, and it gave you some really strange sense of accomplishment to achieve goals like 75 DRG, even if all your "friends" laughed at you. It was about you, them, and the game. Nothing else mattered.

Today's kiddies don't think like we did. They need immediate gratification. They need quest leveling to solo. They need dungeon finder. They need superior graphics. They need easily digestible storylines their feeble minds won't get lost in. This is a generation of gamers with little to no real imagination and these wow-clones cater to them. It's little wonder developers don't put in the effort (and really, why bother?) to make a game with staying power. It's not gonna hook our generation anyway. We all got jobs, families, lives now. Disposable income and, more important, disposable time isn't the same for our generation anymore. So that puts us in the minority.

So you can keep looking for that mmo to capture the feeling of DaoC, EQ, FFXI, UO... you won't find it because "they don't make games like that anymore". It's 100% true, and equally as saddening.

[CasualPlayer]

You're post made me sad Grey.

We may be the minority but we're still a large group if you think in terms of how many subs it takes to actually make a profit from an MMO, certaintly enough to warrant creating a game tailored for us. The point about the different types of content the 90's games offered was another good one. Games today are just standard dungeon pve or pvp.

I'm not sure about the whole casual argument though. SWTOR will be a great game to watch because it is based purely with the casual gamer in mind. If it still ends up losing all its subs and going F2P then casual gamers aren't sticking around either. We're saying games are made for the casual crowd today but the casuals aren't sticking around. Something else has to be going on. If you look at Rift it is another perfect example of this.

[Zerocool]

Yeah, that's a good point. A lot of these games that say they're catered for casuals aren't even keeping the casuals around. I think a big part of that is there just isn't enough for them to do once they cap their first character out. Most MMOs that release today will have maybe a few "hard mode" dungeons, and one or two raids. That's all there is to do aside from some half-assed attempt of PvP and the same dailies every day.

If we look at FFXI, there was a ton to do even for casuals, after you leveled your first job to cap. First of all, it took a long time for people to even get their first job to level cap what with limit breaks and actually getting in to parties and getting exp and everything. You had AF gear to get, level your subjobs, and some people would even stop to farm money to get some of the more decent gear. Just leveling a character to cap did really give you a sense of accomplishment because it took so long and took a lot of effort. There was so much important character progression outside of just the job level that it kept it interesting and kept you pushing for the top. I'm sure everyone had their own reasons to keep pushing themselves to cap, but for me seeing pictures of the bigger end game wyrms and people in their high level gear really made me strive for it.

And then, after alllll of that, not only did you have several ways to progress your fresh 75 at end game, you had other stuff to do as well that didn't require you to "raid" for end game gear. You could exp for merits, level other jobs on your same character, craft, farm for gil, camp lesser NMs for rare gear (which a lot of was still better than "end game" gear at the time), BCNMS, rank missions, expansion missions, etc. End game gear was also pretty rare so it kept you farming bosses. But, it was spaced out enough that it didn't get stale after 1 or 2 fights. I think after about 4 years of playing FFXI, I still had fun doing something simple like Gods. Then after ToAU came out, they added even more varied end game activities that were fun and interesting in their own right.

[Grey Jorildyn]

All that "extra" content is indeed missing from today's mmos. I'm not sure how devs think they're going to appease any crowd, casual or otherwise, without a variety of things to do outside of raiding. I think the interaction (purposefully done in XI) between the 72h lockouts and the farm-spam content struck a decent balance, giving you lots to do between Dynamis, Limbus, etc. runs. How has that been approached lately? Dailies. Boring fucking daily quests no one wants to do endlessly, but they do because there's nothing else.

I got all my Rakata accessories in the minimum amount of days it took to get all three pieces (grinded that shit out like no man's business), but then there was nothing left for me to do besides PvP, which as we all know is a huge clusterfuck lol There definitely needs to be more shit to do, and flashpoints don't cut it cuz no one really truly cares about the stories they have (and they have little replay value), and the gear is whatever. You're better off spending time levelling solo and upgrading commendation oranges than spamming flashpoints to try and get "rare" set drops for your class. Just poorly done. Sadly, this isn't too much different to how other games handle it and it's all just very bland.

If devs (any game) start designing their games a bit "harder" like XI or w/e. there's a fear of losing what they consider "guaranteed" subscribers. The fear is so strong they don't even talk about it, ever. Shit only gets easier as the life of a mmo continues. Sure, WE (read: the mass minority that desires challenge in our online gaming adventures) wants harder content that we have to work for and gives us a sense of accomplishment, but we're the crowd that is too risky to cater to because we are a dying breed.

[Trichocyst]

It took me over two years to get my first 75 (THF from NA launch) and when I tell most people that they are baffled that such a thing could happen. The sad thing is I felt really unwelcome in end game and other events and ultimately missed out on quite a bit of content on a class I really enjoyed before that. I really enjoy ToR just like I enjoyed other MMOs that weren't FFXI, but surviving that gave me a wildly different slant to other games. It's almost like getting hazed into a fraternity. It wasn't pleasant, but surviving it sure gave you a sense of loyalty. I don't think it's ever going to happen again and I don't think games in general will ever be difficult like they used to be (outside of small niches). I once left Ninja Gaiden on for three days straight trying to beat that final level. I never did. A friend of mine said he beat Battletoads and I called him a boldfaced liar. I also don't think RPGs will ever be the way I loved them growing up, or maybe I'm just getting too old.

[Lucavi]

Why aren't you still playing XI if it is the be-all-end-all of MMOs throughout history (IE: your first true MMO experience)? Yes, the modern MMOs follow the same script, but if XI's design was so good, why wasn't it successfully copied? Why did no companies attempt to make money off of players that play for 4+ years, if it takes 4+ years to level a few jobs to cap? Why did no companies design game that revolves around world HNM spawns that spawn once a week with a potential chance to grab an item if so many throngs of players are willing to stick around in that game in an attempt to get said rare item for years and years? Isn't that a lot of potential money that these companies have lost out on? Isn't that the point of a company making a MMO: to make money?

The only solution must be that you people that view XI's experience as the most excellent experience in any MMO aren't large enough in numbers to convince these companies that what you like about MMOs is what should exist in modern MMOs. FFXI's total population was what, maybe 750k at best, worldwide? Lets try and take the number of hardcore players - the ones that truly bought into what SE was selling, and that stuck around for years and years faithfully - out of that percentage of 750k. Lets remove the chaff, and put a number to the wheat. Would you say, perhaps, 25% of the total XI population was hardcore - like yourselves? That's around, what, 195k players total, give or take? The rest of the players may have joined and played for awhile and quit after awhile, or maybe never got a class to 75, or maybe got a few to 75 but never HNMed or salvaged, ect; never killed Kirin or the Jailers or AV or PW or Odin or any of that; they just played a bit, leveled up, did some campaign or something, and called it a day.

So that 195k in XI that truly bought into the system, is that enough to make a blip on the radar of the crop of MMOs that came out after it? Is that enough to make a blip on the radar of MMOs that developers are shooting to have - at least - 1 million subs at launch? That's around 20% of what EA/Bioware was shooting for with Star Wars; that's about 20% of what Rift wound up grabbing initially, and that's around 3% of what WoW snagged in its prime. Do you really think that 20% out of Rift and Star Wars and 3% out of WoW is enough to turn the heads of Devs?

I'm not disagreeing with anything that you're saying, or agreeing with it; I'm trying to put things into perspective. Just like most of us get frustrated at what we perceive to be nickel-and-dime tactics with the recent wave of DLC-gimmicks aimed at both hardcore gamers who these companies know will buy anything they produce, and casual players who will pick up whatever they think sounds nice without caring about the logic or statements behind it, we'd get frustrated at the current MMOs employing "race-to-the-finish-and-then-grind" approaches to their MMOs, aimed not only at hardcores who will play the game regardless, but at casuals who are just looking at a few months of fun in the sun. The people who care enough to argue or raise an objection to the practices of a company are not who said companies are targeting with their product, because they know that you cannot please the vocal crowd easily. This is simple reality. These companies are not making these games for you, and because your numbers are so small; because you are a minority, your voice will not be heard.

Just like SE didn't listen to the NA/EU crowds because we weren't their target audience, but were mere benefits - icing on the cake, if you will - to landing japanese box sales, subs, and merchandise sales, EA/Bioware, Trion, ect. are not going to listen to the 20% over the 80%, especially when everyone's money is the same shade of green. Its just the way it is. Only when a game begins floundering will a company listen to the most vocal of the player-base. You saw it with countless games in the past, including AOC, Warhammer, AO, FFXIV, SO and even a bit with Rift, WoW, and Star Wars now, although I won't go so far as to consider either of the three as "floundering", simply leveling off of their initial rushes, which has been happening to WoW since WotLK came out.

I don't mean to demean anyone here. I value all of your opinions. It just kind of makes me sad reading these recent posts over the last few days. You sound like a few tired salarymen in some corner of a run-down bar, lamenting over the loss of the good ol' days, while the world, and those in it who aren't taking it so seriously, passes you by.

I don't know if we'll ever see a day where the middle-ground players; the ones who are passionate about a game, but won't blindly throw money at it if changes aren't made, or who won't run away from it as soon as they get their fix or initial boredom with it; will ever become the group that devs attempt to cater to the most. I don't think we'll see it so long as devs only care about box sales, monthly subs, and/ore cash shop revenue. I suppose you could say that an indie company would have the best interests of the most ardent crowd in mind, but, well... you get what you pay for with an indie product; usually graphically-inferior, conceptually-inferior, and inferior in scale, due to the limited budget.

I guess I'm just trying to say... don't take it so seriously, guys. Like it or not, those days are over, and if you really want that old-school experience, XI is still there. You posted about how graphics and whatnot don't matter, so you shouldn't have a problem with XI's graphics, or anything else it has - flaws or otherwise.

[Grey Jorildyn]

Personally I think these mmo companies need to just work inside a framework of what they know is successful and then give us the game they intended to develop. I am pretty sick and tired of that 80% crowd (who are generally also the least intelligent players) getting to make all the decisions for the future of the game. Remember when we didn't like how a game played but we finished it to do it? Well same shit imo! Put out your mmo and you'll get a crowd that likes it, hopefully enough to sustain your developments costs (hence the safe starting point).

Games should be developed and we should play them. I think the entitled players simply have too much influence on today's mmos and none of them have staying power. Perhaps that's the problem, or simply a common thread throughout all of their failues. I dunno, but somebody knows. Someone much wiser than me who studies these things or whatever. But I think this is why we liked XI. Yeah they didn't listen to us... and ya know what? I didn't care. If I didn't like their game enough, I'd just leave if I could pull myself away. Same for any other game played by someone reasonable. You can't make every mmo for every person and in trying to do so you are only fulfilling the inevitability of the phrase "you can't make everyone happy".

I just wish they'd realize this and stop trying to.

[Alderaan]

I don't think anyone is asking for the bad parts of XI like camping world spawns and really slow combat. What i personally want is a reason to log on every single day. Something that encourages people to do so instead of 1 or 2 nights a week to clear some raid content. That's what builds communities and what's missing from the current crop of MMO's. Daily's don't count and i'd like to shoot whoever thought that mechanic was a step forward. The problem is of course, is it possible?

We logged onto FFXI every day because if we didn't we fell behind or we would miss a chance at gear. That model simply doesn't work for casuals or the majority today. I'll be the first to say that i don't have the time or patience to camp shit ever again. That was 8 years ago and I'm done with that. So how do we get the good parts of XI without the bad? That would be the holy grail.

[Maaglin]

I prefer a combat system leaning more toward XI, then having 1000009408209 abilities to manage or throw into an "I win" script/macro.

Best thing about XI was having more than just raids at end game. A lot of variety that yielded worthwhile rewards. Don't understand why that type of endgame isn't modeled more.

[Ambrosia]

@Zerocool:

Pretty much. I've accepted the fact that "The First Love" feeling might never come back. Mine being EverQuest II. And while I consider 1996-2004 to be the "Golden Era" of MMORPGs, by no means did any of them attain perfection. Like you said it had the good parts as well as the bad. Many of them had rough launches compared to today's standards and were buggy as hell. For 2012 I agree in seeing Guild Wars 2 having the best shot and for 2013 ArcheAge as a sandbox title. Everything else in between (even though I will be playing several others) are going to be what folks call flavor-of-the-month and have a mass exodus in under 6 months... mainly because companies follow those ingredients I posted up there so rigidly.


@Cleverness:

Pretty much it's for that main reason as to why so many companies either close shop or do severe server merges that they have to do the F2P with P2W cash shop (usually). Only a few strictly stick with the vanity cash shop, but even then, they end up "evolving" into P2W shops. And you would be correct that the F2P is popular especially with indie/small/mid-sized companies. But large companies releasing "supposedly" AAA titles end up going this route to increase the longevity of the title: path of least resistance. The other option is closing down.

One of the big reasons people are not willing to stick around is because of the been-there-done-that-feeling. And this ties to my points above about using those same ingredients over and over again. Then mass exodus ensues, and when you have 70%, 80%, or 90% of the population leave across all servers in under a year, well then that shiny MMORPG all of a sudden starts to feel like a single player game. I for one won't be paying $15.00 a month for what feels like a single player game. Hence why the P2P model has become so unpopular in recent years (and from the example I gave above only 5 have been released under this model since 2010). Companies can't sustain that model for the long run.


@Grey Jorildyn:

You bring up some good points: especially about the geeky crowd. MMORPG companies back in the day had a target audience. Nowadays companies use the throw-everything-at-the-screen-and-let's-see-what-sticks. And the majority of them have failed forcing them to shut down or quickly go F2P with a P2W cash shop. It goes back to the ingredient comment I gave Zero in this post. We used to read books and some of us did play MUDs (and while they still do exist) the community for them are extremely on the light side. Nowadays everyone needs the TL:dR because God forbid a post is more than 3 sentences long. And I think everyone can agree that no one enjoyed seeking for 2 hours or more. I would end up making most of my parties to avoid this (although sometimes it could not be helped).

Almost everything does seem that it "needs" to be in a digestible state: and companies are more than happy to supply it. In part it is because of the greed and why we have the "WOW Clone Era: 2004-Present" epidemic. It is because of that attitude about not putting any substantial effort into the RPG portion of MMORPG that we have it eroding away. And yeah pretty much that generation grew up (and are most likely in their 30's or 40's or more) that we are no longer the focus in the gaming industry (for quite some time). It goes back to the path of least resistance. We will make such and such game with "tried and true mechanics" (translation: old and stale) and if that falls apart... well we can go the F2P with P2W route. Everyone (the company) wins! It is too risky to go outside the norm. If it were not the case, we wouldn't have all these clones all over the place.


@Casual Player:

You are correct the hard cores are leaving because they attain everything in a month or two. The casuals leave because the majority of them probably aren't true MMORPG gamers to begin with. They are usually the console crowd. You know the type that picks up a game plays it for a couple of weeks or a couple of months and then moves on? The thing is these same people treat the MMORPG genre like this. The other case in point is the feeling of been there done that that has made many leave within a couple of months. Hey if you are an indie/small/mid-sized company with 2 or 4 or 6 servers going the F2P route then chances are you will do fine, so long as "enough" people enjoy your games. But this is a death sentence for major companies that employ 150-200-300 folks as well as the tens of millions of dollars in the price tag. Large companies have been canceling MMORPG games (especially in the recent years) or have gutted them into a single player game or online game instead.

It isn't worth the time anymore for the majority of the larger companies to delve into the MMORG genre especially if they want to follow the P2P theme park fantasy model. It is because companies are rigidly following that ingredient list as well as doing the throw-everything-at-the-screen-and-let's-see-what-sticks instead of going for a target audience. And I don't mean the utter bullshit companies have said since 2005 till now (when it became prevalent) about "bridging" the casual and the hard core players in one game. It has in almost every case never succeeded for games released post 2005. Oh and of course instead of only having a dozen or so games there are over 550 now, that might be a problem as well.


@Trichocyst:

I beat BattleToads... only once... using the warp points... as well as using a guide. Hmmm. The only large company nowadays that still targets (to some extent) the hardcore gamers in a P2P MMOPRPG would be CCP. I might be missing one other, but if you guys know do tell!


@Lucavi:

Point I.

As far as copying FFXI. Well there is a good reason the majority of the games that were released from 2005-2012 did not: World of Warcraft. Comparing populations FFXI at one point reached around 500k while World of Warcraft reached 12 million. The majority of these companies got greedy and by doing so tried to make clones out of World of Warcraft instead of these other games: again greed and path of least resistance. Greed allowed the majority of these companies to reach new levels of stupidity. Look at Star Wars Galaxies. It was a popular sandbox MMORPG with over 300k subscriptions at one point. And due to the all mighty wisdom of the top 2% that ran the show from behind the scenes, they thought it would be a good idea to try and copy WOW with the release of NGE.

It failed miserably and the majority of the complaints fell on death ears on the official forums. You would think they would learn from this. Well follow those rigid ingredients I posted up there and for some wonderful reason you have SWTOR. Sure in the short term it is doing well and I am pretty sure they were banking on the IP as well as the one additional feature of voice acting. But most of the servers are hurting pretty badly: for a game that is not older than 5 months.

Point II.

Companies want to make money, but most want to make it the easy way (all evidence showing how the majority of these companies failed with their P2P WOW clones post 2005). The thing is, like I showed with the SWG example, they simply don't learn or they pull out completely from the MMORPG genre leaving it to the indie/small/mid-sized companies: which usually means F2P with a P2W cash shop.

Point III.

Yes it is true that the crowd Grey described has become a vocal minority. Every single major company creating their next MMO project is definitely not making their game for the hard core folks (only one I can think of is CCP with EVE Online and World of Darkness). The problem is that companies today not only don't care about a specific target audience but they don't care about the longevity of their games. Games that used to have a healthy population players base that would last close to a decade now barely lasts for more than a year.

Point IV:

It is sad that companies only hear (sometimes) the minority group when: A game begins floundering will a company listen to the most vocal of the player-base.

Guess what?

If you follow those ingredients to the T, every major company's MMOPRG title will end up floundering at an extremely accelerated pace (months not years).

Point V:

This is probably the main problem as to why all these different companies have made and are still making the same mistakes: I don't think we'll see it so long as Devs only care about box sales, monthly subs, and/or cash shop revenue. The problem is that this type of mentality which has become extremely prevalent post 2005 is one of the main reasons why ALL of these games end up closing down or going F2P within a year or two and having a mass exodus of players leaving a barren community. And I am sure most of us wouldn't pay $15 a month for a MMORPG that feels like a single player game because everyone (plus the lonely tumbleweed) left.

Point VI:

Agree with the Indie comment. Spot on.

Point VII:

I agree those days are over... but so is the longevity of almost every single one of those games... ...as well as any potential "amazing" expansion packs (especially games released from 1996-2004: some upwards to 18 expansions packs)... nowadays you rarely see any of them releasing more than 1... and most likely the P2P model dying off as well... ...and separating the RPG from the MMO and allowing it to erode away ...and the majority of folks leaving under 6 months leaving the MMORPG title feeling like a single player game...among other things.

[tol]

Players now are too focused with all the good things they supposedly left behind in xxx MMO of their past to let most current gen MMO develop their game. Oddly they aren't playing the MMO they found far superior to anything these days. Hmmm. I have a lot of fond memories of many of the MMO I've played in the past but I thank the fucking heavens that devs aren't copying the shit from games that some of you people are talking about.

[Trichocyst]

I'd never play FFXI again. I have too many bad memories of when the game was so demanding (and I've heard that they made everything a lot easier which kinda just disappoints me). To paraphrase the Simpsons, "New MMOs reward you for success, FFXI punishes you for failure."

[Lordender]

I agree, the gamer has changed drastically over the past 7 or so years, what you have these days are gamers coming into the scene of "pick up and play" I like to say "Call of Duty crowd" where any and everyone just picks up whatever game and plays it without needing to invest lots of time in it. What we have is the old generation of gamers, those who grew up on NES/SNES games that were grindy/cryptic(meaning you have to talk to people in town to find out where to go next) and the new gamers that have only played games that are about 8hrs long plus almost all guess work and grind has been removed.

What do you get when you throw both crowds together?

Modern MMO's, you have the older more loyal crowds vs the newer less loyal crowd which leads to MMO musical chairs. The older crowd looks for that "first experience" MMO where they find themselves immersed in this gigantic world where they forge friendships that eventually evolve into guilds. The newer crowd is perfectly happy to hit that queue button, wants to see the content and doesn't really care to be immersed in a game world or puts a high value in forging friendships. The newer crowd wants to be in and out, I view the new crowd of gamers like products on some conveyor belt in a factory.

The clusterfuck now falls onto the dev's, how do we cater to and please everyone? The answer is simple, you can't and here is why:

Your older MMO players played games that were cryptic, grindy, challenging because everything required lots and lots of time to get things done, endgame was not for everyone, you were a special snowflake when your guild was able to thrive in the said endgame.

Your newer MMO players play games that tell you what to do,where to go, get level capped in a couple of days, everyone is an endgamer no matter how good or crappy of a player they are, nobody is a special snowflake anymore.

Companies have adopted the newer MMO player method and now its an uphill battle between the two crowds. Each bone a company throws to either crowd just pisses off the other, both crowds have such a hard time co-existing. Using WoW as an example, this is why almost all WoW veterans wish Blizzard would revert back to "The Burning Crusade" model because not everyone could be a raider in those days, you were either cut out to be an endgamer or you were not. To make matters worse you now have a genre that has become severely stagnated since 2004, two types of gamers that hate one another and dev's being completely unable to find a solution to any of it. If anything, multiple difficulties for endgame has made matters much much more worse. People just run it on the easiest difficulty(path of the least resistance) which leads to content not lasting for more than a few weeks after a patch which leads to burn out faster than ever before and huge turn over rates.


This is the plight of the MMO genre, I don't see how it can be fixed.

[CasualPlayer]

I don't think anyone is asking for the bad parts of XI like camping world spawns and really slow combat. What i personally want is a reason to log on every single day. Something that encourages people to do so instead of 1 or 2 nights a week to clear some raid content. That's what builds communities and what's missing from the current crop of MMO's. Daily's don't count and i'd like to shoot whoever thought that mechanic was a step forward. The problem is of course, is it possible?

We logged onto FFXI every day because if we didn't we fell behind or we would miss a chance at gear. That model simply doesn't work for casuals or the majority today. I'll be the first to say that i don't have the time or patience to camp shit ever again. That was 8 years ago and I'm done with that. So how do we get the good parts of XI without the bad? That would be the holy grail.

This.

I don't think anyone is asking for the bad parts of XI like camping world spawns and really slow combat. What i personally want is a reason to log on every single day. Something that encourages people to do so instead of 1 or 2 nights a week to clear some raid content. That's what builds communities and what's missing from the current crop of MMO's. Daily's don't count and i'd like to shoot whoever thought that mechanic was a step forward. The problem is of course, is it possible?

We logged onto FFXI every day because if we didn't we fell behind or we would miss a chance at gear. That model simply doesn't work for casuals or the majority today. I'll be the first to say that i don't have the time or patience to camp shit ever again. That was 8 years ago and I'm done with that. So how do we get the good parts of XI without the bad? That would be the holy grail.

This.

Some really interesting view points here. I think a lot lf people are saying a company will make more money by appeasing the casual gamers even knowing they are only going to stick around for a few months. Does that really make the most sense financially? Even though ffxi maybe had 500k loyal subs those people put in years. Excluding WoW you have games that hit 1-3mil and then F2P in 6mon. Not sure if that is better for a company in the end.

Regardless....

I'm still not sure why companies are refusing to copy the some of the end game elements from a game like ffxi where there was a variety of things to do. It's not like the hardcore crowd is asking for exceptionally difficult content, just mlre than the log in and do a raid or daily fare.

As Grey said....a reason to log on more than twice a week.

[Zerocool]

I have no delusions of somebody ever making a game like FFXI again, nor would I play it if they did. Like I said in previous posts, the forced grouping just to level and grinding mobs I could never do again. My point was that devs need to step away from the raid only grind end game model and start doing something like FFXI did and provide varied end-game activities for people to play. Yeah, FFXI was never as popular as WoW, but neither was any game that game after WoW that tried to copy it's model. And if you look at all those WoW clones now they've pretty much all gone F2P/are about to or have shut down. While FFXI is still running off of subscriptions. Sure it's a small niche crowd, but it's probably still turning a profit. I don't think that WoW's end game model is popular, I think that WoW is popular and people aren't going to leave it to play something exactly the same when they've already put so much time into WoW.

[Alderaan]

LOTRO's game world
GW2's combat and dynamic event system
FFXI's class system - 1 character for every class (this also supports getting to know people instead of alts)
WoW/Rift raiding
SWG's crafting
GW2's PVP - seriously, enough splitting the server into 2 factions (also supports server pride)
FFXI's alt raiding -multiple routes for gear (minus the crappy itemization of course)
Alternate elite areas for people to group grind in
Eliminate low drop rates and instead make content difficult

Genre fixed!

[Lucavi]

This.



This.

Some really interesting view points here. I think a lot lf people are saying a company will make more money by appeasing the casual gamers even knowing they are only going to stick around for a few months. Does that really make the most sense financially? Even though ffxi maybe had 500k loyal subs those people put in years. Excluding WoW you have games that hit 1-3mil and then F2P in 6mon. Not sure if that is better for a company in the end.

Regardless....

I'm still not sure why companies are refusing to copy the some of the end game elements from a game like ffxi where there was a variety of things to do. It's not like the hardcore crowd is asking for exceptionally difficult content, just mlre than the log in and do a raid or daily fare.

As Grey said....a reason to log on more than twice a week.

Its interesting how your mindset has changed since the launch of XIV. I can actually... discuss things with you now. Its interesting.

Anyway, I think these companies were trying to jump onto the "I can design a MMO that can soak up 13 mil subs too~!!" boat for such a long time that they stifled their own innovation, because they felt that they didn't need to innovate to grab a humongous chunk of subs. Make a game 85% like WoW, throw in a little twist and gimmick, and rake in the subs. I try not to put Rift into this pool, because Rift really tried to add to the WoW experience, especially with the job system, and they tried to give people something to do every day outside of PVP and Raids. Its just that their dynamic content isn't very dynamic once you've done it for awhile, and once you have an entire server that has done much of it, or simply out-leveled it, the new players can't really enjoy it either. Trion tried, however, and are still trying, so I will not throw them under the bus. I'll tee off on every other company, though.

I think if/when these companies start getting the WoW sub numbers out of their head, we might see a little bit of companies trying to keep players for a few years. If you take XI's 500-750k peak and compare it to Rift and SW's peaks, its not -that- far off. Rift probably had around 1.25 million, and SW probably had something similar. Those numbers aren't big enough to call themselves anything close to a WoW-killer, but they -are- big enough to bring in such a massive profit to the company that they still feel that they don't have to listen to the non-casual players. When these games start winding down off of their massive subs, then end up with around that magical 750k sub number (although SW won't tell us how many people are currently playing), which, while still superlatively profitable (the average MMO company only needs to retain about 100k subs to stay profitable, I believe), isn't some absurd goal.

I think when companies start realizing that they aren't going to invent the new WoW until they do what WoW did and bring something that the current generation didn't even know it needed and craved, they can start designing these new MMOs based off of pleasing the 20%, instead of the 80%, and start designing for longevity over initial box sales and subs. When the stockholders aren't getting their hopes up for some 3 million launch and all the profits that come with it, perhaps the devs will receive a bit more leeway to implement what story and game they actually want to produce, instead of what will sell the most initially. Its just going to take some time, as those magical WoW numbers are going to be fresh in the shareholder's minds for a long time.

As for a XI-model game, your best bet is some indie company that absolutely loved what the game brought. Yes, XI had variation to its activities, with crafting, farming, xping, various forms of end-game action (dynamis, limbus, sky, sea, ect.) Remember two things, though:

1) This stuff didn't appear overnight. Hell, when all of us got the game, it was already on its first expansion pack, which brought the sweeping majority of the events that people consider when they speak of all the things to do in XI, and the subsequent expansions of CoP and ToAU, brought even more. I will respect XI for having fluff events like Chocobo racing and Pankration, earlier than any other MMO, even if people didn't use them for long.

2) The XI side-activities were a combination of heavily grindy and extremely taxing. Even when you consider something like leveling a craft or fishing, the system was tedious, grind-centric, and failures were abound left and right. They also had cryptic systems like the day/night cycle and elements that brought a combination of enjoyment, wonder, and frustration. You certainly had something to do every day, even if it was sitting LFG for 13 hours a day on your Drg or Drk, but only if you had the strength of will at times to level that craft through a frustrating stretch of failures or farm for hours while seeking to afford that next upgrade from the AH. Anyone who couldn't hack it left the game or did something else, and wasn't considered in the 20% of hardcores who thrived.

3) For these side-events, SE gave us no real insight as to when they were coming out. We had no idea what CoP was going to give us in terms of side content, nor did we have any idea for ToAU. The only real knowledge we had prior to an expansion was snippets about what job would be introduced, and a bit about the Campaign system when WotG launched (though WotG lauched with essentially nothing BUT Campaign).

These points bring interesting ideas to mind, when dealing with MMOs of the future. It has to remind us all that we must remain patient: if we were playing Vanilla XI, with no PVP, no Dynamis, no Sky, no end-game short of a few HNMs in zones like the Shitadel, and the max-rank Nation missions as essentially the pinnacle of end-game content, we very well might have become bored with the game. Its essentially like allowing Rift and SW to bring out an expansion, and all the content and fixes that comes with it, before we're even allowed to really catch wind of the overall product itself. We'd have tons of content and things to do.