Future MMO Prospects

[Ignacius]

I've always said the best way to make an MMO with a vibrant, thriving economy is to make equipment fairly easy to come by, but make sure that when it breaks, it actually breaks and can't be "fixed."

 

The best idea that I've had to solve the usual gear grind vs. consequences argument in any MMO (though this applies to themeparks in particular) is to disjoin equipment from "stats."

 

Take this hypothetical: you have clothes, armor and weapons that you can equip and use, and these may allow you to do something and give a logical bonus. The big bonuses, though, would come from intangible things like setting talents and skills or acquiring "mods" which stand in for the idea of "gear" as a themepark MMO views it.

 

This way you wouldn't ever need a vanity system because the concept would be superfluous and irrelevant; your clothes are mostly cosmetic. You'd get a suit of chain armor and all it'd have is a defense modifier. To get bonuses to your raw stats and derived stats you'd need to take passive skills or find mods that you can link to your character.

 

You get a sword, and it lets you do sword attacks. You can set active sword skills and use the sword to perform those attacks. You can set sword mods to make yourself more deadly with a sword (for damage-dealers) or more defensive (for tanks). But all the actual sword, on its own, lets you do is hit people with a sword and use sword skills. Then you get into incomparables--i.e. the weapons are all zero-sum, balancing speed, accuracy and power together to cancel out. You use mods (rather than gear) to "get positive."

 

Rambly post is rambly, but the idea is that you could make a system in which gear is both desirable and easy to obtain, and a world where everything is essentially a consumable item. There's a real easy way to do this, too; simply give all items hitpoints and whenever the hitpoints reach 0, the item is broken and suffers penalties, and if the hitpoints reach some negative number, the item is destroyed and can't be repaired. The more damaged an item is when it is repaired, the more maximum HP it loses. Eventually the item can't be repaired further and can be discarded, sold as junk or recycled for raw materials to build something else.

 

You could even "have your cake and eat it too" by creating legendary weapons that can't lose maximum HP, but cost a lot to repair (as they're magical, exceptionally-crafted artifacts that only a few master artisans could possibly maintain) and make these drop from some big fuck-off dragon. Then you'd have both the whole "get loot and feel good about it" bit. You'd save your legendary sword for fighting those big fuck-off dragons, but use your normal sword for dispatching random highwaymen.

 

Ironically, Square's already had better ideas themselves (not that they'd remember, the dumbasses).  A few incredible advancements in gear/stats/grind they've come up with and then completely forgotten...

 

1.  Vagrant Story - The game where you didn't get weapons, you got parts.  Combining different parts created different weapons with different ranges, damages, and damage types.  Essentially, you get a part, but that doesn't mean you've gotten Min-Max sword A, you could use it to make all manner of other weapons.  Then mix and match.

 

2.  Final Fantasy VII - Materia.  Our materia system is a joke compared to what we had in FFVII.  Essentially, Square could have completely eliminated the class system with materia.  Remember back in the day (just in case anyone here hasn't played FFVII... it's marginally possible) that materia wasn't just an add-on, it was a complex system by which you could increase or decrease weapon damage, equip spells, and alter stats and abilities.  Essentially, while FFXIV's materia system is a sort of WoW-style gem system, the slot arrangement was a lot more important in FFVII.  And you had to level the materia up to get the better effects out of some.  It was awesome having a discussion about the best party/materia setup and what spells you stick that important All materia on.  And who had Ultima.  And KotR.  Imagine if Square installed that as a gear/class mechanic in an MMORPG instead of copying other games.

 

Bushido Blade - Probably less well known (and not technically developed by Square, though I still count it), but a fighting game with the cleanest UI I've ever seen.  Nothing on screen except the fighters, you select a character and a weapon and you end up somewhere in an explorable castle against another character and weapon.  How no health bar, charge bars, or other stats?  Because any strike to one leg would drop you to one knee, limiting your mobility and often your attack variety.  Get hit in the other, any you were crawling or rolling.  Get hit in the offhand, and you were fielding the weapon one-handed, which was okay for one-handed weapons like a rapier but was horrible fielding something heavy like a hammer or naginata.  Get hit once, anytime, in the head, torso, or sword arm and you died.  That was completely unforgiving.  Being disabled sucked, but even if you disabled someone completely, every enemy was a threat.  That might be hard in the real world with lag online, but if all the computers timed individually, you might be able to get away with something like that.  Nowadays, you could calculate speed vs. ability to glance blows with armor, something that really happens.

 

I'd say the best way to have a vibrant, thriving economy in a game is to make sure that, instead of making gear more temporary, make it more upgradable and more dependent on upkeep.  Imagine applying a system above, particularly Vagrant Story weapon construction and FFVII Materia slotting, to an MMORPG gear system.  You may change weapons once in a blue moon to experiment with new range, damage type, or skills, but you can easily hot-swap in and out pieces, spells, et cetera that changes the weapon.  The best part about that is, parts and materia you'd gather at the beginning of the game, like All or Weapon Empower, would still be just as useful later in the game, and thus you might still be buying, selling, and servicing things a level 1 crafter could do even in the endgame.  At present, it's just working a certain metal until that's completely outmoded, and gear is so bountiful in so many games (as the main reward from quests, dungeons, PVP, and so on) that it's not even necessary to buy it.

 

I'd say the best way to REALLY keep an economy fired up wouldn't be the EVE way, but to really make people fine-tune their weapons, armor, equipment, spells, and so on to suit themselves specifically.  Sort of the Diablo 3 method of customization, just throw so many spells, modifications of those spells, and passives at people that they're never bored, they're all trying different combinations of things just to see what works for them.

 

Blazing Corpse spiders > Ghost Firebomb, IMO.

[synaesthetic]

The problem with that is it would incorporate a great deal of horizontal progression which is something Square seems to dislike (despite loving it in FFXI for years). I think part of the reason is it's much easier to keep the game "balanced" if every time a new tier of content comes out, all the old gear becomes obsolete.

 

It also tends to limit the amount of worthwhile content you have at any given point, which I feel is problematic. Square is trying to have their cake and eat it too by utilizing linear vertical progression and gate new content behind old content. This is not smart at all. I am really personally annoyed that I cannot attempt Turn 6 without completing Turn 5 first, or that people have to kill Titan and Ifrit EX to attempt Leviathan EX.

 

No, Square, this is not the way to do it. They should not have made the new tier i100-115. Linear vertical progression only results in two things: disposable content and power creep.

 

Honestly I would throw away the entire idea of "item level" in the first place. The whole "gearscore" situation is a stupid one to begin with. I know it's more difficult to design and handle, but the loot that drops from The Binding Coil of Bahamut, which is launch content as you know, should still be relevant... five years from now. When I played FFXI in 2007, where the current content tier was Wings of the Goddess, people still raided in Sky, Rise of the Zilart content that came out several years earlier.

 

I don't understand why MMO developers insist upon spending thousands and thousands of dollars and labor-hours on developing content they fully intend to "throw away" within three to six months.

[Ignacius]

The problem with that is it would incorporate a great deal of horizontal progression which is something Square seems to dislike (despite loving it in FFXI for years). I think part of the reason is it's much easier to keep the game "balanced" if every time a new tier of content comes out, all the old gear becomes obsolete.

 

It also tends to limit the amount of worthwhile content you have at any given point, which I feel is problematic. Square is trying to have their cake and eat it too by utilizing linear vertical progression and gate new content behind old content. This is not smart at all. I am really personally annoyed that I cannot attempt Turn 6 without completing Turn 5 first, or that people have to kill Titan and Ifrit EX to attempt Leviathan EX.

 

No, Square, this is not the way to do it. They should not have made the new tier i100-115. Linear vertical progression only results in two things: disposable content and power creep.

 

Honestly I would throw away the entire idea of "item level" in the first place. The whole "gearscore" situation is a stupid one to begin with. I know it's more difficult to design and handle, but the loot that drops from The Binding Coil of Bahamut, which is launch content as you know, should still be relevant... five years from now. When I played FFXI in 2007, where the current content tier was Wings of the Goddess, people still raided in Sky, Rise of the Zilart content that came out several years earlier.

 

I don't understand why MMO developers insist upon spending thousands and thousands of dollars and labor-hours on developing content they fully intend to "throw away" within three to six months.

 

Honestly, I think it's one of those old standbys that runs the RPG genre as a whole.  It's been with us since the very first JRPGs that I remember, and even Zelda did have you slowly replacing a few pieces of gear.  It's just burned into the corneas of game developers that your characters need to get stuff when they advance.  What do they get?  New gear to replace the old.

 

*fanfare*  This is one of those times that I'll say how good the core game of EVE is!  They have that same sort of progression, but it's a bit more nebulous.  Obviously, you try to get to T2 ships and otherwise you don't get many advantages trying to take your cruiser 1 v 1 with someone else's equally equipped battleship.  However, advancing in "level" if such a thing exists, generally just adds capabilities and responsibilities.  You aren't always getting more powerful versions of the same weapon, suddenly you're talking about having drones and you have to have countermeasures for drones in what you fly.

 

I'll be forever disappointed that a game designed so well at a technical level applied it the way they did.

 

In any case, that's possible in any game including a fantasy game.  Let's imagine you start with a sword and a shield.  As you advance in the game, you can start picking up other weapons and adding skills.  As you add them, you start adding situations where you need those skills.  Maybe enemies start becoming larger or more numerous, and you need skillsets to deal with both.  Maybe they start circling for position or the area you're accessing means you're having to learn ancillary skills like scaling palace walls, using disguises, and so on.

 

I may have played too much Shadowrun in my youth.  I think games are maybe too objective-based?  The concept of min-max gear has been in RPGs since the dawn of time, but that's because, in the broader scheme of the universe, damage is damage.  When push comes to shove and all the math and modifiers are applied, it's just a number.  Games seem to be fixated on changing the way that number is generated in as many different ways as possible rather than making that number less of a concern.

 

Imagine not being able to quickly heal in a game, so suddenly it isn't just about racing damage, it's about knowing how to avoid combat at times or how to generate a killing blow without taking any damage yourself, since you won't get it back.  Maybe you could add more infiltration, siege breaking, or traveling so that getting to the objective (and needing the skills to get to that objective) are more important than what you do when you actually get there.  Or maybe you can go the other way, making combat much more realistic by making more decisions about defense, position, terrain, and tactics rather than our current system.  I'd love a game where you defend a castle with slings, arrows, oil, and catapults, the enemy breaks through and you need to form a ring around spellcasters with your melee or pin them at the bottom of a set of stairs.  Very old-school Warcraft or C&C stuff, only it's played out by people playing a single player and focusing very much on the economy of combat.

 

That's just a few examples, but it would change things significantly so that gear isn't even really important.  That way, there could be a lot more lateral progression by essentially customizing gear not to max damage (which would be dictated by skill and how the skill was applies), but to changing more interesting concepts such as weapon handling speed, attack range, elemental affinities, and so on.  That way, the player could manually tweak stats individually in a zero-sum game to make a weapon "feel" right rather than having to use something predetermined by the developers.

[Zyrusticae]

So wait, is Black Desert doing the whole "someone PKs you and takes your stuff" and/or the whole "if you die, you can lose your stuff" dealio? Interest gone.

 

The game still looks awesome; but sadly, idiots (of this MMO generation) tend to ruin PvP open games due to "lolfag, die" and such.

Well I have news for you guys: All the PvP is strictly opt-in. The FFA PvP was a result of a bug in the first closed beta (which subsequently ruined their reputation, lolwut).

 

I'm actually curious how this will work now, especially with caravans. Is there going to be a reason to hire bodyguards for caravan work? Are NPCs going to waylay travelers at random? These are some important questions that need answering, I think.

[synaesthetic]

You're talking about incomparables, but that sort of system takes a lot of work to keep fair and balanced. It's easier to just make the numbers go higher.

[Ignacius]

You're talking about incomparables, but that sort of system takes a lot of work to keep fair and balanced. It's easier to just make the numbers go higher.

 

Well, fair and balanced is one of those things we can play with.  In games where PVP forms the vast majority of player interaction, it can be more of an issue.  In a game like Monster Hunter where player performance and adaptability is always more important than specific role-specialization, it can be a lot easier.  I suppose it's just easier for MMO games to extend their lifetimes and make money (either by P2W or subscription) by making sure you're always having to get new stuff you don't have yet.  I'm not sure why they don't just give you ways to boost your "stats" in a more organic way than by giving you a tiered equipment system.

 

More to the point, as you said, it's a complete waste when you've spent the better part of a year putting together the graphics for your expansion pack and then never use it again.  For all intents and purposes, it's a very expensive misappropriation of resources.  Blizzard is constantly having to field hate coming out of the blue for their release schedule, because even considering the ridiculously vast amount of content they've accumulated over the years, so much of it is one-and-done.  Considering how fast you can level now, people leveling now will probably see less than half of the Burning Crusade's Outland world, much less all the raids that used to make up the endgame.  All that work to essentially be cast by the wayside.

 

I mean, granted, at least it has pretty frequent content releases, but it does feel like a lot of effort for its somewhat disposable content, like taking the time to beautifully hand-craft and individually paint paper cups for a water cooler.

 

There are a lot of ways around that, most of which might involve you having to run from the big bad monsters a lot if you set them to patrol low level areas.  I still remember one of the funniest moments of my life being my first time in the Konschtat Highlands with my brothers in FFXI.  We ran into a particularly large ram, but it didn't seem to be bothering us.  So my brother walked right up in front of it and was one-shot.  Steelfleece Baldarich chased the other two of us all the way to the Dem Crag.  I also recall my first time in Un'Goro crater being chased by a Tyrant Devilsaur in circles until I found the way out on my hunter.  I also remember being one-shot a few times when I first started BC by wandering Fel Reavers.

 

There's no reason you shouldn't make areas useful and accessible from level one to max level besides how much games coddle us.  I guess it isn't seemly for them to make us run from fights we can't win and feel like we've gained something when we don't die (one of the other reasons I feel like game-death is way too trivial is that it completely ruins the element of danger and makes death a mild to moderate annoyance that essentially costs money).

 

Again, lots of ways to get out of the cycle, but increasing stat numbers on gear has been around almost as long as the RPG concept has been.  I could come up with about a half-dozen viable ways out of it that would waste less time modeling gear (not to mention that WoW has now been around so long and inflated the numbers so large that they're instituting a stat squish so that the game can recognize all the numbers).  Developers just don't; they don't need more than a gimmick or two to say they aren't like any other game out there and then they can just do what everyone else is doing.

[synaesthetic]

That is one thing I really do like about Guild Wars 2; because your level is automatically scaled for the zone, you never go through any area feeling like you're so overpowered that you can just pull the whole zone and not die. 

 

There is actually a definite feeling of danger and exploration when you wander through the world in GW2. Now if only they could make their attempt to avoid the holy trinity not simply a gigantic zergfest...

[Ignacius]

That is one thing I really do like about Guild Wars 2; because your level is automatically scaled for the zone, you never go through any area feeling like you're so overpowered that you can just pull the whole zone and not die. 

 

There is actually a definite feeling of danger and exploration when you wander through the world in GW2. Now if only they could make their attempt to avoid the holy trinity not simply a gigantic zergfest...

Yeah, I guess I sometimes expect a lot from game developers (at least that they can come up with better ideas than we can) but that statement is as damning as you'd need a statement to be about modern MMORPG development.  All of the really cool and interesting ways you'd think of breaking the mold of MMORPG default party mechanics, and the last thing you'd think of doing is turning it into a free-for-all.

 

I'll give them credit for trying.  They failed, miserably, but they tried, and that's worth something.  Especially for a F2P MMO.  Such sins are unforgivable in games requiring subscription fees, but the realistic side of me wouldn't expect stratospheric development from a game I'm not going to be paying 15$ a month for.  Oddly, Diablo 3 sort of does the same thing successfully.  I'm kind if interested to see where the D3, Starcraft II, and all their experimentation with World of Warcraft lands Blizzard with their Titan project.  Or if any MMORPG they make will ever match their standards or our hype.  Not many companies would wipe the slate clean mid-process because it doesn't feel good enough.

 

I'd honestly kind of hope another heavy swinger shows up to make a game.  There just aren't many companies out there with the pedigree that I'd believe they can actually pull a game like this off.  Blizzard has always had a high standard of gameplay, considering they were making games of high quality back when gameplay would make or break your game.  Square has that pedigree.  Who else does that hasn't taken a stab yet?  I know I'd like to see what From would be able to put together if they could be assed to do it.  CAPCOM might have been able to pull it off, but with their financial issues right now and the fact that their business arm seems to be jerking the development arm behind them like a dog on a leash, I wouldn't even trust them to do it.  Nintendo would probably be able to do it, but they have their own console issues before they could even think about it.

 

Who else is there that might actually be able to put together a shockingly good MMORPG right now?  I just don't think something of that magnitude is coming from an indie developer with a kickstarter or a company that makes middling games.  Maybe I just don't have any faith, but it seems like we just don't have very many real powerhouse developers anymore.

[synaesthetic]

None of the big dawgs are going to do anything but make more of the same. The suits simply won't let them. No publisher is going to bet sixty-plus million on an "unproven" experiment.

 

No, expect to see more of the same from the big triple-A developers. If you want to see where innovation is going to live in regards to the MMO space, look at Kickstarter, look at the indie crowd.

[Zyrusticae]

Well, I just learned that the housing in Black Desert is now fully instanced instead of open-world like it was in the past.

 

I can't say I'm not disappointed by this revelation, but at the same time, I can understand that what they were going for was probably too ambitious for our current level of technology. Even our single-player RPGs still have load screens when entering buildings; MMORPGs are an order of magnitude more complex than those, so they were probably pushing things too hard as it was.

 

In other news, however, the city is incredibly huge and lively:

[video=youtube]

[Naunet]

Color me impressed by that city. It's pretty much exactly what I was wishing for in my earlier posts (though a few more enterable buildings would be nice...).

 

I still can't get over how terrible the draw distance is though. All those objects flicking in and out of existance is kind of hilarious and rather takes me out of enjoying the scenery haha.

[synaesthetic]

dem character animations @.@

[Clover]

In other news, however, the city is incredibly huge and lively:

[video=youtube]

Yes!! She sat on a bench! That was all I wanted to see *laughs*.

 

I don't care if the draw distance is slow. It's still a beta, but even if the final game is still like this, it looks awesome. I for one will give it a try when it's released, if that ever happens.

 

I'm also looking forward to Bless and KUF2.

[Naunet]

Yes!! She sat on a bench! That was all I wanted to see *laughs*.

 

But can they walk?

 

/teraptsd

[Ignacius]

None of the big dawgs are going to do anything but make more of the same. The suits simply won't let them. No publisher is going to bet sixty-plus million on an "unproven" experiment.

 

No, expect to see more of the same from the big triple-A developers. If you want to see where innovation is going to live in regards to the MMO space, look at Kickstarter, look at the indie crowd.

 

I disagree.  Indie game developers can experiment with quickie Steam games, but they don't have the muscle to play with MMORPGs.

 

I think it's easy to discount big developers as Activision or EA whores, and that's usually the case.  However, some of the big developers can still kick out a decent game.  I'd say they're the ones most likely to come up with something original that actually works.

 

Like I said, From Software is one of the AAA developers who could definitely pull this off.  They're used to making titles that succeed despite everyone saying they won't work.  I know their work best from Tenchu (the ninja assassin game where you actually have to use skills to stay hidden back in 1998 on the PS1), Armored Core (the RPG where you pilot a mech that feels like a mech and has more lateral development than any other RPG I can remember at its time), and the Dark/Demon Souls games (the current franchise flagship that seems to be called a "throwback" simply because they're actually challenging).  I think they could give us an MMORPG beyond reckoning if they actually tried.

 

One developer that we sort of ignore because it isn't their forte (but could actually pull this kind of thing off) is Nintendo.  Unfortunately, they're sort of married to the dying console world, but as developers they've created some incredibly mechanically-sound games.  They can consistently market great games.  Hell, probably the RPG I played more than any other when I was a kid was a crossover between Nintendo and Square called Mario RPG.  They may be a bit too reliant on their old standbys and I'm really not looking forward to Mario World Online, but it could work.

 

Another off the top of my head that looks like they're actually figuring out how it would work is Rockstar.  Most of us know them as the company that makes Grand Theft Auto.  They're also the devs behind Red Dead Revolver, Midnight Club, Max Payne, and Manhunt (I also loved State of Emergency, but I don't think that's as well remembered these days).  I'm not entirely sure what they put out would work in an MMORPG context, but they're absolutely on the table as a group that could make an MMORPG work.  As long as they can make it acceptable to the ESRB.

 

I've brought up Capcom already and I think they'd be able to make something really worth drooling over.  That is, if your previous point couldn't be pointed directly at Capcom's business staff.  Capcom's development is really some of the best in the world, even after all this time.  Their business team is just driving them into the ground.  All told, though, I think they could do it if the "suits" would back off of the dev team and let them work.

 

I think another studio that could do it, but might have to fight the powers that be, is Lionhead studios (the people behind Fable and Black & White).  They've got a pedigree and a budget, but they're owned by Microsoft.  That doesn't bode well for them.  I've got a good feeling they could pull it off, though I suppose that was before the departure of Peter Molyneux.  Microsoft has a habit of neutering great developers after acquisition (e.g. Rare).

 

You know, now that I think about it, there are two developers I haven't had in mind, but have a background that would make them pretty prime candidates.  One of them is id Software.  They're mostly known for creating the id tech engines, but I sometimes forget that they were the company that essentially invented the FPS genre of games with Wolfenstein.  They're also the people who made Doom and Quake, though I remember them most fondly for their old Heretic and Hexen series that they helped Raven Studios make.  Heh, FPS RPGs.  The other that I almost completely forgot was Valve, and for the same reason (we only remember them for FPS games).  But those FPS games were all amazingly well-developed, and Valve has more money than Croesus at this point.  They might be able to pull it off.

 

There are actually probably a few Japanese developers who could make an impact if they stuck their heads in the game (Tecmo Koei?) but I don't know enough about them to know which one has enough muscle to pull it off.  Unfortunately, indie devs have big expectations, but they usually fail to execute something on that kind of scale.  Chasing Blizzard was too much for even big, respected devs like Bioware and Mythic.  I guess the era of the powerhouse indie developer is sort of gone, lots of the devs like Silicon Knights and Westwood are gone now, absorbed into larger and less impressive megaliths.  Maybe it's not fair to think Activision, MS, ZeniMAX, and EA aren't capable of developing the games themselves or being able to take their hands off and let some of the more impressive minds do their thing.  I guess that's a prejudice of mine; I've just seen too many standout developers have their feet cut off in service to their lords.  I've just also come to expect that small, independent developers struggle with long-view developement and, even if their games are sound, their ability to generate new and engaging content is severely limited.

 

And to be honest, indie developers have a bad habit of drowning in hype.  At least we don't EXPECT triple-A companies to make something amazing.

[Parth Makeo]

Many of the MMOs have shifted over the years in terms of target audience and "Generation"

 

For instance, in games like Ultima Online and Everquest there was a ton of grinding. Not Korean levels mind you but grinding that required one to "Live in a parent's basement" type of grind. Everquest was the king of that idea for Westerns and Ragnarok online. The games were made to make you work and earn things for it.

 

Then when Blizzard announced World of Warcraft (which I have been playing since 2005 and still love it besides Cataclysm...which had a nice, promising start but ended in a bland way) people were wondering if it even had the muscle to knock the king of MMOs off it's throne at the time. 

 

What blizzard did from the beginning is make it less of a chore and more appealing to the casual market. Don't believe me? What was the highest kill quest count that didn't require you to use an external vehicle? 25 mobs. Everquest had some quests grind out well over 50 by yourself. 

Attunement quests? They removed the monotony of requiring to do over a hundred things to get into one raid and wow cut that in half as well (WE WILL NEVER SPEAK OF HORDE SIDE ONY CHAIN! > : ( ).

Again, it was easier to get attuned to Molten Core, Upper Blackrock and Nefarian. While UBRS required you to put together a small item, MC and Nef was more or less touch a certain object. I remember running guildies through Blackrock Mountain and jumping the lava pits to grab that firestone to attune them to the core...and it took not even 15 mins.

 

The third thing was quests that actually rewarded you items. Early in wow there were not a lot of "Quest Items" as there are now since Cata but they were more frequent than Everquest. And since BC, you would get a new item every 2-4 quests. Not chains either. I've leveled enough through the old version of 1-60 before the revamp to make sure. 

 

So what was the key defining thing Blizzard did? Make it accessible to a more broader audience. They did something not only so ballsy but because it was a Warcraft Game (Being a warcraft nerd myself mind you) there was an established fanbase before. On launch and well into one year of wow the servers were unstable and lag was everywhere. There were more players in wow than what Blizzard anticipated and it grew ever so more over the years to their current world record of about 7 million subs. 

 

 

While i played the game since High school, I remember it changing a lot for me and what everyone's expectation of an MMO sub game should be (or be close to).

So when other MMO games attempted to steal it's thunder (by calling themselves Wow Killers and ending their lives) they soon fell under and became Free to play games. Some of those games were more complex than wow...and players were put off by that simply because they were afraid they couldn't be even with everyone.

 

Why am i saying this? It's because that since i returned to FF14 ARR for the time (scheduling to be Fri/sat/sun affairs for RP inbetween raiding) I noticed they changed a lot and made it more accessible than at launch. 

At launch, the idea of grinding a dungeon that offered no actual items but stones that you used to buy items was similar to the badge system...with one downfall. They made the items Ridiculously expensive for one piece. You would have to complete a run of a certain dungeon by speeding through it all about 20 times to just get one little piece of gear. Not only was it unappealing but because of my gear at the time, I felt like a dead weight to everyone. 

 

So i didn't play it for six or more months until they fixed it. And they did, but it still not appealing in the idea of Endgame so much. 

FF14 ARR to me is better as an RPer's MMO (Due to the details of characters actually showing rings, wrists and necks while having a variety of emotes) than a game game to me. That and their combat idea seems kind of boring, and i play a Mage on wow. 

 

I have tried other MMOs and especially Free to play stuff for a while, and even then I keep going back to World of Warcraft because of how simple it is and easy to get back in the mindset.

 

Wow is not the best MMO, far from it...but it's the most popular and the one everyone is playing because of how accessible it is. There is even a popular review on an 80 year old granny who RAIDS IN WOW! 

Also blind and deft people. 

 

The only big negative wow has at this moment is it's community sadly. Especially the RP community. They are full of asshats in public who godmod and break the lore constantly to a key.

So far i have seen some more well mannered RP in FF14 than WOW to me.

 

Ok i'm done rambling. What was i getting at? 

 

Until there is an MMO that can indeed knock wow completely off it's throne, I will be going back to it for the pals/guildies/raids and because I can easily remember how boss fights work without a wiki and know how to play a class by just getting in it's chair and placing the buttons.

That and gearing is pretty simple now.

 

P.S: Wow has some heavy grinds in the game as well. One of which is collecting 9,999 bones on Isle of Giants from elite dinos that drop anywhere between 1-40 a pop...and you currently can't solo the giant ones. So it's the 8-10 bones a drop for you

[Naunet]

FF14 ARR to me is better as an RPer's MMO (Due to the details of characters actually showing rings, wrists and necks while having a variety of emotes) than a game game to me. That and their combat idea seems kind of boring, and i play a Mage on wow.

 

While I personally have pretty much given up on WoW outside of some RP I still putter along in (haven't actually played the game since... I think just before that PvP patch in Mists), I definitely agree here with your opinion on XIV. The roleplay and the people in general are fantastic. The gameplay? Nnnnnot so much. I do, however, appreciate all the little roleplay-friendly details SE has put into the game - especially the slew of emotes (including facial expressions) and how your character looks at a target. Prior to this game, I played TERA, and we couldn't even WALK there, so the friendliness to rp is a breath of fresh air.

 

I might be tempted to start TERA back up again if they weren't doing absolutely dumbfuck things with their costume system, simply because the combat in that game is amazing. But... WildStar will have to settle that for now, and I do intend to poke ArcheAge (currently playing on the Russian client ) more once I can manage to get into the beta/release, thanks to it being f2p and the sandbox thing is nice and new. And... hells, perhaps I'll keep an eye on Black Desert and see what happens with it. I'll admit the video of the city has me pondering things, but I know very little about the rest of the game...

 

Oh and D3. Because awesome.

[Ignacius]

Many of the MMOs have shifted over the years in terms of target audience and "Generation"

 

 

 

 

Blizzard is really a standout company in today's market.  There aren't many companies that are as concerned with the quality of their games.  Blizzard doesn't have a "good enough".  Best evidence of that is their Titan project.  They literally stood back, looked at the sum of what they had developed, and wiped the slate clean to start from the beginning.  I know a lot of people don't understand that, but I do.  There are times in any design process that you need to be ready to start from scratch because what you have is a dead end.

 

It shows in their game design.  I think WoW has one and only one weakness.  It has been around forever.  Honestly, I play FFXIV, I love FFXIV, I actually think the gameplay is great and the RP community is fun, but I'm playing FFXIV solely because I've played WoW since launch and I thought I needed to try other games so I have a sense of perspective.  And believe me, when Warlords of Draenor shows up, I will probably considerably reduce my FFXIV time.  WoW is an old game, an almost boringly familiar game, but I do still think it's the best MMORPG out there.  It isn't the best in every particular category, but there isn't another game out there with the same level of overall quality.  Some games have better PVP, some better PVE, some better mass raiding, some have better customization and itemization (okay, a lot have that), but nobody's game is as good overall as World of Warcraft.

 

And remember, in the time WoW has been out, Blizzard has released Starcraft II (RTS), Diablo 3 (Dungeoncrawler), and Hearthstone (Card Game), all to high critical acclaim.  All while maintaining expansions and patches for the largest MMORPG on the market.  That is an absolutely insane level of high-intensity output.  We'll rip on Blizzard for any perceived imperfection, while allowing anyone else to make the same mistake, simply because Blizzard is the "powers that be".  In every MMORPG's development, it's the elephant in the room.

 

And honestly, if anything finally does kill WoW and ever matches its subscription rate, it'll probably be a Blizzard game.  Very few other companies have the muscle and development pedigree to make these games and make them well.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if their next MMORPG is better than anything else on Earth.

[ArmachiA]

Wildstar was a completely disappointing experience. *sigh* I was so hoping it was gonna be good.

[Naunet]

I'm legitimately curious about what you found disappointing, ArmachiA. Elaborate! *pulls up a chair*

[Rinh Hallani]

Wildstar was a completely disappointing experience. *sigh* I was so hoping it was gonna be good.

 

I felt the same way. It was hyped up so much to be innovative and different but felt like any other MMO in my experience. A combination of WoW and GW2 I suppose. Which is fine, I mean they're both games I enjoyed, but certainly didn't live up to the expectation I had for it.

[Ildur]

My problems with Wildstar are mostly technical: the combat can be pretty unforgiving if you lag on the overworld; there are many enemies with instant, non-telegraphed stuns or knockdowns followed by hard hitting attacks; all mobs get auto-attacks, including the elites that end up doing a load of unavoidable damage with those things alone; and repair costs have the potential of making you broke if you run dungeons a lot, forcing you to get your gold in some other way (which I guess is a way to make sure people don't level up all the way to 50 with dungeons alone. Not sure how I feel about needing to stop doing something I enjoy to gather gold, though).

Not to mention that they recently made the costume system a hassle to use.

 

Oh, and there's also the character creation that is okay but greatly underdeveloped.

[synaesthetic]

I like Wildstar and it's fun, but I can't afford two subscription fees, and I have a larger social investment into XIV. So... yeah.

 

Maybe if I could play multiple classes on one character and the art direction was more stylized realism than 90s-era Don Bluth... eh. Even then, it just doesn't interest me enough to pull me away from XIV.

[ArmachiA]

I'm not sure I can go into detail due to NDA? I'm not sure what their NDA is. There are a lot of design decisions in the game that are frustrating at best and unplayable at worst.

 

Yeah that Character Creation is LAUGHABLE

[Ildur]

The Non Disclosure Agreement was lifted a long time ago. You can talk about it all you want now. And on the internet!