the sad thing about this is, there is stuff like this in AC1. i played AC2 for a while, myself, and came away with a similar mindset- it’s sterile, where’s the lore? the history?.. so i quit, and went back to my old haunt: AC1
the world of AC1, despite the limited funding resources (and, therefore, a limited amount of personel working on the title) Microsoft had allocated during their reign over the franchise, did a LOT to try and immerse the player into this lore-rich world… so, despite what Microsoft may have done, intentionally or not, to wreck the game, there’s still a whole lot of depth to the backstory, a whole lot of neat-o out-of-the-way little nooks you can visit, and get those feelings that perhaps at one point, the world DID have another set of ‘caretakers’.
( wow, let the run ons go on and on! )
i am a ‘fanboi’ of AC1. it’s been the only game i’ve kept coming back to, over and over again. i’m not so blind that i don’t see where Microsoft or Turbine could have done better- shit, there’s a lot that they are doing now that i don’t really agree with- but they’re at least being consistent in execution (mostly) and persistent in continuing on (with AC2… hopefully?).
I took a few minutes to look at the forums and what are supposed to be “patch notes”. I can see how it’s far away from what I’m used with DAoC.
It seems that AC1 is based a lot on the lore and the story, tied with new content pushed live with each patch and I can see why the game has a small but solid community that still stick with the game, since there’s not much offer for something similar in the market.
That’s also why it doesn’t attract my attention a lot. I like design and system evolutions, not more similar content. For me the content is always tied to a specific role in the structure of the game. I have a technical approach to mmorpgs. Since these online worlds never offered a real interaction with the players I always considered the lore as “fluff”. First comes the game and its systems, then you can work on the lore.
The lore needs always to come if the game environment allows you to interact directly. It must be about things you can see into the game and not about NPCs and battles that only happens on a website.
Good god, how is any single game ever going to make you happy, then? It sounds like once you understand the mechanic and have exhausted the joy that comes from going “Oh, yay, new mechanic!” you get bored.
(That’s not meant as sarcastic as it comes off, sorry.)
Seems like you’re just screwed when it comes to MMOs though, since if you’re not playing for the immersive sameness I can’t imagine how a game would keep your interest. It seems like it would eventually always devolve into a matter of “Whelp, nothing new. This game is boring.”
I think it’s unreasonable to expect any MMO to have a constantly evolving underlying game system. If you’re not interested in the content, I’d think these games just wouldn’t be for you. Unless you consider something like EQ’s escalating raid spiral to provide the new “systems”, I guess.
Mechanics are about how you play the game and why. Even the “lore” and monthly content are gameplay in the end. If these new monsters don’t offer something new, like a different way to combat and deal with the encounters, it means that they are worthless. Not only for me but for everyone, lore or not lore. A new skin and animation for a monster don’t make the fun. Nor a story where you aren’t taking part.
You can attach a good story there, but the game is the game, you need gameplay or everyone won’t simply care about a story on a website alone. And the mechanics I speak about are the gameplay. Strict gameplay.
You think there’s not enough to do? I can assure you that in a game like DAoC I could compile a plan of things to change and to add that could need many, many years of constant development. Concrete elements and systems, not fancy stuff like negative ping code. Mmorpgs are like at 10% of their whole potential (in the worst case) and, for me, that doesn’t mean that the players need AC25 or EQ32, it means that when I play one of these games I’m filled with desires about what could improve and where the game should aim. And I can only sit there and complain like every other player.
There’s TOO MUCH to do. And, generally, noone is moving a finger.
The value of a mmorpg is about its design. It doesn’t matter if you have a million of different monsters if the combat system is unfun or broken. When you build or expand a game you need to know what you want to achieve and why. The design come from there because it’s the result of a study and passion. That’s also why big licences are wrong in mmorpgs. Because you work to make the gameplay fit with the licence and not the opposite. That doesn’t work.
My “dream” mmorpg is about a world developed around PvP in the “Stormbringer/Elric” setting, written by Michael Moorcock. Not only it’s an absolutely strong licence but it’s also perfect environment for a mmorpg, with a new form of factional PvP I imagined a few months ago and that is already in the ruleset of the p&p game (which I love). It’s simply perfect, the dark fantasy setting, the core ruleset of the p&p game, how the world is built, the demoniac planes, the summon system, the interactive and fast paced combat etc…
That’s a great licence, not Middle Earth where you’ll ruin everything at best. It simply isn’t suited and tailored for a mmorpg.
When you think about mmorpgs you see the infinite of the potential. You don’t even know where to start. It’s not “a constantly evolving underlying game system”, that’s stupid. The basic rules of a games don’t need to change. There’s no way to have a perfect system but it’s how you use it that makes a game. It’s not important if at the base you have Rolemaster or Stormbriger or D20 or GURPS, the game systems I speak about are about the gameplay and your role in the world. Are about the sense and the scope of PvP, are about a form of PvE where you have an active role, both in the single encounter and in the wider scope of the events.
This is the “world” idea. It’s impossible to reach a point where you can be satisfied with the game. Actually you will never be able even to imagine what could be a possible end.
When I see a company planning a sequel I see the soul of the game world dying there, I see dying the ambition, the ideas and the same concept of the genre. Failing miserably.
If you want to build a new title the first thing you should do is study how you want to deal with the most important problems: the endgame, the timesinks, the level treadmill, the PvP, the interaction of the world and so on.
You think there’s not enough to do? This isn’t an FPS (and UT2004 is demonstrating how even FPS could have a huge depth). This is a game world where you basically have no limits aside your imagination.
The only limits existing are about the technical part, and that’s what will need a lot of work in the years. I’ve always said that mmorpgs are works of art as a “whole”, but they are built by two parts. One is about the ideas, about a “cultural value”, the other part is about the technical competence of your group. It’s where your ideas can or cannot come true.
The industry, right now, has plenty to offer about the hard, technical part. But it’s lacking completely on the ideas and this is incredible. When it comes to mmorpgs you have the infinite potential and, instead, we only have an infinite list of broken clones showing eye-stabbing problems that every average player is able to point out after a few hours.
I want a game company that STARTS to address problems that the mmorpg community is pointing out from YEARS. Problems like infinite treadmills based only on grind play, with the only result of producing an empty game and segregating the players.
Those are the problems to solve and you don’t need a damn licence to do that. You really have talent and resources? Ok, do something for God’s sake. Let’s see this talent.
Has a game company ever tried to solve one of those well known plagues? I mean the fact that an infinite treadmill just segregate you from your friends, since you’ll finish at different levels, the fact that shiny new graphic engine won’t allow 80% of the playerbase to enjoy the game because they cannot afford a Cray, the fact that in a game like DAoC the “endgame” is really at the “end” of the game and only a damn fragment of the playerbase will be able to expereince it.
And so on. We have like 5000 years of THINGS TO DO. Something that all the players around the world are waiting for.
Still noone is able to do anything aside pushing live bugged products that are “more or the same”, just more broken and clueless. So sorry if I flame about a game company that till now has just showed me a collection of press releases.
Where damn are the ideas? Where’s the passion? Is it possible that I need to wait for Blizzard to see a decent quest system for the first time?
This is the industry. Turbine is just one of the worst examples.
And sorry if I take these arguments with passion, I know that I’m an alien.
Wow…all I can say is…wow. First you lose all credibity bashing two games that you have not played, then act like a high and mighty prick when Jessica offers you a free trial for both games.
Then you go off on some painfully self indulgent ramble about your perfect game and the state of the “industry”.
I think if you “got over yourself”, perhaps one might take you seriously.
Look, I apologize for the flame, it’s not something I normally do, but maybe if you actually played some games instead of writing lengthly treatises on the subject, you might actually have some fun in life.
Nothing like that. I’m currently subscribed to DAoC and FFXI. I’m beta testing WoW. I have plenty to do and I’m also part of the biggest mmorpg italian site and that gives me access to even more if I’d like.
For example they have a few life account for DAoC. I have mine and I’m happy with it. It’s not about being an high and mighty prick, it’s about time and interest. Why should I use that offer if I have no interest in the game?
If it’s useful for them I could consider it, since the time will be worth something, but I’m not interested in playing a trial.
About the rest, I see all those things tied together, I tried to explain why and perhaps it wasn’t understandable, that’s all.
What’s amazing to me is you picked two games to attack that have tried to do something different. Whether or not they were successful is not the point here, its that not only did they try it, but then supported it for years.
With ac2, they kept the name and the lore, but that is about all. They addressed all of the problems you named. If you had bothered to do any research before the trolling here, you might have realized this. Level grind is pretty much gone in ac2, I made it to lvl 50 by doing almost all questing. They also attempted some unique things with pvp that hadn’t been tried before. As far as the lineage 2 comment, why even make that in a thread where your attacking Turbine? Lineage 2 has problems that don’t exist in either ac2 or ac1.
Not trying to come off as a fan boy here, but your attacking a company that in this genre does an outstanding job of listening to it’s player base. The mechanics that people didn’t like in ac1 they tried to fix in ac2. At the same time they still put out content for ac1.
So, in essence, your a troll. You attack games and a company that you know nothing about. If you wanted to have a discussion about your ideas for this genre, feel free to start another post. There have been many long wordy discusions about this genre here.
HRose, simply put, I give up on you. I disagree with nearly everything you say to the point where your opinion holds no value for me, just like Turbine’s games hold no value for you. I find your posts to be some of the least insightful, or even credible, of any that I’ve read on these boards. If there were a way I could set up my account to filter out your posts so that I did not have to see them, I would do so. You are the Cleve Blakemore of MMO threads on this board.
I personally think it would be in your best interest to find a new genre to play, because it seems like you just have an axe to grind with everybody.
It’s not generally in my nature to flame someone like this, but I’m starting to feel that your very presence in these threads causes them to be unproductive.
You say that with the same flippant attitude that you’d say “Well, the only thing preventing us from visiting Alpha Centauri is this piddling little lack of faster than light travel.” Give me a break! If these are easy problems to solve, and easy systems to fix, get out there and do it yourself. I’m not all that well versed in game development, although I do a bit of reading here and there, but I do know a bit about multivariate systems, and at best you can regard an MMO as a system with something like 1k independant variables (the different players), in addition to every other variable in a “normal” game. Do I have an idea how you could vary content automatically, so the player could have a real effect on the world? You betcha! Now, all I need is someone who’ll give me 8 years to develop it and the 150k/year + costs I need to do so. (Mind you, I’m not talking about a game; I’m talking about a frigging piddly subsystem to a game!)
Folks are still working on the most mechanical aspect of the game, trying to figure out what the mythical “mass market” wants, and you’re taking them to task for not having Almost Real ™ dragons in the game already? I think your perspective is way out there, sorry.
Has a game company ever tried to solve one of those well known plagues? I mean the fact that an infinite treadmill just segregate you from your friends, since you’ll finish at different levels, the fact that shiny new graphic engine won’t allow 80% of the playerbase to enjoy the game because they cannot afford a Cray, the fact that in a game like DAoC the “endgame” is really at the “end” of the game and only a damn fragment of the playerbase will be able to expereince it.
Of course not. As a matter of fact, every game’s combat and levelling system is exactly the same, eh, because nobody wants to try to tackle that problem. Hence, WoW and DAoC have the exact same play interactions and levelling paradigm of EQ, right?
I think I have some clue as to where you’re coming from, and I know you’re passionate, but I think you need to temper it with a bit of realism. If these games are currently taking 2+ years and 8+ million dollars and this is what we get, universally, across the board, it’s probably fair to assume that the part of the game you’re writing off as worthless (which, frankly, is the base of the game - you can’t have an RPG without having character development in some fashion) and, implicitly, “simple” to solve is, indeed, quite complex in and of itself.
I’m not going on a crusade, if the thread turned into an attack toward myself it means I wrote something in a terribly wrong way, so for me the discussion is over.
Also, I haven’t started to criticize AC1 or AC2, that’s where you are attacking me. The players already did that. AC2 is a failure and it’s not an opinion, it’s a fact. I haven’t delved on the reasons because I don’t know the game. What I criticized is their approach to the mmorpg market from a general point of view.
It’s fun that I switched a forum to find exactly one of my points against the AC1 content I pointed out even without knowing the game, where I explain that monthly content is worthless if it’s constantly more of the same.
You don’t keep a game alive by adding a new “episode” each month, that keeps the subscriptions at best, but it doesn’t help the game in the long distance. You need to let it grows on the mechanics, not just add more content ad infinitum.
Also, I haven’t started to criticize AC1 or AC2, that’s where you are attacking me. The players already did that. AC2 is a failure and it’s not an opinion, it’s a fact.
So games can’t be judged by playing them, but only by their sales figures? Everyone knows the lowest common denominator is the best way to figure out game quality!
Awesome, that’s why Enter the Matrix was one of the finest games to come out last year, right? It’s also good to know that some of my favorite games ever ( Allegiance, Planescape, Warlords 3) actually sucked! Thanks for clearing that up, Hrose, I might actually have played them again otherwise!
For a mmorpg the sales figures explain a lot, because the market is completely different form single-player games, where the distribution and the publicity mean a lot more. In general only the brand and the licence affect the sales of a mmorpg.
You know, when you buy a box of a single player game you are done. Mmorpgs ask you to pay for a subscription. If noone plays after a year it means that the game sucks, for a reason or another. Here starts the work to understand what went wrong.
AC2 did great at the beginning, the hype was huge and a lot of players were interested. After a few months everyone left because they didn’t like the game. When this happens it means that the game is broken. It’s a fact, not an opinion. No, I’m not able to delve in the reasons because I don’t know it well enough to comment. So I’m not able to give a positive feedback on this.
There are great games that didn’t sell well, but this happens for single-players game and it’s due mostly about the distribution. Mmorpgs don’t suffer that because the distribution means nothing and the value of the game is EVERYTHING.
Here you pay monthly, if the game sucks you stop to pay. Looking at the subscribers is a good way to understand which game has a value, in particular in the long distance. Mainstream here is the value. The fact that a small company like Mythic is able to hold 250k subscribers is the perfect example of this. The fact that Eve-Online reached 10k players online when they start to offer the game directly from their site is another example about how the distribution affects mmorpgs in a different way.
When things go wrong you should try to learn what went wrong and how you can improve, not searching an excuse to blame Microsoft or another one to blame the mainstream market. Those are just ways to dodge the real problems. For a company that only wants to uphold their image and not the real value of their games.
I’m sorry, till mmorpgs have monthly subscription you won’t reach the success with a product that sucks. No matter if you are Microsoft, or Blizzard or Sony.
That is completely idiotic. It doesn’t mean the game was broken, it just didn’t appeal to the masses. This happens all the time in the gaming industry in general. It is by no means restricted to single player games only. Thief was a fantastic game with excellent design all around. However, the gameplay was so different than what people were used to that people who bought it didn’t play it very long and it didn’t generate good word of mouth. That has nothing to do with the game being bad from a technical or a design standpoint. It just has to do with a lack of mass market appeal.
Compare games that hit big in asia but find little interest here, or vice versa. Are they broken just because they don’t appeal to one market or the other? From the way you describe it, they are, and that’s just absurd. Lineage 1 absolutely tanked here, but the asian subscription base has made it probably the most successful MMO ever, in terms of subscription numbers. I doubt it failed here because it was broken.
Yes, there are cases where the value of the game is less trivial to judge. For example you have “A tale in the desert” or “Meridian 59”, And they are to be judged on different elements than their subscribers. A big importance is also the cost of the resources. Building M59 is different from building SWG. The aim and the scope are different.
But I don’t see both AC1 and AC2 as heavy sperimentation or cheap, niche projects. They were built for the mass market and they failed their purposes. You can argue till you want but you cannot define neither of them as successful. You think that they aren’t because the gameplay is too elaborated or advanced? Well, Okay. That’s quite fun.
The burden of proof for “success” has to be on AC2. Yeah, people are saying a lot of agreeable and disagreeable things in this thread, but surely anyone calling AC2 a “success” must realize how far they had to stretch credibility to make that claim.
I would consider any game that recoups it’s costs and stays in the black while in operations to be at least a modest success. I have no idea where AC2 stands with this, mind you. I would imagine the plug would get pulled if it were bleeding money, but that might result in too much loss of face.
I had thought AC2 was just pushed into a saturated market without really bringing anything new to the table. Oddly enough, after 2 pages of discussion I still don’t know what to think. :)
