Anyone else get a chuckle out of this article?
By
Agent White,
Posted on: 2012-08-11 17:34 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
You know why my favorite part of this poorly written amalgamation of words is?
How in the first two paragraphs the writer goes "OH MY GOD WOW AND SWTOR ARE LOSING CUSTOMERS, COULD THIS BE THE END OF EVERY MMO EVER OH GOD"
Has nothing to do with Blizzard's god-awful game balance practices, or their horrid love of tacking on idiotic expansions and bombarding their playerbase with "RAID RAID RAID RAIIIIIID"
Has nothing to do with SWOTR's game system being a direct rip of WoW coupled with an absolutely baffling 'restriction' system that keeps you from freaking running until level 10 and punches you off of your whatever-speeder like a half-brain-dead howler monkey trying to do a swan dive whenever you take damage.
Nope. Couldn't be any of that. Must be every MMO starting to die.
note to self never read anything from yahoo ever again
EDIT: I kind of like CoH being so word-of-mouth. Keeps out the riff raff. I swear, the one thing that could make me leave this game is my server getting flooded by people of the same mindset as a WoW raider.
My guides:Dark Melee/Dark Armor/Soul Mastery, Illusion Control/Kinetics/Primal Forces Mastery, Electric Armor
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The problem though is that the general population appears to dislike *any* chance of failure (sounds of the masses).|
Originally Posted by Aisynia
That said, I do want the knowledge that I could fail if I didn't play smart.
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Hell, even on these forums people complained about some stuff being too hard even *after* it had been made easier. Their reasoning: They don't like to use inspirations *at all*... which i find amazing considering that unlike other MMO's, inspirations drop like candy from the sky (and with the ability to change what inspirations you have to another type, you should *never* be without one you need).
*shrugs* as i said, it is one of those interesting things that I have noticed, in that people are always more inclined to say "it is a failure of the game" when it is infact more of "user failure"... Learn2Play (or as i would say "Learn to use your head") is something that should happen more often in games.
However, this runs counter to "playing the game" nowadays, where due to the "wham bam, pop bang" of culture nowadays, if it doesnt grab the user by the ears in the 1st 30 seconds, they are unlikely to carry on. If the user has to spend time *learning* how to play a game, they are less likely to actually play the game.
Hell, look at how Dungeons and Dragons has streamlined itself over the years (for better or for worse, that is open for debate. I still feel that 2nd Edition is the pinnacle for the series, although 3rd/3.5 is a nice *alternative*). Some of those changes were indeed much needed (changing THAC0 and AC to a more sensible option that works on a much easier to understand system. Combat required *high* rolls to hit, Saving roll's required *low* rolls. I still occasionally get them mixed up. Now it is just "roll high", achieves the same thing, easier to remember, similar feel throughout).
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If you need to use inspirations then your character has failed at some aspect of the game.|
Originally Posted by Gangrel_EU
Hell, even on these forums people complained about some stuff being too hard even *after* it had been made easier. Their reasoning: They don't like to use inspirations *at all*... which i find amazing considering that unlike other MMO's, inspirations drop like candy from the sky (and with the ability to change what inspirations you have to another type, you should *never* be without one you need).
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-or-
Inspirations aren't part of my character and thus are cheating if I use them.
Two simple reasons why people don't pop inspirations all the time. Personally, if I have a character that is dependent on a constant stream of inspirations that means I have failed horribly with their powers and slotting.
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Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
EDIT: I kind of like CoH being so word-of-mouth. Keeps out the riff raff. I swear, the one thing that could make me leave this game is my server getting flooded by people of the same mindset as a WoW raider.
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Ehhh, I don't think that's accurate at all. Did you fail in building your blaster back when soft capping wasn't available and you had to use break frees?
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Originally Posted by Ogi
If you need to use inspirations then your character has failed at some aspect of the game.
-or- Inspirations aren't part of my character and thus are cheating if I use them. Two simple reasons why people don't pop inspirations all the time. Personally, if I have a character that is dependent on a constant stream of inspirations that means I have failed horribly with their powers and slotting. Raiders may be good short term money but I still don't see how they do a game any long term good. I fled to CoH to get away from raid games and then the wondrous (thread) Incarnate system shows up. Yay. |
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I was not referring to using them all the time... more like "using them *when* you need to use them".|
Originally Posted by Ogi
If you need to use inspirations then your character has failed at some aspect of the game.
-or- Inspirations aren't part of my character and thus are cheating if I use them. Two simple reasons why people don't pop inspirations all the time. Personally, if I have a character that is dependent on a constant stream of inspirations that means I have failed horribly with their powers and slotting. |
My controller finds it very hard to deal with AV's solo. Popping inspirations when i meet them makes it *doable*. Hell, even a wrongly fired "firecages" can sometimes aggro a mob I wasnt aiming at (this most commonly happens when 2 or 3 groups are located in close proximity). Inspirations helps me through those situations.
However, most people are inclined to complain about the game being unfair to them in that situation, where the useage of Inspirations can help them out (or in this case "learn to use your head" comes into play again).
If you have to rely on a *constant* stream of them (even on -1x1 difficulty) then i will honestly ask "what are you doing wrong".
The 2nd part you say of "Inspirations aren't part of my character and thus are cheating if I use them" is (in my mind) in the realm of "concept" or a self imposed challenge.
Yes, you might be playing to a concept... however you *have* to realise that the playing to a concept can make the game harder to you. Sometimes you will have to use the tools that the game has available to you to make it through. This isn't the game being hard to you... it is being the same to everyone else. It is that you are *choosing* to make the game harder for yourself. Ergo, don't complain.
Never soft capped a blaster. Never bothered with def on a blaster, they're a blaster, not a scrapper.
Most blaster primaries have a ranged hold or stun with enough mag to deal with a Lt.
Constant stream != occasional use.
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Pretty much this.
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Originally Posted by Gangrel_EU
I was not referring to using them all the time... more like "using them *when* you need to use them".
My controller finds it very hard to deal with AV's solo. Popping inspirations when i meet them makes it *doable*. Hell, even a wrongly fired "firecages" can sometimes aggro a mob I wasnt aiming at (this most commonly happens when 2 or 3 groups are located in close proximity). Inspirations helps me through those situations. However, most people are inclined to complain about the game being unfair to them in that situation, where the useage of Inspirations can help them out (or in this case "learn to use your head" comes into play again). If you have to rely on a *constant* stream of them (even on -1x1 difficulty) then i will honestly ask "what are you doing wrong". The 2nd part you say of "Inspirations aren't part of my character and thus are cheating if I use them" is (in my mind) in the realm of "concept" or a self imposed challenge. Yes, you might be playing to a concept... however you *have* to realise that the playing to a concept can make the game harder to you. Sometimes you will have to use the tools that the game has available to you to make it through. This isn't the game being hard to you... it is being the same to everyone else. It is that you are *choosing* to make the game harder for yourself. Ergo, don't complain. |
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
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So most people die by 70? What third world country do you live in?
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Originally Posted by Blood Red Arachnid
The retired... generally die within 5 years of retiring.
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Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
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Tempus unum hominem manet
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Haha... well, to be fair, from my experiences in America, I'm not sure that most people retire by 65 (as much as they might like to). Still... 97.5% of all statistics are made up.|
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
So most people die by 70? What third world country do you live in?
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EDIT: Had to look it up after that... according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average age of retirement is 62!
*shrugs* Not in my neighborhood, but thems the averages!
ALSO... I saw something about retired cops have an average 5 year life expectancy after retirement. Maybe all working MMORPG players are on the police force?
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
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Originally Posted by Gangrel_EU
I think that emphasizes more than anything else the difference in cultures. Americans (it appears) do not experience failure until their late teens (rejection letters from Universities/Colleges)... up until that point in time they are always given a success. When you then apply this to games, it means that you cannot let the player "fail" (especially when you are going for the US market) for solo stuff... because then the player will be more inclined to "stop playing".
However, other cultures are *more willing* to help out (i have noticed that with EU players, if you are stuck they are more inclined to not help due to lack of time, and not due to a risk of "failure"... What EU Dev's need to know about American online Gamers. EU GDC 2012 I would like to point out that the talk was given by an American developer. If the game has already established itself, then you have to keep the *exisiting* players (which will decrease over time) and also get in newer players (to keep up the churn level to stay stable)... and due to how the *playing* population has changed over the years, it makes it harder and harder... you have to start paying attention to these factors to keep the churn level up as your general playing population decreases. If you think about it, would CoX would have stayed alive if they had stayed Subscription only and made 1-50 still take 200+ hours? Eventually, the game would have dropped to such a low level that it wouldn't be possible to stay alive. Making it faster to level meant that you could try out many different alts in a *sensible* amount of time. Changes to how debt worked meant that levelling was faster. The game *has* evolved drastically (especially in the past couple of years), it is faster, failure is almost impossible (and yet people still complain about how hard something can bewhen they dont use inspirations to help out... and they *DO* drop like candy... so use them liberally). |
Interesting article. There are some good points, but IMO the author of that article is painting with far too broad a brush.
Actually, I'm not sure it is even that helpful to have a category like "American gamers." It's my impression that American and non-American players of COX have more in common with each other than they do with players of WoW, Call of Duty, or Farmville from their native country. No one ever seems to confuse Romantic Comedy fans with Horror buffs, but that level of obliviousness is common among video game investors. (I'm convinced part of the reason a recent Blizzard product failed was that the creators were trying to market it both to me and to my sixty year old aunt who plays Bedazzled on Facebook).
The statement about not being able to handle failure due to lack of experience until adulthood is simply odd. Actually, I'm not sure what "traditionally failure is used as inducement to succeed" means in an RPG context. If it means that in most RPGs the character dies constantly until it finally manages to win, then I have to disagree. The lethality of computer RPGs has certainly been dialed down in recent years, but as I pointed out earlier in this thread, it started out sky high. "Saving Throw versus Death" and "Save versus Petrification" meant basically that. The standard penalty on an old school Diku MUD was losing 25% of the XP to your next level, and if you lost so much that you fell below your current level, the entire server was notified of your humiliation with a global message.
As to your final point about inspirations, I think you are being too literal. Failure does not have to mean you actually die. It can mean you don't perform up to a certain expectation. Yes, the interface claims that fighting at +0x1 is standard. But very few people consider that an actual standard to live by. For one thing, for a lot people it's really boring.
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America. It is a strange phenomena with old people, but a very large percentage die within 5 years of retirement. |
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
So most people die by 70? What third world country do you live in?
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I have always had little sympathy for those who refuse to use a readily available and expected asset in the game while also complaining that content is too hard. I can understand if it requires micro-transactions to get ahold of or if someone is doing it with the intention of making the game harder. And yet there are so many out there who aren't doing it to make things harder. The most extreme case of this I have ever seen was in a different MMO, where the combat is action based and the primary defense of the player is to dodge and evade out of attacks. A large subset of players went into the game, refused to dodge and evade attacks, then complained that the game was way too hard and they couldn't beat anything. Even when being told their error, they refused to admit they weren't playing the game right and demanded that things be changed to their "stand still and button mash" playstyle. That mindset always perplexed me. My impression of games in general is that you should learn how things work then use what assets you have in order to accomplish whatever challenges are put ahead, and how each game is played is unique to that game itself. All in all it sounds like someone saying that basketball is too hard but refusing to pass.
I've always disliked games that have a harsh penalty for death The thing with a lot of MMOs is that to get to the fun parts of the game they require a player to work toward a goal. The key phrase here is "work", which means doing things that are not enjoyable, that a player does not want to do, or striving to attain something that isn't acquired readily through standard gameplay. When working to unlock gated content, this is a drain on the player in order to achieve a certain reward which ideally should reflect the investment put in to getting that reward. A game with a harsh penalty on death takes away that investment and just drains on the player. It feels like stealing since it effectively is robbing them of their work. I on/off play a game like this on a yearly basis, and there is a common cycle that new players go through where they grind to get expensive items, summarily lose those expensive items, then quit the game afterward.
Because of the harsh penalty I'm always on a perpetual conflict with what to do with my equipment. Either I never use the items for a fear of losing them, or I use them then lose them and have to get them back Either way I am stuck investing in something only to never be able to use it in any way that would involve me risking it. And that isn't fun at all.
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It is a very broad brush, because it isn't just for "MMORPG's" but essentially for *all* computer games, although with an online gaming slant. So unfortunately generalizations will have to kick in (otherwise you might as well do no talk, OR you have 3 hours of exceptions).|
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
Interesting article. There are some good points, but IMO the author of that article is painting with far too broad a brush.
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| Actually, I'm not sure it is even that helpful to have a category like "American gamers." It's my impression that American and non-American players of COX have more in common with each other than they do with players of WoW, Call of Duty, or Farmville from their native country. No one ever seems to confuse Romantic Comedy fans with Horror buffs, but that level of obliviousness is common among video game investors. (I'm convinced part of the reason a recent Blizzard product failed was that the creators were trying to market it both to me and to my sixty year old aunt who plays Bedazzled on Facebook). |
But in general, I see at least the UK players becoming more "American" in terms of attitude towards other players (Non-English speaking players I find are generally more helpful... although they can be some of the hardest groups to "slip into".
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| The statement about not being able to handle failure due to lack of experience until adulthood is simply odd. Actually, I'm not sure what "traditionally failure is used as inducement to succeed" means in an RPG context. If it means that in most RPGs the character dies constantly until it finally manages to win, then I have to disagree. The lethality of computer RPGs has certainly been dialed down in recent years, but as I pointed out earlier in this thread, it started out sky high. "Saving Throw versus Death" and "Save versus Petrification" meant basically that. The standard penalty on an old school Diku MUD was losing 25% of the XP to your next level, and if you lost so much that you fell below your current level, the entire server was notified of your humiliation with a global message. |
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| As to your final point about inspirations, I think you are being too literal. Failure does not have to mean you actually die. It can mean you don't perform up to a certain expectation. Yes, the interface claims that fighting at +0x1 is standard. But very few people consider that an actual standard to live by. For one thing, for a lot people it's really boring. |
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Does it make sense to correlate the reaction to failure in significant real life events and efforts, to the reaction to failure in video games? Personally, developing my skills in an MMO, or any video game for that matter, has a pretty low priority. It has very little bearing on the quality of life in meat space. If the time investment for a game is significant, boring (grinding and farming), and met with a high probability of failure resulting in little to no benefit / progression, the logical conclusion is to "stop playing." Success at such high a cost holds little value when it comes to video games. On the other hand, failure / success at getting your high school diploma or say an engineering degree carries some far reaching consequences. |
Originally Posted by Gangrel_EU
I think that emphasizes more than anything else the difference in cultures. Americans (it appears) do not experience failure until their late teens (rejection letters from Universities/Colleges)... up until that point in time they are always given a success. When you then apply this to games, it means that you cannot let the player "fail" (especially when you are going for the US market) for solo stuff... because then the player will be more inclined to "stop playing".
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I acknowledge that different people have different priorities when it comes to video games (e.g. people who compete for money). That threshold of leaving varies from person to person for a number of reasons. But in the world of MMO's where a company is trying to attract a large audience, dialing in the correct amount of entertaining challenge to retain the maximum number of players is ... complicated. Attributing an aversion to failure in general doesn't apply until you start weighing in the value that your target audience places on its time. Trying to design content to attract / retain multiple audiences makes the effort even more complicated.
I personally like playing games that are hard. One of the things I missed most when I switched to TOR from City of Heroes was the lack of a difficulty setting. I love the City of Heroes difficulty settings because some people are not looking for a massive challenge when they play, and for them they can solo on the default setting without much difficulty. I can up my difficulty to the level that I get a good challenge, and I appreciate it greatly.
One of the main reasons I quit CoH for the first time in issue 0 was that I got bored at how easy missions were. I don't remember if we didn't have difficulty settings yet, or if I just didn't know they existed, but the lack of challenge just kills games for me.
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And you call me bitter.|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
Jack is a toad.
the best thing that ever happened to this game was him taking NC's bribe to leave. |
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On MMOs "dying:" I told you so. Four or five years ago, in fact. When I started seeing games advertise themselves as "has auction house, has pvp, has loot, has gear, has raids," it was pretty clear we were in for a crash, and a hard one. Once upon a time, MMOs were new and fresh. Every new one you tried was different, bringing something of its own to the table. A brand new MMO could easily strip customers from the old ones by offering something truly revolutionary. For City of Heroes, it was massive characterisation. For WoW, it was the Warcraft mythos and a polished gaming experience. So on and so forth.
But now? Until VERY recently, pretty much ever "new" MMO that came out was a lazy reskin of all the other MMOs that were out at the time. They all looked, felt, played and worked exactly like WoW, and if not like WoW then like Lineage II. There was quite literally no reason to play a new MMO because it was a carbon copy of the one you were already playing. The MMO market is saturated right now. Beyond saturated, in fact. It's FINALLY starting to dawn on developers that they can't take WoW, toss a different fictional universe over it and call it a new game. As the market becomes more homogenised, everyone loses customers to everyone else and to general burnout as we become tired of the same old crap.
It took the bombing of Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa and the Matrix Online and the severe underperformance of Champions Online and DC Univers Online and Warhammer Online and Lord of the Rings Online and Uninspired Naming Online before MMO developers realised that you need to make an actual compelling and NEW game to stay afloat in the market. We're still seeing the waves from this. "Free" to Play is the future, it seems, but more than that, the future is creativity and imagination. Because either we need to start seeing MMOs that we've never seen before, or the whole market will cave in on itself.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Jack is an idea guy. That's where he should stop.
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Originally Posted by Kirsten
You know, for all the grief people give States, they tend to forget, there would be no City of Heroes if not for him. Yeah, he made a lot of sketchy design choices, but he's still become a bit of a Scapegoat Creator. [/devilsadvocate]
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@bpphantom
The Defenders of Paragon
KGB Special Section 8
I think this is a very salient and relevant discussion to be having in today's market, especially given the changing and stated attitudes of some development companies towards the notions of what players want from them.
On a purely anecdotal level, I've noticed the two things players seem to want more than anything are customisation and flexibility of play.
The first one seems almost oxymoronic given that City of Heroes is primarily based upon customisation as one of its first steps in play. But customisation is becoming what I personally see as a broader theme in games generally. Not only do people want to choose how they look, but also what they can do in the game and how they do what they want in the game. I think this speaks to the initial popularity of something like Secret World where there's no set guidelines to characters and there's no 'bad builds' necessarily either.
When MMO's first transitioned from MUDs, there was still a locked in perspective of classes, modes of reward (gear), and progression (levels). That's taken a decade to change, but that doesn't surprise me because this is only really the second generation of players coming through and the game developers themselves now have new game technology and approaches learned through the first generation. City of Heroes I think took a risk by breaking from the gear and punitive progression model (that is to say repair costs for items (the game has none) and death penalties) as well as taking broader approaches to teaming and even difficulty levels.
Flexibility of play has come into play through not only changing economic times, but the advent of the casual player. The Nintendo Wii demonstrably proved that you could have a market of casual players who not only wanted to play what they wanted, but also wanted to play in ways that suited them. The advent of free to play models with microtransaction stores doesn't surprise me at all, given how prevalent they'd been in console games. But what it does do is empower players with choice. If you're someone who plays very occasionally, there's no disincentive to do so in a lot of games now. If you don't have the time to level through to new gear, there's the store to aid you. I know some people would see this as 'cheating' or 'powerlevelling', but it's a valid playstyle choice for a casual player who has disposable income.
It's very interesting given that in a recent podcast interview with mmorpg.com, one of the senior Funcom team members not only stated that they felt the player experience should be more individual and filtered (the interview mentions their technology for eventually providing specifically filtered play, even down to the PvP level where people could just fight and loot each other, a significant step forward in server instancing), but how Funcom changed their business model towards the notion that free to play itself was a powerful new business model. The statement was made that 'the days of seven and fourteen day trials are over', in their opinion. A game should be robust and substantial enough to support both subscription and a free experience, was the argument.
I tend to agree with that statement and feel this is where the market is heading. MMO's as stated by other posters will not be in the form we are playing them right now, this much is certain. I feel the divide between console, PC, and handheld mobile device is growing narrower and narrower with each iteration of technology that comes along, and what I may or may not play in five years' time could be accessible from my phone, my console and my PC. Developers would be foolish not to see the income possibilities and sheer variety of what's coming and one way or another, we are in the last generation of purely PC only MMO gaming.
S.
Part of Sister Flame's Clickey-Clack Posse
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Looking at you, George Lucas.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
It's FINALLY starting to dawn on developers that they can't take WoW, toss a different fictional universe over it and call it a new game.
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My guides:Dark Melee/Dark Armor/Soul Mastery, Illusion Control/Kinetics/Primal Forces Mastery, Electric Armor
"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
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That game you mentioned may not be a good example since a statement in their earnings report says it's not looking like they'll meet any of their expected financial goals...and level-less progression has been done by another game that was shut down.|
Originally Posted by SuperOz
On a purely anecdotal level, I've noticed the two things players seem to want more than anything are customisation and flexibility of play.
The first one seems almost oxymoronic given that City of Heroes is primarily based upon customisation as one of its first steps in play. But customisation is becoming what I personally see as a broader theme in games generally. Not only do people want to choose how they look, but also what they can do in the game and how they do what they want in the game. I think this speaks to the initial popularity of something like Secret World where there's no set guidelines to characters and there's no 'bad builds' necessarily either. |
Customization does help and freedom of play has become a more common preference not just online but in offline games...(the open world concept on console games)...but it's more than that i think.
When the mmorpg thing took off 13 some years ago, the customer base was (guessing) probably in the millions and now they're what...in the 10s of millions?
The composition of the mmo gaming public has most likely changed. Not just in the newcomers but even the vets' preference may have changed as well. Mix in a business model that encourages (for lack of a better phrase) *disloyalty on any single game in the long-term (mmo terms that means years instead of weeks/months for singleplayer games). It doesn't all fall on any developers shoulders, it's partly (probably mostly) falls on the new composition of mmo players they're trying to attract.
[EDIT: * To clarify, i mean financially staying with only one game]
And then you add, as others mentioned, a saturated gamespace and what you'll get is not necessarily less customers but a more dispersed market. It will be very difficult and likely costly to try and amass a large concentration of that market into one game for a long time (past the first few months.)
Besides the player retention problems that glow sword mmo is having, that game did show that there is still a market out there for mmos. In about half a year with its box sales and 1mil+ subs during that time, it must've made over $200 million in revenue and if they can stay in the black for the year they'll pay off their initial dev costs. For perspective, CoX took 8+ years to make about $180 mil USD.
So there is still a market for it, but i think its biggest problem is in retaining a large chunk of that market for a lengthy period.
Maybe instead of using a broad stroke philosophy in designing mmos, there needs to be a multi-targeted approach. There still are a lot of people who like to grind, just as there are people really into only/mostly pvp, or casual visitors and hardcore residents in games, but trying to design a single game to attract all of those at once to any great degree is impossible...something or everything will get watered down or doesn't mix well with the others.
Either that or settle for your own niche of the market pie and plan your budget accordingly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7C90sLh5Ok
"...now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb" - Dark Helmet
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Well said.|
Originally Posted by Jonny_B
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I may have to change my tune on the question... Are MMOs dead? They might actually be. Not for the reasons talked about regarding the actual games... but, for me, the great aspect of MMOs are the ongoing, indefinite nature of them. When you find that MMO that you love, it's similar to one of your favorite games of all time that you could always bust out, play for a bit and have a blast (those often come in the form of an old console system or an old pc game... it could be Super Mario Bros on the NES or Golden Axe on the Sega Genesis [Or Adventure on the Atari 2600] or the first Tomb Raider or any number of any games on any systems that you'll occasionally find yourself dusting off and reminiscing with).
It's somewhat akin to your favorite toy. You can take it out and play with it every damn day and you see no end in sight.
All of these things are usually ours to keep and use whenever we may happen to feel like it... Even if it is ten years after the fact. It might be in a box somewhere... it might be on a special shelf you set up for it... Regardless, it's there, in your possession to use at your will.
It used to seem as though MMORPGs would remain in existence even after they'd been around for several years. UO, EQ... they may be well past their days of being relevant within the industry and business world... but they were still kicking when most of the newer waves of MMORPG players (that now make up the majority of MMORPG players today) came along and got into the next generation of MMORPG games - SWG, CoH, WoW...
Many of us thought that SOE's mistakes of destroying what they had in order to make it something completely different would bring about a better approach to faltering games... Instead, it gave way to just ending these games. They're considered too expensive to even keep running.
We've seen a bunch just switched off, never to be turned on again.
Now that we see it more and more... and now that fans, customers and players experience their favorite, continuous video game experience being cut short on them... Perhaps we're going to see people just simply not wish to get hooked, involved and committed to these massive games being run and maintained by fickle corporations.
I know nothing lasts forever and we're to enjoy the time we do spend with what we have while we have it... and all of that is fine... but, after a while, after a few experiences... It's not unreasonable to avoid reliving the same painful endings before you're ready for them. It's not unreasonable to avoid allowing your happy fun pastime video gaming to be completely at the mercy of some men in suits that run the publishing company.
I don't create characters that I've enjoyed playing for 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, 5 years... and so on... just to suddenly not be able to play those characters and continue those characters any longer. Even if it's not the specific characters for a particular player... it might be the game mechanics instead, or the game world, or the various options the game has to offer.
Whatever the case may be... that ongoing nature of the MMORPG has always been the aspect that sets it apart from all other games. You can replay most games... but an MMORPG just keeps going.
Or does it?
It doesn't seem to keep going at all.
It ends.
Not with some fancy cut scene and/or end credits.
It ends with an announcement. It ends with gnashing of teeth and reluctant goodbyes and frantic begging for reprieve.
And then, worst of all... you can't even replay it. It' gone. Screenshot memoirs and memories are all you have left of the game itself. You can't pull it out of the box, pick it off of the shelf, turn it on for old time's sake.
It's not ours. And the people who do own it can take it away, at any point in time.
It makes me wonder if that is why MMORPGs may indeed die.
I lost my two favorite games this way... I don't think I will risk another.
great times in both games, no doubt... but I'm done having my alltime favorite pastimes ripped out of my hands before I'm done with them. Maybe I am not alone in this.
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
Well said. I think I'm going back to Morrowind and SNES emulators after this.
I was thinking along these lines, myself. It's an artifact of our new, increasingly digital age, I suspect. We own nothing.
Downstairs I have a shelf of Three Investigators, Brains Benton, and Hardy Boys books from my childhood in the '60s. Until I was packing up to move, I had forgotten I had them. They are all out of print now -- well, most of them, anyway -- but I can let the kids read them by handing them these old hardbacks. If they had been digital, there's little reason to expect the format would even be readable, let alone capable of being loaned out or passed on.
Likewise, at this moment there is a bookcase full of paper RPG dating back to the mid-70s on the wall behind me. There are shelves beside me overflowing with more games. If I wanted to, I could right now pull out my copy of Unknown Armies or Over the Edge or Everway or Tunnels and Trolls and make a character, write an adventure, or go and find some people to play. They exist, I own them, and as long as I have them in my possession I can get entertainment out of them. Once the lights go out in Paragon City, nothing will remain but some digital screenshot files and my memories.
Living digitally has its advantages, certainly, but in its reliance on the goodwill of corporations, it is infinitely more ephemeral. Are we losing more than we gain?
Sorry. I spend too much time thinking about these things. It's a side-effect of getting old, I imagine.
@Glass Goblin - Writer, brainstormer, storyteller, hero
Though nothing will drive them away
We can beat them, just for one day
We can be heroes, just for one day
after playing this game for 7 years and 8 months, having made lots for friends. Keeping in touch with about 10 of them. It is sad to see this game go for no other reason than greed.
anyways, i will miss this game very much.
"...now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb" - Dark Helmet
However, other cultures are *more willing* to help out (i have noticed that with EU players, if you are stuck they are more inclined to not help due to lack of time, and not due to a risk of "failure"...
What EU Dev's need to know about American online Gamers. EU GDC 2012
I would like to point out that the talk was given by an American developer.
If the game has already established itself, then you have to keep the *exisiting* players (which will decrease over time) and also get in newer players (to keep up the churn level to stay stable)... and due to how the *playing* population has changed over the years, it makes it harder and harder... you have to start paying attention to these factors to keep the churn level up as your general playing population decreases.
If you think about it, would CoX would have stayed alive if they had stayed Subscription only and made 1-50 still take 200+ hours?
Eventually, the game would have dropped to such a low level that it wouldn't be possible to stay alive.
Making it faster to level meant that you could try out many different alts in a *sensible* amount of time.
Changes to how debt worked meant that levelling was faster.
The game *has* evolved drastically (especially in the past couple of years), it is faster, failure is almost impossible (and yet people still complain about how hard something can bewhen they dont use inspirations to help out... and they *DO* drop like candy... so use them liberally).
I think most people simply use games and other media as an escape from our hectic lives where failure is and always has been a harsh reality. I won't get into the politics behind all that, but will simply say that if I'm escaping and playing a game, I want to just succeed, because failure isn't fun, and failure is for the real world. That said, I do want the knowledge that I could fail if I didn't play smart.
I'm only ladylike when compared to my sister.