Developers Corner

I believe a lot of you have posted things that make sense, about how the investors are the ones pulling all the strings and so on. But this is not how it always happens. A lot of games are started without investors, and they don't look for publishers untill after they have a useable build to pitch. That developers are lazy is as far from the truth as you can get. The demand to make bigger and better games are ever increasing, forcing developing companies to spend more and more money on each title. Obviously they sometimes reap the golden harvest from this as well, but for each increase in project price, the risk increases the same way. This is where the problem starts.

Games that cost 800 million dollars to make can not fail. And im not saying that they can not be bad, im saying that they can not fail, because if they do, the company is bankrupt, end of story. This is the big problem of todays game industry. There are so many companies all making these big titles, that MUST NOT FAIL, and the only way to make something that you are almost insured against failing, is when you make something that has been done before. It is quite simple to understand the investors point of view, why would you take your chances with the people threading new paths when you ahve seen time and time again that the good same old, same old still can yield an alright profit?


The problem here is simple: With the increasing pricetag on MMO development, we are going to see more and more of the same old story rerun into infinity. How do you change it? By stop being so demanding of game features. I know you are screaming out when you read this, but bear with me for one moment:


I don't mean you should stop demanding a polished, bugfree, fun mmo. What I mean with this statement, is to say that we all need to take a step back and stop demanding that the next mmo has ALL the features of the previous MMO you played. Every MMO after WoW seems to aspire to this: That they need to have all the features wow has, and more, to compete. But it speaks for itself that a game in development for 5 years now (or is it more?) is going to be filled with much more than the new product. We need to change our focus to lots of features, to fun and innovative features. Players need to realise that you can't get housing, guild halls, keeps, sieges, boats, fishing, crafting, end game pve, end game pvp and pink elephants with yellow trumpets at the release of a game. I believe that if the community, as well as the developers, started to focus on what features THEY would have to set them apart, we would start seeing new innovation.

It's hard to invent a new type of car when you are told to fit four wheels, a diesel engine, a standard cockpit and a trunk on it.

 

Well said.

Still, I wonder how much it would really dent the budget for one of these huge play-it-safe companies to have a small team, like that of an indie development but full time, and have them do some on-the-side research and development so that they will be able to innovate at some point.  The reason being, and I hope we can all agree, is that you can only do the copy cat thing so long.  Eventually someone has to innovate and then everyone will copy them.  Everyone would love to have that success, but no one wants to take the risk.  I say why not at least prepare for the possibility with as little risk as possible?

I think yes with a hefty mix of the suits/publishers have gotten pushier with regard to time frames to develope a game. Everyone still wants WoW money and the reality is it isn't going to happen again. The stable of games we have to play since WoW and their success levels prove that. WoW was a right time, right place anomaly. End of story.

That and alot of these young developers coming into the industry today are of the "me, me, me, right here, right now instant gratification" generation and they champion design that reflects that which in my opinion is making games of all genres less complex and faster/easier to get through. But hey, if that's the age demographic they are shooting for, I guess that just means us older guys 30+ (who like the complexity of old) will have to start taking up more traditional adult male hobbies like going to the bar more, fishing, hunting, gambling, fixing up old cars and such on a much more regular basis.

I went to the gun range the other week. More fun than I've had in any MMO since the week before the SWG NGE launched.  

going a bit off topic here. But I don't think it's impossible to cater to both the instant gratification oriented people, and those who like a challenge. The trick is to make content that allow them both to play together without one destroying the fun for the other.

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

I think yes with a hefty mix of the suits/publishers have gotten pushier with regard to time frames to develope a game. Everyone still wants WoW money and the reality is it isn't going to happen again. The stable of games we have to play since WoW and their success levels prove that. WoW was a right time, right place anomaly. End of story.

That and alot of these young developers coming into the industry today are of the "me, me, me, right here, right now instant gratification" generation and they champion design that reflects that which in my opinion is making games of all genres less complex and faster/easier to get through. But hey, if that's the age demographic they are shooting for, I guess that just means us older guys 30+ (who like the complexity of old) will have to start taking up more traditional adult male hobbies like going to the bar more, fishing, hunting, gambling, fixing up old cars and such on a much more regular basis.

I went to the gun range the other week. More fun than I've had in any MMO since the week before the SWG NGE launched.  

First things first - this WoW money thing can and probably will happen again (only a matter of time). Secondly, Blizzard had a ton of loyal fans way before WoW was created - that alone was enough to help spread the word and give WoW a player base. They had players from Starcraft, Diablo and Warcraft who never even heard of an MMOG and when all their friends from said games moved to WoW, they moved too. While I do agree, WoW was created at the right time and place, it is not only those two factors that influence how successful a game will be.

It's simply a matter of time before WoW's popularity runs out and A) Blizzard runs a new MMO and continues to dominate or B) Some other corporation strikes a goldmine and becomes the new King.

Originally posted by Vint4ge

 Ok.. some good points here.. lets see first of all..

First things first - this WoW money thing can and probably will happen again (only a matter of time).

Oh absolutely.. its just a matter of time.. anyone that states otherwise really needs to take history over and over until they see that history repeats itself one way or another, even in business.

Secondly, Blizzard had a ton of loyal fans way before WoW was created - that alone was enough to help spread the word and give WoW a player base.

Agree 100%, aside from a well polished game at launch (well to me anyway) they had the right IP at the right time... Warcraft had lots of fans.. LOTS.. and thats not even including places like korea.. which is like... a good number times more than the us and europe. They were just lucky to have had a loyal fan base in standby and good advertisers. Otherwise it probably would have hit the nomal 300k mark for mmos at that time.

They had players from Starcraft, Diablo and Warcraft who never even heard of an MMOG and when all their friends from said games moved to WoW, they moved too. While I do agree, WoW was created at the right time and place, it is not only those two factors that influence how successful a game will be.

Agreed.. many people though SWG in the beginning was bad numbers.. but it wasnt, i believe thier peak was 300k(?) before the cu and nge drained those numbers.. and that was and still is a good number for mmorpgs today... Like we all agree, warcraft was simply in the right place.. at the right time with the planets aligned, or something. :P

It's simply a matter of time before WoW's popularity runs out and A) Blizzard runs a new MMO and continues to dominate or B) Some other corporation strikes a goldmine and becomes the new King.

Now heres where I discuss things a bit. WoW's popularity is slowly draining and anyone that will tell you otherwise is a fool... im not saying its dead... im just saying.. its on the decline. Why? People are getting tired of the level grind and raid... theres no point to it anymore..

In my opinion WoW should have went more warcraftish and less EQ in their design... they should have made world pvp like they origionally planned and made it where you could take zones... don;t get me wrong i liked EQ... but its time for devs to start innovating a bit and not just make the same car with a new shade of paint and new little lights or accessories...

i mean.. its painfully obvious that they are just trying to capitalize off WoW now.. and they are failing to realize that people are looking for something different... oh sure.. they are still playing wow becuase of all the other copies out there.. but they are looking...

Devs are sitting on a gold mine and they dont even realize it... there is much room for SWG pre-cu like games to flourish... now im not talking star wars.. im talking freedom, SKILL based (not level mind you), games.. hell you get at least one or two threads a day asking for more sandboxish types of games.. HEELLOO? DEVS?

Anywho.. thats all from me right now.. want to see others thoughts.

I believe Bioware will be the next successful company to pull out a MMO.  Simply with the backgrounds devs they are using.  Using many former ultima online devs and with Bioware's background. 

For instance Mass effect was a different type of RPG, very successful. 

I think we will see more FPS style MMO's in the future.  Look at a game called Infinity (space combat), it's being ran by a group of about 40 people, incredible what people can do when they dont want to clone WoW