Is it even possible to make brand new AAA MMORPG which will be hugely successful?

rb2001 · May 2015

The funny thing to me is that MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) have better mechanics that all the new games, and they are flipping text. Yes, that's why they are vastly easier to make, but the mechanics have been laid down since before your great-great grandma was born.

Containers, putting things in them, equipping things, enemies dropping what they actually wear, rifling through their containers to see what they actually had, etc. etc.... all done 30 years ago better than games today.

nastuug · May 2015

rb2001 wrote: »

The funny thing to me is that MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) have better mechanics that all the new games, and they are flipping text. Yes, that's why they are vastly easier to make, but the mechanics have been laid down since before your great-great grandma was born.

Containers, putting things in them, equipping things, enemies dropping what they actually wear, rifling through their containers to see what they actually had, etc. etc.... all done 30 years ago better than games today.

I think you're going to lose at least 3/4 of the people here with the mentioning of MUDs.

technohic · May 2015

I think there could be if they didn't try to follow the WoW model or so close to it. Trying to compete with a game with years of content and not anything setting you apart is kind of stupid if you ask me.

I actually think this game had potential with the budget but I think it was rushed and things were tacked on without fully thinking them through. Puts me in mind of the blog Raph Koster posted about SWG which was pre-WoW, but it had different ideas and got rushed out as well. They also had a much smaller budget than you see in MMOs post-WoW. Only wild speculation but I can only assume that here there have been similar game management missteps.

nastuug · May 2015

technohic wrote: »

I actually think this game had potential with the budget the TES title to back it but I think it was rushed and things were tacked on without fully thinking them through. Puts me in mind of the blog Raph Koster posted about SWG which was pre-WoW, but it had different ideas and got rushed out as well. They also had a much smaller budget than you see in MMOs post-WoW. Only wild speculation but I can only assume that here there have been similar game management missteps.

Fixed it for you.

Sylvyr · May 2015

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

An mmo can have success in today's environment if they spent the capital and time to design it right from the start. I think ESO, like others underestimate what it takes to launch a top game and as a result they likely lose more subscribers. The big question is, which provides a better return from investment, a well polished game or a game that had average effort put into its creation such as ESO.

In ESO's case they did have some pretty good design ideas from the start, the gem in it that made it stand apart from the rest was their vision of PvP but that was a key point, that is STILL being advertised, that has fallen completely short. The other thing that stands out is the voice acting, which adds a lot more life and dimension to the game.

In ESO's case they are, overall, providing a meh game, standard MMO, standard classes, usual quests, but hooking people in because it's -skinned- like an elder scrolls game. IMHO it doesn't come very close to being an ES game for many reasons - almost like the leads came from other games/MMOs and have a rudimentary understanding of ES. Even as an MMO (pretending I've never played ES), it's not great. Kind of meh borderline fail from both perspectives.

Anyway, they may or may not know what it takes to launch a top game but they think they know what it takes to "hook" people and milk them. The previous rep of ES, the grinds, the pretty baubles in the crown store, etc.

As long as we get suckered into it with pre-order trinkets and gimmicks and the like, and they make enough profit from the venture through the course of the product, they will call it a success.

So which provides a "better" return on investment is probably a well polished game but in ESOs case they are banking on the ES in ESO. And like many games they polish the beginning parts so it looks good and hooks you in. (Now I realize why they put so much energy into redoing the tutorial recently). Level 1-50 is fairly easy and extremely fun, you can play any way you want no matter how derpy and still kick ass. After that, things start changing.

rb2001 · May 2015

nastuug wrote: »

rb2001 wrote: »

The funny thing to me is that MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) have better mechanics that all the new games, and they are flipping text. Yes, that's why they are vastly easier to make, but the mechanics have been laid down since before your great-great grandma was born.

Containers, putting things in them, equipping things, enemies dropping what they actually wear, rifling through their containers to see what they actually had, etc. etc.... all done 30 years ago better than games today.

I think you're going to lose at least 3/4 of the people here with the mentioning of MUDs.

I think people should stop focusing on the label so much. Is it MMO. It is SP. Is it PVP. These things are concepts that stick things in roles where they never advance, and hold back everything.

Pallmor · May 2015

rb2001 wrote: »

The funny thing to me is that MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) have better mechanics that all the new games, and they are flipping text. Yes, that's why they are vastly easier to make, but the mechanics have been laid down since before your great-great grandma was born.

Containers, putting things in them, equipping things, enemies dropping what they actually wear, rifling through their containers to see what they actually had, etc. etc.... all done 30 years ago better than games today.

I was seriously addicted to a Star Wars MUD back in the day. My cousin and I used to play together. They were pretty awesome for the time. In fact, I remember when the first MMO's started coming out, a lot of people called them "graphical MUD's." Many people forget about MUD's when they talk about the early history of MMO's. Of course, many people think WoW was the first MMO too, so shows you what they know.

UPrime · May 2015

I think it's much harder now days because expectations are WAAAY higher than they used to be and competition is also much greater.

Back in they day, you had 3 choices to play an MMO, so you stayed with what you had. Which means more money to the developers for a product that wasn't as good as what we have now.

Over time, expectations and competition grew much faster than the size of the player base.

Psychobunni · May 2015

golfer.dub17_ESO wrote: »

Most new games regardless of genre die because they copy the popular competition and don't offer any unique experience to keep people from playing the competition.

Stop thinking with a "we can't do this because WoW didn't do this" or "we can't do this because it's an MMO" mentality.

I somewhat agree and disagree. To me it seems that if I wanted to break into an already established market then I need to look at the best "perks" so to say of my competition and not only include them but attempt to do it better while still offering something new and exciting.

Not to mention that breaking in 10 years later has players with an established idea of what should be. Not all, sure some want completely new. But like months ago when I voted LOTRO over ESO as best MMO, it was because of standards I accept that in *my* mind ESO failed hard on. So there is that.

There is a lot of great answers here, you can't do it cheap, you can't do it in a hurry, no one likes to find out their new shiney is broken. You can't balance PVP and PVE "together" and keep both entertained and excited to play.

I also think that ESO's problem coming from a best selling solo title is that it didn't embrace "MMO" enough to fly off well as an MMO.

PKMN12 · May 2015

FF14 ARR is only a couple years old and is a VERY succesful P2P RPG, after Square Enix realized they messed up on the original version of the game and rebuilt it from the ground up.

AhPook_Is_Here · May 2015

The companies that make these games are out to make a buck. They don't see these things from the same perspective that a fan of the genre does, they see the game as a balance sheet that needs to stay in the black at all times. When their costs are up and revenues start to trickle off, they cut costs, and keep cutting till the game is done or back in the black. All the other nuances of why are really not that important.

Personally I think the condition a game is in when launched and how quickly the launch problems are addressed determines how long a game can last. Of course from the day production starts marketing forces want to get it out the door as fast as possible regardless of the state it is in for that initial payday and so they can stop debt financing the property.

nastuug · May 2015

rb2001 wrote: »

nastuug wrote: »

rb2001 wrote: »

The funny thing to me is that MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) have better mechanics that all the new games, and they are flipping text. Yes, that's why they are vastly easier to make, but the mechanics have been laid down since before your great-great grandma was born.

Containers, putting things in them, equipping things, enemies dropping what they actually wear, rifling through their containers to see what they actually had, etc. etc.... all done 30 years ago better than games today.

I think you're going to lose at least 3/4 of the people here with the mentioning of MUDs.

I think people should stop focusing on the label so much. Is it MMO. It is SP. Is it PVP. These things are concepts that stick things in roles where they never advance, and hold back everything.

Sad, but true to some extent. It's unfortunate to see entire threads devised to argue whether this is a MMORPG, Online RPG, etc.

PKMN12 wrote: »

FF14 ARR is only a couple years old and is a VERY succesful P2P RPG, after Square Enix realized they messed up on the original version of the game and rebuilt it from the ground up.

While I still dislike the game, I can't argue that. They have been wildly successful with the 2.0 launch.

UrQuan · May 2015

nastuug wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

To the last bolded point first, for a large AAA title, you simply can't take that approach any more. You need a large team of people with a wide range of areas of expertise in order to make the game. It's simply not possible to do it otherwise (again, I'm saying this with regard to a large AAA title: for a smaller game, it's still possible to take this approach).

Small teams or single creative people can still come up with a game that will be successful.

For smaller games, absolutely. Smaller games don't have the expectation of massive revenues and the expectation that everything will be built on the latest greatest technology and feature the most amazing graphics and physics possible. Those aspects are what prevents the approach from working with a large AAA title: the expectations of what it means to be a large AAA title.

Nestor wrote: »

It all depends on their vision. What they can't have are the money people telling them to throw in this feature or that feature because it polls well and has some IRR benefits. Problem is, the process costs money and the money people are always going to screw up the game to assure themselves of an ROI. Which is why every shooter today is the same as every other shooter for example.

The problem is, and always will be, the Vision and and how much it gets diluted by the process and the competition. By competition I mean making the game too much like what already exists. But not doing something just because someone else is doing it is not the answer either.

Part of the problem is that those things can't be avoided in a large AAA title. A large AAA title simply can't be made without the money people. And even if you somehow miraculously get money people who literally just throw cash at you without any oversight, you still need a massive team to make the game, and the vision will inevitably get diluted because there are so many people working on it, and they can't possibly all be consulting with each other over everything.

There's also the problem that even when there's one person with a strong vision driving the team, that person will often be used to working with a smaller team on smaller games (the people who are used to working with larger teams aren't usually the same people with a strong vision of how the game should be), and not truly understand how to run a large studio. That, in and of itself, can lead to the vision being diluted, because the person driving it doesn't know what level of direction needs to be given to the members of the team, and either ends up micro-managing things, or being too hands-off and only giving feedback ("it's wrong!") too late, further delaying the process. Frequently the same person will make both mistakes.

@UrQuan Path of Exile -- Grinding Gear Games. You'd call that a large, modern success, right?

Success? Absolutely. I definitely wouldn't call it a large AAA title though. As far as graphics, effects, animations etc go, it looks more like it belongs in the same era as Baldur's Gate II. That doesn't mean it's a bad game (I haven't played it, but from everything I've heard it's actually a pretty great game), but it's obvious that it's not a big-budget AAA title.

nastuug · May 2015

UrQuan wrote: »

nastuug wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

To the last bolded point first, for a large AAA title, you simply can't take that approach any more. You need a large team of people with a wide range of areas of expertise in order to make the game. It's simply not possible to do it otherwise (again, I'm saying this with regard to a large AAA title: for a smaller game, it's still possible to take this approach).

Small teams or single creative people can still come up with a game that will be successful.

For smaller games, absolutely. Smaller games don't have the expectation of massive revenues and the expectation that everything will be built on the latest greatest technology and feature the most amazing graphics and physics possible. Those aspects are what prevents the approach from working with a large AAA title: the expectations of what it means to be a large AAA title.

Nestor wrote: »

It all depends on their vision. What they can't have are the money people telling them to throw in this feature or that feature because it polls well and has some IRR benefits. Problem is, the process costs money and the money people are always going to screw up the game to assure themselves of an ROI. Which is why every shooter today is the same as every other shooter for example.

The problem is, and always will be, the Vision and and how much it gets diluted by the process and the competition. By competition I mean making the game too much like what already exists. But not doing something just because someone else is doing it is not the answer either.

Part of the problem is that those things can't be avoided in a large AAA title. A large AAA title simply can't be made without the money people. And even if you somehow miraculously get money people who literally just throw cash at you without any oversight, you still need a massive team to make the game, and the vision will inevitably get diluted because there are so many people working on it, and they can't possibly all be consulting with each other over everything.

There's also the problem that even when there's one person with a strong vision driving the team, that person will often be used to working with a smaller team on smaller games (the people who are used to working with larger teams aren't usually the same people with a strong vision of how the game should be), and not truly understand how to run a large studio. That, in and of itself, can lead to the vision being diluted, because the person driving it doesn't know what level of direction needs to be given to the members of the team, and either ends up micro-managing things, or being too hands-off and only giving feedback ("it's wrong!") too late, further delaying the process. Frequently the same person will make both mistakes.

@UrQuan Path of Exile -- Grinding Gear Games. You'd call that a large, modern success, right?

Success? Absolutely. I definitely wouldn't call it a large AAA title though. As far as graphics, effects, animations etc go, it looks more like it belongs in the same era as Baldur's Gate II. That doesn't mean it's a bad game (I haven't played it, but from everything I've heard it's actually a pretty great game), but it's obvious that it's not a big-budget AAA title.

You're right. It was a small New Zealand company. But even through it's wild success, they have maintained the same mentality while developing future content.

Why can't this type of customer service behavior carry over to larger companies when they clearly have a bigger budget for it?

UrQuan · May 2015

nastuug wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

nastuug wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

To the last bolded point first, for a large AAA title, you simply can't take that approach any more. You need a large team of people with a wide range of areas of expertise in order to make the game. It's simply not possible to do it otherwise (again, I'm saying this with regard to a large AAA title: for a smaller game, it's still possible to take this approach).

Small teams or single creative people can still come up with a game that will be successful.

For smaller games, absolutely. Smaller games don't have the expectation of massive revenues and the expectation that everything will be built on the latest greatest technology and feature the most amazing graphics and physics possible. Those aspects are what prevents the approach from working with a large AAA title: the expectations of what it means to be a large AAA title.

Nestor wrote: »

It all depends on their vision. What they can't have are the money people telling them to throw in this feature or that feature because it polls well and has some IRR benefits. Problem is, the process costs money and the money people are always going to screw up the game to assure themselves of an ROI. Which is why every shooter today is the same as every other shooter for example.

The problem is, and always will be, the Vision and and how much it gets diluted by the process and the competition. By competition I mean making the game too much like what already exists. But not doing something just because someone else is doing it is not the answer either.

Part of the problem is that those things can't be avoided in a large AAA title. A large AAA title simply can't be made without the money people. And even if you somehow miraculously get money people who literally just throw cash at you without any oversight, you still need a massive team to make the game, and the vision will inevitably get diluted because there are so many people working on it, and they can't possibly all be consulting with each other over everything.

There's also the problem that even when there's one person with a strong vision driving the team, that person will often be used to working with a smaller team on smaller games (the people who are used to working with larger teams aren't usually the same people with a strong vision of how the game should be), and not truly understand how to run a large studio. That, in and of itself, can lead to the vision being diluted, because the person driving it doesn't know what level of direction needs to be given to the members of the team, and either ends up micro-managing things, or being too hands-off and only giving feedback ("it's wrong!") too late, further delaying the process. Frequently the same person will make both mistakes.

@UrQuan Path of Exile -- Grinding Gear Games. You'd call that a large, modern success, right?

Success? Absolutely. I definitely wouldn't call it a large AAA title though. As far as graphics, effects, animations etc go, it looks more like it belongs in the same era as Baldur's Gate II. That doesn't mean it's a bad game (I haven't played it, but from everything I've heard it's actually a pretty great game), but it's obvious that it's not a big-budget AAA title.

You're right. It was a small New Zealand company. But even through it's wild success, they have maintained the same mentality while developing future content.

Why can't this type of customer service behavior carry over to larger companies when they clearly have a bigger budget for it?

Because with the bigger budget comes the higher expectations for graphics, performance, physics, etc. That's where you have to start branching out into a huge team, and that's where the difficulties I pointed out come into play.

When the expectations aren't for the game to be state of the art, cutting edge, top of market, big and splashy, then you can have a much more focused team. That often leads to a better game.

nastuug · May 2015

UrQuan wrote: »

nastuug wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

nastuug wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

To the last bolded point first, for a large AAA title, you simply can't take that approach any more. You need a large team of people with a wide range of areas of expertise in order to make the game. It's simply not possible to do it otherwise (again, I'm saying this with regard to a large AAA title: for a smaller game, it's still possible to take this approach).

Small teams or single creative people can still come up with a game that will be successful.

For smaller games, absolutely. Smaller games don't have the expectation of massive revenues and the expectation that everything will be built on the latest greatest technology and feature the most amazing graphics and physics possible. Those aspects are what prevents the approach from working with a large AAA title: the expectations of what it means to be a large AAA title.

Nestor wrote: »

It all depends on their vision. What they can't have are the money people telling them to throw in this feature or that feature because it polls well and has some IRR benefits. Problem is, the process costs money and the money people are always going to screw up the game to assure themselves of an ROI. Which is why every shooter today is the same as every other shooter for example.

The problem is, and always will be, the Vision and and how much it gets diluted by the process and the competition. By competition I mean making the game too much like what already exists. But not doing something just because someone else is doing it is not the answer either.

Part of the problem is that those things can't be avoided in a large AAA title. A large AAA title simply can't be made without the money people. And even if you somehow miraculously get money people who literally just throw cash at you without any oversight, you still need a massive team to make the game, and the vision will inevitably get diluted because there are so many people working on it, and they can't possibly all be consulting with each other over everything.

There's also the problem that even when there's one person with a strong vision driving the team, that person will often be used to working with a smaller team on smaller games (the people who are used to working with larger teams aren't usually the same people with a strong vision of how the game should be), and not truly understand how to run a large studio. That, in and of itself, can lead to the vision being diluted, because the person driving it doesn't know what level of direction needs to be given to the members of the team, and either ends up micro-managing things, or being too hands-off and only giving feedback ("it's wrong!") too late, further delaying the process. Frequently the same person will make both mistakes.

@UrQuan Path of Exile -- Grinding Gear Games. You'd call that a large, modern success, right?

Success? Absolutely. I definitely wouldn't call it a large AAA title though. As far as graphics, effects, animations etc go, it looks more like it belongs in the same era as Baldur's Gate II. That doesn't mean it's a bad game (I haven't played it, but from everything I've heard it's actually a pretty great game), but it's obvious that it's not a big-budget AAA title.

You're right. It was a small New Zealand company. But even through it's wild success, they have maintained the same mentality while developing future content.

Why can't this type of customer service behavior carry over to larger companies when they clearly have a bigger budget for it?

Because with the bigger budget comes the higher expectations for graphics, performance, physics, etc. That's where you have to start branching out into a huge team, and that's where the difficulties I pointed out come into play.

When the expectations aren't for the game to be state of the art, cutting edge, top of market, big and splashy, then you can have a much more focused team. That often leads to a better game.

While that may be true when considering development of said game, that still leaves little room for excuses on community discussion activity from mods/managers.

Here's a list of topics on Page 1 in 'General Discussion' that "warranted" a response from ZOS:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1784868#Comment_1784868
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1784961#Comment_1784961
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1783410#Comment_1783410
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1773113#Comment_1773113

Zero ZOS responses on many, many other legitimate threads. To some, it shows that community mods/managers are lazy. To others, it may be perceived that the DEVS are lazy and generally don't care to assist with real issues.

When we're talking perception, it's the consumers that decide what light to cast said video game company in. When they act like this on forums, it generally leaves them in a horrible PR position. Not only is it easily avoidable, it's blatantly damaging the reputation of the game.

Attorneyatlawl · May 2015

Pallmor wrote: »

They only "fail" because every MMO judges itself next to World of Warcraft. If everyone would stop trying to produce the next "WoW Killer" and stop dreaming of millions of subscribers, and instead have more realistic expectations, then there wouldn't be so many of these "failures."

An MMO with 500,000 regular subscribers is only a failure if the developer overspent on development with the unrealistic expectation that they were going to have 5 million regular subscribers.

@Pallmor, I couldn't agree more. WOW both was, and is, an anomaly for this type of MMORPG. Stop framing everything by one outsized success, and you'll find most of the well done ones are doing pretty well compared to historical numbers, in part due to the larger size of the gaming market as a whole.

UrQuan · May 2015

nastuug wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

nastuug wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

nastuug wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

To the last bolded point first, for a large AAA title, you simply can't take that approach any more. You need a large team of people with a wide range of areas of expertise in order to make the game. It's simply not possible to do it otherwise (again, I'm saying this with regard to a large AAA title: for a smaller game, it's still possible to take this approach).

Small teams or single creative people can still come up with a game that will be successful.

For smaller games, absolutely. Smaller games don't have the expectation of massive revenues and the expectation that everything will be built on the latest greatest technology and feature the most amazing graphics and physics possible. Those aspects are what prevents the approach from working with a large AAA title: the expectations of what it means to be a large AAA title.

Nestor wrote: »

It all depends on their vision. What they can't have are the money people telling them to throw in this feature or that feature because it polls well and has some IRR benefits. Problem is, the process costs money and the money people are always going to screw up the game to assure themselves of an ROI. Which is why every shooter today is the same as every other shooter for example.

The problem is, and always will be, the Vision and and how much it gets diluted by the process and the competition. By competition I mean making the game too much like what already exists. But not doing something just because someone else is doing it is not the answer either.

Part of the problem is that those things can't be avoided in a large AAA title. A large AAA title simply can't be made without the money people. And even if you somehow miraculously get money people who literally just throw cash at you without any oversight, you still need a massive team to make the game, and the vision will inevitably get diluted because there are so many people working on it, and they can't possibly all be consulting with each other over everything.

There's also the problem that even when there's one person with a strong vision driving the team, that person will often be used to working with a smaller team on smaller games (the people who are used to working with larger teams aren't usually the same people with a strong vision of how the game should be), and not truly understand how to run a large studio. That, in and of itself, can lead to the vision being diluted, because the person driving it doesn't know what level of direction needs to be given to the members of the team, and either ends up micro-managing things, or being too hands-off and only giving feedback ("it's wrong!") too late, further delaying the process. Frequently the same person will make both mistakes.

@UrQuan Path of Exile -- Grinding Gear Games. You'd call that a large, modern success, right?

Success? Absolutely. I definitely wouldn't call it a large AAA title though. As far as graphics, effects, animations etc go, it looks more like it belongs in the same era as Baldur's Gate II. That doesn't mean it's a bad game (I haven't played it, but from everything I've heard it's actually a pretty great game), but it's obvious that it's not a big-budget AAA title.

You're right. It was a small New Zealand company. But even through it's wild success, they have maintained the same mentality while developing future content.

Why can't this type of customer service behavior carry over to larger companies when they clearly have a bigger budget for it?

Because with the bigger budget comes the higher expectations for graphics, performance, physics, etc. That's where you have to start branching out into a huge team, and that's where the difficulties I pointed out come into play.

When the expectations aren't for the game to be state of the art, cutting edge, top of market, big and splashy, then you can have a much more focused team. That often leads to a better game.

While that may be true when considering development of said game, that still leaves little room for excuses on community discussion activity from mods/managers.

Here's a list of topics on Page 1 in 'General Discussion' that "warranted" a response from ZOS:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1784868#Comment_1784868
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1784961#Comment_1784961
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1783410#Comment_1783410
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1773113#Comment_1773113

Zero ZOS responses on many, many other legitimate threads. To some, it shows that community mods/managers are lazy. To others, it may be perceived that the DEVS are lazy and generally don't care to assist with real issues.

When we're talking perception, it's the consumers that decide what light to cast said video game company in. When they act like this on forums, it generally leaves them in a horrible PR position. Not only is it easily avoidable, it's blatantly damaging the reputation of the game.

I'd almost consider that a different topic entirely. Relevant to the success (or lack thereof) of a game, for sure, but very different from the development challenges of a AAA title that I was talking about.

nastuug · May 2015

UrQuan wrote: »

nastuug wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

nastuug wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

nastuug wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

To the last bolded point first, for a large AAA title, you simply can't take that approach any more. You need a large team of people with a wide range of areas of expertise in order to make the game. It's simply not possible to do it otherwise (again, I'm saying this with regard to a large AAA title: for a smaller game, it's still possible to take this approach).

Small teams or single creative people can still come up with a game that will be successful.

For smaller games, absolutely. Smaller games don't have the expectation of massive revenues and the expectation that everything will be built on the latest greatest technology and feature the most amazing graphics and physics possible. Those aspects are what prevents the approach from working with a large AAA title: the expectations of what it means to be a large AAA title.

Nestor wrote: »

It all depends on their vision. What they can't have are the money people telling them to throw in this feature or that feature because it polls well and has some IRR benefits. Problem is, the process costs money and the money people are always going to screw up the game to assure themselves of an ROI. Which is why every shooter today is the same as every other shooter for example.

The problem is, and always will be, the Vision and and how much it gets diluted by the process and the competition. By competition I mean making the game too much like what already exists. But not doing something just because someone else is doing it is not the answer either.

Part of the problem is that those things can't be avoided in a large AAA title. A large AAA title simply can't be made without the money people. And even if you somehow miraculously get money people who literally just throw cash at you without any oversight, you still need a massive team to make the game, and the vision will inevitably get diluted because there are so many people working on it, and they can't possibly all be consulting with each other over everything.

There's also the problem that even when there's one person with a strong vision driving the team, that person will often be used to working with a smaller team on smaller games (the people who are used to working with larger teams aren't usually the same people with a strong vision of how the game should be), and not truly understand how to run a large studio. That, in and of itself, can lead to the vision being diluted, because the person driving it doesn't know what level of direction needs to be given to the members of the team, and either ends up micro-managing things, or being too hands-off and only giving feedback ("it's wrong!") too late, further delaying the process. Frequently the same person will make both mistakes.

@UrQuan Path of Exile -- Grinding Gear Games. You'd call that a large, modern success, right?

Success? Absolutely. I definitely wouldn't call it a large AAA title though. As far as graphics, effects, animations etc go, it looks more like it belongs in the same era as Baldur's Gate II. That doesn't mean it's a bad game (I haven't played it, but from everything I've heard it's actually a pretty great game), but it's obvious that it's not a big-budget AAA title.

You're right. It was a small New Zealand company. But even through it's wild success, they have maintained the same mentality while developing future content.

Why can't this type of customer service behavior carry over to larger companies when they clearly have a bigger budget for it?

Because with the bigger budget comes the higher expectations for graphics, performance, physics, etc. That's where you have to start branching out into a huge team, and that's where the difficulties I pointed out come into play.

When the expectations aren't for the game to be state of the art, cutting edge, top of market, big and splashy, then you can have a much more focused team. That often leads to a better game.

While that may be true when considering development of said game, that still leaves little room for excuses on community discussion activity from mods/managers.

Here's a list of topics on Page 1 in 'General Discussion' that "warranted" a response from ZOS:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1784868#Comment_1784868
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1784961#Comment_1784961
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1783410#Comment_1783410
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1773113#Comment_1773113

Zero ZOS responses on many, many other legitimate threads. To some, it shows that community mods/managers are lazy. To others, it may be perceived that the DEVS are lazy and generally don't care to assist with real issues.

When we're talking perception, it's the consumers that decide what light to cast said video game company in. When they act like this on forums, it generally leaves them in a horrible PR position. Not only is it easily avoidable, it's blatantly damaging the reputation of the game.

I'd almost consider that a different topic entirely. Relevant to the success (or lack thereof) of a game, for sure, but very different from the development challenges of a AAA title that I was talking about.

Sorry if it seemed off-topic. I considered it proper since this thread was titled 'Is it even possible to make brand new AAA MMORPG which will be hugely successful?'

I would consider constant, consistent, and candid PR as a standard requirement to be "hugely successful."

UrQuan · May 2015

nastuug wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

nastuug wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

nastuug wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

nastuug wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

To the last bolded point first, for a large AAA title, you simply can't take that approach any more. You need a large team of people with a wide range of areas of expertise in order to make the game. It's simply not possible to do it otherwise (again, I'm saying this with regard to a large AAA title: for a smaller game, it's still possible to take this approach).

Small teams or single creative people can still come up with a game that will be successful.

For smaller games, absolutely. Smaller games don't have the expectation of massive revenues and the expectation that everything will be built on the latest greatest technology and feature the most amazing graphics and physics possible. Those aspects are what prevents the approach from working with a large AAA title: the expectations of what it means to be a large AAA title.

Nestor wrote: »

It all depends on their vision. What they can't have are the money people telling them to throw in this feature or that feature because it polls well and has some IRR benefits. Problem is, the process costs money and the money people are always going to screw up the game to assure themselves of an ROI. Which is why every shooter today is the same as every other shooter for example.

The problem is, and always will be, the Vision and and how much it gets diluted by the process and the competition. By competition I mean making the game too much like what already exists. But not doing something just because someone else is doing it is not the answer either.

Part of the problem is that those things can't be avoided in a large AAA title. A large AAA title simply can't be made without the money people. And even if you somehow miraculously get money people who literally just throw cash at you without any oversight, you still need a massive team to make the game, and the vision will inevitably get diluted because there are so many people working on it, and they can't possibly all be consulting with each other over everything.

There's also the problem that even when there's one person with a strong vision driving the team, that person will often be used to working with a smaller team on smaller games (the people who are used to working with larger teams aren't usually the same people with a strong vision of how the game should be), and not truly understand how to run a large studio. That, in and of itself, can lead to the vision being diluted, because the person driving it doesn't know what level of direction needs to be given to the members of the team, and either ends up micro-managing things, or being too hands-off and only giving feedback ("it's wrong!") too late, further delaying the process. Frequently the same person will make both mistakes.

@UrQuan Path of Exile -- Grinding Gear Games. You'd call that a large, modern success, right?

Success? Absolutely. I definitely wouldn't call it a large AAA title though. As far as graphics, effects, animations etc go, it looks more like it belongs in the same era as Baldur's Gate II. That doesn't mean it's a bad game (I haven't played it, but from everything I've heard it's actually a pretty great game), but it's obvious that it's not a big-budget AAA title.

You're right. It was a small New Zealand company. But even through it's wild success, they have maintained the same mentality while developing future content.

Why can't this type of customer service behavior carry over to larger companies when they clearly have a bigger budget for it?

Because with the bigger budget comes the higher expectations for graphics, performance, physics, etc. That's where you have to start branching out into a huge team, and that's where the difficulties I pointed out come into play.

When the expectations aren't for the game to be state of the art, cutting edge, top of market, big and splashy, then you can have a much more focused team. That often leads to a better game.

While that may be true when considering development of said game, that still leaves little room for excuses on community discussion activity from mods/managers.

Here's a list of topics on Page 1 in 'General Discussion' that "warranted" a response from ZOS:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1784868#Comment_1784868
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1784961#Comment_1784961
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1783410#Comment_1783410
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1773113#Comment_1773113

Zero ZOS responses on many, many other legitimate threads. To some, it shows that community mods/managers are lazy. To others, it may be perceived that the DEVS are lazy and generally don't care to assist with real issues.

When we're talking perception, it's the consumers that decide what light to cast said video game company in. When they act like this on forums, it generally leaves them in a horrible PR position. Not only is it easily avoidable, it's blatantly damaging the reputation of the game.

I'd almost consider that a different topic entirely. Relevant to the success (or lack thereof) of a game, for sure, but very different from the development challenges of a AAA title that I was talking about.

Sorry if it seemed off-topic. I considered it proper since this thread was titled 'Is it even possible to make brand new AAA MMORPG which will be hugely successful?'

I would consider constant, consistent, and candid PR as a standard requirement to be "hugely successful."

Sorry, I was super unclear in my post. I didn't mean that I considered it off-topic for the thread: it's not. You're right that it's vitally important for whether a game is successful, and I think it's totally worth discussing here.

I only meant that it was a different topic from what I had been talking about.

Tors · May 2015

P3ZZL3 wrote: »

Back then:
Titles HAD to be completed and released for consumption

All testing had to be done to a decent level as they couldn't patch later

There weren't really forums or general internet to discuss titles

Each person who bought it, would invest hours and hours into a single game, even though it only cost £5.00

Games were developed by a small group of friends so there was a common love/theme

Sorry boss.

But 20 year ago,

Titles were bugged. Asherons Call, Ultima Online and Everquest all had their patchday woes
Ahserons Call was patched every tuesday, and ever monnth was a content patch. All addresses earlier buggs and all introduced new buggs.
Forums were the de facto medium of communication, even within game. Probably more so for trading as there were fewer chat channels and the like. Forums like IGN were MASSIVE
Yes
erhhm at this point I thought, really? Only on the specky, then I went an reread your post. But I went to all the trouble of looking for my IGN forum details from 20 years ago, so cant be bothered to change my reply!!

kevlarto_ESO · May 2015

I don't think there will ever be another anomaly like wow, but games don't have to be, to be big money makers. Times have changed peoples play times and styles have changed attitudes towards games have changed, free to play games that offer you pretty much nothing except end up costing you more than a sub if you want any kind of game experience. For some reason asking for $14.99 is now the devil.

Problem gamers do not know what they want, to many opinions, about what should be in a game, then they blame the game company when they don't deliver the game they dreamed about, self hype is a bad thing.
Companies trying to make major games on a shoe string budget, plagued with bugs and problems, mmo's are huge under taking.
Look at the app game clash of clans it has 100 million downloads even with a small % of people playing and paying that game is ranking in a fortune, no wonder they could afford a superbowl ad. If I owned a gaming company the last thing I would even consider making would be an mmo, why bother.

Lord_Kreegan · May 2015

EQBallzz wrote: »

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

Answer this question:

Do use want a robust game (all of the expected features and functionality) or pretty graphics?

Good graphics do not a good game make, but significant time and money are spent on fancy graphics, fancy VFX (to the point you can't even see your screen sometimes), fancy animations, etc. While all of that is a big contributor to immersion and an even bigger contributor to early marketing (you don't see trailers advertising "Hey! Look at our neat netcode!"), it isn't what makes a game tick.

EVERYTHING published since "the game that shall remain nameless" has been less than fully featured/functional at release, and if you don't make a good impression initially, you're not going to retain customers and you're not going to have a good reputation. At the same time, today's discerning marketplace isn't going to buy cartoon-characters anymore.

It's a Catch-22...

IMHO, ever since "the game that shall remain nameless", the only game published that was close to being fully featured at release was Rift (really enjoyed its PvP), although its zones were certainly too small for the explorer in me... GW2 was surprisingly close for a B2P game... but different folks have different preferences in gameplay, so what I consider fully featured may not be the same as someone else's preferences.

I'm hoping in the future that more advanced game engines will allow for smaller teams the freedom to focus on making more niche type games. We are already heading down that path but I think most game engines get heavily modified which probably still takes quite a bit of time/money. Maybe in the future it will be that more robust game engines can essentially be used "out of box" which would allow a smaller team to concentrate on other things like content and art which would produce a high quality product that doesn't have to compromise too much and could cater to an audience that doesn't have to include "the masses" to be considered successful.

What you are talking about is use of a predeveloped engine with a "level design" kit ala the old NWN or the often touted and fairly heavily marketed much more modern Hero engine... which IMHO, unless you buy the source code and modify the heck out of it, isn't a hell of a lot better than NWN... and there's a long time inbetween their fielding. They provide a nice graphics pipeline and a tool kit, but really aren't otherwise useful.

The reality of those sorts of engines is that development teams that use them are constrained [severely] by what the engines can do and what the level design kits offer in terms of scripting, triggers, events, etc. It's not that hard for development teams to add art assets and scripts, but beyond the graphics pipline and whatever basic netcode is provided, the engines are really little more than single-threaded discrete event style game-on-rail packages... and you can't define new types of triggers or really create processes/threads/activities instead of discrete events.

In the parlance, a "discrete event" is the beginning or end of an activity; it's a field of simulation (games are simulations). Processes/threads/activities are usually represented by the passage of time (using animations) -- in real discrete event simulation, time is a dependent variable and there is no real time clock. That is one of the reasons there are problems interrupting processes/threads/activities; the interruption is just another event. Since CPUs insist on only doing one thing at a time -- unless there is multi-threading -- scheduling of interruptions and similar variations from the norm is problematic. It is also the reason that many triggers don't fire; triggers are sampled on a periodic basis and it is usually possible for an object in a game to pass through a trigger before it is subsequently sampled... faster sampling creates an undesirable CPU load.

Sorry for the geek-speak...

There are tons of people out there who played around with NWN (fun for hobbyists) and decided that made them MMO developers... it didn't (not even close), but I'll drink a toast to them of good single-malt Scotch to credit their attempts... especially if they're buying. There are lots of others out there who obtained the cheap version of Hero or one of the other packages off of the Internet thinking they could make an MMO using those tools. Unfortunately, you can't get past the linear event handling. [See SW-TOR and BioWare; they bought the source code (supposedly an early release version) in addition to using Hero for prototyping, spent megabucks on their team, and still produced crapola.]

Prepackaged engines are never the way to go; they can never be robust enough for making anything different from what everyone else has made; and in trying to provide more options, they very quickly become "bloat-code"...

Which is why development teams prefer to build their own engines if they can... even though it's damn expensive and time-consuming. The biggest team I ever ran was 180 people... and that wasn't considered large by industry standards.

timidobserver · May 2015

The only place that this could possible happen at is on console, thus ESO going to console. PC is already swamped with MMOS.

Danikat · May 2015

A couple of things to consider:

1) It depends on what you mean by successful. It's true that very few MMOs (and particularly very few recent ones) have tens of millions of players. Especially not in their first year. But it's entirely possible for a game to be successful without hitting those numbers, just like it's possible for a movie to be a success even if it's not the highest grossing film of the year.

In financial terms any game that turns a profit is successful, and the amount of money/players required for that will be different for each game because it depends on what it cost to develop (and in terms of player numbers what their business model is, and therefore how much they get from the average person).

But a game can also be considered a success simply by lasting a long time, or by having players who enjoy playing it, or getting good reviews. That's a lot more subjective but especially for individual players it's a lot more valid. UO will never be considered as successful as WoW but among the people who have been playing it and enjoying it for 15+ years it's far more successful.

2) There's a lot more MMOs released, and a lot more that keep going, than most people realise. For example I've seen a few people mention Lineage and/or Lineage 2 in this topic as an example of a game that was successful and then died out, but I know from the NCSoft quarterly reports posted on the GW2 forum that both games are still going and still among the publishers top earners. The problem is they are (and always were) mainly popular in Eastern markets, particularly Korea, they never got the same level of attention in the West and so aren't as well known.

I usually come across one or more I've not heard of before any time one of these topics comes up.

You can see an example of how many games are out there by looking at Wikipedia's list of MMORPGS. All the ones without a server close date are still running: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_games (Obviously it's on Wikipedia so it may not be 100% up to date but all the ones I know of and checked are accurate.)

Combine these two and I think it's very hard for anyone to get a clear view of how many MMOs are successful or to present that accurately without a lot of research.

(Oh and one final point, I seriously doubt the inability to become a professional player is what puts the majority of people off most MMOs since the majority of gamers don't actually attempt to become professionals in the first place.)

Goldenjaguar_ESO · May 2015

Yes it's possible, developers need to look at other MMOs. Figure out what worked for them and improve upon them while making them your own. Next you need to look at what didn't work with past games, and figuring out why those past games didn't work.

Games that left out features that have become basic/standard for the mmo genre have struggled. Games that chose to ignore their player base have struggled. Games that were released before they were ready, have struggled.

When making something new, you need to pull people away from what they already know and love. Change for many is scary and hard. So it is important to make sure that the players you are attracting notice the changes, but the changes are so earth shattering that it chases them away.

WoW was successful because it saw what EQ and DOAC were doing and improved upon the model for a more casual player base. They didn't try to reinvent the wheel. (of course the timing was also important) WoW devs took the time to talk with the player base and listen to the feedback they were given. They didn't use all the feedback, but they did listen which was the big part.

WrathOfRegicide · May 2015

I think this game would be even more successful if it stuck with the traditional sand box theme of the TES series than going with the cliche theme park MMO. Thats where games go wrong, they take other ideas from other successful MMO's instead of using the same principles from their original series which were original and successful. I mean this game is going in the right direction with spell crafting and the justice system and all just its missing the unknowing of whats beyond TES feel, this game feels too linear and restrictive, with the class system and the leveling system where you can't travel anywhere you want and explore really. You have to be a certain level to progress into the next area or you won't make it. As for the class system its too restrictive seeing as you can only use 3 skill lines per class, where as the traditional TES games you could choose from a wide variety of skills. Overall this is a good game, and could be a great game with the implementation of TES qualities.

MercyKilling · May 2015

NerZhulen89 wrote: »

Last possible reason that comes to my mind is that for every single gamer only one MMORPG can be truly fun. Usually the first one he played. Sure there are some differences, but in the end every single MMORPG out there is eventually exactly the same. And after you spend your time on your first, loose few years of life, and realize what happend, your brain simply becomes immune to repeating it again. Which would eventually mean that it is simply impossible to make really big AAA MMORPG anymore, which would get played by the masses.

To address the bold, enlarged part:

For me, my first MMO was City of Heroes. It came out roughly the same time as the current "heavyweight champ" by that "Icestorm" company. Tried that big name one first...didn't much like it. Hated the way it looked. The art was far too cartoony and the proportions of the character models just....didn't push any buttons for me. Besides, I'm a sucker for comic books. I didn't even HEAR about CoH until a little more than a year after its release...and then only by dint of a "trial version" of the game I found on a CD in a gaming mag I'd just bought. Installed, loaded....and never looked back for the next six years.

What makes an MMO successful? Why hasn't the Blizz been able to reproduce the success its first MMO title has?

The community. The people playing it. Everyone I know that still plays it only does so because the friends they made while in the game are still there playing. Not because of any game mechanic or perfection of design.

Like it or not....there are no communities like those anymore, despite it being less than a decade later. People aren't as open as they were before. Internet stalking and bullying has done away with open world RP so that the only RP that occurs in an MMO any more is locked behind guild membership and only performed in /team or /guild channels.

People that don't RP have become so rigidly competitive that unless you're top of the line specced...you don't even deserve the time of day, much less a spot on their raid teams.

This game? No, not as fun as the first one I played, true...but it's not the fault of the game itself. I -like- ESO. I find it fun to play, and can do so for hours on end. What I don't like is being forced into guild membership in order to trade. I don't like the way they locked dyes up behind achievements that require activities that I'll never participate in....and we still get useless Achievement Points. (Which should have been used to purchase said dyes in the first place) I don't like how the Justice System was implemented. Totally specced out of provisioning on two characters because of the Justice System.

I like this game, and hate what's being done to it.

Audigy · May 2015

I want to hear your opinion about this.

Is it because all new gamers are playing MOBAs? (the most popular one reported 27 million daily players, last year january), where they can eventually make it to professional level and make it a living? Since only way to make real money by playing MMOs will usually result in a ban. Also there are no tournament possibilities which could have been streamed in ESO and similar new MMORPGs. All things you can stream are usually boring compared to other stuff you can watch on the Twi*** tv.

First of all, making a living from gaming might be possible for less then 0,5% of those playing games. I was at the WCG and a few thousand nerds are all you had there and even of those few thousand, only a very small amount could call themselves a "pro" who didn't had to worry about earning money outside of their gaming "career".

Having a Twitch Stream or YT account, does not make you a professional gamer, nor is the money you get there sufficient for a good life and a secure life once you retire. You also need to consider that a player who might now be sponsored, will only be sponsored as long he actually plays. Once you retire the sponsor will no longer invest into your apartment, travel expenses or hardware.

That's why Jonathan Wender (former Fatality), started his own business to make a living from promoting his name. He now gives his name to mouse pads, motherboards, soundcards ... Sure he won about 400k in the 6-7 years that he was active, but its not enough to rest and make a living from it forever.

In my opinion, a lot of kids think that being a gamer who gets paid is easy and money just comes while playing, but this is far from the truth. You must play every day for 8-14 hours, you don't have birthday or wedding timeouts, if your friend gives a party then you can not come, as you have a date with your gaming mouse and last but not least, only the winners will be remembered and paid.
If you don't win, then you don't get anything and must pay all the expenses yourself and godd tournaments are usually held in Asia these days, so unless you live close by, it will cost you a fortune.

Is it because the most popular MMORPG (not sure if I can name it here) was simply so popular only by artificial hype, maybe by accident? MMORPG is simply D&D brought to a virtual level. D&D was always popular only amongst the nerdiest nerds, so why the MMO made by "icestorm" company made such a huge success?

Probably most of you know that the "icestorm" company was developing a second MMORPG for many years, and this winter on their "icecon" event, it was announced that the project is over, because they did not manage to make the game fun. So after making the most successful MMORPG of all times, they admit that they actually do not know how they made it successful. Money or lack of creativity could not have been the reason for cancel, since they are well supplied and experienced from other projects.

I like to compare Blizz with MS, both companies revoluted the PC business, one with their OS, the other with their games. Win 10 is another of these big milestones, so is what Blizz has in mind with something they currently work on.

MS & Blizz offer their new babies for free and why do they do this? Because they know that evolution will not be something that you can take from the past, but the future. By releasing games such as HS, HOTS, Overwatch + the new baby, Blizzard creates something that has not been done before in that way.

They do connect all their franchises into a single franchise, which is a win - win situation. No matter if someone is a fan of Diablo, Warcraft, StarCraft etc. the new franchise will be worth it, especially since it doesn't cost you any money, at least on first sight.

MS does the same, not only will DX12 revolute gaming as we know it, no they also combine the benefits of Apple & Co., making their OS the only one that runs various software, even by non windows standards.
To come back to your original question, MMOs are dated, dated in how developers think about them. So are games in general and that's why gaming has lost such a major appeal to its audience - the paying audience that is.

LIQUID741 · May 2015

WoW's PVE
DAOC's PVP 3 factions with alternate lvling system/Housing system/Trading system.
SWG's Crafting/Housing/Open World

and for the love of all, have different servers that cater to the players needs...such as RP, PVP, or strictly PVE servers. Oh and a incentive based grouping system that the population wants to use. Don't put barriers in front of the players that actually want to dive into content.