As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options
The Life and Death of MMOs
HarshLanguage
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
There are lots of MMOs. Literally dozens, from the huge to the tiny, from the marvelous to the horrendous. There are many more on the way. They can't all be successful. But somehow, only a few have actually been shut down. Some of the smallest and clunkiest hang on to life. Are some MMOs doomed to die? How do you tell? And how do you handle it if you're playing one at the end of its life?
The Living
Among the tiers of MMOs, WoW is inarguably at the top. Below that come games that are merely immensely popular, both in the US and abroad (Lineage 1 and 2, FFXI). Below them are games that have a critical mass that seems to ensure their survival for now (EQ2, CoH/V, EVE).
Then there are games that are shadows of their former selves (EQ, AC, DAOC, SWG). These appear to have rocky futures, but they still have hundreds of thousands of subscribers between them. Can they hold on? Do their publishers make enough money to keep them going? And how do we, as players, find out what a publisher really thinks?
The Dying?
Then there are games that had major support but never succeeded (Planetside, The Sims Online, Auto Assault, Matrix Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online). Are these just waiting for a glorious patch, expansion, or advertising campaign before they take off? Or are they doomed to die away, lost in the crowd? When do they, or should they, get killed off? And if you played one of these, how would you handle the loss of the game?
And how do new games fit in? Will there be an influx of new players brought in, or is it a zero-sum game where only the strong can survive? How many will fail, and how fast? Do new games mean weaker older games will die? Given how expensive A-list MMOs seem to be to make, does a major failure hurt the entire industry?
The Dead
I can think of only three significant MMOs that have been flat-out killed off: Earth and Beyond, Motor City Online, and Asheron's Call 2. The fact that two are EA properties probably isn't coincidental. AC2 seems to have a unique history that lead to its death. Who will join them next?
Edit: I somehow forgot to include Jumpgate in the dead list. Whoops.
The Undead
Some games continue despite the odds. How do games like A Tale in the Desert, WWII Online, or Horizons stay up? We hear so much about the costs of running an MMO, but these games stay small, stay independent, and somehow stay alive. Are these examples for others, or just flukes? Or are they too likely to die after a bad month, a departing investor, or some other vagary of business?
"tl;dr"
Deal with it! :P It's not a simple subject. But seriously: What causes an MMO to live or die, and how do players deal with MMO death? Should we expect more of it, and how does it affect our game choices?
The Living
Among the tiers of MMOs, WoW is inarguably at the top. Below that come games that are merely immensely popular, both in the US and abroad (Lineage 1 and 2, FFXI). Below them are games that have a critical mass that seems to ensure their survival for now (EQ2, CoH/V, EVE).
Then there are games that are shadows of their former selves (EQ, AC, DAOC, SWG). These appear to have rocky futures, but they still have hundreds of thousands of subscribers between them. Can they hold on? Do their publishers make enough money to keep them going? And how do we, as players, find out what a publisher really thinks?
The Dying?
Then there are games that had major support but never succeeded (Planetside, The Sims Online, Auto Assault, Matrix Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online). Are these just waiting for a glorious patch, expansion, or advertising campaign before they take off? Or are they doomed to die away, lost in the crowd? When do they, or should they, get killed off? And if you played one of these, how would you handle the loss of the game?
And how do new games fit in? Will there be an influx of new players brought in, or is it a zero-sum game where only the strong can survive? How many will fail, and how fast? Do new games mean weaker older games will die? Given how expensive A-list MMOs seem to be to make, does a major failure hurt the entire industry?
The Dead
I can think of only three significant MMOs that have been flat-out killed off: Earth and Beyond, Motor City Online, and Asheron's Call 2. The fact that two are EA properties probably isn't coincidental. AC2 seems to have a unique history that lead to its death. Who will join them next?
Edit: I somehow forgot to include Jumpgate in the dead list. Whoops.
The Undead
Some games continue despite the odds. How do games like A Tale in the Desert, WWII Online, or Horizons stay up? We hear so much about the costs of running an MMO, but these games stay small, stay independent, and somehow stay alive. Are these examples for others, or just flukes? Or are they too likely to die after a bad month, a departing investor, or some other vagary of business?
"tl;dr"
Deal with it! :P It's not a simple subject. But seriously: What causes an MMO to live or die, and how do players deal with MMO death? Should we expect more of it, and how does it affect our game choices?
> turn on light
Good start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.
HarshLanguage on
0
Posts
Festering shambling zombie that refuses to die despite many, many critical wounds?
The closer knit community makes it even harder to leave; players have a real chance on being on top, and everyone knows eachother. That's one of the reasons so many larger MMOs shard, other than the difficulty in creating gameworlds to support millions of people of course.
For the really tiny ones, I agree. But they have a lot of limitations that go along with that (small community, lesser graphics, fewer game features). Those are probably just a fact of life, and it's a good trade off. ATID seems like a good example of this.
It's the "big" games that have relatively tiny subscriber numbers that seem really vulnerable. Auto Assault, for instance. A lot of money went into it, and I wonder if they can even dig themselves out of the hole of their original investment. And since it wasn't designed to be a small game, I don't quite see how can they expand it, or even keep it running, with just a minimal cost. Unless they try an SWG NGE-move to change the game to attract more interest. (And we all know how that went for SWG.)
I don't even know. I couldn't find any recent info about UO. According to MMORPGChart via Wikipedia, it had about 130k subs a year ago, half of which were Japanese (o_O). But yet, EA is still spending some money on it, since they apparently have a new client with better graphics coming out this year. Maybe the fact that it's so old means they can develop for it cheaply.
> turn on light
Good start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.
The Ultima series was popular in Japan. They got a SNES version of The Savage Empire and a Playstation version of Ultima Underworld.
Turbine is no stranger to small-market MMOs, so that's a big plus for DDO's continued existence. But they also canned AC2, so they seem to know their limits.
It comes down to whether they're making money (or expect to after a certain amount of time). And really, none of us know the actual financial breakpoints for MMOs. I'm not sure anyone does except the execs and finance folks at the companies themselves. Finance is a weird thing, anyway... many companies throw good money after bad, or alternatively find ways to make money off of bad investments.
That was part of what I was thinking as I writing the OP -- if I want to play a game and commit to it for a while, how could I handicap the field? There's no good way to know who's succeeding or failing financially. Heck, even MMORPGChart seems to be gone, no updates for almost a year, so it's hard to get subscriber numbers. Or, I suppose, never go into any MMO expecting it to last "forever."
> turn on light
Good start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.
What keeps it going? Constant improvements, and many free return trials(old members getting free 2 weeks, etc). I've been sucked back in at least six times, over the last 4 years or so... I pay for a month, play for 2-3 weeks, then move on.
But those two-three weeks are always awesome, thats why I do it. Paratroopers now? Thats worth a month. APC's you can spawn on? Sure, I'll give it another shot. Actual ships are in? I can pay to see it.
But really, its a niche market. Only real ww2 MMO, one of the most hardcore MMO's out there(Random german private kills you with a well placed rifle shot... ololz), the most comprehensive vehicle MMO... There's no alternative, so where else are those players going to go? The newest battlefield game, or equivilent? Its just not the same...
I'm gonna go see whats new with it, actually... could be worth another month... maybe it will look better on my new computer
3ds friend code: 2981-6032-4118
I'm not sure where that sits. Technically, it never died, it just had it's release cancelled. Then Gametap went in and smacked it on the ass like a doctor smacking a baby.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
WWIIOnline delivers a few things that no other game does. It is a game that you can win (unlike Planetside), you invade France, and you either win or you lose. Planetside can be likened to mindless blasting, theres is always one more CP to take. WWIIOnline you either get pushed toward Berlin or push to the sea. You punish the enemy until they no longer have the resources to fight you and you win the map. The time line also works on this respect. Planetside gives you all the goodies right away, you either have the rank to use them or you don't. Same with every other FPS out there. WWIIOnline as a FPS lets you earn equipment rights with rank, same as any other FPS, but because the game covers 1939 to 1942 (roughly) you can't get Tiger tanks at the start of the map. You have to work with what you have with the time line. A panzer IIC isn't going to do much against a French Char B1 Bis either let me tell you.
Accuracy also goes into play here. The developers spend days going over detailed historical documents, if they don't have enough information on a vehicle then that vehicle will never be modeled. This gives a totally different feel to the game than any other MMO, even other flight sims. (R.I.P. Warbirds) You can't nerf something for balance in WWIIOnline. In BF2142 if the walkers are too powerful, well next patch we'll tweak down the armor and shorten the range on the guns - oh and make em do half damage. WWIIOnline? Nothing to be done about it. A Tiger tank is as bad ass as a Tiger tank actually is, the armor is as thick as it is supposed to be, the guns are as powerful as they are supposed to be, and if all you have to deal with that is a Souma, well... WWIIOnline is the only game I know where there are units that can't hurt other units. An Rifleman can't hurt a tank (a sapper can, not the standard rifle). A Panzer IIC can't kill a Char if the Char is buttoned up. And everyone needs to stay the fuck away from Destroyers. Other FPS games everyone can hurt everything else. BF2 tanks? You can hurt it, even if all you have is grenades. So sticking with history is an attraction.
And adult game?
WWIIOnline unofficially holds the record for the oldest average player base. We have WWII vetrans playing. Guys in their 80's play this computer game. I don't know if that claim can be made even for WoW. The average player is around 30 years old. While this doesn't exactly lead to maturity (adults whine more than kids in a lot of cases) it does give a different feel to the game. The game is FPS, there are no stats to tweak, no big complicated quests to fufill. If you've shot a K98 in real life, the games gun is going to be similar enough that you won't have a problem using it. It's also a WWII game, mano a mano. FPS means no rolling my fishing skill to see if I dodge your laser roll. You die to your own stupidity and nothing else. WWII was the cool war, WWIIOnline gives players a chance to get a feel for actual combat where their actions mean something. It strongly encourages people to communicate and work together as a team. Lonewolves don't exist here.
WWIIOnline is a small team (12). Too speed up development they say they need 5000 more subscribers, they've got roughly 20k right now (I think thats a low guess, based on some internet surveys several years old.) They've been bigger, but have fired a lot of people to stay afloat. The core people really believe in the game concept and they will not let it die as long as they live.
WWIIOnline offers something that no other game offers. To crouch low on the other side of a berm, watching tank shells arc over head and slam into a church tower knocking down the church and killing the snipers inside. To know that in a couple of seconds you will run over that berm and if you can just make it to the buildings a hundred feet away you have a chance to take the town with your squad and route an entire enemy brigade, knocking them off the map and closing the route of escape for the other french brigades. You've got at least 2 MG nests you'll have to live though, but as long as ATG guns don't kill your armor support you may just live long enough to see the front move the direction you want it too.
caffron said: "and cat pee is not a laughing matter"
Also not really an MMO, but Subspace/Continuum has survived pretty well considering official support left over eight years ago.
I hate you. I hate you like the plague.
You're making me spend money I don't have. Do you like doing that?
*sigh* I suppose it will be up to me, once again, to be the defender of genk(I have a wierd obsession with that town... O.o)
3ds friend code: 2981-6032-4118
what the fuck does any of this mean
It should also be pointed out that there are claims ENB stole ideas from them.
I keep meaning to try it but the tutorial and the reality based physics fuck with my head.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
How many different races of Elves one can choose to play as. The more beyond Wood, Dark, and High, the better!
I kid.
Take Planetside as an example of what NOT to do in terms of uniqueness: create an MMOFPS whose entire gameplay can be replicated in a free-to-play non-MMO game. Whoops. Yeah, it was the first (and only so far) MMO FPS... but it doesn't do anything that the Battlefield series doesn't. (BTW, I played PS for a few months... I wanted a sci-fi fix, what can I say.) And even before BF started introducing things like persistent character "stats," there was CounterStrike or any other MP FPS, even completely free games like Enemy Territory.
And sometimes uniqueness doesn't work, or maybe it's done wrong. Auto Assault, for instance, certainly didn't bring in the "loves cars" demographic, but it could have. Heck, it's a game revolving around car combat that doesn't offer anything like a player garage to see or show off your vehicles.
But Second Life is very unique, and it's apparently doing OK. You're not going to find that type of "player" "crafting" anywhere else. (Those terms don't quite fit, of course, since SL isn't a game in the usual sense.)
> turn on light
Good start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.
The Sims Online is going nowhere. What was once grand is now just a relic. Shame really, I knew some good people there.
Problem was, the game wasn't as free form as it should have been and a lot of the Jobs and such just ended up being a huge grind
EDIT: Probably Second Life is as close as I can get to Sims Online 2. Any word on 13 year olds pimping people out and making money? Seriously, that was probably the best part of Sims Online was that it was a good way to get into hot cyber sex for free, day in, day out... Probably one of EA's finer projects.
That was what the problem was, really. I mean, a majority of players were ones who just wanted to pick up and play, not having to watch your sim paint for an hour or two just so it can be able to have fun.
FUCK YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Shadowbane was the best game ever. I want an SB2 or Darkfall - what the fuck!
most of all, most of all
someone said true love was dead
but i'm bound to fall
bound to fall for you
oh what can i do
Shadowbane is still around -- and it's free.
do i smella game on?
Haha, I've made SB Game On threads before.
But yeah, I dunno. It's not the same game anymore - the game really relied on a large community, and the politics of the game. Nobody really cares anymore, and just goes around baning everybody.
A few months back I played for a couple weeks, but nobody else wanted to play with me, so I got bored.
most of all, most of all
someone said true love was dead
but i'm bound to fall
bound to fall for you
oh what can i do
Its far from the best game ever.
I think it beats SWG for the "Huge tracts of empty, featureless land" award
well i wont argue with that. but it is lots of fun.
it also has by far the fastest level grind ever.
...huh?
Are you saying that the graphics are so bad, trees/bushes/soldiers look the same?
I never had much trouble. Other than, you know, when people were hiding in bushes. Imagine that. Using cover, and stealth.
3ds friend code: 2981-6032-4118
We'll see. Two is coming out eventually, but at this point I'm not really sure what they can change in the game. The changes they made to bosses over the years (and certain abuse spells) certainly helped keep it going, but even without PvP the game was too competitive for me.
Still, leveling equipment, pets, new character classes/races and new attribute system sounds good to me.
Who the fuck took Creativity?! Intelligence was where it was at man. I forgot the extra emotes you get but it was just better getting Intelligence as it was much more widespread and widely used.
While I'll be the first to admit Planetside had many, many faults, it was and remains to be the best game I've ever played. The concept alone was beautiful, and while the execution wasn't perfect, it hit enough of the right notes to just be pure pleasure.
Battlefield sucks. 1942 was okay, I had more fun with the Desert Combat mod, but the combat in those games just blows, and when you get down to it, if everyone's having a hell of a time shooting at eachother, there's not much of a game.
But comparing PS to BF isn't accurate at all in my opinion. The whole draw of PS was the MMO features of it; it was truly a MMOFPS. There was a persistant world, with everyone in it all the time. It had three servers, and tons of different planets, but everyone who played (in your server) was always a warp away from you. Meaning there was a community effect, which lead to incredibly epic battles. I've played it off and on for a long time, starting back when it first released, and I vividly remember storming bases with thousands of other Vanu, strafing in and out of trees while dodging snipers and vehicles from the base. *sigh*...
Back on topic! The point was this was possible because it was an MMO. Yeah, in BF you can rally your 12 troops who are near a CP to go and defend/raid it, that's great. But in PS, you have the global CR's directing the entire army, moving hundreds of players from one planet to the next, creating a global battlefield. That's where the true fun in the game was, the sheer size of it. Ultimately, this was its downfall, as it continued to expand underground (seriously, what the hell?) while the player base shrunk, making battles appear less frequently and only in certain locations. If that game had a competent development team to continue updating it, as well as a larger userbase, it would just be perfect...
Man, I definitely did not mean to write all of that.
SteamID: FronWewq
Battle.net: Orange#1845
3DS Friend Code: 1289-9498-5797
My comparison to BF (BF2 and 2142 in particular) was because they have persistent ranks and unlocks, and integrated commander roles. In practice, the gameplay isn't that much different from PS.
I notice that PS has dropped its free trial. I'm surprised by that. Free trials seem to be a basic method to try to shore up subscriber numbers.
Edit: Now that I think of it, Sony may rely on its Station Access Pass to support games like PS and MXO. But I have no idea how popular Station Access is.
> turn on light
Good start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.