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Role Playing (Games)

MMOG Fortunes Rise And Fall 34

Posted by Zonk from the you-win-some-you-lose-some dept.
ringbarer writes "The disappointingly mismanaged MMO Star Wars Galaxies has hit another low. The Japanese translation of the game has barely managed to reach its first Birthday, and now it's been canceled. A Rough translation is available, but the original untranslated news can be found here." I'm not entirely sure, but it seems as though players who've paid beyond the end of December will have their accounts transferred to a US/EU server if they're so inclined. Otherwise they'll have their money refunded. Apparently money isn't something SOE is smarting for, at the AGC this past week President John Smedley announced that they'll be releasing what is essentially a free MMOG, with no monthly fee. Speaking of free, the always excellent Puzzle Pirates is essentially doing the same thing. They're also doing some crackerjack Halloween Events tonight, if you're interested in some swashing and some buckling. Dark Age of Camelot's events for today's holiday sound pretty neat too.
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MMOG Fortunes Rise And Fall More

MMOG Fortunes Rise And Fall

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  • I went to the Puzzle Pirates website and it said "free trial", so I dont think it is really free.
    • The free trial lasts forever, but with limited abilities. You only pay if you want to engage in higher level play. Additionally, there are both servers with subscription (flat fee gives you full access) and micropayment (pay only for the features you want) models. Surprisingly, the micropayment model doesn't unbalance gameplay that much since all games are skill-based rather than level-based and there are no items that give anyone an unsurmountable advantage in a competition/PVP.

  • Is SWG really faltering? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kherr ( 602366 ) <kevin&puppethead,com> on Monday October 31, 2005 @11:40AM (#13915763) Homepage
    SWG has had its ups and downs (many would say mostly downs), but the servers I play on seem to be growing in population. There has not been any server consolidation, so it's not a situation of coalescing populations. The third expansion, The Trials of Obi-Wan [sony.com], is about to go live (it has already for pre-orders) and seems to have learned from some of the WoW successes. The new planet, Mustafar (the lava planet), is geared for higher-end characters with harder, longer quests. There are a number of instance dungeons involved in the quests, eliminating the original problem of waiting for a previous party to finish.

    It's unfortunate that SWG Japan is not going well, but the game itself seems to be overcoming a lot of the chaos caused by the combat upgrade a while back. In fact, a lot of the loudest complainers are now running around bragging about how they can solo the toughest mobs. Those of us who prefer a more cerebral combat system long for the old one, but we have adjusted. Change is guaranteed in an MMOG, I think.

    • Re:Is SWG really faltering? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Phil the Canuck ( 208725 ) on Monday October 31, 2005 @11:58AM (#13915977)
      It's a good expansion for sure, but I have to question whether or not they've learned from the past. Many players are currently gated in quests waiting for over-camped static spawns to appear. What's worse is that for at least one quest the static spawn NPC also has a 1-in-eleventymillion chance of dropping a very desirable loot item, making the spawn camping unbearable.

  • Goes to Prove (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bruha ( 412869 ) on Monday October 31, 2005 @11:40AM (#13915767) Homepage Journal
    That the MMORPG community by and large is small and the dot com projections for some reason are still being used to base making new games. When WOW dominates the world MMO gaming landscape in subscribers alone, it tells you that there's not enough room for other games. Lately we have seen a trend on pushing out blockbuster games, when in fact, there may only be room for one blockbuster game out there. There are plenty of flourishing niche games such as Asheron's Call and Everquest. Even Rubies of Eventide survived.

    SWG on the other hand, has not lived up to expectations in many areas. With no support/enforcement of role playing servers, things have generally degenerated into the basic teen infested l33t first person shooter. Serious players dont want to see someone named ch3wb4c4 running around spouting leet speak.

    There is also a disturbing trend to drag the movie gone video game scene into the mix. If SWG is having problems then Middle Earth Online is going to fail miserably, notwhithstanding that Turbine Entertainment is at the helm of that game. They are also not going to make a hit with dungeons and dragons online, since many players have invested hundreds of dollars in the game. Players would be reluctant to let it all gather dust on a shelf and give up on their favorite gathering places.

    So far Blizzard has done a great job with few hiccups in World of Warcraft. I would expect them to be the superMMO for at least the next 2 years.

    • Middle Earth Online will fail because of Turbine (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Shivetya ( 243324 ) on Monday October 31, 2005 @12:32PM (#13916287) Homepage Journal
      Sorry but considering their track record Middle Earth Online's biggest handicap is Turbine. First and foremost they have pushed this game back so many times that its nearing irrelevance. Any grafting onto the success of the movies has long been lost. The game has also suffered a few near rewrites which pushed it back with rumors of 07 floating about!

      Recent events include putting out an expansion for AC2 and then cancelling the game less than 3 months later. This is nearly a classic case of milking the existing playerbase for all the money you can get.

      Lastly combine that with a reputation for tolerating cheaters, exploiters, and combat macros and MEO has a lot to overcome.

      So MMOG fortunes do rise and fall and it shows just who really has the best production values. WOW turned out really well because Blizzard is a highly polished organization with competence from years of prodcuing games. For some companies their first product is a MMO and unfortunately it shows. Also the days of where you can build one of these in your garage and maintain that type of environment are probably long gone. Players do not tolerate very well bugs and downtime and the games which have these problems are usually quick to suffer from them.

      • I don't see the AC2 expansion as a way to milk more money. I say it as a last desperate attempt to bring in new subscribers. When that failed they had to look long and hard at the future and if it was worth continuing to pour money into a game that would, at best, wallow in it's own obscurity. The cheaters, exploiters, macros, etc are something any developer has to overcome, not just Turbine. WoW is top of the heap because of the Warcraft name and the fact it was released internationally unlike most MMO
        • > because once the shine wears off the new toy,

          Like City of Heroes, which just underwent an effective 44% nerfing to all powers of all classes a few days ago (and net result are that scrappers, tankers, blasters are about 0.4 of what they were since this 44% is cumulative across damage output, defense, healing, etc.

          Purpose: To let PvP vs. City of Villains be viable, since having scrappers 1-shotting blasters, or tankers being unkillable, is not "with the vision".

          So everyone has basically been hit as if t
      • > Recent events include putting out an expansion for
        > AC2 and then cancelling the game less than 3 months
        > later. This is nearly a classic case of milking the
        > existing playerbase for all the money you can get.

        Reminds me of Crowley's Department Stores, a Detroit-based chain, closing a few years ago. They knew they were gonna go into bankruptcy, but sold $100 and $200 gift cards anyway. The day after Christmas, they went into Bankruptcy, and stayed open for awhile, [b]but refused to honor the g

    • Re:Goes to Prove (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rtechie ( 244489 )
      "They are also not going to make a hit with dungeons and dragons online, since many players have invested hundreds of dollars in the game. Players would be reluctant to let it all gather dust on a shelf and give up on their favorite gathering places."

      I'd just point out that this bit is a little silly. MMORPGs and "pen and paper" RPGs are considerably different experiences (just like "live action" and "pen and paper" are) to the point where they actually appeal to different audiences. I have little interest

  • Halloween events (Score:3, Informative)

    by theantipop ( 803016 ) on Monday October 31, 2005 @11:48AM (#13915856)
    The events decribed for DAoC sound exactly like what WoW has been doing for the past couple weeks. I've really enjoyed their holiday celebrations in-game. For "Hallow's End", there is a quest to go trick-or-treating for a sick orphan that takes you around the world; you can go bobbing for apples at nearly every inn; you can "trick-or-treat" innkeepers for candy, wands to turn party members into monster, or be tricked and turned into something funny like a toad or a black cat. There are no shortage of jack-o-latterns and ghosts around the cities. And lastly, there is a wickerman festival that both Horde and Alliance celebrate where a major faction leader shows up in front of a giant wickerman, says a short speach about why they celebrate, then lights the thing on fire which dispenses buffs for everyone in attendance.

    Overall it's nothing huge that disrupts the way the game is played, but it does enough to give you something to do and remind you that it's Halloween.

  • Alternative Revinue Sources (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm glad to see that MMO games are looking into alternative revinue sources but I'm disturbed by the choices they're making; I dislike the concept of paying extra money for content and I really hate allowing people to pay to twink their character (it just encourages the company to create horrible imballances in order for people to buy more uber gear). It seems to me that the most obvious revinue source is not being capatalized on, Advertizing.

    If you treated a MMO game a little like how a TV show is treated
    • i think SOE just took a leason from IGE here....

      it's much easier to sell virtual goods to script kiddies that want a OMGWTF Sword +10000 of "pwning"

      and all they have to do to create it is make a direct connection from the Credit card transaction on the website to an SQL statement in the game database.

      you rather see 10 mil per month in subscription upkeep or 35 mil a month in gold/plat/gil/credits/money purchases?
      • > it's much easier to sell virtual goods to script kiddies
        > that want a OMGWTF Sword +10000 of "pwning"

        Make sure you demand it be the best Sword of Pwning for at least 12 months before you plunk down your cash.

        Nothing says FOO! quite like spending $30.00 for that +5 flaming vorpal sword, only to have it be superceded by a +6 electrical vorpal sword three days later...
    • Advertising is in trial mode with anarchy online. I honestly dont see it as being that great of an income except enough to cover half the costs of the free users out there, the rest is consumed as a cost of doing buisness trying to get new paying members. Unless they can really streamline the user support, its alot of work still to keep the servers up for alot of people. That is in the proccess of changing the concept of "it costs us $15 a month to maintain the machines that store your char" is slowly dyin

  • There can be only one huge MMORPG at a time (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rbanzai ( 596355 ) on Monday October 31, 2005 @11:57AM (#13915963)
    It's the nature of the business. At any one time there can be only one really huge MMORPG, and right now it's WoW. Of course that will not last forever, just look at Everquest.

    To a degree any MMORPG is frozen in place technologically. No matter how many expansion packs come out you can only upgrade an engine so much. Take a look at my beloved Anarchy Online for a good MMORPG that got completely left behind in time.

    As long as MMORPG are popular this will be the pattern. There will always be something new on the horizon that will grab everyone's attention while leaving only a smaller population of die-hards behind.

  • We Need Better Terms (Score:4, Interesting)

    by quantax ( 12175 ) on Monday October 31, 2005 @12:42PM (#13916370) Homepage
    The terms being used lately have been pretty vague and incorrect. Sony is not releasing a free MMORPG, its releasing a non-subscription based MMORPG in which you pay for it once. Then the question comes about, are they going to do what Guild Wars does? As Guild Wars is not a true MMORPG but rather a pseudo one with MMO elements since with the exception of the cities, everything is instanced. This keeps their costs lower as well, so I wonder whether Sony will be going the same route as well. We need to come up with a term to describe these games as calling them MMORPGs is misleading. Diablo2 was not considered an MMORPG, and it wasnt, but if you remove all the shiny stuff, thats what Guild Wars is undernearth for the most part: communal meeting points (Battle.net) that are jump points for quests and missions. I own Guild Wars, its great fun, but it shouldn't be called an MMORPG anymore than Diablo II on Battle.net should be called one. Perhaps MRPG or something along those lines.

  • MMORPG's have some basic troubles (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Monday October 31, 2005 @12:42PM (#13916371) Journal

    I just played Vietcong 2. While it is not a perfect game it was enjoyable. For the maybe 10 hours I took me to complete it. The original seemed longer. Yet this for a MMORPG is nothing. EQ2 free trial offers more playtime. Vietcong 2 can barely be played longer although I suppose there are a few levels that have unlimited spawns (bits were you have to overcome defences and as long you have not crossed them new enemies keep coming in) were you could spend hours if you were so inclined.

    Even games like Baldur Gate pale in the number of play hours next to a MMORPG. Lets face it, not many people play the same game for years and years. Everquest and SWG and Ultima Online are still being played by people who were there at launch.

    Yes I am aware of games like counterstrike but if you are a diehard counterstrike player you will probably not still be playing on the same maps that were there at launch. CS, the sims, and Flightsim 2004 and other long lasting games are constantly updated by their users and it might even be argued that it is the users that create the game.

    An MMORPG does not give the same freedom. Good luck doing even something as simple as creating your own "skin".

    So rather then having longivity by constantly having new stuff added by unpaid monkeys, eh I mean dedicated users MMORPG's invariable try to last a long time by making progress slow. You will have to defeat an amazing amount of enemies once you get past the earlier levels, reading some quests in EQ2 reminds me more of a doom level then an RPG. I have to kill HOW many demon spawn? Where as the best RPG ever, Planescape Torment went out of its way to give you a way around the fights, there were only a tiny handfull needed, MMORPG's go for more hack&slash then Diablo.

    Or to put it another way, MMORPG's are a grind. For regular RPG's there usually is somekind of experience/money cheat where by revisiting an area you can kill the same thing over and over if you need/want the reward. This is MMORPG's entire gameplay.

    Because you are not alone and therefore you cannot be the hero of THE story they have totally removed the story based reward. SWG was worst in this respect. It basically HAD no story, just Elite type missions wich re-used the same stupid random message. Something like my little girls lost a flower please go kill a nest of rancors. The element of WTF was very high, the element of wanting to find out the ending zero.

    EQ2 at first seems better but is still hopelessly basic. Almost all have the problem off you wondering, "Exactly how many blue gems has this girl found while sweeping anyway?". The simple problem off the fact that you and everyone get exactly the same quest even when that doesn't fit the story.

    Only a tiny percentage of quests involve any roleplaying, you simply aren't allowed to make a choice. The choice between good and evil is basically just the architecture.

    As an computerRPG MMORPG's typically fail. If you compare them to PnP RPG's then they are a joke. There is no roleplaying.

    SWG in someways was an attempt to break some of the MMORPG's common pitfalls. It had a lot of customization, your character could easily look an individual with real control over body build, style and color of clothes and weapon choice.

    Neither were you restricted to a handfull of jobs, you could choose and mix any of them.

    So why did it so poorly? Well it is hard to explain. Perhaps people just didn't realize how good it was at its heart.

    One of the things I still regret is the move away from the so called hologrind. For those who don't know: You could be a lot of different combo's of jobs but NOT a jedi with your normal character. To get one you need to unlock it by becoming a master in a random selection of jobs. Wich jobs they were could be revealed by using looted holocrons. Once you had mastered the required jobs you could become a jedi char.

    The complaint was that this led to a lot of people trying jobs they didn't want to do ruining the economy bec

    • Everquest and SWG and Ultima Online are still being played by people who were there at launch.

      Ultima Online is a bitter shallow shell of its former self. At least I am bitter about it... I played since 1997-2000. The changes after Renaissance made the game not Ultima Online anymore.

      I don't really know anyone how would still play that game unless they have a large investment into that.

      I wish Richard G would get his original vision on for a new MMOG similar to UO.
  • On some level, I'm not necessarily opposed to allowing people to spend real money on gear and xp/levels. If you can crank out a MMORPG and make if free because you expect enough revenue from people buy gear, that's ok. As long as you don't essentially mandate the spending of real money to have any chance of accomplishing anything in the game. There will likely always be people willing to spend money to get ahead in a game, and if it's done in more controlled circumstances it might keep things from spiral
  • Guild Wars is running some really fun Halloween events. Three of the most popular cities have been overhauled for "spookiness." You can also get special Halloween items (Witch's Brew, absinthe, Ghost in a Box and 'squash serum') from the new undead collectors.
    Also, they're running their first post-launch world event with the return of the Mad King to Lion's Arch.
    That, and they kinda beat Sony to the "no monthly fees" thing.
    • City of Heroes had a nice Halloween event, with door knocking "tricks or treats" (monsters pop out mostly, but sometimes nice little bonus inspirations), and giant pumpkin-head guys invading.

      This year: Nothing, with people running around trying not to get their empty-scrotum stitches infected owing to a new world-record, and global, nerfing. 1.5 years after release.

  • So? Bug fuckin' deal? A free MMO is not a new idea. www.eternal-lands.com has been doing it a while, and its actually quite successful. Fuck you Sony?

  • engage the players brains, not just their wallets (Score:3, Interesting)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @10:15AM (#13923401) Journal
    In every MMOG the quest lines are variations of
    a) kill creature x
    b) find the red key for the red door
    c) combinations or series of a & b.

    Boring, yes? Why not leverage the power of the CPUs on people's desks to offer a DIFFERENT experience? I understand that in an MMOG with 4 million players you can't have as intricate and convoluted story lines as a single player game, but they could be more engaging - dynamically spawn a specific set of NPCs for a player to help, NPCs that change and develop over the course of adventures.

    Using WoW as an example: character Adam enters Undercity for the first time. Immediately, a wandering NPC or three is created. It wanders the city, and if Adam comes close enough to it, it tries to engage him in conversation (and ultimately getting him involved in it's quest line). It's quest line is also randomized to some extent, but each stage might change the character so that if the player 'rescues' his sister, the player gets another wandering NPC (the sister) in a nearby town that does something similar. Or if the player finds his lost child, a couple of weeks later that NPC may have moved to another town or gotten married. The people change in the world according to a matrix of randomized possibilities to inhibit the walkthrus being posted everywhere on the web days later.

    Then, let's say character Adam invites character Betty to join his party, and shares one of his personalized NPC quests with Betty. Then (here's the interesting part) Betty, when she turns in that quest, will 'meet' that NPC family. Now, she too can pick up quests from that network of developing NPCs...HOWEVER any progress she or Adam now make individually or together advances the plot. Meaning that Adam and Betty could both have the same quests, but if Betty finishes it, Adam may find an email from the NPC saying "Thanks for introducing us to Betty, she rescued Fido" and the quest disappears from Adam's log.

    This is just off-the-top-of-the-head stuff, certainly it needs refinement. But you can see how very quickly the interlocking mesh of relationships would make for an intriguing and engaging world, much more like 'real life' than the static things we have now....

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