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MMORPG.com gets sneak peek at Everquest Next at E3. Calls it best of show.
- Thread starter friz898
- Start date
No, there's two sub-genres. One is Themepark where developers makes very specific content that people play through and are generally linear. Sandboxes are completely non-linear in their design where it's mostly player generated content and emergent gameplay where you never know what you'll login to.
To be honest I've been around the block when it comes to MMOs and WoW really does have the worst community I've seen. Every other MMO I go to the community is very nice and helpful with the occasional asshole.
LowerLevel
Member
Now I have to try to find some of those cutesy SD Baroness/Catwoman/Harley/ETC cards... Thanks.
Canis lupus
Member
Would you mind explaining a little further? I can understand that in the context of Eve, but I'm having difficulties imagining that in a traditional (fantasy) MMORPG setting.
That sounds potentially exciting though, because I really disliked the guided approach most MMOs follow these days.
I am pretty excited for this and the supposed partnership with Storybricks (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/storybricks/storybricks-the-mmorpg-storytelling-toolset/widget) makes me think they'll let you make your characters stay in the game when you are offline (to give other people quests, sell stuff, and make the world generally more immersive).
BLACK AMERICAN PSYCHO
Junior Member
PS4
SolidSnakex
Member
100pct sure its coming to PS4 as well:
Now we just have to hope for cross-platform play like FFXIV.
Dance Inferno
Unconfirmed Member
I don't know anything about EverQuest but I have been looking for a good MMO for several years now and nothing has really tickled my fancy.
Well actually WildStar looks pretty cool, so I'm keeping my eye on that one as well.
Well actually WildStar looks pretty cool, so I'm keeping my eye on that one as well.
JetBlackPanda
Member
Everquest is one of my favorite games of all time. I hope whatever they have to show off is cool.
1,1,2,2,3,3,4,4,5,5
repeat. loved it.
1,1,2,2,3,3,4,4,5,5
repeat. loved it.
Bards were rigged. They could pull entire high level zones and level to 50 within a week. They also got dual wield, track, levitate, speed buff better than SoW, etc. fuck 'em >.>
SatelliteOfLove
Member
Plus a healthy purging of Avarice and Gamer Bribery. It's been time for these things.
This, too! lol
theMrCravens
Member
Nah. It's either themepark or sandbox.
Sandbox is kind of a niche thing, and I think the "average joe" gamer (the masses who adds to the pop numbers) won't like it much without quests/waypoints telling them what to do.
Well, I'm aware of what he's talking about. I also read like one article on it...
..but I'm not nearly as well versed as some. There's entire debates about it on MMO forums.
That being said, I view EQ1 to be like a sandbox. You really are just thrown into the world. That was crazy-brutal. It caught crap because it was everquest ... but with a few exceptions, it wasn't really about questing in the first few years. It was more about camping/grinding. They changed that a lot later on...
.. where as Wow is like a "themepark'. Think of the map you get when you go to a themepark with "space land" "adventure land" etc.. you walk around the corner, you're in a new "land/world" or in this case a new 'quest hub' you do everything there is to do there, see all the sights, and then you look at your map and find your next place to go do, just like Disney World.
At least, this is how I understand it.
Skyrim would be a sandbox....Reckoning/Kingdoms of Amalur would be a themepark.
How about the sub model in general is a barrier for people to play in general, and those that are interested in your game will be much more likely to play regardless of quality?
Sandbox MMOs are player driven in that players have huge effects on the world (building cities, major economic shifts, land control, etc).
Themepark MMOs are basically like open world games where you run into various dungeons and quests but don't change much outside of what you're allowed to via pre-scripting.
chickdigger802
Banned
it should be a rule that you can't call something at e3 best of show if it's behind closed doors :/
crazepharmacist
Member
I disagree with you here. Being free to play means it's completely up to you if you want to pay money. If you don't like what you see then you can either find a new game or continue playing as a free player. PlanetSide 2 for example allows you to unlock everything in the game without paying a dime. I've only spent money on cosmetics since launch and I already have about 10 or so weapons with all of my infantry characters fully upgraded. It's a very fair model, probably one of the best F2P systems out there. If they follow the same model with EQN I will be satisfied.
aliencowz7
Member
Then MMO's aren't really the genre they should be looking into. Also there should be no excuse to play a game regardless of quality even if its free. Time is a more valuable resource then money is.
If having a sub makes it so some people find another game to play, and gives all the people that decide to pay the sub fee a far better experience to the point they decide to stick around for 5-10 years, then I would take that any day as a consumer or as a developer.
F2P for most games gives you a large profit spike in the short term at the cost of customer loyalty and lots of long term profit. There are some outliers that end up maintaining the profit spike for long term but they are as rare as WoW is to sub based games.
BattleMonkey
Member
Games can have both though. Star Wars Galaxies was one of the biggest sandboxes ever for MMO's yet it had a bunch of themepark zones which were even called that. You would go to them to play out your typical linear style questing system with story, but it didn't dominate the game or was the main gameplay, it was just something a person could do.
Fine Ham Abounds
Member
I've had that impression, but I've never stayed in any MMO more than about 3 months except for EQ1, FFXI, and WoW.
Shadowbane at launch was pretty ugly, but I think I've blocked out most of the specifics.
In regards to the game I have very high hopes as we need a damn sandbox that isn't in space. If I can build a house somewhere out in the woods I'll be sold. By the way the unveiling is on Aug 1st at SOE Live. Here's a untextured screen of a model for EQN:
Well the in-game models won't be nearly that high-res. All you're looking at there is the high-res model that'll be used to bake normal maps. Regardless, the more MMOs that use normal maps, the better. I'd love to see a next-gen MMO take advantage of tesselation as well, but that's a tall order.
theMrCravens
Member
I know, but I think if you start adding themepark fluff to your sandbox world, then you'll have gamers cry out lack of "quests" content and quality, and it'll force the devs to shift out and possibly change their initial design.
Lagspike_exe
Member
Sony is on fire with their MMO offering. This will also fit nicely on the PS4.
BattleMonkey
Member
Not sure what you are talking about, since almost every f2p game that's come out is still operating, producing content, and in many cases still hiring staff. Lot of folks make comments like this yet there is not proof to it, f2p games dont make a ton of money and suddenly die, many have been going for years now with it being rare any even shut down.
And again, WoW was special, it's silly to compare every MMO to it as if that was the only bar for success. We have seen how games with far fewer player bases can have longevity and be profitable.
He's talking out of his ass.
Vestal
Gold Member
totally agree. I personally want to pay full price and a sub for a true succesor to Everquest. You beat me in playtime though hehee.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
WoW since around 2009 doesn't really have what would traditionally be called a "community" as known by most MMOers' reckoning. It's mostly meta and off-site or a holdover on a few outlier servers, mostly RP. Mostly what's there is just apathy and asocial coexistance.
And Shadowbane was always that way. Granted, that was the game as it was designed, but it was surprisingly good for comraderie within ones guild, and acting a fool would get one ganked and looted so it kept a neat tense ceasefire effect in place like most PvP MMOs.
aliencowz7
Member
I'm not talking about them dieing off, I am talking about that initial giant spike in profits slowly evening back out closer to the level of profits they had when they were sub based.
I am fully aware MMO's can operate on small player bases for long periods of time. The original EQ was still getting exspansions as a sub game years and years after launch, it didn't go f2p until fairly recently.
Even FFXI which has a miniscule playerbase compared to WoW is still profitable enough to make SE money as a sub based MMO to this date, which is why it recently received a full exspansion.
My point is that it isn't worth sacrificing quality and long term profits for a short term boost just to later come back down to earth and have lost your most loyal fans in the process.
The fact that SoE has turned all of their games into F2P and are now strictly a F2P company should tell you that you are wrong.
As far as F2P games being lesser quality, that is just absurd, SoE is not some small ass company, and EQ is the face of their franchise. Do you really think it's going to be cheaply made, considering Smed wants these games to last 15+ years?
BattleMonkey
Member
For majority of sub based games, you have the exact same trend of spike of profit at start and then it dwindles, and in majority of cases those games were forced to shut down too. For all we have seen so far, F2P games are showing more longevity in the market now than sub based MMOs. Sub based success is much more rare than f2p success at this point.
As for fan loyalty, that is complete nonsense, it at best only applies to a few titles which transitioned from sub based to f2p.
And from a good friend who works at Blizzard, they even believe it's not worth it with the sub model, any future mmo style games you see from them will likely be the b2p/f2p model as well. They are quite aware that WoW was unique lightning in a bottle.
aliencowz7
Member
Considering PS2 was of low enough quality that even though I really liked PS1 I didn't care for it to a level that I completely dropped it then yes I do think it will be cheaply made should it go f2p.
And all of there games went f2p cause they are old as hell and no longer compelling enough to warrant the sub which is fine and absolutely normal. That is when you move on and make a new game that IS compelling enough to warrant a sub.
It's cool if you are a fan of the f2p model but I am not, never have been and never will be. I despise everything it is and everything it stands for and I just posted to express my displeasure that another series I previously loved is moving away from the kinds of things I want from a game. I don't expect everyone to feel the same way or like the same things.
Napoleonthechimp
Member
God damn at the clutter on that desk.
RPGCrazied
Member
Is this F2P or no?
Hope so.
Hope so.
Fine Ham Abounds
Member
Well, as someone who felt the same as you for a long time, I've basically come to the conclusion that the P2P business model simply won't work for the lifetime of MMOs anymore unless they are the top-dog for the duration, the one game everyone associates with the genre, the game all the cool kids play while making fun of every other game. Post-TOR, gone are the pipe dreams of venture capitalists throwing money at subscription MMOs, confident they have just bought their ticket to the land of milk and honey.
Of course, new projects need to both have noticeably higher quality than their competitors and a unique hook, but the market is so saturated right now, and every game so dependent on a large playerbase to be functional, that the actual products themselves are virtually worthless.
You are exactly right that time is more valuable than money. The competition in the MMO market isn't just for people's money, it's for their time, and there's simply too much out there to expect to compete for people's time if you're paywalling everyone even remotely interested. F2P means thousands of people you wouldn't have otherwise will visit your game, even if it's only twice a month. The influx of warm bodies gives the appearance of popularity and sustainability necessary to keep people believing the game is healthy. I'm guessing the market has proven that someone who plays twice a month is just as likely to buy a hat for $1 as someone who plays 20 hours a week.
Maybe one day there will be so many MMO fans around that every game will have access to a deep enough dedicated population to make every game a P2P project focused solely on keeping its dedicated fans happy with no concern about growth, but I'm not sure that's realistic.
I sincerely hope this is what it is. EQ world + EVE online sandbox + active combat would just be absolutely mindblowing. That type of sandbox gameplay, if done right, will make for a very solid subscriber base. Even now, EVE's subscriber base is still growing which is seriously impressive for such a niche title.
Mr_Antimatter
Member
Was my first MMO. A pity it was such a mess design wise, it did some interesting things for its day.
EVE continues to grow because you can't quit since time is everything. If you quit it is literally impossible to make back that time. I just wish it had the combat system of EVR, I would have never quit playing.
aliencowz7
Member
I certainly don't blame the developers for making what amounts to a sound business choice, but I still can't help but be irked when every online centric game or MMO I end up being interested in uses a business model that totally puts me off.
If I were to actually blame anyone it would be the parts of the player bases that bought into f2p to the point that it became the norm instead of rewarding developers that went out of there way to make a compelling enough experience that the player wanted to pay the extra money to experience it. Even then though I don't blame them for going along with something they like for whatever reasons they like it.
I think f2p has a place in the market, I just get really frustrated when it gets to the point that developers are to scared to even attempt going sub based due to all of the people that just jump to "subs are dead" instead of taking each game on a case by case basis and allowing games that aren't up to snuff to fail and die off which is just a natural part of the industry.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Same on both accounts. So excited to see what they do with this game.
JetBlackPanda
Member
Personally I hope for a GW2 model. Is that considered FTP? its not really free.
Lazy Jones
Member
Original is a classic (duh), sequel sucked. Hope this is better.
GW2 is B2P (buy to play)
B2P = pay for the box get everything
F2P = pay nothing unless you want to
Most F2P games now give you access to all or damn near every bit of content the game has and the microtransactions are typically cosmetic, convenience items, or account based stuff.