EQ2 - Now comes with WoW Easy Mode

No they didn't you can still do it on all your alts if you want but the need to do it on all your alts is gone you only need to do it on one.

It's more like killing a bear by yourself or killing Godzilla with 24 people, only to have Godzilla heal back to full and then Mothra adds. They aren't remotely the same.

Of course I don't think believe in catering to the lowest common denominator. Take a look at what Call of Duty and Halo has done to the FPS genre. Going from a diverse arrangement of titles with different gameplay elements ranging from Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Quake. UT, Counterstrike, Serious Sam, Battlefield 1942, Deus Ex, Perfect Dark, Half Life ect down to a simplistic game play formula where all developers just play follow the leader down to even the user interface.


MMO's are completely different case though. Say you want to create a new development team. You seek out a publisher or independently publish it. You go to a conference to meet with potential investors that deal with investing in the video game industry to fund your project. You present them with this idea about creating a super hardcore MMO based off of western fantasy and you wish to have a budget of $20-70,000,000. MMO's are incredibly risky investments especially untested ideas or ideas that don't follow the normal. Many being a loss in profit after launch if subscription rate aren't stable and exceeds the initial expectations you placed down. They'll ask you if the niche market you're targeting for the game can maintain a stable subscription rate, and they'll want solid proof that this market does exist in large enough quantities to keep the game afloat at a profitable rate upon launch.

Even at the time of its release, EQ1 had a reasonable small budget. It was the first 3D MMO in a genre that was just surfacing. Now take a look at it today. Countless MMO's, and they're all trying to target the same audience. It works differently then other genres. In an MMO, it's ongoing, for most of them, there is no finish line. People are more likely to stick with one MMO for years and you need to convince them upon launch to stay with you instead of heading back to the game where they dedicated years with their character. The launch of an MMO is your only chance of opportunity to gain momentum for the game.

First off...in ALL of life I have found the most popular thing is usually not the best. I tend to use Mcdonalds and Walmart as good examples. Mcdonalds does not have the best food (beginning not even to have the best price for what you're getting either) and Walmart is not the best place to buy clothes, etc. Good example of Walmart is that I can go into Walmart and get a cheap pair of jeans for 12-20 dollars, yet I can go into Kohl's and with deals, etc I can get a better quality jean for the same price. Same goes for Mcondalds, most meals cost around 6-8 dollars, I can easily go to Five Guys and get a meal for around 10-12 and have it be actual real food lol.

Popular =/= best. It's just what most sheeple flock to because of marketing, etc.

Now in reference to the "niche" market, what do you think EQ1 appealed to at first? There were other MMOs out there but even with a smaller following at first they still made it and made it well (they still do to this day). I think you're way overshooting the development/running costs of a MMO lol.

Regardless of all of that the Ford - RR comparison is somewhat accurate. Currently I would easily pay up to 50 dollars a month for a subscription for a game that fit most of my wants (doesn't even have to be perfect just as long as it had most of what I wanted). Fact of the matter is as I stated before, why do the "majority" (and I use that term lightly) get every MMO how they want it yet the "minority" (me) not have any current MMO to suite my style? Heck I still dabble into EQ1 on progression servers with my station access just to get a bit of what I want in an MMO.

[quote="Salty21db, post: 17982, member: 229"Fact of the matter is as I stated before, why do the "majority" (and I use that term lightly) get every MMO how they want it yet the "minority" (me) not have any current MMO to suite my style?[/quote]

Because Vanguard flopped like a dead fish (yes, I know there were other "issues"), and other experiments with 'hardcore' MMO's haven't gone real well (many never make it to production). Wizardry Online will be interesting. If that fails, at least in the western markets, it will be seen as a strong sign that there aren't enough 'hardcore' gamers out there willing to support such a game.

If I make a game for the 'majority', I know my target audience exists, I just have to convince them to use my product instead of the alternatives. If you go for the 'niche' market, you may find that your customers simply don't exist - at least not enough to support your project and give you a decent ROI.

I'm still lost on where that changed as well..hardcore and casual.

Since when does an MMO taking a long time to level (say 1 week versus a few months) become hardcore versus casual? As long as we are accomplishing a goal during our playtime why does it matter if we level. Why does it matter if we get a whole level in an hour or a whole yellow? I'm confused on why not make the game last longer and the ride to get to the top last longer then just spamming to cap? How is that a good game lol.

You can thank the raiders for a lot of that actually.

When the games became about loot, and all the best loot was at the endgame, and the contested content and all the other "goodies", then the saying "The game begins at endgame" started to take hold. I think Guild Wars takes a good approach and lets you start with a max level character if that's your thing. That leaves the rest of the game to the people who actually want to play it.

Look at the last few expansions - all of them pushing "endgame". How well do you think an expansion would be received if it was all about new level 20-50 content? Personally, I'd be down with that, but I don't know how many other people would be willing to shell out dollars for it.

Has nothing to do with raiders and has everything to do with an aging MMO that uses level-based progression.

Nope based on the financial amount needs to serve a spcial rules server that permits only the style of play you and those like you require - cost of the server farm, the coloc costs, network costs, NOC center expansion, additional personnel requirements to name a few. suspec I might be low on that cost because of the lack of long term commited players that would be willig to support the dedicated game play you wish to have

Hmm, well that would still be fine. Using the logic of "niche market no work" Rolls-Royce wouldn't exist, among many other such markets that don't cater to the everyday individual. Make me a niche market and I'll give you my money.