It's hardly that they've made them like Action Adventure games... They play nothing alike. They made WoW less "hardcore" though, yes. However I don't think that's why MMO's fail. I played SWTOR a lot, and that failed due to lack of content. Guild Wars 2 just didn't have any real end game, thus also it's failure is due to lack of content.
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PC: LoL top, Dota 2 highest growth, MMOs down, $25B 2014 [DFC interview]
- Thread starter ScepticMatt
- Start date
I still don't 'get' MOBAs/LOMAs/ARTS. Spent a little while trying to get into League and Dota 2 last year, and dabbled with Smite and Dawngate betas, but none of them really stuck. Of the lot, I think I liked Dota 2 the most, and I've had fun when I've sat down to play it... but I oddly just don't feel compelled to play any of them over anything else. Kinda feel like I'm missing out on something at this point. :[
2spooky4me
Member
I'm surprised the genre took off the way that it did.
I've played DOTA since the Aeon of Strife days, when the game was simply a custom game mod for Starcraft and Warcraft III. New players would tend to get overwhelmed by the mechanics and the poisonous player base. They would get called noob, trash, etc. and would often get told to leave.
I wonder what changed over the years...it is still a kind of game that has a very steep learning curve with hostile teammates. And yet, it magically became immensely popular.
I've played DOTA since the Aeon of Strife days, when the game was simply a custom game mod for Starcraft and Warcraft III. New players would tend to get overwhelmed by the mechanics and the poisonous player base. They would get called noob, trash, etc. and would often get told to leave.
I wonder what changed over the years...it is still a kind of game that has a very steep learning curve with hostile teammates. And yet, it magically became immensely popular.
2spooky4me
Member
What made MOBAs fun for me was my first killing spree, which sounds terrible but it is that sensation of adrenaline rushing through your body when you take out a whole team by yourself that keeps you playing the game. You keep playing to recreate those moments. Others play for cosmetic items, which I never really understood.
definitely more than SWTOR
SatelliteOfLove
Member
Because the concept that making games like that was financial suicide by default had always been Dogma and fairy tales to woo investors and gamers, nothing more.
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMoba, good sir!
It would be best if they tried to keep to a point and budgeted accordingly, then they wouldn't have to please everyone to keep afloat.
Laieon
Member
I would LOVE an MMO that incorporates puzzles into it's dungeons like Zelda does.
Haunted
Member
Played on the Lord's Pitch!
TyrantGuardian
Member
Can't help but to laugh at people calling "moba" (I like LOMA better) a fad. You people realize these games have been played in pretty huge numbers since about ten years back, right? It's just that most US journos/console gamers didn't catch wind of it until LoL got ridiculously huge. Dota 1 was a household name here in Europe, much like Counter-Strike before it.
DonasaurusRex
Online Ho Champ
Thats exactly why they fail. MMO players are going to play MMO's period. We have been for over 15 years. Its when games are changed to accomodate other types of players that games pops artificially bloat then end up with a ton of servers that are half populated. Factions that arent necessary because the population doesnt merit them. And players that demand they log into an MMO and solo it and have the same experience as concerted effort of many. Content will always be an issue in an MMO but if that were the problem they wouldnt have even grown as much as they did to this day. The problem is the masses of people that thought the model should change then they realized they wanted to play other genres. Left with bloated games with 50 different item sets 40 currencies 20 instances for alternate types of players. Its shit and thats a waste of resources. WoW Vanilla/BC, thats about as casual as an MMO should get, otherwise plenty of people swell the pop and then leave. Where as an MMO player ..shit they will play games like Final Fantasy online where rabbits beat your ass, and Lineage 2 , Tera Online, people still play DCUO. They are making these games for a bunch of people that dont really like them.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
The "dungeons are a place to be farmed for phat l00tz as quick as possible" mentality has to die first.
Nice growth, also nice that FPS games are now outdoing MMOs. Hopefully that'll eventually allow devs to take more risks with the genre on PC, I know there's a bunch of great indie stuff out there (NS2, Insurgency, Strike Vector, Hawken, Shadow Warrior), but something like a new UT by Epic or Quake Arena by ID that isn't hampered by gamepads. Price that at $15-$20 (and give it a lean budget to suit) and it could be a nice side investment for companies.
Also will be interesting to see what kind of changes happen when developing nations get more buying power, there's whole generations of people in those areas who have been raised with PC gaming as pretty much their sole gaming source.
Also will be interesting to see what kind of changes happen when developing nations get more buying power, there's whole generations of people in those areas who have been raised with PC gaming as pretty much their sole gaming source.
Cliffy said hes working on a PC only Arena Shooter. Maybe he can breath some life back into the genre. I know Id love that type of games to come back.
Why do you think Guild Wars 2 is failing? From everything Arena.net is saying it seems to be making mad bank.
SneakyStephan
Banned
that is the conclusion they draw? clueless idiots
Failing is perhaps the wrong word.
It's making money. However, I'd argue the player base isn't massive, and although they say it's making a lot of money. I'd wager they're disappointed that it wasn't as popular as they wanted it to be. I mean I'm pretty sure it's concurrent users is less than Dota 2 even.
It could have been so much more, really.
Same for SWTOR, EA says that's making a lot of money, but, I don't think anyone will deny that they royally screwed that up.
I honestly don't agree. The fact that WoW still has so many players, completely destroys your point.
You seem to be under the illusion that "hardcore" mmorpg players are the majority. They aren't, and won't ever be.
Edit: It's also worth pointing out, no MMO is completely casual. WoW was catering to both.
I think I heard the term moba before league was even released. I'm pretty sure people called dota a moba.
CadetMahoney
Member
meh, they're not elite until they win fighting game tournaments in sharkpit countries like Taiwan/Korea/Japan.
So you mean it hasn't the top three concurrent players of any game ever? What kind of expectations for Guild wars did you have? I'm not sure about the numbers since it's so hard to find (dota 2 has about 700k concurrent) but the only games I think is bigger than dota 2 is lol and world of tanks.
Riot coined the term in 2009 to break LoL away from the term dota-clone. I highly doubt you seen anyone call dota a moba before that.
Oh come on, don't give me that. Did you SEE the hype levels of Guild Wars 2? They were wanting it to be the next big thing, everyone was, and it didn't come close. Can't find recent player statistics for Guild Wars 2, but last august it was at 460k peak concurrent, which isn't a very accurate number since it's peak, and not average and so could have been the numbers from launch, also it'll have dropped anyway since then. Meaning, that's rather rubbish compared to the gigantic hype train it had.
400k concurrent players is rubbish? Seriously, your expectations are worse than Square Enix. It was the fastest selling western MMO and up to 3.5 million sales around the middle of last year.
I really wouldn't mention it in the same breath as true failures like TOR, which sold less on a higher budget and even after moving to a free to play model after being originally planned as a subscription-based title.
I really wouldn't mention it in the same breath as true failures like TOR, which sold less on a higher budget and even after moving to a free to play model after being originally planned as a subscription-based title.
Read what I said, and also what the numbers actually are.
When they, and everyone touted it as a "WoW" beater before launch, I'd say that's disappointing.
I'm not saying it would have been rubbish if expectations had been curbed, I'm saying it's rubbish in comparison to what they, and everyone else expected it to be.
I agree, SWTOR was a catastrophic failure, but I don't agree that Guild Wars 2 was the quite the success they wanted.
Call it unreasonable expectations. Every single MMO that is announced, it's hyped to be the "WoW" beater, and it never happens, and probably won't happen till WoW's numbers really dwindle.
Just as a comparison, the highest concurrent users for Battlefield 4 I could find was half that. I can't see any metric where they would be sad about the numbers.
Well, you seem to miss my point. My usage of the term failure is comparatively to what their expectations were. I'm not saying it's a failure outside that, it's making a lot of money, so it's clearly not.
You can fail at one thing and still be a success.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
Dota 2 is a free game from the developer with the biggest marketplace in a very popular genre. It's not something to be dismayed by when your game still has a $40 admission fee.
Oh I don't disagree, I was just using that as a numbers comparison because their concurrent player base is less than WoW and LoL, the two behemoths.
oneils
Member
It definitely is a trend. Lots of people are paying for early access, even for free to play games.
SneakyStephan
Banned
not for f2p games, dota2 is an exception because people were so eager for it (and it's also a totally different f2p type than what you generally think of when you say f2p)
now that it's released there's also no cost
somehow their conclusion is that devs should release freemium games, from looking at dota...
Fair enough. I was probably thinking of something else, or nothing.
oneils
Member
Path of exile was another one. Not sure if there are others out there. I guess two don't quite make a trend.
But, lots of free to play games start off as pay-to-play.
If you look at the market, I really do think you could use the early access model for online games that would normally start off as pay to play and then end up f2p.