WonderCon MMORPG industry panel explores key topics of the day

Interesting. I like the Zentia guy :D And they mention minecraft (Y)

@Puremallace

Having transcripts would be nice. Even for being at home I'd rather skim topics than sit through ti all.

All had simple honest answers to the questions asked.

Some nice information and perspective from this panel. My only hangup was the "epic" soundtrack being played in the background throughout. Totally unnecessary, inappropriate, and very distracting.

Very disappointed, another wasted panel touching on only those things the devs feel comfortable with. This panel is why the industry needs common sense SME's.

The best question fielded? The one about the developer tools being released for any particular game. These devs and companies know for a fact there are far more talented folks out there and are scared as hell to do this. That and the greed factor.

The only response for the WOW question, "I have a car" or "I breathe air", any other response is simply burning up and wasting brain cells.

Hartsman continues to lose ground as any type of driving force in this industry, he speaks garbage, he looked like a child sitting on a chair in front of a buch of adults waiting to be questioned on what he did wrong.

He addresses no real questions a hundred other people havent already asked and answered and all of this panel seemed to be hooked on the new spin "social networking" (to them).

Why werent more widly asked questions addressed? When one of the devs talked about the less than 1% that beat content and the 99% that will take months or never beat it, did he feel something was inherently wrong? No, just a laugh from him, and it is an inside joke because its your money.

This panel should have answered real questions on peoples minds, such as why cant i access all of LOTR (as an example, had to use one) unless i pay, after all, it says its free to play?

Why arent you developers regulated and companies ISO certified on released games? So there is consequence, fines, jail time, etc when a game doesnt work as advertised or your forum moderators or customer service fails?

Why dont you devs have daily, real events ingame to keep these titles fresh? Randomness, something devs know nothing about except that it would dip into their profit margin to entertain "subs". Cruise control is cheaper than interaction.

Another would be why do you devs not give me choice in a game? Why must i play the way you want me to in the manner i need to because of your dev choices? The game built for masses answer would have worked ten years ago, not today.

Still another, If i pay for content why cant i see it? Why do you devs make games accessable for only one type of player? Why arent alternatives available for that mother or father available to get that legendary item? Their money not good? You worried about what the 1% of busybodies would say?

There are a couple more questions but they would be deemed as being in the controversy catagory. These devs are like any politician that wants to keep their job, they talk what they have been coached and trained on, not one of them can speak out of set guidelines against their company if they feel otherwise.

So in summary what we get to look forward from this panels wise words is this, extreme social networked games that continue to offer no choice except what and how the devs want you to play due to the money model (your time verse their time), the hundred thousand different ways to communicate, and a title that can be itemized to death and are still branded as free to play to bring in those looking for the word free.

No thanks. I am for full choice, full content, regardless of my play style or time. I want to pay a monthly sub and have great customer service. Any one of those fails and i am gone.

@Graill440

I see this panel as just another dog and pony show, all talk for the sake of trying to make people think that they some how have their hand on the pulse of the community. To me it just seems like pure publicity in that they talk tall to bring awareness more to themselves and the games they are working on then the real issues. What a joke lol, the fact that these people who represent games that are some of the worst WoW clones out there, just goes to show you how shallow the words they speak are, since most of what they say isn't what they are doing in their games at all.

Shareholders and the top executives are in charge of the industry not these developers, no one is going to support a game that changes up the status quo drastically from WoW, especially when they know they might lose money or even worse...have their game fail and lose everything they put into it. Our only hope for the future of good (non WoW clone) MMOs are indie developers who are not run by the corporate machine and are in it for the sake of innovation and change and not dollar signs.

A very nicely edited and presented video. However, almost all innovative MMORPG game design is, in fact, being done in Korea or financed by Korean companies. The one and only genuinely innovative fantasy MMO being developed by a Western company is Secret World. In other words, the members of the panel represent the past more than the future.

A year ago there were no action combat MMOS with a fantasy setting available in the Western world. There are now three with at least as many more to be released in the West this year. All of those games were created by Korean design studios. The most ambitious sandbox game on the horizon is ArcheAge developed by, you guessed it, a Korean studio. The most innovative sci-fi MMORPG I have seen is Berkanix; not SW:TOR.

What was missing from the panel discussion was a global view of the MMORPG industry and market. Nevertheless, the video is well worth watching.

This video tells me that the MMO development industry needs an enema.

Player-generated content doesn't sell (i.e. They can't monetize player-OWNED content). They stick with the same tired, hackneyed model because that's what gets investment money and that's what business is about. They hope for something new, but none of them have anything new to say. No cajones. Corporate hacks.

Nice job having a panel, boys. That's some real, industry-leading info right there.

Gonna take an unpopular jab at some of the above comments and start off with an old saying and then give an example(s).

You have to search alotta coal to find diamonds, even diamonds in the rough.

I mean, have you folks played any CoH architect missions? Sure, there are great ones out there, but for every great ones, there are 20-100 that you can pass on.

Now, while this could be "free content" for the game and I am all for it, even if the guy writing it doesn't get paid/compensated (which is another legal prickly issue in itself) one has to search for such content. Add to the fact that up/down voting has been influenced in many games for these things, and you can have a hard time finding good player-made content.

What's the solution? Well, they'd probably have to hire roughly 3 or more guys, depending on the MMO, just to go through such content. Not only to find quality, but for any issues of plagerizing existing legally owned properties ("You meet a hero named, "Captain America" that you need to rescue.").

Again, I am ALL FOR player content, but have you actually read any of the fan-fic examples out on the net? Have you played some of these missions, many that are forgettable or just used to power-level up characters? Not saying writers for MMOs don't ever write bad story lines but sheesh, much of the player content is trash. If everyone wrote great stories, we would all be William Shakespeare drawing salaries from movie adaptations and novels, but we are not.

And I am sure, if there was an MMO that solely produced such player content, I am sure you folks would be the FIRST who would quit it and disparage what a horrible piece of trash it is.

Not everyone writes great or interesting stories.

I attended this panel at Wonder Con and it made more sense than the video above, which has the moderator edited out.

Is this maybe because Josh Augustine from PC Gamer was the moderator? OH RIGHT.

The transcript would be better than this very prettily edited video removing the moderator, who conveniently happens to be an editor at a "media competitor."

@Somberlain

If by "WoW clone" you mean a standard mmo as established by Everquest, then yes; otherwise neither of those games are anything like WoW. At least, in the months that I have spent in each of those games the only similarities to WoW that I have seen is that they are in the same genre and therefore have common interface elements. Calling Zentia a WoW clone is like calling Battlefield 3 a Counter-Strike clone because they're both shooters. Silly.

@Graill440

Why do people think that "free to play" means completely free game? You can play LOTRO for free any time and for as long as you wish; it is free to play. In fact, the Turbine f2p games provide a way for players to earn access to everything in the game with in-game means, so you can actually unlock all of the content without paying any real money. Why should someone who pays nothing get the same things just as easily as someone who pays? Silly.