Mark

I guess you didn't bother to read the previous sentence.

"another game, say EQ2, was the massive success that WoW is instead"

If EQ2 had 11 million worldwide subs and the other less popular (but still popular) games like guild wars and aion were still out there, a game like wow 1.0 would never make it.

MMO players are the reason why there is no originality in MMO games anymore. The problem is that the bar for new MMOs is so insanely high, that publishers just aren't willing to front the money to make an experimental game regardless of the genre.

Let's pretend that WoW didn't exist, but another game, say EQ2, was the massive success that WoW is instead. If you released WoW version 1.0 today, right now, it would be an absolute flop. It would be ridiculed into oblivion.

Numerous developers have quite honestly admitted that they have absolutely no idea how to make questing different from "kill ten rats" AND still be as engaging 6, 12, 18 months from now as it was in the very beginning. It doesn't matter what questing system you have, if you do the same thing every day for 6 months, it will be old, stale, boring, dull, and repetitive.

Other games in other genres don't really have this problem. Think about games like counter strike. Their online had armor and weapons that you could buy, but there were no quests, no end game, less than a dozen zones, and the only way to get "money" to buy new armor or weapons was to repetitively grind the same mobs (players) over and over and over and over. Tens of thousands of people loved it! However, if you made a fantasy MMO out of that, no one would play it. They would call it "an asian-esque grinder game" (instant blacklist material).

How many times did you play the same 32 levels of Mario 1? How many times did you help Samus kill the Mother Brain? MMO players complain about having to "repetitively grind the same bosses for loot", but the Mother Brain never dropped loot. Bowser never dropped loot. Imagine if the Lich King said, "I'm sorry n00bs, but your loot is in another castle." The nerdrage would be immense!

This is a direct quote from BVRBandit (Derek Smart on Alganon forums). I think it pretty much sums up his stance on players. Good luck keeping anyone around with this attitude....

These forums are not for negative postulation. Any and all such posts will be deleted.

If you don't like the game, leave.

If you don't think the game will survive, leave.

If you don't think we're going to make it, leave.

If you don't think we're developing the game exactly how you want it, leave.

Seriously we only want positive vibes because positivity begets positivity. We are at a critical time right now and simply don't have the time or patience to deal with foolishness.

If you want to help us, do so. If you don't, yes, you got it, LEAVE.

There are LOTS of helpful and informative people on the forums, if you can't beat them, go ahead, join them.

All this marketspeak just means this: "We want Turbine to lay as many golden eggs (MMOs) as possible before the goose dies."

If they do change anything about existing Turbine properties, the changes will be minor, at best, since the properties are already profitable.

Oh, and don't forget that for these goldsellers who sell diamonds on the AH, it is in their best interests to inflate the gold price for diamonds as well, so that when they do sell them (and believe me, they do sell them), they will get more gold, thus make more cash when they sell that gold.

Graill, this would in no way fix the problem. All it would do is aggravate the playerbase. If you wanted to get gold from a goldseller who you just bought from, all you would have to do is put 1 herb on the AH for 100,000g and when they buy it, you get your gold.

To others, the problem with diamonds is that the goldsellers buy the diamonds, sell them on the AH for tons of gold, then sell the gold for more than they paid for the diamonds. It is like the easiest farming ever for them.

The problem I have with EQ2 is there is just way too much stuff in it. I know that sounds pretty crazy, but for a new player starting out, it is overwhelming just how much STUFF there is. 100+ abilities per class, 20something classes, thousands of recipes for each profession, over 8,000 quests, over a hundred factions, etc. There's just too much crap, and for the most part, most of it doesn't even get used anymore. The time it takes to reach high levels is so short, that everything below that seems useless. Warcraft did it right by smashing up their old world and starting it over (for the next expansion). There was just too much unused stuff there, too.

Exactly. These aren't cases of companies "groping around", these are cases of companies trying to see what works for their fanbase. Some F2P games have a fanbase that is perfectly OK with Cash = End-Game Viable, No Cash=Not EndGame Viable (Runes of Magic was like this right when it came out of beta). What happens in these cases is someone gets bent out of shape about it, posts about it in every blog that ever mentions the game, and people just assume 1) the game is not worth playing and 2) that all F2P games are like that. This is not the case for every game, and even in the case of Runes of Magic, once people actually started downing the big bosses, their gear got good enough to where they didn't need a fully decked out cash shop team to down bosses.

There's a lot of psychology involved in cash shops, too, especially in the American market. There are huge numbers of American players who want nothing more than to see their name at #1 in the list of "Top Badasses Who Ever Played The Game". However, when they hear that someone spent $5,000 in the cash shop and now has a godly decked-out character, they say to themselves, "I won't play this game now because I'm not about to spent $5,000 to reach my goal of Top Badass Who Ever Played The Game." And when other people find out about Mister Five Thousand they say to themselves (and on other blogs), "Well it must be the case that he spent $5,000 in the cash shop because that is what it takes to play the game at the highest level."

As many sensible people will tell you though, just because you spent $5,000 on your character, doesn't mean you know how to play it!

I think a lot of people are missing the analogy here. Imagine this: you're playing WoW and you suddenly decide you want to start a new character, but you're sick of all the idiots on your server, so you pick a new server. The new server has roughly 25,000 players. But once you get there, you realize, "Gosh, I wish I could play the exact same game as this but with THIS major tweak."

Enter WoWClone #4323. It has roughly 25,000 players playing on a single server, but is exactly like WoW with the one major tweak that you always wanted to see in WoW. It's a dream come true! If WoWClone #4323 doesn't have the exact tweak you wanted to see, try WoWClone #2332!

The point is, there's plenty of room in all markets to support hundreds of very similar games, especially considering that each server of WoW is very similar with the only major difference being the players playing on the server. Imagine if each faction of each server of WoW all over the world was a completely differently named game. Now imagine each faction of each server of every major MMO was a differently named game and you will begin to understand the direction of the new MMO market. One game can't become more popular than WoW, but 1000 very similar games can sure give it a run for its money.

Yes, BioWare makes great games, however BioWare is really bad about fixing bugs. Every patch for the PC version of Dragon Age is substantially worse than the previous one. Fixing bugs is a major part of running an MMO, and I hope they don't fail at fixing the inevitable issues that will arise in SWTOR like they are failing at fixing issues in other games.