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  1. #141
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    Quote Originally Posted by muchtoohigh View Post
    I definitely acknowledge the trend is towards ease of play and accessibility, my quesion is why? WoW has been going steadily downhill the more casual it has become, swtor was a failure, GW2 is a decent game but certainly not a world beater...I mean I could see if for instance if WoW went ultra casual and their subs exploded to 20 million and other companies say, "Hmm it looks like casual is the way to go." But when WoW suffers from their casual approach, and other MMOs that try the same come out just decent at best, I just don't get where the proof lies that this is the way to go.
    While it may suit your current argument, I personally don't see how you can wholly place WoW's decreasing sub numbers on their increasingly casual gameplay. The game has been out for over 8 years. Every game I can think of has lost some portion of their users over time. There are, as always, other factors.

  2. #142
    Warcraft's declining sub are also completely trivial for them. Even if WoW lost 2/3rds of their players overnight they would still be the largest, most successful game in the genre. And would still dominate the market totally.

    Warcraft losing 500k subs is natural attrition in a space that has recently seen more variety & fragmentation than at any point previously.

    Again, not a coincidence the current MMO market being so heavily casual play focused has bled subs from what is the quintessential casual MMO of World of Warcraft.

  3. #143
    Quote Originally Posted by Kittyvicious View Post
    I explained exactly why already. It's very simple. One market is constantly growing while the other remains stagnant.

    I'll reiterate exactly why I said this happens in the post you quoted. It's called growing up.

    The majority of the market that can play a hardcore game are high school, college students, and recent grads. These people are in this market for roughly 10 years, from the ages of 14-24. These are the people who have more time to devote to video games and also the people who will devote more time to video games.

    After these groups of people pass into the next phase of their life, at roughly age 25, they pick up more responsibilities from how the evolution of our human lives works. Whether from financial obligations, multiple or single demanding jobs, having children and wives, joining the military, anything. These people have a much significantly smaller window of time to devote to gaming. They also have a higher average spending capability than the previous group.

    But here's where the catch is: The number of people in this group is constantly growing. Even if they weren't, and they were static, they still have a larger age range and thus larger consumer base. These people are typically under this category from 25-65 on average, 40 years, until (early) retirement. Given that people are born faster than they die, the adult group is growing exponentially by default of how long they remain in that category while the smaller group grows at a pretty fixed rate tied to birth rates.

    This is why MMOs evolving to what you want to call 'casual' is an evolution. I disagree that it has to be 'casual', as if that is some negative factor. I just think it's going to be more rewarding for the time invested, more variety in a shorter window of time, and easier to come and go. I don't really see anything wrong with that.
    Your logic way off. By your definition, both groups should be considered stagnant (and that would be correct). Yes the older group has a larger pool, but for every 25 year old who joins it, a 66 year old leaves it, so the net is the same. Your argument that people are born faster than they die is irrelevant because realistically 99% of 60 year olds are not relevant to this discussion anyway. What I don't understand at all about your argument is that you seem to think that MMOs are only going to be played by one generation of people, ever. Yeah someone who started playing at 15 is now 25, but why does that mean the market should just follow him and not care about the 'disposable time' people? Why not cater to the millions of new 15 year olds who have entered that demographic? After all it was 15 year olds who got things started in the first place.

    ---------- Post added 2013-02-22 at 07:47 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Fencers View Post
    Warcraft's declining sub are also completely trivial for them. Even if WoW lost 2/3rds of their players overnight they would still be the largest, most successful game in the genre. And would still dominate the market totally.
    That is a terribly flawed mindset, and by law one that no publicly traded company has. Growth is the name of the game, do you honestly think Blizzard sits back after a 600k sub loss and says, "Well were still on top so its all good!'

    ---------- Post added 2013-02-22 at 07:55 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Fencers View Post

    Also not all casual gamers are farmville players. The casual video game player is the majority video gamer player. They play Halo, Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Diablo 3, Madden, Fifa, Assassin Creed, Mass Effect, League of Legends.
    You're proving my point. FPS and MMOs are not the same, at all. WoW is the only MMO that could be considered mainstream, and while no one can conclusively prove that their troubles are due to becoming more casual, I don't consider it just coincidence that the game's astronomical growth came to a complete halt as soon as they released the first truly casual expansion, wotlk in November of 2008:



    My entire point is that MMO and casual just don't mix.
    Last edited by ShimmerSwirl; 2013-02-23 at 01:01 AM.

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  4. #144
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    Quote Originally Posted by muchtoohigh View Post
    Your logic way off. By your definition, both groups should be considered stagnant (and that would be correct). Yes the older group has a larger pool, but for every 25 year old who joins it, a 66 year old leaves it, so the net is the same. Your argument that people are born faster than they die is irrelevant because realistically 99% of 60 year olds are not relevant to this discussion anyway. What I don't understand at all about your argument is that you seem to think that MMOs are only going to be played by one generation of people, ever. Yeah someone who started playing at 15 is now 25, but why does that mean the market should just follow him and not care about the 'disposable time' people? Why not cater to the millions of new 15 year olds who have entered that demographic? After all it was 15 year olds who got things started in the first place.
    I never said it will only be played by one generation, but the people who built the industry are now into a new group. B/c the smaller market is always smaller. When they started it was all they had access to. Now those same customers have grown into a larger market. In order to maximize revenue and continue satisfying their already proven customer base, you have to evolve.

    I don't think you understand very simple concepts, but to prevent outright flaming you I'm just going to stop responding. You're certainly not doing the genre any favors. I gave you a bunch of embellished text because telling you that people are growing older and there's more of them seemed to already go over your head. Truth be told, you just wanted to have an illogical argument by ignoring that already present fact.

    Keep on fighting that good fight, arguing for outdated mentalities and draconian measures...just like wanting Wildstar to be a sub game.
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  5. #145
    Quote Originally Posted by muchtoohigh View Post
    That is a terribly flawed mindset, and by law one that no publicly traded company has. Growth is the name of the game, do you honestly think Blizzard sits back after a 600k sub loss and says, "Well were still on top so its all good!
    Don't be silly. I never suggested such.

    FPS and MMOs are not the same, at all.
    Irreverent. Casual game players are not confined to Facebook games only. Casual players, and the perpetual market of casual players are the largest and most successful. In gaming. All of gaming.

    The answer to your question is quite flatly stated as I laid it out: MMOs cost tons of money. There is more money in the mainstream audience than in a niche. Particularly for AAA development.

    My entire point is that MMO and casual just don't mix.
    I am sure no major publisher investing millions & millions of dollars in MMOs have data contra to this. Umhm.

  6. #146
    Quote Originally Posted by Fencers View Post
    Don't be silly. I never suggested such.
    Of course I embellished, but you most definitely suggested it, you just didn't plainly state it.

    Irreverent. Casual game players are not confined to Facebook games only. Casual players, and the perpetual market of casual players are the largest and most successful. In gaming. All of gaming.

    The answer to your question is quite flatly stated as I laid it out: MMOs cost tons of money. There is more money in the mainstream audience than in a niche. Particularly for AAA development.
    This is where we disagree. I will definitely give you that as a whole, casual gamers are the most profitable demographic. But were not talking about the whole, were talking about MMOs. I think they are different beast entirely. Even casual MMOs require a considerable time commitment to progress your character. They are slower, more thoughtful, more methodical. Its a very stark contrast from typical 'casual' games like CoD or Madden; fast paced, action, instant gratification. Frankly MMOs are more nerdy, they're not cool. People don't get together and play GW2 at a party the way they would CoD, Madden, or even Wii Fit type games. I just think by their very essence MMOs are *not* mainstream and cannot be. Its a genre for gamers. And when companies start trying to expand to get the CoD type players into MMOs, you end up not making either party happy.
    That is a dangerous mindset to have, thinking that the high cost of MMOs justifies marketing them to the largest demographic. Turbine engines cost quite a bit to produce too, but I don't see those being sold at Walmart.


    I am sure no major publisher investing millions & millions of dollars in MMOs have data contra to this. Umhm.
    I don't consider condescending sarcasm a form of proof I don't have any proof either but my opinion is that a lot of these companies truly don't know, they're searching for the answers. Its a really fine balance between making a game so accessible that it doesn't have the depth to keep players around, vs making it so challenging that it then really is too niche. WoW caught lightning in a bottle, they found that perfect balance between the two sides and no other company has been able to do that since then. But I think they're all trying, I just have yet to see any tangible proof that in the MMO genre that the casual approach is the way to go.

    ---------- Post added 2013-02-22 at 10:01 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Kittyvicious View Post
    I never said it will only be played by one generation, but the people who built the industry are now into a new group. B/c the smaller market is always smaller. When they started it was all they had access to. Now those same customers have grown into a larger market. In order to maximize revenue and continue satisfying their already proven customer base, you have to evolve.

    I don't think you understand very simple concepts, but to prevent outright flaming you I'm just going to stop responding. You're certainly not doing the genre any favors. I gave you a bunch of embellished text because telling you that people are growing older and there's more of them seemed to already go over your head. Truth be told, you just wanted to have an illogical argument by ignoring that already present fact.

    Keep on fighting that good fight, arguing for outdated mentalities and draconian measures...just like wanting Wildstar to be a sub game.
    People are always growing older in every market, for every product, throughout world history. You don't see Gerber making adult versions of pacifiers so they can keep servicing the customers who first bought their product 80 years ago. Would it be a crime to say MMOs are a product that is aimed at a certain demographic? Like say 15-30 year olds or whatever you want to use? Why must the MMO market follow the original MMO players instead of just serving the same demograpic they always have? If most 25 year olds have less free time and other commitments, then why not just let them tend to those things, play other games, do other things, and let MMOs be what they always have been: a time sink. Do you think when the 25 year old your talking about turns 65 that all MMOs should have large, easy to read text since the only people playing MMOs at that time will the same people as today, except now they'll all be between 55-65?
    Last edited by ShimmerSwirl; 2013-02-23 at 02:48 AM.

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  7. #147
    Quote Originally Posted by muchtoohigh View Post
    Why produce a game in a genre that is built of the premise of long-term play at any cost if your target audience isn't going to play it for any length of time?
    The answer is simple, box sales > * basically, if 4 million people buy your game and subscribe for two months you have $90*4000000, and this is most likely just the beginning as a big part of the casual herd will come back when you add something new to the game and sub for a month or two again.

    Personally I hate how big business affects game development these days. I truly hope crowd funding indie developers gets much bigger than it is so the big developers/publishers that keep pushing out generic shit will meet the same fate as major record labels are facing these days, simply becoming obsolete...

  8. #148
    "There are times you know something and you're bursting to talk about it - and that is the case here," he says. "We're betting the company's future on this game. ... The last EverQuest game launched in 2005. We've blown up two design ideas over the last four years because they were too 'me too.' It wasn't enough of a change. We settled on a design that, when we looked at it, everyone in the room thought we were crazy. We gave it a week and came back, and we all said 'yeah, we're still crazy, but we can't get the idea out of our heads. ... It's going to be the world's largest sandbox game."

    EverQuest Next was a black box project for years - and it was only last month that Smedley and the team showed it to the EverQuest and EverQuest 2 teams. Smedley says he was so nervous the night before the presentation that he couldn't sleep - but that both teams received it enthusiastically.

    Players will have to wait a bit longer to try it themselves, but maybe not as long as you'd expect. "Players will get their hands on an actual release version of what we're doing late [this] year - and I don't mean a beta," says Smedley.

    http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/1...p#.UQF0RWfNmwc

    EQ:Next released this year???

    Watch this space.

  9. #149
    Quote Originally Posted by Fencers View Post
    EQ next will run on the same engine as Planetside 2.
    Oh god, I guess I'm out then. I have a decent PC and PS2 runs like utter crap on it.
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  10. #150
    Quote Originally Posted by Howard Moon View Post
    Oh god, I guess I'm out then. I have a decent PC and PS2 runs like utter crap on it.
    Really doesn't say much, PS2 is made to have hundreds of people on screen at the same time and as such will more than likely be optimized very differently.

  11. #151
    Quote Originally Posted by Howard Moon View Post
    Oh god, I guess I'm out then. I have a decent PC and PS2 runs like utter crap on it.
    Game probably won't drop until 2015 anyway, so you might have a whole new setup by then.

    As an original EQ launch player and 5 years after I would like to see something great come out of this. It will be interesting to see what Sandbox elements they come up with and if it can go against the mold of the mainstream questing/leveling mechanics that are in most of the games in the genre now.

    I have lost faith in SoE over the years, perhaps this could be where they make up for lost ground.

  12. #152
    The game is not going to be officially unveiled until August, but it was shown behind closed doors at E3 and MMORPG.com appears to be more than pleased with what they saw, trumping anything else shown at the conference

    http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/7501/

    I've been so cynical over MMORPGs in general, writing off games like Age of Conan, The Old Republic, and more recently Elder Scrolls Online before they're even released. But I sincerely believe that this is the one that will finally do it right.
    Last edited by Lazy Gecko; 2013-06-17 at 11:26 PM.

  13. #153
    What exactly do they mean by "sandbox"? I can't help but get the image of just making our own content..

  14. #154
    Quote Originally Posted by Icycoldd View Post
    What exactly do they mean by "sandbox"? I can't help but get the image of just making our own content..
    Non-linear, organic content. In the style of Star Wars Galaxies, Ultima Online and Vanguard.

  15. #155

    Everquest Next wins "Best of Show" from E3 2013 Awards...and yet nothing to show yet!

    Im new to posting on mmo-champion and cant post links

    Quick google search for mmorpg.com 2013 E3 awards. (hoping someone links in a reply)

    Great news for Everquest fans. Been waiting for info on this game for years. Cant wait to see why E3 chose this game as "Best of Show".

  16. #156
    I can not wait to see what SOE live brings us in august; this game is gonna be crazy.

  17. #157
    EQ Next got "Best of show" at E3 from both mmorpg.com and tentonhammer.

    The hype train is out of control.
    mmorpg.com http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cf...3C8E016B0D7BA7

    tentonhammer http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/251130/page/8

  18. #158
    It does worry me a slight bit that EQN will be on the Planetside 2 engine. Because I don;t have a fancy video card any longer.

    Might need to upgrade my whole PC anyway if I like what I see/hear of EQN.

  19. #159
    https://twitter.com/the_player/statu...39986500415488

    ................That's not promising.......................

  20. #160
    Stood in the Fire Loyrl's Avatar
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    That would help Fencers, instead of upgrading a PC you could buy a PS4! /s
    I hope they don't add it to a console.
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