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MMOG Market Mutterings

Posted by Zonk on from the a-lot-of-news-in-a-little-while dept.

In the past few days there have been several new developments in the Massive Gaming market. Jessica Mulligan's departure from Turbine now has an end destination, with the announcement that she'll be the executive producer for Nevrax's Saga of Ryzom. In a swashbuckling tie-in, Disney announced they'll be adding to their Massive Gaming portfolio, with a Pirates of the Carribean MMOG joining Toontown Online sometime next year. The always excellent CNN Money column Game Over has word that Sony Online is planning a new Action MMOG, a possible strategy title, and some new non-mmog titles. From the article: "Though the numbers for massively multiplayer games aren't bad, they remain a niche in the gaming industry. To expand SOE's potential audience, the company will soon announce smaller puzzle games for two and four players. While those games won't be massively multiplayer or have any sort of persistent world, it's not out of the question for the long term." Finally, there are many stories over on Gametab discussing the "I'm cancelling because of the WoW Honor System" thread on the official World of Warcraft boards. They were likely sparked by this Kotaku post about the thread. I just want to put in my two cents and state that this isn't news. Forums are not an accurate way to get a picture of a game's user base. Doom may be coming to Blizzard's game, but the subscriber charts are the only real way to know for sure.

6 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. Honor System by scribblej · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm not a player and that link doesn't lead to any information I can use ... can someone explain the problem?

    1. Re:Honor System by Moby+Cock · · Score: 3, Informative

      The honour system awards points for honourable kills in player vs player comabt. This has lead to massive roving pack of players teaming up against wandering the world killing everything on site. All this in the name of honour. There is no penalty for dishonourable kills. Each week the points are tabulated and people are assigned a rank The higher ranks are able to buy super amour and weapons. Most complain the honour system has caused the PvP aspect of the game to be comepletely devoid of honour and it is inhibiting on quest players from finishing missions because the NPCs are all slaughtered.

    2. Re:Honor System by danl125 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Basically, the honor system, for the uneducated, is a system in which rewards people for partaking in PvP (or player vs player) combat. If you kill someone within a certain number of levels you get points, and you are statistically ranked against everyone else on the server once a week.

      The problem, mind you, is mainly on PvP (player vs player) servers, and not PvE (player vs environment) servers. On a PvP server, when you are in a higher end zone, you are flagged as PvP-able; in other words, anyone can kill you if they want. On PvE servers, you must specifically enable PvE to be killed.

      Now, the highest level in the game is level 60. When you are level 60, you can receive honor points for killing someone 12 levels below you. SO, you can get honor off of someone who is 48. At 48, simply put, you don't have a chance in hell of killing a level 60. It might have happened, but 99.999999% of the time it's not going to. THAT is the problem. If you are level 60, you are fine. If you are between that magic number of 48 where you can give honor to level 60s by dying to them, you are not fine. People have also resorted to roming groups of level 60's who kill lower levels till they can call out the higher levels.

      Also, there are mass zerg raids happening on all servers. Zerg raids refer to many many many people killing a whole city of NPC's and, on a PvP server, PC's. Things can't get done, people's progress is stopped, people cancel accounts.

      Now, I haven't canceled yet, and I'm 54. I personally enjoy it and know it will calm down eventually. Until then, I'm going to keep going with my account.

  2. Re:WoW is still for the casual player. by danl125 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Not true on a PvP server. If you are under level 60, and you wish to level, you will be forced to PvP.

    Yes, you can use the argument "That's what a PvP server is, dumbass." However, when there are gank squads of 5 people of level 60 patroling a zone of low 50's just in the name of honor points, something is wrong.

    And yes, I could also re-roll on a non-PvP server. But with 16+ days of play time, I don't see that being an option. It would be nice of Blizzard to offer character transfers from PvP to PvE realms.

  3. Re:Nich by Attaturk · · Score: 3, Informative


    The reason the MMORPG is a nich genre is because nobody in their right mind is going to subscribe to more than possible two titles at a time, whereas most people wouldn't think twice about buying another FPS, even if they already own a few.

    What we need is MMORPG's that don't require monthly subscription fees. There are plenty more out there if you go looking.

  4. Re:WoW is still for the casual player. by Minna+Kirai · · Score: 2, Informative

    AC: Only difference now is that ganker might screw up and kill a civilian in the low towns. Doing this is detrimental.

    Wrong. Killing a civilian gives a dishonor point, but those points aren't detrimental at all. They are used for exactly nothing. It's not as if WoW subtracts Dishonor from Honor or something like that.