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A Look At the Growth of MMOs In 2008
Zonk writes with news of a collaboration between Massively and GamerDNA to analyze the state of MMO player bases for 2008. Sifting through the data brought out several interesting trends. For example, Age of Conan took a substantial hit when Warhammer arrived on the scene, but none of the other major MMOs were significantly affected. Also, it seems Lord of the Rings: Online got a big shot in the arm from its Mines of Moria expansion — even moreso than World of Warcraft from Wrath of the Lich King, relatively speaking. The article also asserts the following about the recently-canceled Tabula Rasa: "... until the cancellation announcement in November, numbers were trending in the right direction, however slightly. Players were growing more interested in the sci fi MMO shooter, and logins were on the rise. If its development had not been so long, so expensive, and so vastly overhyped and mismarketed, this title could have been left alone to find its legs and found some small measure of success in a long tail environment akin to the Sony Station Pass."
I think its quite amusing to see exactly how bad AoC failed. Just wish I could say I wasn't one of the people who fell for the hype and bought it on release.
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
Why does nobody post statistics for Final Fantasy XI? Seriously. The game still kicks with over 500,000 subscribers according to the last census and in this list are at least three MMOs probably doing nowhere near that lately.
For those who seek perfection there can be no rest on this side of the grave.
The sample of players used for this article (only GamerDNA members with profiles) is so skewed that the second biggest MMO of all (Runescape) doesn't feature in the article at all.
This is probably an excellent article if you are interested in what GamerDNA members are up to, but it's not very relevant outside that.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
TR was a very interesting experiment. It offered a completely different and new gameplay (in terms of MMOs), it offered a kinda-sorta-FPS experience which created, at least in my opinion, a much better immersion experience than the various other MMOs. It had a good storyline that offered the player a little more freedom in his choices than the average MMO out there when it comes to quests. The quests themselves were usually a touch more interesting than the usual "kill X of Y" treadmill. It had a lot of new and exciting features that appealed to some people, so the question why it failed regardless should be asked.
Is it that people don't want any other gameplay than the usuall point-n-click style the usual MMOs offer? Now, I doubt that. I did a few interviews with people who played (some of which quitted), and usually the interface was either the feature that kept them playing for as long as they did, or at least they thought it was interesting. It never was the reason why people quitted.
It was the usual, people. It was the same reason why all the other failed MMO projects sunk.
1. Being barely beta quality. Frequent crashes, buggy quests, buggy skills, buggy everything. Until well into mid-2008, the game was barely playable.
2. Broken balance. Actually a subset of the first reason, but you can see long time successful MMOs fail when balance goes out the window. And for the longest time, balance was a huge problem for TR. Some classes could solo base attacks (something that should be "hard" in this game, akind to boss battles in normal MMOs), some classes could barely do equal level quests. Some classes would get fantastic rich without trying, some could barely afford their standard ammo. And so on.
3. Quick leveling and no endgame content. This straw actually broke the camel's back. It's trivially fast to get to top level in TR. An experienced player needs less than two weeks of more or less dedicated playing (faster even when he can start from a clone, a feature of the game that allows you to start at mid level under certain circumstances). And there isn't anything to be done when you're 50. No item harvesting, no boss runs, no nothing. You can just shelf your top level character and start over.
In my opinion, and from what I gather I'm not alone with this feeling, TR failed not because it dared to be different. If anything, this difference allowed the game to stay alive for as long as it did. The slow but steady increase in subscribers (until the announcement of its demise) showed that people did come back when the devs started to iron out the problems and add "stuff to do" for the top level players.
It's sad to see this game go. It's one of those things where you know it could've been great if they just hadn't committed the cardinal sins of MMO design.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Do you have a hobby that costs less than $20 a month?
There is a reason companies do not publish MMO subscriber numbers, and when forced to do so for shareholders liberally inflate the true count. The article cites xfire as their data source. I've been playing Warhammer since launch. This is my first MMO and I had never even heard of xfire before reading the article. The sampling methodology is not described. And what is the x axis in those handy graphs? Bunnies eaten?
Hey, it's still hanging in there! Don't forget the granddaddy of MMOs!
Did they figure in me canceling my WoW account twice? I'm not sure how that counts, except in my loss of sanity. I need a new MMORPG so that when I start the inevitable grind I don't feel like I've done it 500 times before. Unfortunately, few of them seem to have native OS X clients.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
Yeah, the french in that post is fairly bad. I'd say it comes from some translation engine. (I'm french)
I think part of the reason why MMORPGs continue to increase in popularity in the PC gaming space is that latest crop of non MMO games is composed mostly of "me-too" titles (games based on previously successful games) and ultra-extreme-DRM filled games (which often won't run because of the DRM or even make your PC unstable because the install buggy drivers).
Personally in the last year I went back to MMORPGs (in the past I used to play EVE-Online and WoW) with LOTRO because I felt that most newer PC games were too simple, too much alike games I had played to death already and/or too risky to install (due to their rootkit-like DRM and the instability problems that often come with it).
Successful MMORPGs like LOTRO and WoW have a huge value for money to gamers because their content is enormous (they're huge virtual worlds) they support multiple playing forms (PvP, solo PvE, cooperative PvE) and they keep getting expanded: to keep people playing and paying their monthly fees, games with a PvE side must continuously expand with new areas/items.
About LOTRO:
Before Mines of Moria, LOTRO was indeed getting a bit stale and the number of players online at any time was dwindling. This was visible both in PvE and PvP.
Immediately when MoM came out the number of players online increased a lot (doubled or tripled). At the moment most people are more or less done with exploring the new areas and are starting to do mostly group instances to acquire the necessary kit to go do the single new Raid area that came with MoM (most LOTRO players are casual players, hence the number of power-players that went trough all the new content in 2 or 3 weeks is very low).
To keep momentum going more content will have to start being released in the next month or two (Turbine, the makers of the game, usually release free expansions - "books" - about once every 2 months). As pointed above, the continued success of a MMORPG depends a lot on keeping a steady stream of new content coming out to keep players playing (and paying).
Newsflash, buddy: the whole purpose of gaming is to waste some time in a pleasant way. Same as virtually any other hobby.
Yes, I know, people like to pretend that _their_ hobby is some great building skills... which they are only going to use the next time they do that hobby. Whether it's mountaineering, or going camping, or going out in the woods with a compass, or whatever, guess what? You're only going to use those skills at all the next time you go mountaineering, or camping, or going out in the woods with a compass. Chance to actually ever actually need to find your way in a city with a compass and/or by seeing which side of the tree has moss... zero. Actual RL value gotten out of it... zero. They too are just killing time in a more pleasant way than staring at the walls.
Or to quote Publilius Syrus: "Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it."
The whole "if your time has no value" only applies if you were, indeed, planning to sell it. Otherwise, without a purchaser actually paying for it, it has no value whatsoever. I.e., it applies if you were otherwise going to take a second job and get paid. (Self-employed crafting does count, but, again, if you were actually going to produce stuff you sell in that time.)
The same applies to installing Linux, OSS, and god knows where else that retarded meme pops up: only if you were going to otherwise get paid for doing something else in that time.
Were you? No? Then get a brain and find something more productive to do than repeating memes. It's only intelligence if you came up with it, not if you're the 1234567'th guy who parrots it verbatim.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Sheesh, Nobody notice the 200% growth rate of EVE Online?
I'd figure that's comment-worthy.
(I know, off topic) If you take "I think MMORPGs are nothing more than an epic waste of time. I avoid them like the child-killing plague that they are." and put it into google French->English, you get exactly what Francais Troll posted. The name also gives you an idea of what he is. :)
The key to translation engines is not to use idioms and keep the wording as simple as possible.
For example, taking the horrible French translation and setting it to French->English in google, you get "I think MMORPGs are nothing more than a waste of time epic. I avoid them like the plague killing of children who they are." That should give the pure English speaking people an idea of how bad the French is.
I know its not really an MMO, but sometimes I think of it as a Mini-MMO (MMMO or MO?)
Anyway Call of Duty 4 and Call of Duty World at War both have great online play. Its a FPS but as you get kills you gain XP and you level up an unlock perks and new weapons.
Also its cool because you don't have to have a huge time investment at any given time. You can sign in, kill stuff, get some XP and be on your merry way.
Eschew Obfuscation
WAR had a good start but its shine has worn off Due to faction imbalance Races/Classes do not look that good compared to Destruction counterparts this was major mistake. Mythic believed that people will mostly choose the Good guys rather than going for coolness factor like you saw in WoW but forgot that reason why most people choose Alliance pre BC was because it was the pretty race :p not because they were the good guys.
-As a result RvR is pretty broke in servers like Ironfist, Dest. zerg pretty much takes most keep easily as a result none of Order players even bother defending or taking Keeps during active server time. And simply cap everything at 4 am to 10 am. So much for RvR...
The game lacks in PvE content.
-Most people just queue up for scens over and over again rather than do any PQ or even RvR to level.
-Crafting is non exsistant.
-Aldorf and Inevitable city are a dead zone as a result there is very little social aspect to that game. Heck it took them 2 months just to fix the chat even though i noted that issue in beta (Too many chat channels within even one region).
Nice article, but they missed one of the biggest MMOG's in the world (and one of the older ones, as well): Ogame!
AOC has absolutely the most fun combat mechanic of any MMO I've played. It was an interesting experiment in social gaming to have free for all PVP, as well. The problem AOC had was it didn't have a good mechanic for leveling up besides PVE, and PVE was completely ignored by the dev team after around lvl 60. There were no instances and no quests for me to do at lvl 64, so I quit the game. The instances they had pre-60 were pretty awful anyway, so I didn't hold much hope. They did so many things right (PVP was level independent with no +hit and no resists, you could apprentice a lower level player so they could play higher level content with you, separate bag for quest items, fast travel options), but with no content but grinding I had to quit the game.
WAR is a great game that allows leveling purely through PVP, has a solid combat mechanic, has a wealth of content for both PVP and PVE (except for a major lack of instances), and decent fast travel options. Their crafting is so unbelievably awful, though, and the timing of the game meant the WoW expansion took all the players out of the game.
IANAL, but I play one on
I mean other than Second Life. I'm sure the first graphical MMORGY will make a BILLION dollars. No questing (Just grinding,) top: level 69, armor choices: leather or latex. Weapon choices, whips or riding crops. Oh yeah!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
1. I think the keywords there, are "if not all." Unless you can tell me that _all_ your hobbies are chosen purely for utility value, then you too have some time simply "whittled away". Same as an MMO player, as falcon5768 was pointing out.
But, more importantly:
2. You still don't have a dollar value there, to make that silly "if your time is worth nothing" meme work in a topic about a $15 a month MMO subscription. Sure, you broadened your horizons, but what is the dollar value of that? Exactly how many more dollars will you be paid for those horizons, to make the comparison to MMO subscription costs?
Ok, you've learned some skills in walking in wilderness or in doing silly tricks with a Wii. How much will you be paid for those skills? Dollar value, please.
Cost savings? Exactly which of your hobbies save costs? Even the health ones, actually, according to recent health insurance data, it's the healthy, lean, non-smokers which cost the most money in treatments during their life time. Just because they live more and end up for 20 years on lots of expensive medicine at the end, while the obese smokers died earlier and cheaper. So in the long run, the dollar worth of that time is actually a negative one.
_That_ is the problem I have: that meme trying to shove some supposed "value of your time" in a discussion about _money_, _costs_, that kind of thing.
I could swallow other arguments about that time, like your health benefits above, but "if your time is worth nothing" is simply the awfully stupid thing there. Unless your whole day, from waking up to crashing back in bed, 7 days a week, 366 days a year, is spent doing _only_ paid stuff -- or heck, let's even include stuff which is arguably useful in some vague way, like in your argument above -- you too have some time which you whittled away, and its value was exactly zero. You too have time worth nothing.
3. If you still want to argue that, do you pick those pastimes to maximize utility per minute? Do you pick exactly which novel will broaden your horizons the most? Do you make an analysis of the benefits of 1 hour with the Wii vs 1 hour at the gym?
Because, if not, you too have more wasted time indirectly. If you need 6 hours with a Wii to get the same equivalent workout as 2 hours at the gym, then you effectively wasted 4 hours in achieving the same result. Same as buying a $20k car for $60k is a waste of $40k. You can do the same maths with time to achieve something, if your time is that valuable. So, really, if your time is worth that much as to judge other people's hobbies by it, why _do_ you waste it like that?
Or maybe, just maybe, we're coming back to the fact that the real purpose was to have fun, and the utility value is secondary at best.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
1. My activities are chosen largely because they offer a variety of different forms of recreation and produce a variety of stimuli and positive results - whether physical products, improved skills, improved health, artistic stimulus, or what-not.
2. You're taking the phrase "worth nothing" in a much too narrow and literal interpretation, as though cash is the only possible metric for deciding the value of things. I've not used the term worth or the phrase value in this conversation (I'm not the AC who replied to Saysys), but if you want - and are willing to pay me for it - I could start listing off approximate values of reading, exercise, etcetera. We could have a nice, myopic debate over exact dollar amounts - which would be entirely missing the point that I and other people try to make. It's not simply about cash, although that may be a factor, it's about what is gained or lost from the activity.
3. You can't see the forest for the trees. It's not about every minute of every day, it's well over an order of magnitude larger than that. To put it in the required /. form: It's as though people are remarking on the pollution your VW Vanagon with loose engine seals spews out in its blue smoke, and you respond by trying to point out ways that they could reduce their year-old car's emissions.
If people usually played MMOs for a half hour once a week, the "time has no value" guy probably wouldn't have written that - unless he's just a dick - and we wouldn't be having this exchange. MMO players tend to let themselves play for several hours each week for weeks or months on end -- well after almost all novelty (its main benefit) has passed.
The reason why I care enough to write this is because I used to play these kinds of games quite often, doing the grinding and all that, and eventually I realized that I could get a lot more out of life if I put that time into other activities. Life is all too brief.
Let me see, and my gaming directly or indirectly produced such skills as:
- programming. That's how I got into it in the first place.
- 3d modelling. I actually made a couple of meshes recently, for some (minor) mods.
- perception. Hey, at least one of those old adventure games actually had a clickable element that was exactly one pixel large.
- memory. Not everything is in the quest journal, and a lot of older games didn't have a quest log at all.
- leadership, perseverence, planning, discipline, and everything else that is needed to make a team work, even in a virtual environment. Don't laugh, I know someone who actually got hired as a manager based largely on his experience with organizing a big raiding guild in WoW. Apparently HR and his boss-to-be too thought that such skills translate into RL skills too.
- and I'm not even getting into more "in-game skills" which, as I was mentioning, are just about on par with the skills other people learn from their hobby... and will never ever use in any other contexts than that same hobby. Guess what? My skills at healing in a raid are just about on par with someone's skill with a compass: he too won't get any use out of it, outside of his hobby.
Artistic stimulus? Who defines what's art? Does the plot of Betrayal At Krondor -- which actually has been considered good enough by Raymond E Feist himself to make a novel out of it -- count as artistic stimulus enough? Does Undying, which actually had a novelist at the helm? To get back to MMOs, how about the story arcs of COH/COV? Or are we going to decide a priori that if the medium is gaming, somehow it can't be art?
Because we're talking about it in the context of a thread where, basically, the cost in dollars of a MMO as hobbies go, was countered by "only if your time has no value." Ok, then I'm still waiting for him to tell me a value in comparable units then. But I'm probably reading too much into it, more likely it was -- as so usually happens on /. -- just someone parroting a popular meme, whether it applies or not.
If he had said simply "yeah, but I'm also getting other benefits from my time with my hobby", I wouldn't have minded it.
I wasn't aware you can get an order of magnitude more than every minute of every day, unless you have a time machine. But ok.
No, that comparison isn't even bloody close. The point is that the same people acting all snotty that you wasted X, are wasting comparable amounts of X themselves. If you want a comparison where X is something else than time, it's like:
- hearing the guy who just blew some thousands on a bling status symbol, berate someone for "wasting" cents on a coca cola instead of drinking tap water
- hearing the guy driving a SUV complain about someone else's "gas guzzler" (there you have it, the mandatory car analogy)
- the guy with a swimming pool complaining about others wasting water
The fact is, that if you want to complain about someone else's wasting money, I want to see you manage that money better. Otherwise it's literally a case of
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.