Quote:
Originally Posted by Leokaiser
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I'm fairly certain that no game hoping for commercial success will adopt a classic EQ approch to leveling, where A) groups are pretty much required for certain classes, yet there are no tools for ensuring the players will find one, B) progress is slow to the point that all you might get from hours of play is 10% of a level and some coin or C) the possibility to actually lose progress from a session due to exp loss on death (while danger and the fear of death are good, you are mad if you actually enjoy suffering a death penalty).
As someone sussinctly put it, that shit don't fly no more. Game budgets are huge these days, so you need to reel in the punters, not a niche who enjoy corpse runs and waiting 30 mins on boats. This server, which is free to play, developed and ran by hobbyists using an exisiting game client, and aimed at people who loved EQ classic (flaws and all), cannot be held up as proof that a similar commercial game released today could survive in the difficult market of MMOs.
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I think you're honestly only seeing what you want to see and ignoring the rest. It is possible to make a commercial success on the EQ model of slow leveling, harsh death penalty and nearly necessitating groups. I said it before but FFXI is a perfect example. Until a later expansion soloing was impossible for all but one class, fairly harsh death penalty and you could lose a level and all gear was level locked so you could find yourself unable to equip your gear. Granted they've killed it now but it was a big commercial success. Ironically the same thing killed both eq and ffxi, dumbing the game down, making travel trivial, less exp to level, easier to solo etc.
I would also point to vanguard, rather large popularity when it was announced that it would be a game similar to classic eq. Why did most people leave when beta started and it launched, "this isn't classic eq it's a wow clone." Granted the bugs and extreme system requirements didn't help but if it had truly been like classic eq I bet people would have had a lot more patients with the game and let them fix that.
And honestly look at how many failed wow clones are out there. There's more failed wow clones than eq clones. That's not to say a classic eq game is going to become the next wow but I don't believe the evidence supports the notion that a game on classic eq's model will automatically be a commercial disaster.
Just because the toyoda corolla(or whatever go with it for example sake) is the most popular car doesn't me we shouldn't make mustangs because the market is smaller.
About the bugdet, that's honestly their own problem. Eq was ambitious but it wasn't system busting when it launched. MMOs don't necessarily have to cost unholy amounts of money. Look at the success of the free korean mmos, yes they problems with their core game design, but they use lower quality stylized graphics that are much cheaper to produce and many of these games are more successful than big budget subscription mmos. With more affordable 3d engines out there now, many that come with built in camera systems, physics effects, particles, and more, it's much more possible to make an mmo that isn't tens of billions of dollars to start up.
Is a low budget game going to be the next wow, probably not, but then is anything? I mean I suppose something is but look at how many of have tried and failed so horribly. There's a market of poeple out there that want a harder mmo that isn't instant gratification, this is evidenced by ffxi, vanguard, and the success of soe progression servers as well as this server(no advertisment private server and it's got a respectable population). A game like that is going to be almost uncontested in the market, whereas a wow clone has thousands of mmos both subscription and free out there already.