01-12-2004, 09:26 PM
Hey guys, some things:
Ah yes, A fascinating idea that has yet to be touched upon! What of the death of a(n) MMORPG?
I don't know much about these games, but I don't think any have failed. Since they are such a tremendous undertaking only a handful have been released. Thus far Everquest has been perpetuated by a long line of expansion packs, but would it continue to thrive if the parent company began working on something else?
There is a certain doom I forsee, but to understand it first recall old games (or mods) that you don't play anymore. For example, Half-life has a copious mod compunity, but what of the mods that are gradually overshadowed by new games and mods? The comunity for a particular mod dies down, until there are only a handful of games going at any given time. It's quite disappointing to be unable to play your favorite mod due to a lack of playmates.
And now for the forseeable doom: An MMORPG is not free - it's not even close to free. An MMORPG does not have a single player component. I smell trouble. When the starcraft (or any online game of that ilk) b.net servers are inevitably shut down, there will be a collective outcry of sadness from gamers. However, they don't really have a legitimate claim to yell at Blizzard for - after all, Starcraft has both a single player and LAN component. Oh dear, MMORPGs have nothing to fall back upon. When their server(s) are inevitably shutdown there will be a collective ROAR of anger. What will come of this? I :ph34r:.
One last thing I want to say about this: non-MMORPG games are scalable. That is to say that at any given time you only need enough server/bandwidth support for the games currently running. With a persistent world, at any given time you need the entire world ready to go. As a result, the "pulling of the plug" is actually more definite than that of a standard game.
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Indeed as NiteFox said the genre may and will move onto bigger and better things. I can, for example, picture an MMO war. Perpetual online war in which every soldier is represented by a player, and vast battles are waged for ultimate victory.
More to say later...
--moget?
NiteFox @ Jan 12 2004, 08:30 AM Wrote:Do you think that any company will continue to support a MMORPG after the bubble has burst when the number of active clients has dropped to a few hundred? Will they pull the plug then, or wait until the number drops to a few dozen? Nah. When that point has reached the cost of running the servers will be greater than the sweet, delicious cash they're raking in, and anyway the "illusion" of a MMORPG will essentially be shattered when you no longer have thousands and thousands of players interacting with the game world.
Ah yes, A fascinating idea that has yet to be touched upon! What of the death of a(n) MMORPG?
I don't know much about these games, but I don't think any have failed. Since they are such a tremendous undertaking only a handful have been released. Thus far Everquest has been perpetuated by a long line of expansion packs, but would it continue to thrive if the parent company began working on something else?
There is a certain doom I forsee, but to understand it first recall old games (or mods) that you don't play anymore. For example, Half-life has a copious mod compunity, but what of the mods that are gradually overshadowed by new games and mods? The comunity for a particular mod dies down, until there are only a handful of games going at any given time. It's quite disappointing to be unable to play your favorite mod due to a lack of playmates.
And now for the forseeable doom: An MMORPG is not free - it's not even close to free. An MMORPG does not have a single player component. I smell trouble. When the starcraft (or any online game of that ilk) b.net servers are inevitably shut down, there will be a collective outcry of sadness from gamers. However, they don't really have a legitimate claim to yell at Blizzard for - after all, Starcraft has both a single player and LAN component. Oh dear, MMORPGs have nothing to fall back upon. When their server(s) are inevitably shutdown there will be a collective ROAR of anger. What will come of this? I :ph34r:.
One last thing I want to say about this: non-MMORPG games are scalable. That is to say that at any given time you only need enough server/bandwidth support for the games currently running. With a persistent world, at any given time you need the entire world ready to go. As a result, the "pulling of the plug" is actually more definite than that of a standard game.
-----
Indeed as NiteFox said the genre may and will move onto bigger and better things. I can, for example, picture an MMO war. Perpetual online war in which every soldier is represented by a player, and vast battles are waged for ultimate victory.
More to say later...
--moget?