MMO Development Lesson #9
Technology doesn’t sell. The FPS genre is well-known for creating the most cutting edge games using the most cutting edge technologies. In fact, you might say that an FPS can do pretty well if only it is technologically superior to others. This is absolutely not the case for MMOs, particularly because of the large number of people that have to be able to be on the screen at once. If you’re relying on your cool technology to sell your MMO, get ready for failure, because any cool technology you incorporate into an MMO has more than likely already been seen in another genre. Sure, cool tech in an MMO can help sales, but not that much.
I definitely agree.
When I was in Vanguard beta I got to attend a raid hosted by a GM/Dev.
I have a pretty decent computer and can normally run the game in above balanced settings getting around 30 frames per second.
On the raid however, I turned EVERYTHING and I mean EVERYTHING down to the lowest possible settings but it still wasn’t enough. The 35+ people on my screen just killed performance to the point where I don’t think it would be playable on any computer. We are talking less then 3 frames per second.
I think later on they decided to make most raids a max of 24 people, which might help them with that issue a little. But, like you said: you have to be able to handle all those people on your screen at the same time.
Now, compare that to EverQuest 2. With a good computer it’s possible to raid in EverQuest 2 on max (or close to it) settings with 23 other people standing around you and get decent performance. EverQuest 2 may be based on a little older technology but you can run that game on much higher settings and achieve much higher performance then on Vanguard.
Take a look at World of Warcraft. It’s the world’s leading subscription-based MMORPG and the graphics and technology it’s based on really isn’t that impressive.
People play MMORPGs for content.
Note how technology of this sort probably fits within the Art axis of the casual/hardcore definition discussion. I dont think any specific axis will be able to sell any game and technologically advanced art i probably going to help ruin several other important aspects of an mmorpg. (The budget “system” is one of them I think.)
It can make for some pretty darn cool pre-release screenshots for the preview sites, knowing full well most people won’t realize that the shots were taken using two of the kinds of hardware most people can’t afford one of, or pre-release hardware not available to consumers.
Then once it’s released and everyone realizes how much they have to dial it down even on high-end consumer systems, the developer can claim they wrote it for systems not available for 2 years, in order to guarantee the game’s look remains current. Which is really kind of silly, because the people who really-want-to-play-your-game-at-release-but-can’t, won’t come back in 2 years to see how amazing it might look.
So the cool tech might sell boxes, but it won’t sell subscriptions.
Case in point. Dark and Light.
While eye candy is important, Performance is queen next to the king named Content.
(Performance includes patching, loading, and good fidelity on mid range machines, as well as bugfree(ish))
I think that I’d rank performance is even more important than content. If devs can’t get things to a certain level of stability I’m not going to stick around long enough to check out much of the content. Prettiness of the graphics is a very very very distant third.
Well, you know they’re talking Moore’s law is gonna take a huge break real soon here as society moves to nano.
For some players, tech does sell. L3 is really the only MMORPG I’m looking at subbing right now based on available information. And I’ll happily shell out whatever thousands when Crysis comes out. I’m probably in a niche there and you might say I’m hardcore with that, but at the same time nobody wants Atari 2600 graphics, no matter how good the gameplay or the content.
As for so many people on the screen running scripts, well, that’s a niche also and a technical problem. Or opportunity, depending on how you look at it.
One problem I see here is that people appear to me to be equating Technology = Graphics. What about new technologies that increase world interactions, or similar. This isn’t to say most people don’t make the same equation, but for me at least, it isn’t the graphics that capture my interest, its the story and the amount of interaction with the world that does so. For instance, in many ways the interaction with various parts of the world (open climbing!) in DDO caught my interest early on, but the story and system suffered too much to hold it. EQII’s lack of environmental interaction to me hurt it, but the lore and background still hold my interest because they are well done. The graphics in EQII are nice addition though. Right now, WoW is holding my interest because while the lore isn’t as good as EQII’s, its environmental interaction is superior to my eye. The little things make so much difference, the chairs I can sit in, the cannon in Darkmoon Faire that you can fly from..all make a more enjoyable game.
What I am looking forwards to is an environment that is truly interactive, limited perhaps (I can pick up the mug on the table, but not put it in my bag or leave the room with it, but my avatar does carry it, and can pour a beer into it to drink.) but still interactive. That is a new technology that would sell a game to me, if the story didn’t suck too much.
[...] MMO Development Lesson #9 [...]
I disagree. I’m pretty certain that Jumpt To Lightspeed sold boxes.
But Jump to Lightspeed was also selling content… I think people bought that for space play, not because of a new engine that allowed space play.
I think what Ryan is getting at here is, you can’t bet on technology alone… a good example would be PhysX support. Sure, you can say your game supports it and put a big splash graphic on the box, but unless supporting PhysX somehow makes your game better/different than every other game in your genre, people are going to play your game and then say either that you wasted the new tech or than the new tech is useless.
If your game is “WoW with Housing,” don’t expect people to flock to your game in record numbers just because you having housing…
[...] a SpaceCute theme. In SpaceCute,… [...] Source: Lost Garden - Danc Categories: Bloggers 06:00 MMO Development Lesson #9 Technology doesn’t sell. The FPS genre is well-known for creating the most cutting edge games [...]
I definitely agree with your premise and many of the contributions so far.
I personally am stuck with EQII becaue I love the lore, find the interface easy, and it runs well on my (OK but not brilliant spec) machine very nicely and looks pretty. EQ III will have to be pretty special to get me away from EQII when it is released:)
My husband though is a convert to WoW for the following reasons: It is stable, “polished”, he can run it at max settings and it looks great and plays smoothly, there is so much content it does not feel like grinding, he was a warcraft player so loves the lore.
I have purchased Vanguard for the premise of new gameplay not the cool graphics. I wont be renewing my subsription. My PC is better than the base system requirements but not quite as good as the recommended. IT PLAYS LIKE A DOG and that is VERY frustrating. My husband and a few of my RL friends wont even consider it because of the steep system requirements and they equate the “new technology” with bugs and therefore nerfing down the track.
I think RickR said it very eloquently - Cool tech might sell boxes but it wont sell subsriptions.
I’m not totally sure you can be so certain, considering some people play text based games. I dunno about Atari 2600 but I believe a screenshot from that platform might not differ all too much from a Runescape screenshot, which at least a few people play. Not to forget all those “crappy looking flash games” that also appear here and there.
to sell your MMO, get ready for failure, because any cool technology you incorporate into an MMO has more than likely already been seen in another genre. Sure, cool tech in an MMO can help sales, but not that much. posted by Ryan Shwayder @ 22:00 Comments Off
Runescape is way more advanced than the 2600. That was sort of a snark because the 2600 was the wildly popular system that was way technically inferior (and cheaper), even back in the day.
From an abstraction, if all things were equal, unlimited bandwidth and processing power, there WOULD still be preferences - text, isometric, first/third person, 2d, 3d, etc. But one has to wonder what they would be, statistically, all things being equal.
Steep hardware requirements to play a game not only doesn’t sell boxes it tends to reduce box sales. You can look at EQII and VG as prime examples of this in recent history with both games stating in hindsight that the hardware requirements were too steep or that the cost of newer technology had not come down to where they anticipated it would be at the start of their games. Either way it significantly cut into box sales and subs.
A game has to be accessable for a large number of people to play it but that accessability is not just for them it is also for their friends. MMO’s are generally about playing the game with other people and while some of those people might have cutting edge hardware in most cases they won’t.
People want something they can stuff in their machine and start playing. They don’t want to tweak system settings, hack up an ini file, or troubleshoot their computer just to be able to play a game. They just want install it and have fun Yes, there is definately a subset of folks that love doing all of that stuff, but if you base a subscription model on those people you won’t end up making the game at all due to lack of subscribers.
[...] until the next hardware paradigm shift on par with the introduction of 3D video cards comes along, it’s not going to drive MMO sales. While the lure of cutting edge tech is tempting, gamble on future hardware performance (and price) [...]