Nostalgia is looking back into the past. Developing a successful game requires looking into the future. Quite the opposite IMO.

I would happily rearrange my schedule to make for larger blocks of game time if it would make a difference, but games like WoW have made everything that isn’t raiding so “easy” that even if I carved out an five hour block for gaming, most groups don’t last longer than 30 minutes.

As for PvP there are many, many people who would refuse to play a game if PvP were an integral and required part of the game. I believe Shadowbane was an all PvP game and its success was hardly earth shattering. And its numbers were miniscule.

This is one of the reason why WoW has been so successful — they made a game in which you could accomplish something in a short play period

I think a niche game which has heavy time requirements as old EQ1 did will be hard pressed to make money and attract players unless they have really low development costs and feature sub-par graphics, and content. Content cost money — so if a game is going to cater to a niche market with unpopular features, players had better expect limited content.

I find it difficult to believe that those who think a niche market game will work, will be satisfied with sub-par content.

Were we to ignore niche crowds, we wouldn’t need any more games in the MMORPG genre because WoW is already appealing to the majority (and lowest common denominator) of people.

And the unfortunate thing? Even if someone took all the concepts of WoW and refined them to a sharper point, people will keep playing it because the nostalgia factor works both ways. People become personally invested in MMORPGs because of the community and the amount of time they put in. Not many people are willing to throw away a top-notch character just to repeat the grind all over again in a new game.

And if they do take the risk and aren’t 100% satisfied, the nostalgia factor kicks in again and they hop right back into ol’ faithful.

I think niche markets are the way to go. As stated above, MMORGs can be very lucrative under good management even if you can only attract a couple hundred thousand subscribers. I have no vendetta against WoW, but it is trying to be the jack of all trades and the master of none. Eventually the sum of the niche games will absorb the dissatisfied and bored WoW gamers. With their numbers though, the game will remain profitable for over a decade, IMO.

All the Pre-Bazaar days…with selling Bag-o-stuff in North FreePort.

*sigh*Memories. Thats all

As far as China and wolf/sheep PvP goes, I’m surprised and not surprised. I’m only truly familiar with the North American MMO market. Basically, you’re saying that people who don’t really like engaging in PvP (sheep) are perfectly willing to play on a server with people who do like engaging in PvP (wolves) without any major restrictions?

I’d love for more games to embrace a niche and make a smaller set of gamers vary happy than to try to please everyone and make none of them happy.

So every character has an immunity pool, and if the wolf goes back to the same sheep too often, neither he nor any other wolf will be able to touch them until the sheep start running into bears.