So far as i know a lot of the bigger old game series from EA and bethesda seem to be going extinct. Wolfenstein seems to get bad reviews from anybody that's actually played the game (basically being a looter shooter with connection problems between the co-op partners). EA is to game franchises like the asteroid was to the dinosaurs. Mass effect is pretty much dead. The last Battlefield game i know of did poorly. Overall there's probably only a few AAA game series that are any good anymore (anything from CD projekt red or the main xcom games). I'll let you guys fill in the rest of what you think is good or bad.
This is nothing new - think of all the AAA titles from when you were younger and consider how many are around today. Many are straight up gone, some have had revival through HD remakes and remastered editions, but still went on to die.
Some get brought back, others get changed into something else and might limp on as a name only.
In general this is the cycle of things. Also its good taht some big names step back, sometimes a series drawn out too long can weaken and weaken over time. Or it can end up like Dynasty Warriors games - each one basically the same with a few improvements here and there. Basically relying on a very solid core of fans to keep going in any form.
Also don't forget AAA games getting "worse" as times goes on is sometimes not always a product of the developers, but sometimes the gamers changing over the course of time and a game that once interested them no longer does in the same way. Or the developers take one development pathway that is different to how the person wanted the series to evolve. It doesn't mean its "worse" just "different" from what some wanted.
It's all perfectly normal and its why we get new AAA titles rising up.
The actual worst change I feel is the shift from big developers toward wanting more "MMO" type games with singleplayer focused AAA Titles. Ergo more online all the time; more things like micro transactions to get features or content - at its worst you get something like the latest Assassin's Creed where its singleplayer, but has experience boosters and material packs on the real money store side of things - for a singleplayer game. Meanwhile developers try and protect it by hobbling user created content (with tools released by the developer) to try and stop them getting too much experience or loot. Ergo real money grabbing moves.
flamingkillamajig wrote: So far as i know a lot of the bigger old game series from EA and bethesda seem to be going extinct. Wolfenstein seems to get bad reviews from anybody that's actually played the game (basically being a looter shooter with connection problems between the co-op partners). EA is to game franchises like the asteroid was to the dinosaurs. Mass effect is pretty much dead. The last Battlefield game i know of did poorly. Overall there's probably only a few AAA game series that are any good anymore (anything from CD projekt red or the main xcom games). I'll let you guys fill in the rest of what you think is good or bad.
No. Regardless of whether people think they're bad or doing 'poorly', they're clearly making more of them.
More Doom, more Gears, more Call of Duty, more Borderlands, more Ghost Recon, more Watch Dogs, more Assassins Creed, more Dragon Age...
For me the biggest issue is the death of RTS gaming or most of it anyway. How am i supposed to get my RTS fix anymore?
Not sure of the relevance. That genre mostly died a decade ago, and very, very few qualify as AAA. (mostly just starcraft and warcraft)
By playing the games you already have? I mean, this is why I'm not too concerned about genres "dying off". The big publishers already killed them off a long time ago by obsessively milking the cash cow with bland copies of the same game every year. What's the difference between Call of Battlefield 2019 and Call of Battlefield 2015? More loot crates?
By playing the games you already have? I mean, this is why I'm not too concerned about genres "dying off". The big publishers already killed them off a long time ago by obsessively milking the cash cow with bland copies of the same game every year. What's the difference between Call of Battlefield 2019 and Call of Battlefield 2015? More loot crates?
exactly, apart from a few very specific series. I don't really buy new games anymore. I usually just play the same 2 or 3 PC games, and then occasionally will grab something new on PS4 or Switch to play through with my wife.
One the genre was too demanding to ever capture a wide audience. Too many people will simply never be any good at RTS games. This always limited the RTS genre's audience applicability, especially as games grew out of their teenage years in the 90s and early 00s when the RTS was in its heyday.
Two, the genre's most entertaining aspects have been cannibalized by other genres. DOTA and LoL, owe a lot to RTS, as do many other ARPGs. While nominally a 4x game series, Total War's real-time battles have always been a major draw for the series and people who like the "real-time" aspect but find managing a battle and an economy all at once too strenuous.
I think these two shifts in the market and general audience behavior have effectively reduced RTS to a secondary niche genre. When looking at making a new game, most people will look at a lot of other genres, simply because the pure RTS audience now simply isn't very large.
Whilst a 'crash' is fairly unlikely given the outrageous size of the video game industry I think the AAA market will shrink to the few dependable, usually Sport, annual(ish) rehashes
I'd like to think this would lead to folks exploring a wider range of smaller midrange titles (most likely wont be I can dream)
And personally it doesn't matter, digital means I can pick up older games as and when (of late finally completing Lords of Midnight some 35years after first playing it has been my recent gaming highpoint !)
I think RTS was also quite demanding - especially in areas such as the AI. many shooter or lane games can get away with pretty poor overall AI because most of the interaction is "in the moment" which AI is pretty good to better than people.
RTS however tends to shoot AI in the foot hard because it relies a lot on pre-planning and changing game states. A FPS might railroad the player into certain areas and the AI only has to react within those zones and patrol paths. RTS side an AI has to work out if the enemy has moved bases, if its got a heavy defence in one region etc... Sadly a LOT of AI in RTS tend to just build a pre-set base; build a lot of units and throw them at the enemy in a direct line - which means they will hit the same defensive barrier every time. The challenge is often that the AI builds "perfectly" and thus basically unit rushes the player or rushes with excess units as well because its not actually paying resources the same way (AI are notoriously bad at balancing finances).
As for the niche and difficulties and AI its interesting that RTS is on a downer when turnbased and 4* are actually on the up and yet the only real difference between the two is that one is turn based and the other real time. If anything you could argue that turn based has historically been more of a niche than RTS ever was; meanwhile I think the base-building side has got sidelined into games like Tropico and Skylines - ergo city builders.
Old games are great, but sometimes its nice to get something fresh and new. That takes a new direction or just presents some really awesome graphics by modern standards. Sadly it seems that the only big company in RTS is Blizzard with Starcraft 2. Though MS is getting a new Age of Empires made and I think there's one or two others kicking around. Petroglyph had a shot with Grey Goo, but the name and marketing failed on them and it never took off and since then they seem to be really suffering with half-bit attempts like their 8Bit games which are quirky but ultimatly not fun.
One big issue was that EA was going to make a new RTS MMO hybrid monster and that was to be the next big step; but it failed and for some reason they never reworked the engine to make just a straight game. They are now doing some remasters of the old classic games ;but otherwise CnC is also pertty dead in the water. Meanwhile Homeworld is held by Gearbox who don't seem interested beyond their remaster
Had high hopes for Youngblood but non-functioning coop and turning the game into a watered down open world RPG shooter is not what a lot of folks wanted, especially not from a Wolfenstein game, which excels at linear levels due to the excellent combat and schlocky story telling. Makes me worry what Todd has in store for the upcoming DOOM sequel, probably not a lot of good.
Melissia wrote: Nope. They're just not as important as they used to be. Big companies just aren't very important in gaming, to me, anyway.
The age when they produced decent games has just passed, they rather all produce the next 0effort money Grab live Service or make children and gambling addicts suffer for their money.
Indy at this stage is better and often more innovative.
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BrookM wrote: Had high hopes for Youngblood but non-functioning coop and turning the game into a watered down open world RPG shooter is not what a lot of folks wanted, especially not from a Wolfenstein game, which excels at linear levels due to the excellent combat and schlocky story telling. Makes me worry what Todd has in store for the upcoming DOOM sequel, probably not a lot of good.
I mean also that the og wolfenstein story works due to an established longstanding charachter.
But tbh for bethesda it's more relevant if the stupid microtransaction store works.
Rather, much like with Hollywood, the publishers / producers have in some cases too much say in what they think the target audience wants. There's also the other scumbag things they want in those games, but we already have a topic for that elsewhere.
BrookM wrote: Rather, much like with Hollywood, the publishers / producers have in some cases too much say in what they think the target audience wants. There's also the other scumbag things they want in those games, but we already have a topic for that elsewhere.
Indeed, yet you can't discuss the problem of terrible aaa games without nameing the source of the issue.
Melissia wrote: Nope. They're just not as important as they used to be. Big companies just aren't very important in gaming, to me, anyway.
The age when they produced decent games has just passed, they rather all produce the next 0effort money Grab live Service or make children and gambling addicts suffer for their money.
Indy at this stage is better and often more innovative.
Meh. Some serious nostalgia goggles there. AAA games are generally the same as they were twenty years ago in terms of focus and quality. The tech has changed, but not much else.
Though 'zero effort' isn't and hasn't ever been true. Game development on a triple A title has been a brutal thing for decades. Not many people have every really been joking when they talk about 'crunch time.'
Indy games... eh. To me its mostly the same ugly junk over and over. They look innovative due to singular standouts, then the hordes rush in to do masses of derivative copies that aren't worth spit.
The Mid tier (A or B as opposed to AAA or indies) developers are the solid meat and muscle of the industry. Though lines can blur after massive successes, failure or being bought/sold. I expect CD Project Red (one of the weird exceptions in the industry so far) will ride CyberPunk further into AAA territory, but crash out after a while, and studios like Obsidian to continue to fall as they juggle selling out to Epic right before the Microsoft buyout takes effect (Outer Worlds is their last game as an independent studio).
For myself, I’ve always been a fan of single player, story driven games. So as long as the single player mode is solid, I’m in a good place.
I also enjoy non-rts, like the Civilization games.
In that regard, I have 10 year old games that I replay for the joy of it. I also pick up “newer” games when they go on sale. Blood Bowl 2, for example, cost me very little compared to the original price. I’ve picked up the DLC for New Vegas and other games, like Diablo.
So I guess I benefit from being able to filter out the best gaming experiences (for me) by waiting till I’m willing to spend $5-15 on a title. It may take longer to get it, but I can wait.
Lance845 wrote: Pokemon, mario, legend of zelda, metroid, castlevania.
Who is surprised that every surviving major property is a nintendo property or one that got it start on the nintendo?
That company does nothing that makes any sense to me and yet they are the only ones surviving.
Perhaps they focus on quality or perhaps their market tends to be younger kids. I can't tell you since i stopped playing nintendo after gamecube. I think Twilight Princess was the last zelda game i've ever played.
BrookM wrote: Had high hopes for Youngblood but non-functioning coop and turning the game into a watered down open world RPG shooter is not what a lot of folks wanted, especially not from a Wolfenstein game, which excels at linear levels due to the excellent combat and schlocky story telling. Makes me worry what Todd has in store for the upcoming DOOM sequel, probably not a lot of good.
Don't forget the microtransactions and "boosters" you can buy.
Nothing says "We're trying to turn our FPS games into Live Service games!" quite like Youngblood.
BrookM wrote: Had high hopes for Youngblood but non-functioning coop and turning the game into a watered down open world RPG shooter is not what a lot of folks wanted, especially not from a Wolfenstein game, which excels at linear levels due to the excellent combat and schlocky story telling. Makes me worry what Todd has in store for the upcoming DOOM sequel, probably not a lot of good.
I'm actually more worried about Elder Scrolls after what happened to Fallout and Wolfenstein. I feel like fallout 76's failure would lead to Elder Scrolls sucking. I honestly don't see how they could mess up DOOM at this point in the same way they messed up Wolfenstein. It could literally be almost the same game and people would still probably buy it.
Well, Wolfers is done by a sub-studio and ES6 is still quite a ways off.
Starfield or whatever is the big one coming next from Bethesda, and most likely to take current cues. ES6 will probably build on its game design principles or be a reaction to the response from that.
Given the changes that are trickling into 76 (like... people and FO3 style dialogue), I think they picked up something of a clue.
On the other hand, given how many times they've resold Skyrim, I'm actually more worried that they'll stick to too many of the bad design decisions from there.
I mean also that the og wolfenstein story works due to an established longstanding charachter.
But tbh for bethesda it's more relevant if the stupid microtransaction store works.
OG Wolfenstein was a 2D game by Muse Software.
On a more serious note...
AAA games are always coming and going. Once upon a time, Wing Commander was a AAA game, with huge budgets for each game. But the Space Combat Sim market collapsed almost overnight.
Bethesda has struck me as a company that got *really* lucky. Their pre-Morrowind games had acquired interest and a cult following. But by and large, they didn't do very well (and some - such as Battlespire - were downright panned). Morrowind was a game changer for the company. It did quite well for them, and drew lots of positive attention. People seemed to like the follow-up, Oblivion, though I couldn't really get into it. Skyrim was fun. But imo, Morrowind is still the - admittedly dated - best game of the series. Pretty much everything else has sprung from their success with Morrowind. And I don't think anything that they've released since then has been as good.
EA is EA. They were a great publisher once upon a time (believe it or not). Initially, they didn't develop their own games, and instead only published games developed by other companies, such as Ozark Softscape (the company that developed MULE). But things change, and they began going down the path they currently follow. They develop their own sports games. And they acquire developers that look like they're making good games, and then run those developers into the ground. It appears that they've done it to Bioware. And decades ago they did it to Origin Software. It's not a new pattern.
CD Projekt Red is doing quite well at the moment. Hopefully that will continue. The fact that CDPR has its own successful retail digital game portal suggests that they've got a bit more cushion than would otherwise be the case. So a bad game won't immediately kill the company. But sooner or later they'll change. It's inevitable. Key people quit and go elsewhere. People who worked at the company want the opportunity to improve their career. Sometimes they can do that at the company for a time. But eventually, they have to go elsewhere. And their replacements have different views about games that aren't always what gamers are looking for.
There are a lot of other big companies out there. Activision (owns Blizzard, among other things), Ubisoft (owns the Tom Clancy line, among other things), Square-Enix (publishes Final Fantasy XIV among other things; also regularly polls players about what indy games they'd like to see SE publish), Capcom (they were doing poorly, but I think I've heard they've had some recent successes), etc... Some of those companies will eventually sink into oblivion. Anyone remember Titus? They used to own a number of companies, including Interplay. As the current big companies fade, they'll open up holes in the market that will be filled by other, newer companies. That's the way that the market works.
Lance845 wrote: Pokemon, mario, legend of zelda, metroid, castlevania.
Who is surprised that every surviving major property is a nintendo property or one that got it start on the nintendo?
That company does nothing that makes any sense to me and yet they are the only ones surviving.
Perhaps they focus on quality or perhaps their market tends to be younger kids. I can't tell you since i stopped playing nintendo after gamecube. I think Twilight Princess was the last zelda game i've ever played.
Honestly, the straight answer is quality.
You can dislike Nintendo and their gimmicky systems, or their strict adherence to family friendliness, or their very gimmicky games even, but at the end of the day even Nintendo's most mediocre products have a certain quality of design. Nintendo doesn't just buy up developers to mill out games until the developer is burnt out and collapses. They don't release a new game in a franchise every single year with barely any changes just to charge another full price tag at fans. They don't rely on DLC to fix a lack of content or borked storyline.
Nintendo has standards. I feel like everyone should appreciate that in the current market even if they don't like the company itself or its products.
The Nintendo Seal of Approval used to be a joke, but they really clamped down on it over the last two decades or so again.
AAA games are always coming and going.
Agreed, franchises come and go. Some die out due to the fad being done and gone, others due to fatigue from the audience and some just die due to the developers making a big mistake somewhere along the way, looking at you Relic. Though Relic isn't the only one looking at the market and thinking "multiplayer / esports is the only way to go now" especially not with so many franchises out there making the hop to the Battle Royale game mode.
flamingkillamajig wrote: I'm actually more worried about Elder Scrolls after what happened to Fallout and Wolfenstein. I feel like fallout 76's failure would lead to Elder Scrolls sucking. I honestly don't see how they could mess up DOOM at this point in the same way they messed up Wolfenstein. It could literally be almost the same game and people would still probably buy it.
Voss wrote: Well, Wolfers is done by a sub-studio and ES6 is still quite a ways off.
Starfield or whatever is the big one coming next from Bethesda, and most likely to take current cues. ES6 will probably build on its game design principles or be a reaction to the response from that.
Given the changes that are trickling into 76 (like... people and FO3 style dialogue), I think they picked up something of a clue.
On the other hand, given how many times they've resold Skyrim, I'm actually more worried that they'll stick to too many of the bad design decisions from there.
Honestly I think these games - F76, Anthem etc - being salvaged and becoming successful is almost as bad as if they were successful right off the bat. They need to die, they need to die hard and bloody and with finality, in order to prevent them becoming a new standard even more than they already are starting to. If EA and Bethesda can make some token tweaks and concessions that turn what are still fundamentally "live service"(and I now can't get the dumb Jimquisition pronunciation of that out of my head, damnit) experiences into a success, all the market will have taught them is that they need to camouflage their intentions a little better.
I can live with them recycling the less appealing aspects of Skyrim in new trad-Bethesda-style games, because just like with Skyrim we can fix the issues with mods. It would be nice to get a better experience right out of the gate, sure, but at least it can be fixed - if they spooge "live service" juice over everything, that will become impossible.
Lance845 wrote: Pokemon, mario, legend of zelda, metroid, castlevania.
Who is surprised that every surviving major property is a nintendo property or one that got it start on the nintendo?
That company does nothing that makes any sense to me and yet they are the only ones surviving.
Perhaps they focus on quality or perhaps their market tends to be younger kids. I can't tell you since i stopped playing nintendo after gamecube. I think Twilight Princess was the last zelda game i've ever played.
Indeed, they don't really follow trends, but instead try to set them, sometimes better (wii) sometimes worse (Wii-U)
It is also undeniable that a Nintendo game has a great deal more polish to it then a Bethesda or EA title.
And whilest not particulary demanding graphically still a great deal of detail that is for lacking of a better term "lovingly" implemented.
They also don't tend to swamp the market with 1 type style game. And what is even more interesting, the first mariomaker got out with a development book on how level 1:1 was created, etc and the insights there were quite iluminating.
flamingkillamajig wrote: I'm actually more worried about Elder Scrolls after what happened to Fallout and Wolfenstein. I feel like fallout 76's failure would lead to Elder Scrolls sucking. I honestly don't see how they could mess up DOOM at this point in the same way they messed up Wolfenstein. It could literally be almost the same game and people would still probably buy it.
Micro transactions.
You thought horse armour was bad - welcome to Eldar Scrolls "Skyrim 2" where we don't put ANY DLC into it, but we also don't put any content into it. Instead you'll have to buy your horse armour from 10001 user created modes, all paid for!
flamingkillamajig wrote: I'm actually more worried about Elder Scrolls after what happened to Fallout and Wolfenstein. I feel like fallout 76's failure would lead to Elder Scrolls sucking. I honestly don't see how they could mess up DOOM at this point in the same way they messed up Wolfenstein. It could literally be almost the same game and people would still probably buy it.
Micro transactions.
You thought horse armour was bad - welcome to Eldar Scrolls "Skyrim 2" where we don't put ANY DLC into it, but we also don't put any content into it. Instead you'll have to buy your horse armour from 10001 user created modes, all paid for!
Remember fallout 4s DLC pass, and the price jak up.
Whilest 3 - 5 DLC were mostly building related and not really worth it?
Or how the modding tools were not realeased until all of these building DLC were out?
There's a soft-ball interview Todd Howard did with... I wanna say IGN... could'a been Gamespot.
Anyway, in that he talks about the longevity of Skyrim and the fact that after all these years people are still playing it. But the crux of what he says (beyond all the corporate speak) is that he hates that Skyrim is its own package, and that Bethesda has no way to engage with Skyrim fans.
What he's saying is that they cannot monetise Skyrim, and that he hates that.
The next Elder Scrolls game is going to be the shell-i-est shell of a shell game you ever did see. A Live Service to end all live services. Hell, access to the graphics options menu might end up being DLC. The only way to change the volume in the game might be something you need to pre-order. Expect at least 4-8 different types of currency, with at least half of them being premium currency. Remember the character creation screen from the start of Skyrim? That'll be replaced with an in-game store.
Voss wrote: Indy games... eh. To me its mostly the same ugly junk over and over.
To which I reply: AAA games... eh. To me it's mostly the same ugly junk over and over. And yes, most of them are pretty ugly, with utterly lazy graphical design.
Frankly, I'll take Stardew Valley, or Terraria, or Reigns, or RingRunner, or Risk of Rain, or Magicka, or Pony Island, or La Mulana, or Kingdom: Two Crowns, or Hotline: Miami, or FTL, or Factorio, or SUPERHOT, or Dead Cells, or Into the Breach, or Cook Serve Delicious, or Papers Please, or Raft, or Sunless Sea, or Space Pirates and Zombies, or Stardrive, or Starsector in terms of graphics over your average Call of Duty. Don't mistake graphical FIDELITY for quality. Anyone with enough money can have high fidelity "ultra graphics!" Doesn't make it actually good graphics.
And that's to say nothing of the "medium"/non-AAA publishers/developers like Paradox, or Kalypso, or Eugen, or Egosoft, or Firaxis, or Creative Assembly, or From Software, or Digital Extremes. Granted some of the "medium" publishers are guilty of similar sins (hello, Paradox), but they still have a lot more freedom to develop games they're passionate about as opposed to just Designed-by-Committee games developed after IntenseFocusTesting (tm).
H.B.M.C. wrote: There's a soft-ball interview Todd Howard did with... I wanna say IGN... could'a been Gamespot.
Anyway, in that he talks about the longevity of Skyrim and the fact that after all these years people are still playing it. But the crux of what he says (beyond all the corporate speak) is that he hates that Skyrim is its own package, and that Bethesda has no way to engage with Skyrim fans.
What he's saying is that they cannot monetise Skyrim, and that he hates that.
The next Elder Scrolls game is going to be the shell-i-est shell of a shell game you ever did see. A Live Service to end all live services. Hell, access to the graphics options menu might end up being DLC. The only way to change the volume in the game might be something you need to pre-order. Expect at least 4-8 different types of currency, with at least half of them being premium currency. Remember the character creation screen from the start of Skyrim? That'll be replaced with an in-game store.
Didn0t they allready test the waters with F76, i mean common.
Only issue it is skyrim and all people get skyrim, (except me never got it i'll wait for the fridge version). It is gonna be a removed. At this point if' we'd bet we would nearly get a 100: 1 ratio
Somewhat side-stepping the topic but on the subject of Strategy games has anybody tried out the 4X strategy game series the 'Endless' Series (endless legend and endless space 2 but dungeon of the endless was fun too). They seem like an up and comer that seems to be about listening to fan feedback a lot. The games are good too. Endless Space was a bit basic but it was their first game to my knowledge. Everything since then got much, much better.
They got taken in by Sega as the publisher at least so i'm a bit worried. I very much love how the playstyle and where and what you can build and what takes priority for each faction is a pretty big deal.
flamingkillamajig wrote: Somewhat side-stepping the topic but on the subject of Strategy games has anybody tried out the 4X strategy game series the 'Endless' Series (endless legend and endless space 2 but dungeon of the endless was fun too). They seem like an up and comer that seems to be about listening to fan feedback a lot. The games are good too. Endless Space was a bit basic but it was their first game to my knowledge. Everything since then got much, much better.
They got taken in by Sega as the publisher at least so i'm a bit worried. I very much love how the playstyle and where and what you can build and what takes priority for each faction is a pretty big deal.
I think the Endless games are some of the most beautiful games to come out in a long while in terms of the artistic direction and creativity of their team. Endless Legends is a really great fantasy game with some neat designs that really feels like a very solid fun game. It also has a bit more strategy to their battles as you set rough orders and then have to see if your units move into the correct places as the battle plays out; with the enemy able to mess up your movement with theirs.
Overall though they are still not "high" strategy battles, but they are pleasing to engage with and the empire building and expansion is deep enough.
Some dislike their combat systems, but honestly most 4* tend to have pretty bland combat as it is - Stellaris for all its great ideas has pretty much the same "charge everything see if you win" approach whereby you, again, aren't really controlling units just mashing them together. So its about the same sort of experience.
They also have a great feedback system as you've already noted and their developers seem to really enjoy working in the worlds they create and have energy and fun with them. I don't think the sega publishing has had a bad effect on them in the least and I'd be very interested to see if they go for an Endless Legends 2
Eumerin wrote: Anyone remember Titus? They used to own a number of companies, including Interplay. As the current big companies fade, they'll open up holes in the market that will be filled by other, newer companies. That's the way that the market works.
To be fair, Titus (and Interplay, though it still technically exists) fell because of behind-the-scenes financial shenanigans, not changes in the market or games.
Eumerin wrote: Anyone remember Titus? They used to own a number of companies, including Interplay. As the current big companies fade, they'll open up holes in the market that will be filled by other, newer companies. That's the way that the market works.
To be fair, Titus (and Interplay, though it still technically exists) fell because of behind-the-scenes financial shenanigans, not changes in the market or games.
Won't argue with that. My understanding is that Interplay specifically fell because Titus basically stripped it of cash before off-loading it. And that, of course, led directly to the sale of Fallout to Bethesda. But the larger point still stands. Companies come and go. One of these days, it'll be EA's turn. One of these days, it'll be Activision's turn. And new companies will rise up to take their place.
The AAA industry as a whole tends to be trend chasers and the series that define it generally live or die by how well they adapt to the new innovation that makes it big. We heavily saw this in the late 90's as big franchises tried to be relevant in 3D and again as competitive multiplayer or open world single player games became the norm. Right now, everything is converging onto co-op multiplayer in open worlds and not every property maintains its identity when shoved into that suit.
Part of why Nintendo's franchises never really die off is simply because Nintendo attempts to be an innovator and doesn't waste much effort trying to make their franchises something they're not unless they try to make them something new.
flamingkillamajig wrote: So far as i know a lot of the bigger old game series from EA and bethesda seem to be going extinct. Wolfenstein seems to get bad reviews from anybody that's actually played the game (basically being a looter shooter with connection problems between the co-op partners). EA is to game franchises like the asteroid was to the dinosaurs. Mass effect is pretty much dead. The last Battlefield game i know of did poorly. Overall there's probably only a few AAA game series that are any good anymore (anything from CD projekt red or the main xcom games). I'll let you guys fill in the rest of what you think is good or bad.
The wolfenstein game is a little cheap gimmick to tide fans over until 3 gets a launch, probably next year. Bethesda is actually riding high right now, even FO76 has a fairly stable player base.
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Bharring wrote: Fallout76 looks like a tech demo/PoC that wasn't going to go on to Production - but they figured some people might want to play it anyways.
If that's true, it makes a lot of sense. That would be totally reasonable. And it's a great game as a result.
If that's not true, and it's a full-effort "real game", it's a terrible shame piece of garbage.
I have no idea which is true.
Um. It was clearly made to be a live-service game in order to jump Bethesda into the F2P market.
flamingkillamajig wrote: So far as i know a lot of the bigger old game series from EA and bethesda seem to be going extinct. Wolfenstein seems to get bad reviews from anybody that's actually played the game (basically being a looter shooter with connection problems between the co-op partners). EA is to game franchises like the asteroid was to the dinosaurs. Mass effect is pretty much dead. The last Battlefield game i know of did poorly. Overall there's probably only a few AAA game series that are any good anymore (anything from CD projekt red or the main xcom games). I'll let you guys fill in the rest of what you think is good or bad.
The wolfenstein game is a little cheap gimmick to tide fans over until 3 gets a launch, probably next year. Bethesda is actually riding high right now, even FO76 has a fairly stable player base.
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Bharring wrote: Fallout76 looks like a tech demo/PoC that wasn't going to go on to Production - but they figured some people might want to play it anyways.
If that's true, it makes a lot of sense. That would be totally reasonable. And it's a great game as a result.
If that's not true, and it's a full-effort "real game", it's a terrible shame piece of garbage.
I have no idea which is true.
Um. It was clearly made to be a live-service game in order to jump Bethesda into the F2P market.
Not f2p, it was an attempt at a live Service premium game like GTA online with a pricetag.
Altough with repairkits and other ease of live add ons it severly resenbles Fee to play games.
flamingkillamajig wrote: So far as i know a lot of the bigger old game series from EA and bethesda seem to be going extinct. Wolfenstein seems to get bad reviews from anybody that's actually played the game (basically being a looter shooter with connection problems between the co-op partners). EA is to game franchises like the asteroid was to the dinosaurs. Mass effect is pretty much dead. The last Battlefield game i know of did poorly. Overall there's probably only a few AAA game series that are any good anymore (anything from CD projekt red or the main xcom games). I'll let you guys fill in the rest of what you think is good or bad.
The wolfenstein game is a little cheap gimmick to tide fans over until 3 gets a launch, probably next year. Bethesda is actually riding high right now, even FO76 has a fairly stable player base.
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Bharring wrote: Fallout76 looks like a tech demo/PoC that wasn't going to go on to Production - but they figured some people might want to play it anyways.
If that's true, it makes a lot of sense. That would be totally reasonable. And it's a great game as a result.
If that's not true, and it's a full-effort "real game", it's a terrible shame piece of garbage.
I have no idea which is true.
Um. It was clearly made to be a live-service game in order to jump Bethesda into the F2P market.
Not f2p, it was an attempt at a live Service premium game like GTA online with a pricetag.
Altough with repairkits and other ease of live add ons it severly resenbles Fee to play games.
Good point, I am not really well up on the terminology these days. :S
Tbf i am only up with terminoligy since i am forced due to my studies (Philosophy) and because i have that itch for a really good game and got Burned with battlefield and Fallout 4.
So i started informing myself a bit.
Still atm it's a gakshow bar non from the medium to large publishers.
Everyone and their mother trying to sell live Services.
I suspect that the term you were looking for is "subscription-less".
Games like WoW and FFXIV require a subscription. Games like GW2 and Division require an initial purchase, but are free after that. Games like Candy Crush are free to play.
I also doubt the big AAA games are dying, they just lose their veteran audience, which will not put up with their gak.
And the lower numbers are overall compensated by monetisation. (overmonetisation, etc) Including but not limited to:
fee2play models,
Ease of life sales,
Slashing up games into preorder etc DLC's /taking parts of games hostage,
DLC that should've been basegame content (looking at you paradox)
Artificial Grind and denial of options to skip it in single player games in order to sell time savers (Ubisoft)
P2W most recently with actibliz in COD,
P2W matchmaking again see actibliz,
Live service scams like GTAV online casino and sharkcards,
Capitalizing on cheaper development costs (yes development costs actually have gone down in the recent years, much more then inflation has gone up so that 60 $ game as before is actually costing the company to make much less)
Yeah that is about it for the Tripple A industry, games get worse, they compensate their gakky sales numbers with microtransactions and monetization.
On the one hand, yes, development costs are down. A one-man team can throw out today the kind of game you needed two dozen people for twenty years ago. Technology and tools have advanced that you can put together a quality game with way less than you used to need.
At the same time, they're not down at all because game publishers, particularly the big house AAA publishers, finance games the way Hollywood finances movies: pour increasing amounts of money into the project and hope for a big return. Which arguably is not working the way they would like.
Development cycles for a game like Call of Duty are pretty cheap. They have constant rotations of staff working on two year cycles to put those games out. It's not that expensive.
Then you have big multi-year projects like Tomb Raider's 2014 rebook and Anthem, that get mountains of money poured into them hoping for huge paybacks that don't materialize because the games market is not the movie market.
So yes, development has gotten "cheaper." But I don't think that's done anything to affect retail prices as much as consumers already thinking games cost too much. Developers have mostly sunk their savings by spending even more money in pursuit of bigger payouts at the AAA level. The beneficiaries of cheaper development costs are mostly indie and small-house developers.
Not Online!!! wrote: yes development costs actually have gone down in the recent years
I'm curious as to why you think this is the case?
this for once.
Improved engines with longer life circles. For generations used slightly modified engines (cough fallout 76 dragons?)
Engines for lease.
Etc.
Groundwork is rarely done these days, for engines, and that is generally what cost as much.
With stable console generations it also alows for lazyness in update cycles to these engines, leading to masterpieces like Bethesdas still sticking around.
From a quick skim of the video he states outright that the costs of making the game have gone up (just under 2 minutes in), and the rest of the video is the argument that the games are being sold in an excessively piecemeal way to disguise the actual purchase cost of the full thing.
The sheer number of people required for content generation can be pretty crazy. Which is not to say that some developers and publishers arn't rinsing it for all it's worth.
Not Online!!! wrote: With stable console generations it also alows for lazyness in update cycles to these engines
It's a two edged sword IMO. People expect things to improve year on year and if the hardware isn't getting faster then it's the engine that needs to get faster instead.
From a quick skim of the video he states outright that the costs of making the game have gone up (just under 2 minutes in), and the rest of the video is the argument that the games are being sold in an excessively piecemeal way to disguise the actual purchase cost of the full thing.
The sheer number of people required for content generation can be pretty crazy. Which is not to say that some developers and publishers arn't rinsing it for all it's worth.
Not Online!!! wrote: With stable console generations it also alows for lazyness in update cycles to these engines
It's a two edged sword IMO. People expect things to improve year on year and if the hardware isn't getting faster then it's the engine that needs to get faster instead.
OK another exemple, a purely PC exemple, where you don't have stable hardware.
Total war.
Since ETW the same gak engine, slightly modified and one of the reasons why melee ever since sucked in results and outnumbering became irelevant since a Elite unit just can tank them. (WHTW 1 -2 not withholding due to actual improvements but we are still talking about nigh a decade of the same cheap engine)
Not Online!!! wrote: Since ETW the same gak engine, slightly modified and one of the reasons why melee ever since sucked in results and outnumbering became irelevant since a Elite unit just can tank them.
I'm not familiar with the total war series, but you are describing game logic not engine code.
But a company re-using an old engine past its sell by date doesn't equate to game development costs in general going are down, nor is it a new thing.
Not Online!!! wrote: Tbf i am only up with terminoligy since i am forced due to my studies (Philosophy) and because i have that itch for a really good game and got Burned with battlefield and Fallout 4.
So i started informing myself a bit.
Still atm it's a gakshow bar non from the medium to large publishers.
Everyone and their mother trying to sell live Services.
FO4 isn't as bad as I originally thought. When it came out I dumped around 50 hours into it and I hated it.
Recently I've gone back with the intent of beating all the game, and I'm about 140 hours in. Having a lot of fun, looking forward to trying out some mods and stuff. Far Harbor and Nuka World are great, it's a shame those who wrote these DLCs didn't write the main game!
Not Online!!! wrote: Tbf i am only up with terminoligy since i am forced due to my studies (Philosophy) and because i have that itch for a really good game and got Burned with battlefield and Fallout 4.
So i started informing myself a bit.
Still atm it's a gakshow bar non from the medium to large publishers.
Everyone and their mother trying to sell live Services.
FO4 isn't as bad as I originally thought. When it came out I dumped around 50 hours into it and I hated it.
Recently I've gone back with the intent of beating all the game, and I'm about 140 hours in. Having a lot of fun, looking forward to trying out some mods and stuff. Far Harbor and Nuka World are great, it's a shame those who wrote these DLCs didn't write the main game!
Go to Far harbour ASAP, imagine a morally grey story with interesting charachters.
However the main story is just bad for fallout, that is if you regard 1-2 and New Vegas as the og. Even F3 had more to it.
Not Online!!! wrote: Since ETW the same gak engine, slightly modified and one of the reasons why melee ever since sucked in results and outnumbering became irelevant since a Elite unit just can tank them.
I'm not familiar with the total war series, but you are describing game logic not engine code.
But a company re-using an old engine past its sell by date doesn't equate to game development costs in general going are down, nor is it a new thing.
It does though, you can look at the sales reports for Sega etc.
Development cost is down. PR is Up.
EA recently showed it's numbers and there was more money made with Microtransactions than with regular sales, also development is down since years.. If development is down then yes producing games got cheaper no?
Not Online!!! wrote: It does though, you can look at the sales reports for Sega etc.
Development cost is down. PR is Up.
Segas financial report is 151 pages long, and their site lists all of two upcoming releases in 2019 - an HD version of super monkey ball and a reboxed megadrive emulator.
Not Online!!! wrote: EA recently showed it's numbers and there was more money made with Microtransactions than with regular sales, also development is down since years.. If development is down then yes producing games got cheaper no?
No, it means you are making less/smaller games (or in the case of publishers like EA are hiring people to make smaller/less games - or perhaps just squeezing them harder).
The primary costs of making a game are staff (and their support), licencing, outsourcing (including voice actors/etc), and PR. None of those things have gotten cheaper, nor has the cut that steam or third party engines take come down.
Not Online!!! wrote: It does though, you can look at the sales reports for Sega etc.
Development cost is down. PR is Up.
Segas financial report is 151 pages long, and their site lists all of two upcoming releases in 2019 - an HD version of super monkey ball and a reboxed megadrive emulator.
Not Online!!! wrote: EA recently showed it's numbers and there was more money made with Microtransactions than with regular sales, also development is down since years.. If development is down then yes producing games got cheaper no?
No, it means you are making less/smaller games (or in the case of publishers like EA are hiring people to make smaller/less games - or perhaps just squeezing them harder).
The primary costs of making a game are staff (and their support), licencing, outsourcing (including voice actors/etc), and PR. None of those things have gotten cheaper, nor has the cut that steam or third party engines take come down.
MHM; and why are the games smaller in the first place?
(i guess because either A carved up DLC / Microtransaction messes or B life service BS.)
And guess is really the only thing we can do.
All we know is that the numbers went down.
MHM; and why are the games smaller in the first place?.
Partly because companies get a lot more data back about how people play games, without the bias of surveys (ie, directly from time played and achievements from steam and Xbox Live and whatever). Despite what people think, achievements aren't really for players. They're for devs.
To use Total Warhammer 2 as an example. 12.6% of all players on steam (globally, unless they've specifically taken the effort to play offline and/or hide their data in someway) won a campaign as the high elves It drops to 7% for TK, and Lizards, 6% for dark elves, 4.3% for Vampire Coast and 3.5% for skaven. That tells them a lot, not only about popularity of factions, but how few people bother to get to the end.
The number of people who bother to even play a single multiplayer battle is less than 30%. That tells them a lot of how to assign resources, no matter how people on forums whine about their priorities, there's a really good reason for neglecting certain gameplay aspects. [A better question is why CA puts so much time into multiplayer, to be honest)
Combine with time played and more traditional games, and developers get a very accurate idea that most people play a game for maybe 20 hours and many to most don't ever bother to finish them. So making long, complicated games is literally wasting their time and money for a lot of genres. So they don't.
Sucks for those of who like them, but based on the data they get, a reasonable approach for game studios.
Voss wrote: [A better question is why CA puts so much time into multiplayer, to be honest)
I suspect because it's not that intensive to set up multiplayer battles, especially with co-op campaign being fairly popular and encouraging sales (people buy Total War games because I buy them so we can play co-op). Even if only 10% of the player base ever plays co-op (random number), that's still potentially 600,000 more units solid of a 6,000,000 unit game.
Voss wrote: [A better question is why CA puts so much time into multiplayer, to be honest)
I suspect because it's not that intensive to set up multiplayer battles, especially with co-op campaign being fairly popular and encouraging sales (people buy Total War games because I buy them so we can play co-op). Even if only 10% of the player base ever plays co-op (random number), that's still potentially 600,000 more units solid of a 6,000,000 unit game.
Do they?
Atleast 3 k and the battles there seem greatly working...
Honestly, if any part of Total War could be cut, it probably is the real-time battles XD
I barely engage in them anymore, and certainly not in co-op unless I absolutely have to win. But the real-time battles are so integral to the franchise I doubt they'd ever get rid of them fully (instead they've mostly simplified the mechanics into rock-paper-scissors-archers).
LordofHats wrote: Honestly, if any part of Total War could be cut, it probably is the real-time battles XD
I barely engage in them anymore, and certainly not in co-op unless I absolutely have to win. But the real-time battles are so integral to the franchise I doubt they'd ever get rid of them fully (instead they've mostly simplified the mechanics into rock-paper-scissors-archers).
I mean with the complete removal of formations in Warhammer, even though part of why statetroops in the lore were good enough to defend the empire were discipline and formations, should've been the hint.
Also it's more like Rock - paper - scissors < ranged.
LordofHats wrote: Honestly, if any part of Total War could be cut, it probably is the real-time battles XD
I barely engage in them anymore, and certainly not in co-op unless I absolutely have to win. But the real-time battles are so integral to the franchise I doubt they'd ever get rid of them fully (instead they've mostly simplified the mechanics into rock-paper-scissors-archers).
I mean with the complete removal of formations in Warhammer, even though part of why statetroops in the lore were good enough to defend the empire were discipline and formations, should've been the hint.
Also it's more like Rock - paper - scissors < ranged.
Formations were removed mostly, I think, because Warhammer sort of makes it REALLY stupidly complicated to control formations in any sane way.
See you've got dragons, giants, tanks, infantry, cavalry, undead, beasts, etc... Furthermore even for something like infantry you've got a range of types from short and numerous rats or gobilns up to towering chaos warriors and beastmen. The formation you'd use for any one of those groups should, in theory, be different. Furthermore each of those multiple different groups would need its own unique formations. A unit of Skaven needs different formations to a unit of highly trained bretonnian warriors etc...
Ontop of that most units have abilities, several of which are specific triggers. For example Phoenix have a bomb ability that you have to manually trigger, time it right and you can do a lot of damage, or time it wrong it does nothing at all. Then you've got leaders and mages which can easily have over 10 abilities and spells to cast. In my view they cut the formations because it just didn't make as much easy sense and because the micro in the battles shifted from formation control to ability control; a sensible move I felt to keep the game focused.
Also like it or not one thing I noticed with smaller maps and AI is that the TW AI is far more engaging to fight. I recall longer battles in Medieval 2 and Empires and other TW games, but a big part of that was just getting into combat. The AI was far more defensive and more likely to draw itself up (or in a siege even retreat and draw up lines) away from you and force you to come to it. Not bad, but it could make the game go from a battle to a "hunt the enemy over the map" affair. Whilst the TW AI is far more focused on just charging you. I miss the vast maps for sieges, but at the same time I like how you can have armies drawn up and make it feel like you're taking the "whole wall". Like it or not TW's engine and controls are not yet there to let you really siege somewhere with thousands upon thousands of units (on the average home gaming computer).
Also formations and such came back with Three Kingdoms.
Really?! I always thought the biggest fixes CA needed to make in their Total War games was loading times and the A.I. turn spin wheel where you wait like 5-10 mins waiting for all the A.I. to take their turns.
flamingkillamajig wrote: Really?! I always thought the biggest fixes CA needed to make in their Total War games was loading times and the A.I. turn spin wheel where you wait like 5-10 mins waiting for all the A.I. to take their turns.
flamingkillamajig wrote: Really?! I always thought the biggest fixes CA needed to make in their Total War games was loading times and the A.I. turn spin wheel where you wait like 5-10 mins waiting for all the A.I. to take their turns.
Rome II flashbacks.
I timed it 7minutes man!
You say flashbacks but i like to think of it like PTSD flashbacks from a war-zone.
flamingkillamajig wrote: Really?! I always thought the biggest fixes CA needed to make in their Total War games was loading times and the A.I. turn spin wheel where you wait like 5-10 mins waiting for all the A.I. to take their turns.
Rome II flashbacks.
I timed it 7minutes man!
You say flashbacks but i like to think of it like PTSD flashbacks from a war-zone.
That was if rome II even worked until Patch 8 i also had random crashes and corruptions.
My legendary difficulty this is total war and win all battles aswell as fight all battles manually campaign died 40 turns in that way.
Lance845 wrote: Pokemon, mario, legend of zelda, metroid, castlevania.
Who is surprised that every surviving major property is a nintendo property or one that got it start on the nintendo?
That company does nothing that makes any sense to me and yet they are the only ones surviving.
It's because although they sometimes have bouts of arrogance, they are in fact the least arrogant large developer for the most part.
A modern AAA game, someone will think of a story and bend the gameplay and designs to fit around it. Nintendo generally starts with gameplay and player experience, and then builds something onto that to fit the setting/story around it. Because they made the story serve the game rather than the other way around, what they made is then more eternal.
The second factor is that they will kill projects. If a project becomes unfun (for the player, not the developer), they will give it the axe. More arrogant developers will not swallow their pride and axe their project, but instead continue it and maybe release a bad game or it goes into development hell, with the pouring away of resources. Nintendo get arrogant when they are doing well. They will start doing weird experimental games and maybe cave to some developer egoism and pet projects. However, if they have a bad season, they have pretty much gone back and created products for people who play games (even if it's disliked by gaming press or hardcore gamers).
What you will find is most big developers are slaves to either developer ego or technology (i.e. new technology). Nintendo are slaves to their customers, so their innovation and products (when at their best) are designed to fit into their customer's lives and are subservient to them, rather than some developer 'vision' or 'future technology'. The irony is, Nintendo games have got far greater length of 'vision' in people being into the worlds (because it plays off the player's imagination, not the developers' ones); and their products generally are more innovative as they solve particular problems to try and fit into a customer's usage, rather than just doing in incremental increase in existing technology, or worse, into white-elephant technology.
1) They are happy to go for the younger and family markets. A lot of the big AAA games aim for teenage to young adults as a market; whilst Nintendo is quite happy going for a much younger audience. This you can see in the artistic style that Nintendo goes for as well as the overall structure and content of many of their games; esp their big core franchises.
This leaves them a big top end market almost all to themselves.
2) Nintendo don't really try to compete with Sony nor MS. They are happier doing their own thing and relying on the strength of their product and IP to carry them forward. Consider the Wii - it was a total experiment. Nintendo weren't aiming for the biggest next greatest thing; they were just happy doing their thing. That is took off and left the others in the dust was a major boon for them that even they didn't expect.
I think the trick is that Nintendo is just taking a very different approach and it works. They aren't trying to copycat the competition at every turn and that gives them a power because it means what market they do secure is theirs alone - or at least theirs with significantly less competition.
1) They are happy to go for the younger and family markets. A lot of the big AAA games aim for teenage to young adults as a market; whilst Nintendo is quite happy going for a much younger audience. This you can see in the artistic style that Nintendo goes for as well as the overall structure and content of many of their games; esp their big core franchises.
This leaves them a big top end market almost all to themselves.
2) Nintendo don't really try to compete with Sony nor MS. They are happier doing their own thing and relying on the strength of their product and IP to carry them forward. Consider the Wii - it was a total experiment. Nintendo weren't aiming for the biggest next greatest thing; they were just happy doing their thing. That is took off and left the others in the dust was a major boon for them that even they didn't expect.
I think the trick is that Nintendo is just taking a very different approach and it works. They aren't trying to copycat the competition at every turn and that gives them a power because it means what market they do secure is theirs alone - or at least theirs with significantly less competition.
It also does help that Nintendo maintains strict standards in regards to the endproduct.
Not like EA with bugfield f.e.
Voss wrote: Indy games... eh. To me its mostly the same ugly junk over and over.
To which I reply: AAA games... eh. To me it's mostly the same ugly junk over and over. And yes, most of them are pretty ugly, with utterly lazy graphical design.
Frankly, I'll take Stardew Valley, or Terraria, or Reigns, or RingRunner, or Risk of Rain, or Magicka, or Pony Island, or La Mulana, or Kingdom: Two Crowns, or Hotline: Miami, or FTL, or Factorio, or SUPERHOT, or Dead Cells, or Into the Breach, or Cook Serve Delicious, or Papers Please, or Raft, or Sunless Sea, or Space Pirates and Zombies, or Stardrive, or Starsector in terms of graphics over your average Call of Duty. Don't mistake graphical FIDELITY for quality. Anyone with enough money can have high fidelity "ultra graphics!" Doesn't make it actually good graphics.
And that's to say nothing of the "medium"/non-AAA publishers/developers like Paradox, or Kalypso, or Eugen, or Egosoft, or Firaxis, or Creative Assembly, or From Software, or Digital Extremes. Granted some of the "medium" publishers are guilty of similar sins (hello, Paradox), but they still have a lot more freedom to develop games they're passionate about as opposed to just Designed-by-Committee games developed after IntenseFocusTesting (tm).
Lately i've started talking about graphics and aesthetics as different things. Next COD will probably have good graphics that look realistic but the Aesthetic design will probably be quite boring and uninteresting
I'll be glad when films and games get off this current "everything is grey" fad that's been going on for a long while. Even way back in the Skyrim early days the whole "grey tones" was a thing.
Then again films have been getting a bit overbearing with their colour filters and jacking the tones up so much that its not just suggesting a "cool blue" moment but thrusting the colour so far over you that everything is alien coloured.
Overread wrote: I'll be glad when films and games get off this current "everything is grey" fad that's been going on for a long while. Even way back in the Skyrim early days the whole "grey tones" was a thing.
Don't worry, it will just be something else. Remember when everything was brown, instead? Or when bloom was used everywhere?
A lot of the current graphic trends are a result of shared engines. It takes a lot of work to significantly alter the basic shading and color palette of an engine; though not as bad as the height of the Unreal Brown Engine. Most companies just don't put in the effort to develop a unique style. This is kind of always been true, though it used to be more of a hardware limitation on color palettes and the like.
Overread wrote: I'll be glad when films and games get off this current "everything is grey" fad that's been going on for a long while. Even way back in the Skyrim early days the whole "grey tones" was a thing.
Don't worry, it will just be something else. Remember when everything was brown, instead? Or when bloom was used everywhere?
It'll be the fake 80s retrowave/cyberpunk pink (with blues and cyans) look. Likely not too long after 2077 is out.
What's hilarious and enlightening where achievements are concerned is looking at the Steam stats for a game that tracks chapter completion, and realizing that over ten percent of the people who own the game never finished the introductory chapter/mission/level.
That actually tends to be quite common, based on what I've seen.
Nintendo is also okay with just being profitable. They keep significant cash reserves to weather bad ideas and their CEOs take pay cuts to buy their developers time to do things right. They invest a lot of their profits back into the company and it gives them a lot of freedom to do whatever they want.
Nintendo is also okay with just being profitable. They keep significant cash reserves to weather bad ideas and their CEOs take pay cuts to buy their developers time to do things right. They invest a lot of their profits back into the company and it gives them a lot of freedom to do whatever they want.
They also err on the cuatious side of monetisation.
Yes. I'd honestly wish more company's would be like Nintendo in a way. They're not saints (remember the blacking out of Pokemon YouTubers?), but still. Nintendo has a) some standards about the quality of their product, and b) a culture that stresses the health of the business over the bonus of the CEO. Arguably that last one could be said about basically all non-Anglo businesses to some degree though. We tend to fetishize business runners in the English speaking world, and I don't think it's produced results.
LordofHats wrote: Yes. I'd honestly wish more company's would be like Nintendo in a way. They're not saints (remember the blacking out of Pokemon YouTubers?), but still. Nintendo has a) some standards about the quality of their product, and b) a culture that stresses the health of the business over the bonus of the CEO. Arguably that last one could be said about basically all non-Anglo businesses to some degree though. We tend to fetishize business runners in the English speaking world, and I don't think it's produced results.
Nintendo built their business with some incredibly scummy behaviour back when they were competing directly with others.
The ability to make a profit without banging heads against a rival is a huge boon. Quality assurance is one of those things that tend to slide when you are trying to get out ahead of the competition.
LordofHats wrote: Yes. I'd honestly wish more company's would be like Nintendo in a way. They're not saints (remember the blacking out of Pokemon YouTubers?), but still. Nintendo has a) some standards about the quality of their product, and b) a culture that stresses the health of the business over the bonus of the CEO. Arguably that last one could be said about basically all non-Anglo businesses to some degree though. We tend to fetishize business runners in the English speaking world, and I don't think it's produced results.
Actually from what i heard (a youtube video from the channel; "find your love in japan" iirc) the anime industry has a lot of those behaviors you'd consider Anglo-sphere behaviors. Something about super poor treatment and pay of artists. I imagine china is worse but that's not exactly video games and not my field of expertise to say.
flamingkillamajig wrote: Actually from what i heard (a youtube video from the channel; "find your love in japan" iirc) the anime industry has a lot of those behaviors you'd consider Anglo-sphere behaviors. Something about super poor treatment and pay of artists. I imagine china is worse but that's not exactly video games and not my field of expertise to say.
Well, in the anime industry the Directors of big projects get massive amounts of attention and pay relative to the "guy on the line." In more recent years this has extended to show writers and head animators.
I'm not saying anyone's a saint, and I'm pretty sure that's the second time I've said that for those hard of reading (and China definitely has a tendency to fetishize the people at the top of big businesses). But I've noticed that the worship of CEOs is not as fierce outside of the US and UK as it is inside of it which is probably a cultural thing. I don't particularly care what Nintendo did as a business 30 odd years ago. I find them much more likable today than many other major publishers. At least they can actually make a solid game to save their own hides and generally make games they think their costumers would want to buy and play, not games that they think they can best monetize to the max. I can't really say the same for EA.
Now now lets not say bad things about TW!!! Its the last game I have left as everything else is pretty crap haha..
I cant think of any game that has as much replayability. Outside of some sort of epic MMO like Eve I don't think any other game has kept taking my time so much.
The battles are my fav part!
Granted they need to be meaningful. Wiping out some rebels or remnant forces gets tedious but when you auto battle it always seems to take the casualties from your most elite units disproportionately. Like Would I really risk sending my war elephants face first against 4 battered units of phalanx and some javelin men?? I sort of wish I was savy enough to do modding however am always enjoying vanilla.
Nintendo is... well Nintendo. Its the anomaly that somehow keeps on going....
flamingkillamajig wrote: Actually from what i heard (a youtube video from the channel; "find your love in japan" iirc) the anime industry has a lot of those behaviors you'd consider Anglo-sphere behaviors. Something about super poor treatment and pay of artists. I imagine china is worse but that's not exactly video games and not my field of expertise to say.
Well, in the anime industry the Directors of big projects get massive amounts of attention and pay relative to the "guy on the line." In more recent years this has extended to show writers and head animators.
I'm not saying anyone's a saint, and I'm pretty sure that's the second time I've said that for those hard of reading (and China definitely has a tendency to fetishize the people at the top of big businesses). But I've noticed that the worship of CEOs is not as fierce outside of the US and UK as it is inside of it which is probably a cultural thing. I don't particularly care what Nintendo did as a business 30 odd years ago. I find them much more likable today than many other major publishers. At least they can actually make a solid game to save their own hides and generally make games they think their costumers would want to buy and play, not games that they think they can best monetize to the max. I can't really say the same for EA.
Removed - do NOT circumvent the language filter is french btw.
And they certainly are on the damaging side of Monetisation.
And korrea also has a tendency there.
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Argive wrote: Now now lets not say bad things about TW!!! Its the last game I have left as everything else is pretty crap haha..
I cant think of any game that has as much replayability. Outside of some sort of epic MMO like Eve I don't think any other game has kept taking my time so much.
The battles are my fav part!
Granted they need to be meaningful. Wiping out some rebels or remnant forces gets tedious but when you auto battle it always seems to take the casualties from your most elite units disproportionately. Like Would I really risk sending my war elephants face first against 4 battered units of phalanx and some javelin men?? I sort of wish I was savy enough to do modding however am always enjoying vanilla.
Nintendo is... well Nintendo. Its the anomaly that somehow keeps on going....
Take this from a Veteran.
TW has been needlesly dummbed down, in many ways.
Don't get me wrong but also the DLC slicing is found here. RTW 2 with greek city states. I mean you can't cut a more known group of factions out except if you remove Rome itself
The difference though is, that CA has had not a good enough standing after RTW2 and The britanias cashgrab.To push the envelope much farther in that regard.
They certainly would but it is also difficult to really monetisie a game and the TW series is and was a niche at best. Pissing off their customer base will be a lot more damaging there and i think they know that.
As for the Engine and other things out of the Perspective of a campaign map and other issues.
LordofHats wrote: At least they can actually make a solid game to save their own hides and generally make games they think their costumers would want to buy and play
They seem to have their formula down pretty well. Zelda, pokemon, mario, mario, mario, yoshi, mario, zelda, tetris?, mario, and... mario looks to be the line up this year.
Scummy monetization aside, i'm waiting to see whether Cloud Imperium poisons the kickstarter well forever or actually manages to release. It's the ultimate expression of the 'pay and pray' season ticket schemes that have been popping up lately.
I can think of quite a few AAA series that are still going strong / will have future releases.
As someone else mentioned they tend to go in cycles, flavours of the month and how much the developer/publisher think they can recoup VS investment.
I think some titles have survived, and continue to survive longer than others due to pace of release, content, and mechanics changes.
IMO, Assassins' Creed is a franchise that is still going relatively well. With Origins, they finished changing up the engine which made a much more dynamic (and better, imo) combat system, and that was continued on with Odyssey. Now, say what you want about the quality of the storyline produced, but I think that the length of time between each individual game means that we keep having a historical setting that is about as well researched as any other title in the series (To be fair, I have not played the French Revolution one, nor have I played the England Industrial/Dickens era one).
Borderlands is preparing to release its third full game after a lengthy hiatus/development time, and it is one where I think it doesn't so much "get away" with being a shoot and loot game, it actively thrives on it and seems to garner a certain level of praise for it.
Borderlands is preparing to release its third full game after a lengthy hiatus/development time, and it is one where I think it doesn't so much "get away" with being a shoot and loot game, it actively thrives on it and seems to garner a certain level of praise for it.
Considering Borderlands practically created the genre, or at the very least popularized it. I would hope it thrives off it. However, we will see how 3 actually does sales-wise. It's an Epic store exclusive on PC and is getting tons of microtransaction cosmetic items.
Borderlands is preparing to release its third full game after a lengthy hiatus/development time, and it is one where I think it doesn't so much "get away" with being a shoot and loot game, it actively thrives on it and seems to garner a certain level of praise for it.
Considering Borderlands practically created the genre, or at the very least popularized it. I would hope it thrives off it. However, we will see how 3 actually does sales-wise. It's an Epic store exclusive on PC and is getting tons of microtransaction cosmetic items.
Epic store exclusive makes it atleast for my pals a year later publicly availible.
I never understood Boarderlands cosmetic DLC. Mostly because most of the cosmetics they sold were for your character which you can't actually SEE in the game save the short few seconds they get into or out of a vehicle or the small hints of wrist and hand when they hold a gun. Faces, jumpsuits, leggings etc.. .are all worthless to the player!
Borderlands is preparing to release its third full game after a lengthy hiatus/development time, and it is one where I think it doesn't so much "get away" with being a shoot and loot game, it actively thrives on it and seems to garner a certain level of praise for it.
Considering Borderlands practically created the genre, or at the very least popularized it. I would hope it thrives off it. However, we will see how 3 actually does sales-wise. It's an Epic store exclusive on PC and is getting tons of microtransaction cosmetic items.
Epic store exclusive makes it atleast for my pals a year later publicly availible.
Which is when most companies make their decisions on the success of a game or not.
Overread wrote:I never understood Boarderlands cosmetic DLC. Mostly because most of the cosmetics they sold were for your character which you can't actually SEE in the game save the short few seconds they get into or out of a vehicle or the small hints of wrist and hand when they hold a gun. Faces, jumpsuits, leggings etc.. .are all worthless to the player!
They were for playing online with other people. Especially since it was possible to have multiples of the same character running around. It helped differentiate people.
However, I also remember most of the cosmetic DLC for Borderlands 2 being disguised as level packs. Where you played through a special level and then got the cosmetics as the reward. A lot of them were super fun too.
Borderlands is preparing to release its third full game after a lengthy hiatus/development time, and it is one where I think it doesn't so much "get away" with being a shoot and loot game, it actively thrives on it and seems to garner a certain level of praise for it.
Considering Borderlands practically created the genre, or at the very least popularized it. I would hope it thrives off it. However, we will see how 3 actually does sales-wise. It's an Epic store exclusive on PC and is getting tons of microtransaction cosmetic items.
Epic store exclusive makes it atleast for my pals a year later publicly availible.
Which is when most companies make their decisions on the success of a game or not.
That's rather late to figure out success. Pre-orders + first week should tell companies most of that story, the rest is a fairly predictable (and therefor something that can be mapped/projected) downward trend from there on out, with very few exceptions.
A year out, and a company is usually neck deep in the next project or has closed up shop.
Borderlands is preparing to release its third full game after a lengthy hiatus/development time, and it is one where I think it doesn't so much "get away" with being a shoot and loot game, it actively thrives on it and seems to garner a certain level of praise for it.
Considering Borderlands practically created the genre, or at the very least popularized it. I would hope it thrives off it. However, we will see how 3 actually does sales-wise. It's an Epic store exclusive on PC and is getting tons of microtransaction cosmetic items.
Epic store exclusive makes it atleast for my pals a year later publicly availible.
Which is when most companies make their decisions on the success of a game or not.
That's rather late to figure out success. Pre-orders + first week should tell companies most of that story, the rest is a fairly predictable (and therefor something that can be mapped/projected) downward trend from there on out, with very few exceptions.
A year out, and a company is usually neck deep in the next project or has closed up shop.
Pre order plus first week is indeed the correct metric.
Yeah but hasn't Epic also said that they will cover any shortfall on predicted first week/month sales. Ergo if a game sells significantly less than projected Epic will make up the difference.
Of course I'd not expect that to remain, but I think they've confirmed it for several games for the moment so for hte developers having gotten a golden handshake just to go exclusive there's now not even any risk for them.
Plus you can be sure for all the whining most gamers will cave and just register on epic store for the game. So its likely to have only a marginal effect. Honestly Epic's huge drama could be overcome if they just spent some of their fortune on the store itself (like putting a cart into it; adding some basic review systems; improving security
That's rather late to figure out success. Pre-orders + first week should tell companies most of that story, the rest is a fairly predictable (and therefor something that can be mapped/projected) downward trend from there on out, with very few exceptions.
A year out, and a company is usually neck deep in the next project or has closed up shop.
Right that's what I'm saying. If a game is exclusive to the epic store for a year. Then the "success" of borderlands 3 will have been decided before it hits steam. So we will be hearing all about how it failed/succeeded as a result of Epic store and microtransactions pretty quickly.
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Overread wrote: Yeah but hasn't Epic also said that they will cover any shortfall on predicted first week/month sales. Ergo if a game sells significantly less than projected Epic will make up the difference.
Of course I'd not expect that to remain, but I think they've confirmed it for several games for the moment so for hte developers having gotten a golden handshake just to go exclusive there's now not even any risk for them.
Plus you can be sure for all the whining most gamers will cave and just register on epic store for the game. So its likely to have only a marginal effect. Honestly Epic's huge drama could be overcome if they just spent some of their fortune on the store itself (like putting a cart into it; adding some basic review systems; improving security
From what I understand Epic is just paying a huge upfront cost to make it exclusive, rather than promising anything on release. But I could be wrong. I'm sure most people will just register on epic. But this is a multiplayer-focused game, so if your friends are waiting for the steam version, you will too. Though that works both ways, if they aren't waiting, then you will sign up for Epic to play with them.
AAA game franchises die because the market isn't willing to pay $100 up front for a video game.
Seriously, the $60 price point has been around for so long and it's killing the industry, causing crap like microtransactions and loot boxes and DLC seasons pass - nobody wants to make a complete game anymore out of the box, and the $60 price point isn't nearly enough to pay for it all. And sales are spikey - very spikey, so you go for some quarters with huge losses and other quarters with huge gains. Ever wonder why games get pushed out the door early? Because a company can't afford to have 2 quarters in a row with a -38% profit margin like EA did in 2013.
There are hundreds of millions of dollars tied up in the development of a single AAA title and the pressure to not fail far outweighs the pressure to put out a really good game. So you get 'safe' sequels that end up being milquetoast experiences until the sales drop to the point where they cannot justify risking a sequel, so they buy the rights to some successful indie game and make a AAA version of it to start the cycle anew.
John Prins wrote: Seriously, the $60 price point has been around for so long and it's killing the industry,
There's a video and like 5 posts about how this is a myth.
nobody wants to make a complete game anymore out of the box
This is true, but I don't think it has anything to do with development costs as much as development time tables.
A good project turns around time 10 years ago would be 5-6 years for a major project. Today, it's almost unheard of for a game from a major AAA publisher to have a turn around time of more than 2-3 years. Even games that are announced 5-6 years before release are rarely actually developed that long. Anthem is the perfect example. They announced the game way back in 2014/2015, it officially entered "development" in 2012, but on release, countless people pointed out that it felt like a thrown together project produced within 2 or so years. Low and behold, after release, this is confirmed, where somehow a 7-year development plan got reduced to an 18-month development project due to a mix of executive meddling, internal conflicts for the developer, and constantly shifting goals and priorities.
This has repeated for several other major games. Aliens: Colonial Marines, Destiny, Destiny 2, Final Fantasy XIV (before Realm Reborn) and countless other games had years-long developments that were practically only 18 to 36 months because project management has become a crippling failure within the industry, wasting mountains of money, developer time, and work hours. So many games feel incomplete on release has nothing to do with "costs." It's just bad project management and timetables too short to ever produce a "complete" game.
And sales are spikey
This is true, but honestly, I think this is a marketing issue, not a development issue. There are a lot of great games that get poor publicity and thus poor sales, seemingly only because no one bothered to get the word out about it. This isn't entirely on publishers or developers though, because gamer communities are constantly shifting. They don't necessarily respond to traditional advertising like other groups, and they're constantly shifting in how they engage with "games news." When I was in high school it was all about the game's magazines. Then it was all about game shows and conventions. Then it became all about game websites, and now it's all about YouTube and Streamers. That's three shifts in just 10 years. Who knows what it'll be next.
EDIT: There's also just plain bad budgeting. I don't know what possessed Sony in 2011 to think the 2014 remake of Tomb Raider would ever sale 15 million copies. That's what they budgeted for and it was an absolutely insane projection. To any other game, 7 million units would be a great success and profitable game. Instead, Sony budgeted for twice that, predictably didn't sale that many copies and then looked at the game as a sales failure. Sony fethed up. Raising their prices wouldn't have fixed the underlying issue that they projected wildly optimistic sales.
I do think part of the issue is that publishers try to approach games a lot like Hollywood approaches movies, but while the budgets of these projects can often be similar in total, the time it takes to make a game is much longer than the time it takes to make a movie and it involves a lot more personnel. The industry desperately needs to innovate how games are made, and arguably has needed a revolution in development cycles for 20 years. Instead companies have been content to simple compress development time into something short and financially managable, which produces games, but doesn't really produce many good ones and causes a lot of burn out in staff. Raising retail prices will not fix that problem in any way whatsoever.
LordofHats is correct here. This isn't a problem unique to video games either-- it's a problem you see in other places with established huge companies, too, like movies (where this kind of thing is almost legendary) and comic books (where editorial mandates screw over writers and cause stories to make little sense or just be plain bad).
Mismanagement in the gaming industry is hardly new, either. It's just that these days, the companies infamous for mismanagement are just too big to actually die due to mismanaging a major project. The last big company to die from mismanagement was THQ, but there were legions of others beforehand-- Sierra, Cavedog, Acclaim, the list gets pretty long if you include mid-size companies, and obscenely long if you include small ones.
Melissia wrote: LordofHats is correct here. This isn't a problem unique to video games either-- it's a problem you see in other places with established huge companies, too, like movies (where this kind of thing is almost legendary) and comic books (where editorial mandates screw over writers and cause stories to make little sense or just be plain bad).
I think the most obvious place to see it is in Prime Time television. The graveyard of cable TV is littered with the corpses of projects and series' that failed pretty much solely because executives mismanaged them. Wrong time slots, forced plot points, episodes aired out of order for no conceivable reason *glares at Fox*
You see the same thing in games, except its bad time projections, poor budgeting, forced mechanics/gameplay elements, and rampant impatience to turn the project into profit. I think most of the games grumblers like me complain about would probably have been much better to great had they just been given even six more months to get their polish together. Compare Anthem to any Elder Scrolls release. Even when glitch-ridden, or even broken (ESO), no Elder Scrolls game has ever come out of a 5-6 year development cycle and felt like it was thrown together in 18 months (though Bethesda seems in recent years to have learned all the wrong lessons from the market, what doesn't bode well for ESVI). I think CD Project Red, Nintendo, and Blizzard really need to be seen as the benchmarks for development right now. Like them, don't like them, whatever. They put out products, and their products are rarely half-assed and its reflected in consumer loyalty, critical acclaim, and financial success. Hell, even Creative Assembly at their worst, managed to put out a game that felt complete (it was just horrifically unpolished), and they seemed to learn their lessons from Rome II and applied them to Warhammer and 3 Kingdoms.
To the developers, I say stop bitching about how your feth-ups aren't your feth-ups and pay attention to who isn't fething up. I'm not even that interested in Cyberpunk 2077 and I bought it solely because CD Project Red doesn't make me ashamed of the human species.
I mean, that's part of why when Nintendo announced it was delaying Animal Crossing to give it that extra bit of polish and finish without overworking its workers, most people celebrated. Yes, it was also a PR stunt because overworked workers were a big topic at the time... but it was also a very Nintendo thing to do. Nintendo takes pride in its intellectual properties.
LordofHats wrote: A good project turns around time 10 years ago would be 5-6 years for a major project. Today, it's almost unheard of for a game from a major AAA publisher to have a turn around time of more than 2-3 years
The big name projects of companies rolling in cash perhaps, like GTA.
Most developers aren't on that scale, and weren't 10 years ago either.
A.T. wrote: Most developers aren't on that scale, and weren't 10 years ago either.
Except they were.
It's why we saw so many companies fold/get bought up throughout the 00s. What was a turn around time as short as a few weeks in the 80s rapidly ballooned in the 90s. You can find a few games that worked and succeeded greatly in a 2-3 year cycle then (Everquest and Lineage are great examples). But once you start moving into the mid-2000s development times started getting high. Some games were practically miracles (KotOR II was developed in basically 12 months). But those weren't normal development times. Back then 4-5 years would be normal, and a whole crap ton companies shuttered or had to sell their stocks to a larger company to weather the costs because development times were getting too long for small companies to fight through. That's how EA, Ubisoft, Activision, and THQ got so big in the first place.
It probably plays a big part in how the big three publishers look at the market too, since they got that big buying up all the companies that couldn't float such hefty costs year to year, and think they'll end up the same if they don't speed up development. Either way, raising prices doesn't fix the real problem: the development cycle needs new ideas. The current one is unsustainable and arguably has been since it first started to emerge in the 90s. It probably goes hand in hand with the fallacy that the bigger the budget the bigger the reward that perpetuates in entertainment.
LordofHats wrote: But once you start moving into the mid-2000s development times started getting high. Some games were practically miracles (KotOR II was developed in basically 12 months). But those weren't normal development times. Back then 4-5 years would be normal.
News to me, and i've been in the industry since 2003 with indie work before that. Only ever saw two games get to 4-5 years - one was early on, engine development across two generations of consoles with a tiny team for most of it, and the other fell into development hell and died because it was a 4-5 year project and it went from next-gen to dated before it even released.
00s were rough for a mix of reasons. Not everyone could make the tech jump, and a lot of companies would underbid to get contract work and kill themselves. Unscrupulous publishers would hold back milestone payments in the months after release (cost of release and all that) and let any small dev who had cut it too thin go bankrupt and die. And at the end of the day small devs with only one or two games on the go at a time were reliant on a continuous flow of new work which leads back around to the underbidding.
Big companies like EA buying up and running down companies was how they made money but not why the companies were folding in the first place.
Final Fantasy XIV (before Realm Reborn) and countless other games had years-long developments that were practically only 18 to 36 months
I suspect that the shorter development time is seen as a trade-off. Players want modern technology in their games. As an example, the current version of Final Fantasy XIV has issues with the game that the developers would like to change. But they can't because the game is still tied to the original 1.0 engine, and there are certain things about that engine that can't be changed, and effectively block the changes to the game that the developers want to make (or at least, block them unless the developers want to spend a ridiculously huge amount of resources). A longer development time means a more polished product. But it also ties you into older technologies that might be considered outdated by the time your game is released.
And some sub-groups within the gamer crowd are notorious for turning their noses up at anything that looks "old".
and Blizzard really need to be seen as the benchmarks for development right now
Things I'm hearing make me start to suspect that Blizzard might be coasting a bit too much on its reputation. As an example, Final Fantasy XIV has apparently received a rather large surge of players over the last while due to how strongly players dislike WoW's latest expansion, Battle for Azeroth. Players have apparently been growing unhappy with Blizzard over the last few expansions. BfA was apparently the last straw for quite a few of them, and once they make the decision to quit, they look for a similar game. Final Fantasy XIV is probably the closest thing to it right now, and has been quite popular with players under the game's current leadership. So players make the jump.
That's not to say that everyone's doing it. I don't know how many players WoW has lost or retained lately (Blizzard doesn't release subscription numbers anymore). I don't think WoW's in danger of shutting down yet (for that matter, the previous Final Fantasy MMORPG *still* has servers up for PC players, even though no further development is taking place for the game) And I suspect that quite a few players who bailed from WoW just quit playing MMORPGs. But Final Fantasy XIV has had a huge surge in players recently (even before the expansion came out; and note that what FFXIV considers "huge" would have been considered small during WoW's hey-day), to the point where the developers felt the need to add a third data center exclusively for the North American game servers. And if you read comments from new players at places like the FFXIV Reddit page, most of the posts invariably start along the lines of, "I was a WoW player, but BfA..."
In short, Blizzard *might* be coming to the same point that Bioware was at back in 2011.
Things I'm hearing make me start to suspect that Blizzard might be coasting a bit too much on its reputation.
Oh, they've been coasting on their reputation and blind nostalgia for years.
But it's not so bad that I feel like I can discount that they still manage to put out good products, especially compared to their competitors.
Until you put the rosetinted glasses away and realize that activision-blizzard has pulled some serious gak, regarding workers, custommers and psychological exploitation.
Honestly WoW is at that age where any release is going to have a significant portion of "nay sayers". It's a huge title and the longer a title is out and the more popular it becomes the louder that voice become;s however the important thing is that it remains a minor voice next to the purchases and positive reviews.
I'd say their only real crime is that they appear to have lost their good writers and RTS feel. SC2 is a great game with a good story; its just not quite got that same feel of the old game and the story takes a few odd twists taht clearly were not intended originally.
My only worry is that Starcraft 3 (whenever it might appear) winds up being MMO RTS (online all the time) and that Diablo 4 ends up more of an mmo and thus again always online (even though those darn console users got it offline).
Also they appear to be about the only big name trying to make big strides in AI development which I really hope takes off and provides some trickle down technology and ideas for other companies. RTS AI tends to show AI at its most challenged and tends to be an area where I've not really seen it make big strides. If anything most AI in RTS appear to not really have advanced as far as areas like graphics or interfaces.
Overread wrote: Honestly WoW is at that age where any release is going to have a significant portion of "nay sayers". It's a huge title and the longer a title is out and the more popular it becomes the louder that voice become;s however the important thing is that it remains a minor voice next to the purchases and positive reviews.
Are they doing well, though? We don't know since they don't publish subscription numbers. People *are* leaving, and in large enough numbers to impact other games like Final Fantasy XIV. The problem is that we don't know if the numbers leaving are large enough to impact World of Warcraft. There's simply not enough data available to answer the question.
But it's not so bad that I feel like I can discount that they still manage to put out good products, especially compared to their competitors.
Which is why I picked 2011 as the comparison point for Bioware.
2011 was the first year when people looked at a Bioware game and said, "Wait a minute..." That was the year that saw the release of Dragon Age 2. The reception for that game was... considerably less enthusiastic... than it had been for previous Bioware games (note that I actually liked DA2, personally). The following year, 2012, was the year of the Mass Effect 3 backlash, which further damaged Bioware's reputation with players. Dragon Age 3 came out in 2014, and it seemed as if Bioware was back in the good graces of the players again. Everything seemed to be back on track for the company. The next release was in 2017... and that was Mass Effect: Andromeda.
In short, in 2011, Bioware was seemingly at the top of their game. They released a well-received Star Wars game that year. And they released the sequel to one of their popular in-house franchises. But that sequel also marked the point at which players started to turn against the developer. And while Dragon Age 3 was quite popular when it was released, every single *other* game since then has been attacked. All indications are that Bioware could have pulled out of the spin that started in 2011. But it didn't.
Blizzard *could* pull things off and right the ship. Or it could make things a lot worse, just as Bioware apparently did following Dragon Age 2.
Also worth noting, given one of the other threads currently popular in this forum right now -
Blizzard's active franchises at the moment are Warcraft (primarily through the MMORPG, though the rerelease of Warcraft 3 may indicate that something else is in the pipeline for the setting), Starcraft (represented by Starcraft 2; the Protoss expansion for the game left me with an "MMORPG incoming" vibe, though there's been no further sign of that, afaik), Diablo (represented by Diablo 3, and... uh... *that* mobile game), Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, and Hearthstone. The latter three all rely on micro-transactions as the way to pay for themselves.
Until you put the rosetinted glasses away and realize that activision-blizzard has pulled some serious gak, regarding workers, custommers and psychological exploitation.
Does every sentence in this thread need to be prefaced with "I'm not saying they're saints," or can people just assume that words only cover what they say and don't extend further? I never said Activision-Blizzard was a good company. I said they were good developers, and they are. They can put a product together on a reasonable budget, within a reasonable timeframe, and while they're certainly slipping of late they're not quite on EA's level so credit where it's due.
Things I'm hearing make me start to suspect that Blizzard might be coasting a bit too much on its reputation. As an example, Final Fantasy XIV has apparently received a rather large surge of players over the last while due to how strongly players dislike WoW's latest expansion, Battle for Azeroth. Players have apparently been growing unhappy with Blizzard over the last few expansions.
Warlords of Draenor was generally unliked. I resubbed towards the end of it, and found it fine, but that was after it got improved and I skipped the 7 months previous that people were complaining about.
Legion was a good, solid expansion I played from start to finish. Few players (but for the impossible to please ones) actually disliked it.
Battle for Azeroth tried too hard to bring back PvP and shoehorned the economy into Mythic Dungeon running, which turned off a lot of the more casual players. The storyline is good, but it was only worth a couple months before you've leveled a few toons and done all the story missions. It didn't hold me like Legion did.
Long story short, all of the last 3 expansions were easily worth the money plus a couple months of subscription. I didn't even pay for subscription with real money (selling gold for subscription tokens) through any of the last three and actually burned through some gold for Overwatch lootboxes and the last 2 expansions, so I was basically playing for zero dollars for the last 2 years.
I really can't complain about Blizzard in that regard - they got SOMEBODY's money (the person who paid real money for gold), just not mine.
Looking foward to Borderlands 3, Dragon age 4 and Xcom 3 (Eventually), so, in the run idk, but I wouldn't say so. I usually play not AAA games, but there are those I'm excited for.
Overread wrote: If anything most AI in RTS appear to not really have advanced as far as areas like graphics or interfaces.
It's a pretty big step between a state engine approach and a competent (and fast) analytical AI. They've currently got deepminds' alphastar playing starcraft 2 online.
Yeah, I'm not really seeing where this idea that 4-5 years was normal development time in the past is coming from.
To look at some of the biggest releases of the PS1/PS2 era:
Final Fantasy VII had effectively 2 years of development during which time Square had to learn how to work in 3D and on 32 bit hardware. Final Fantasy VIII also only had two years. Final Fantasy IX had less than two full years.
Then Final Fantasy X had two years which involved getting to grips with the new tech of the PS2. Final Fantasy XII had quite a long development, ending up at 6 years (starting in 2000 and being released 2006) but that is the longest until the massive development of Final Fantasy XV.
Another example:
There was one year between the releases of Crash Bandcoot 2 and 3.
If you are iterating on your previous concept and using the same technology (such as the yearly Call of Duty games, Fifa, Madden etc.) then you do not need a long time as you can reuse the assets you already developed with some changes and improvements.
Just a bit of a note here, that last one's not a good objection IMO. Crash Bandicoot 3 used the same exact engine and most of the exact same assets as 2 did.
Certainly a lot of sequels of that kind did go faster due to re-use of assets, but that doesn't reflect on every project.
Melissia wrote: Just a bit of a note here, that last one's not a good objection IMO. Crash Bandicoot 3 used the same exact engine and most of the exact same assets as 2 did.
Certainly a lot of sequels of that kind did go faster due to re-use of assets, but that doesn't reflect on every project.
Agreed, I did an edit in to mention that.
Still, though the assets and engine remained the same, a lot changed mechanically between 2 and 3 with the introduction of the power-ups and time trial relics, which necessitated a different approach to designing levels.
Then there's Crash Team Racing which had 8 months of development time.
Right, but that still reduces the effort and time it takes. That's why sequels were so popular. See also: yearly releases of sports games which are often little more than stat adjustments with a few gimmicks thrown in.
A Town Called Malus wrote: Final Fantasy XII had quite a long development, ending up at 6 years (starting in 200 and being released 2006) but that is the longest until the massive development of Final Fantasy XV.
Also worth noting -
Final Fantasy XII wasn't well-liked by players during the original release. Based on what I've heard, the rerelease has been much more positively received.
Final Fantasy XV was originally supposed to connect in some fashion (that was never completely explained) to Final Fantasy XIII. The massive snarl that the latter turned into might have something to do with why XV's development took as long as it did.
Lance845 wrote: Pokemon, mario, legend of zelda, metroid, castlevania.
One of those is not like the others. One of those is now only pachinko machines.
And Pokemon is facing some serious grumbling from the fanbase for the decision to not include the national 'dex. It was argued that it was so that the animations and models for the pokemon included could be made the best they could be, but then it was seen that some of them were really lazy and hadn't changed from Let's Go! which in turn were the same as from the games on the 3DS.
Honestly when you consider the insane revenue Pokemon games make its actually quite shocking how low tech their graphics and animations are in the majority of their games. Granted part of that is style and part the fact that they were mobile games for so long; but in general its shocking that they can't do more considering that they should have insane investment potential.
Overread wrote: Honestly when you consider the insane revenue Pokemon games make its actually quite shocking how low tech their graphics and animations are in the majority of their games. Granted part of that is style and part the fact that they were mobile games for so long; but in general its shocking that they can't do more considering that they should have insane investment potential.
Honestly, I think this is where Nintendo is right and everyone else is wrong.
Stop burning money on the graphics dragon. It's a big part imo of how Nintendo keeps their projects on a controlled budgeted that can produce a profit. The graphics dragon only ever wants more, and it doesn't actually improve gameplay past a certain point. Tomb Raider (2014) spend a few million dollars just to animated Laura's hair. Does anyone really care that much about Laura's hair? I don't. That money could have gone somewhere better, or even just not have been spent. Put the money where it actually matters and stop burning it on something no one will appreciate in a year.
Overread wrote: Honestly when you consider the insane revenue Pokemon games make its actually quite shocking how low tech their graphics and animations are in the majority of their games. Granted part of that is style and part the fact that they were mobile games for so long; but in general its shocking that they can't do more considering that they should have insane investment potential.
Honestly, I think this is where Nintendo is right and everyone else is wrong.
Stop burning money on the graphics dragon. It's a big part imo of how Nintendo keeps their projects on a controlled budgeted that can produce a profit. The graphics dragon only ever wants more, and it doesn't actually improve gameplay past a certain point. Tomb Raider (2014) spend a few million dollars just to animated Laura's hair. Does anyone really care that much about Laura's hair? I don't. That money could have gone somewhere better, or even just not have been spent. Put the money where it actually matters and stop burning it on something no one will appreciate in a year.
I don't disagree with you on this. The problem with pokemon right now, is that they claimed they couldn't put all 800+ pokemon into the new game because of the time needed for modeling and rigging animations. But 90% of pokemon attack animations are the model bouncing forward and a quick graphic to imply contact was made.
LordofHats wrote: The graphics dragon only ever wants more, and it doesn't actually improve gameplay past a certain point.
Part of it is keeping up with everyone else.
I remember seeing one of the pre-prod versions of Milo and Kate (unreleased kinect launch title) and thinking there was no way they could release it alongside the other animal-based launch title kinectimals. There was nothing wrong with the graphics, and better fur shaders don't improve gameplay, but that wouldn't have stopped every video, review, screenshot, and first impression calling out how outdated it looked in comparison.
Considering that Pokemon games bring much less money than Pokemon merch, I think it's perfectly understandable that they're not investing too much into what's essentially an ad for their plushies, mugs, t-shirts and whatnots.
Cronch wrote: Considering that Pokemon games bring much less money than Pokemon merch, I think it's perfectly understandable that they're not investing too much into what's essentially an ad for their plushies, mugs, t-shirts and whatnots.
They might bring less revenue but we are still talking about games that sell into the millions of copies
And as noted above its not as if they've made any huge strides; in fact if you look at many of their games the actual core engine and designs haven't really changed a huge amount from their Gameboy days. Heck the AI in most still just picks random to play each turn. Meanwhile combat is still the same. Part of that is keeping it all backward compatible which is freaking awesome in todays market (or at least forward compatible). that's where the new Switch game is letting them down its not being as forward compatible as the previous games.
Thing is I think that they are suffering both a design shortfall and the issue that with over 800 monsters they are finding it harder to give each one its own niche and focus beyond visual appeal.
That said honestly I expect them to patch/mod/dlc in more pokemon to the game on the Switch; it just makes sense esp in light of the feedback.
Personally what shocks me more is that Pokemon, for all its millions of units sold and its really simple formula, hasn't really got any competition. Almost any other game that made that much money would have a litany of other games copycatting it. Yes Pokemon only really has Digimon in the same market.
so not only is it a game that hasn't really changed its also a game that hasn't really found itself with much competition to force it to change all that much. This is odd considering that the game is still targeted at kids (A continually renewable market which I think is part why it keeps going strong) and that the adult market hasn't picked up its own monster battling games; since there's clearly a massive adult market interested in the game.
Cronch wrote: Considering that Pokemon games bring much less money than Pokemon merch, I think it's perfectly understandable that they're not investing too much into what's essentially an ad for their plushies, mugs, t-shirts and whatnots.
They might bring less revenue but we are still talking about games that sell into the millions of copies
And as noted above its not as if they've made any huge strides; in fact if you look at many of their games the actual core engine and designs haven't really changed a huge amount from their Gameboy days. Heck the AI in most still just picks random to play each turn. Meanwhile combat is still the same. Part of that is keeping it all backward compatible which is freaking awesome in todays market (or at least forward compatible). that's where the new Switch game is letting them down its not being as forward compatible as the previous games.
Thing is I think that they are suffering both a design shortfall and the issue that with over 800 monsters they are finding it harder to give each one its own niche and focus beyond visual appeal.
That said honestly I expect them to patch/mod/dlc in more pokemon to the game on the Switch; it just makes sense esp in light of the feedback.
Personally what shocks me more is that Pokemon, for all its millions of units sold and its really simple formula, hasn't really got any competition. Almost any other game that made that much money would have a litany of other games copycatting it. Yes Pokemon only really has Digimon in the same market.
so not only is it a game that hasn't really changed its also a game that hasn't really found itself with much competition to force it to change all that much. This is odd considering that the game is still targeted at kids (A continually renewable market which I think is part why it keeps going strong) and that the adult market hasn't picked up its own monster battling games; since there's clearly a massive adult market interested in the game.
Probably got to do with the relativew cheap price on it, quality standardised formulae that works by Nintendo and the fact it is quasi the OG, ergo it successfully brought itself into a positio of what is essentially total market dominance.
Personally what shocks me more is that Pokemon, for all its millions of units sold and its really simple formula, hasn't really got any competition
But it does, it's just that those games never reach 1/10th of Pokemon's popularity. There was Yokai Watch, and other stuff I can't remember anymore...which sort of shows how hard it is to break their domination. As NotOnline said, they got to the formula first and managed to hit the jackpot with it. Young kids are introduced to it via parents/older siblings who watched it as kids, and once the emotional connection is there, it's so much harder to just drop it and pick a different franchise to care for.
From my view point its not even that other games don't get to the 1/10th position its that they don't even seem to make it mainstream - at least in the EU market (the Japan market might be very different).
They don't all have to be best sellers, but you'd imagine with such a simple and successful formula that there would be some other well known names besides Digimon. Certainly a few from more recent generation. If you look at almost any other major game or franchise there are loads of copy-cats many of which never make it big but there's normally a good handful that you can spot which make it big enough to have a decent exposure on the market.
Personally what shocks me more is that Pokemon, for all its millions of units sold and its really simple formula, hasn't really got any competition. Almost any other game that made that much money would have a litany of other games copycatting it. Yes Pokemon only really has Digimon in the same market.
Yo Kai watch made an effort, but I think it fell off pretty quickly. There were a solid 6 months though where it was outselling pokemon merch.
I don't disagree with you on this. The problem with pokemon right now, is that they claimed they couldn't put all 800+ pokemon into the new game because of the time needed for modeling and rigging animations. But 90% of pokemon attack animations are the model bouncing forward and a quick graphic to imply contact was made.
As long as any Pokemon can technically use any move, the options for animations are going to be somewhat limited unfortunately. The game pretty much has to play a generic animation with special effects layered on top until they start putting some real limits on movepools.
This isn't the first time we've seen the move to 3D animation require limiting the content in the games; its just the first time its hit the main series. For example, the original Pokemon Stadium in Japan only had 41 Pokemon available and those early models were still in use at least as far out as the Colosseum games while they continually added to their library. I'm a little surprised they're not just reusing the Sun & Moon skeletons though.
I don't disagree with you on this. The problem with pokemon right now, is that they claimed they couldn't put all 800+ pokemon into the new game because of the time needed for modeling and rigging animations. But 90% of pokemon attack animations are the model bouncing forward and a quick graphic to imply contact was made.
As long as any Pokemon can technically use any move, the options for animations are going to be somewhat limited unfortunately. The game pretty much has to play a generic animation with special effects layered on top until they start putting some real limits on movepools.
This isn't the first time we've seen the move to 3D animation require limiting the content in the games; its just the first time its hit the main series. For example, the original Pokemon Stadium in Japan only had 41 Pokemon available and those early models were still in use at least as far out as the Colosseum games while they continually added to their library. I'm a little surprised they're not just reusing the Sun & Moon skeletons though.
I'm not asking for personalized animations for every move. But I also don't want to see the animations being blamed for not having every pokemon when what they have can barely be called animation at all.
Gamefreak is acting like an indie dev. When they have the budget of a major studio. If they need more people to get the pokemon in the game. Then they should hire more people.
Amusingly enough - given their mature content (including things like Mara...) - the various Shin Megami Tensai and Persona games are arguably competitors of a sort. Now admittedly, people don't play these games purely for the "gotta catch 'em all" aspect. But it is an important part of the gameplay that keeps people playing.
Eumerin wrote: Amusingly enough - given their mature content (including things like Mara...) - the various Shin Megami Tensai and Persona games are arguably competitors of a sort. Now admittedly, people don't play these games purely for the "gotta catch 'em all" aspect. But it is an important part of the gameplay that keeps people playing.
Whenever I recommend a persona game to someone I always say "the combat plays like pokemon, there are clear type advantages and disadvantages and you build your party to match it."
I think its a public excuse for a better reason. Triming the fat. There are more than enough pokemon in the games that transfering the rest is just a necesity to fill a log that looks neat but isnt actually any fun and necessitates filling the game with a laundry list of locations and items to get pokemon to change forms.
A lamp, a mossy rock, a icy rock, a mirror, disk drives, tablets, machines, meteorites, etc etc..
All so that THIS dex can have every pokemon in every form. feth that. Give me a tight balanced 300ish pokemon instead of the thousand that exist with all their baggage. And give the world its own unique landscape instead of squeezing in the gimmicks of the last 30 years.
The other issue is that because of the way they release pokemon and, especially, some of the limited ones. The more games they make the longer the daisy train is between games that have required pokemon that are unique to it; and the more pokemon that wind up being impossible to get through legit means for the player; excepting trading with those who breed them. Seriously you can go on ebay now and for a few £ you can get most of the limited exclusives from people doing just that for any who get games later and past the time when nitendo releases the time limited releases or who don't get to attend release events.
Though they could easily get around this by putting them all in one big massive super game.
I suspect they are trapped, wanting to cut some and at the same time required to add them to keep the continuity going. A break in that could easily dissuade a huge chunk of the market from "catch-em-all".
That said it could also be that they remove them now and then later we get a free or paid DLC block that adds them in. Perfectly possible and heck they might even bow to pressure and do that later; or release "Pokemon Shield/Sword Ultra" and do it that way.
Overread wrote: Honestly when you consider the insane revenue Pokemon games make its actually quite shocking how low tech their graphics and animations are in the majority of their games. Granted part of that is style and part the fact that they were mobile games for so long; but in general its shocking that they can't do more considering that they should have insane investment potential.
Honestly, I think this is where Nintendo is right and everyone else is wrong.
Stop burning money on the graphics dragon. It's a big part imo of how Nintendo keeps their projects on a controlled budgeted that can produce a profit. The graphics dragon only ever wants more, and it doesn't actually improve gameplay past a certain point. Tomb Raider (2014) spend a few million dollars just to animated Laura's hair. Does anyone really care that much about Laura's hair? I don't. That money could have gone somewhere better, or even just not have been spent. Put the money where it actually matters and stop burning it on something no one will appreciate in a year.
It isn't Nintendo's call. They only have 1/3 of the power over the Pokemon franchise. Also, it has been shown that Nintendo is all in on better animations considering both Pokemon Stadium games put out on major consoles had better graphics and animations than any Pokemon generation that has ever been put out.
Zelda can go big with open world, why not Pokemon? It made sense that they could get away with it on a handheld charging $40. But this is going to be a main console game at $60 and it honestly looks worse than the handheld games do. There are a lot of other big issues, such as adding in mechanics and then dropping them quick for no reason. Mega Stones were a great addition, now they are just a meh side thing nobody will use anymore.....
Overread wrote: Honestly when you consider the insane revenue Pokemon games make its actually quite shocking how low tech their graphics and animations are in the majority of their games. Granted part of that is style and part the fact that they were mobile games for so long; but in general its shocking that they can't do more considering that they should have insane investment potential.
Honestly, I think this is where Nintendo is right and everyone else is wrong.
Stop burning money on the graphics dragon. It's a big part imo of how Nintendo keeps their projects on a controlled budgeted that can produce a profit. The graphics dragon only ever wants more, and it doesn't actually improve gameplay past a certain point. Tomb Raider (2014) spend a few million dollars just to animated Laura's hair. Does anyone really care that much about Laura's hair? I don't. That money could have gone somewhere better, or even just not have been spent. Put the money where it actually matters and stop burning it on something no one will appreciate in a year.
It isn't Nintendo's call. They only have 1/3 of the power over the Pokemon franchise. Also, it has been shown that Nintendo is all in on better animations considering both Pokemon Stadium games put out on major consoles had better graphics and animations than any Pokemon generation that has ever been put out.
Zelda can go big with open world, why not Pokemon? It made sense that they could get away with it on a handheld charging $40. But this is going to be a main console game at $60 and it honestly looks worse than the handheld games do. There are a lot of other big issues, such as adding in mechanics and then dropping them quick for no reason. Mega Stones were a great addition, now they are just a meh side thing nobody will use anymore.....
I do think the biggest missed opportunity of Pokemon is that there isn't a full-blown MMO. The franchise is ripe for it, but Nintendo and its partners seem averse to mixing the formula up that much. Yes, there's pokemon go. Don't care. It's not the same thing. I think Nintendo risks losing out big time by passing this over. TemTem have half a million as an under advertised "Not Pokemon" Pokemon game on Kickstarter alone and their art design is notably not as good as Pokemon's.
I've never thought the Pokemon formula really translates that well to an MMO, simply because there's not a lot of cooperation involved. You could make a really PVP heavy version of it, but I think people would quickly recognize the failings of the universe when you're really competing to the "the best".
Pokemon Go is probably the ideal MMO implementation of the concept, but it makes a ton of concessions to make it work. It's replaced the main games for me for that reason, but I keep hoping for the main games to get a huge shakeup to bring me back.
It would make a powerful MMO if done right. It just would need to be based around adventuring parties of Pokemon trainers. Either go it alone or form your own party for adventures into dark caves, over the high seas, in the skies etc... A wealth of minigames related to your pokemon as well as non combat related games and features such as running a breeding centre etc..
With the right team Pokemon lends itself fabulously to an MMO. The major issues though would be that its target market would be kids whilst adults would likely be a heavy influence so there'd be elements of having to deal with two very different user groups. You really can't have 30-40-50 year olds swearing like sailors around swear filters to kids 10 years old or not much older. Heck it might be the very reason that they've never done an MMO - though having said that minecraft appears to work and that has a similar age bracket spread; though that tends to work through private servers and private worlds rather than a free for all open setting.
Suffice it to say that the pokemon formula lends itself well to the structure of an MMO - the core issue would likely be community management and moderation.
Does it though? I mean what happens when the party encounters a Pokemon? Are they just essentially a loot roll or do you have to start having Pokemon herds so everyone has something to fight/catch.
I'm not saying it can't work. The game is loaded with multiplayer elements that feel natural to have multiple players controlling. I just don't think the core experience, but with other people, works as well in practice as it feels like it should and needs a lot of significant little changes to work.
LunarSol wrote: Does it though? I mean what happens when the party encounters a Pokemon? Are they just essentially a loot roll or do you have to start having Pokemon herds so everyone has something to fight/catch.
If it were me? Generic "questing" and catching Pokemon would still be a primarily solo event. Someone could come along to help, but as in the Pokemon world, a player would need to catch their own mon. I see no reason to alter this from the basic formula. Contrary to the idiocy of some MMO developers, not everything in an MMO needs to be group-based. In fact, making everything in an MMO group based is generally detrimental to design. There are times where people just want to play alone, or who like being in a world full of other people they don't play with (cause some people are weird).
Really, the strength of an MMO set in Pokemon would be its ability to be "low system requirements" and "mechanically broad but simple." Like the handheld games themselves. I'd focus such a game heavily on seasonal events, a regular cycle of PVP and PVE world quests that present new and unique challenges for players that they can tackle on their own or in groups. You could have solo, team, and battle royal tournaments regularly, raids in the form of fighting a Team or dealing with angry Pokemon/legendaries who are upset or whatever. The potential is limitless.
It creates a basic and repeatable play cycle: catch mon and play story mode solo/in small groups with friends and engage in world events with large groups of players. The expansions practically write themselves. Make the system flexible enough, and you could do all kinds of things like capture the flag or king of the hill tournament (shuckle would finally be good at something), little league tournaments for unevolved pokemon.
I'd pay a subscription for that game if they did it right. Maybe even if they didn't.
I'd probably build a whole new battle system, cause the Pokemon battles of the Handhelds do not translate well into an MMO space, which I think is actually the biggest challenge (you probably wouldn't be able to include every mon on release).
To be sure, if you try to make "World of Pokemon" you're probably going to fail. A Pokemon MMO would need to adjust for the variety of audience it would draw, and for the unique expectations people would have of such a game. You can't just build it like WoW or Guild Wars (though Guild Wars' event system would probably work pretty well for it).
LunarSol wrote: Does it though? I mean what happens when the party encounters a Pokemon? Are they just essentially a loot roll or do you have to start having Pokemon herds so everyone has something to fight/catch.
If it were me? Generic "questing" and catching Pokemon would still be a primarily solo event. Someone could come along to help, but as in the Pokemon world, a player would need to catch their own mon. I see no reason to alter this from the basic formula. Contrary to the idiocy of some MMO developers, not everything in an MMO needs to be group-based. In fact, making everything in an MMO group based is generally detrimental to design. There are times where people just want to play alone, or who like being in a world full of other people they don't play with (cause some people are weird).
Really, the strength of an MMO set in Pokemon would be its ability to be "low system requirements" and "mechanically broad but simple." Like the handheld games themselves. I'd focus such a game heavily on seasonal events, a regular cycle of PVP and PVE world quests that present new and unique challenges for players that they can tackle on their own or in groups. You could have solo, team, and battle royal tournaments regularly, raids in the form of fighting a Team or dealing with angry Pokemon/legendaries who are upset or whatever. The potential is limitless.
It creates a basic and repeatable play cycle: catch mon and play story mode solo/in small groups with friends and engage in world events with large groups of players. The expansions practically write themselves. Make the system flexible enough, and you could do all kinds of things like capture the flag or king of the hill tournament (shuckle would finally be good at something), little league tournaments for unevolved pokemon.
I'd pay a subscription for that game if they did it right. Maybe even if they didn't.
I'd probably build a whole new battle system, cause the Pokemon battles of the Handhelds do not translate well into an MMO space, which I think is actually the biggest challenge (you probably wouldn't be able to include every mon on release).
To be sure, if you try to make "World of Pokemon" you're probably going to fail. A Pokemon MMO would need to adjust for the variety of audience it would draw, and for the unique expectations people would have of such a game. You can't just build it like WoW or Guild Wars (though Guild Wars' event system would probably work pretty well for it).
A couple of things. . . I for one love a lot of the single-player elements of STO. It isn't so much playing an MMO to "be alone" more like. . . playing a solo game where you're also chatting/BSing with a community (just the way the game is set up really lends itself to predominately single player activity).
I think a hurdle for any Pokemon MMO is indeed the pokemon and the battle system in itself. . . Every single MMO I've ever played has an item rarity system, and surely Pokemon would be no different. Would the devs make the poke gear (balls, bait, repel, health pots, etc) rarity leveled, or do you make the mon themselves rarity locked? Or, do you create a bizarre system wherein your "in play" pokemon has gear slots with those gear items being rarity graded?
And then there's the battling system as well. As is rightly pointed out, the turn-based JRPG style combat typically doesn't translate well in an MMO, however the stadium-esque "thing" with trainers calling out attacks is a fairly important part of the world (I think the scene in Detective Pikachu may be a "decent" workaround). So, would players control a single Mon in real time so that its something more like a cross between WoW and Mortal Kombat?
LunarSol wrote: Does it though? I mean what happens when the party encounters a Pokemon? Are they just essentially a loot roll or do you have to start having Pokemon herds so everyone has something to fight/catch.
If it were me? Generic "questing" and catching Pokemon would still be a primarily solo event. Someone could come along to help, but as in the Pokemon world, a player would need to catch their own mon. I see no reason to alter this from the basic formula. Contrary to the idiocy of some MMO developers, not everything in an MMO needs to be group-based. In fact, making everything in an MMO group based is generally detrimental to design. There are times where people just want to play alone, or who like being in a world full of other people they don't play with (cause some people are weird).
Really, the strength of an MMO set in Pokemon would be its ability to be "low system requirements" and "mechanically broad but simple." Like the handheld games themselves. I'd focus such a game heavily on seasonal events, a regular cycle of PVP and PVE world quests that present new and unique challenges for players that they can tackle on their own or in groups. You could have solo, team, and battle royal tournaments regularly, raids in the form of fighting a Team or dealing with angry Pokemon/legendaries who are upset or whatever. The potential is limitless.
It creates a basic and repeatable play cycle: catch mon and play story mode solo/in small groups with friends and engage in world events with large groups of players. The expansions practically write themselves. Make the system flexible enough, and you could do all kinds of things like capture the flag or king of the hill tournament (shuckle would finally be good at something), little league tournaments for unevolved pokemon.
I'd pay a subscription for that game if they did it right. Maybe even if they didn't.
I'd probably build a whole new battle system, cause the Pokemon battles of the Handhelds do not translate well into an MMO space, which I think is actually the biggest challenge (you probably wouldn't be able to include every mon on release).
To be sure, if you try to make "World of Pokemon" you're probably going to fail. A Pokemon MMO would need to adjust for the variety of audience it would draw, and for the unique expectations people would have of such a game. You can't just build it like WoW or Guild Wars (though Guild Wars' event system would probably work pretty well for it).
A couple of things. . . I for one love a lot of the single-player elements of STO. It isn't so much playing an MMO to "be alone" more like. . . playing a solo game where you're also chatting/BSing with a community (just the way the game is set up really lends itself to predominately single player activity).
I think a hurdle for any Pokemon MMO is indeed the pokemon and the battle system in itself. . . Every single MMO I've ever played has an item rarity system, and surely Pokemon would be no different. Would the devs make the poke gear (balls, bait, repel, health pots, etc) rarity leveled, or do you make the mon themselves rarity locked? Or, do you create a bizarre system wherein your "in play" pokemon has gear slots with those gear items being rarity graded?
And then there's the battling system as well. As is rightly pointed out, the turn-based JRPG style combat typically doesn't translate well in an MMO, however the stadium-esque "thing" with trainers calling out attacks is a fairly important part of the world (I think the scene in Detective Pikachu may be a "decent" workaround). So, would players control a single Mon in real time so that its something more like a cross between WoW and Mortal Kombat?
Why would you need to follow what anyone else has done?
I have thought about a Pokemon MMO before. Here is what I would do.
-Character creation involves picking home region and "class".
--Home region decides your starting town, and the first pokemon league you need to beat before venturing out into the larger world.
--Your class is either one of the Pokemon types or a generic all encompassing type. Choosing a Type gives you a small bonus to Exp when raising that specific type of Pokemon and a penalty to it's weakness types. I.E. If you pick Dragon Trainer you get a +10% Exp for Dragon Types and a -5% to Faerie Types or some gak. It also grants you access to some TMs (thinking 3-5 and includes the ultimate moves of whatever type it is) that are otherwise not available. Which makes trading for a dragon type with a TM that you can't get access to valuable and encourages the trading economy within the game. Choosing the Generic trainer type gives you a 5% Exp bonus to all pokemon types and maybe a Bonus to breeding or a 2% chance for rarer pokemon to pop up in random battle or some gak but you get no access to the TMs the other trainer types get. The point being to get trainers reliant on other trainers to breed and raise the best possible pokemon. Nobody can do it all on their own.
-You then do the typical game of traveling around your region, getting 8 badges. Once you have earned your 8th badge you can fight the league/champion as per normal. Beating the elite 4 opens up the access to other regions. Beating the CHampion gets you access to new items or whatever in shops.
-The moment you leave your starting area and enter a new region your pokemons stats scale to your # of badges in the new area. You need to earn the badges again to scale them back up so you can face the next league. (At no badges they will be roughly equivalent to level 12ish, 1 badge up to 20 etc etc... until the 8th badge allows them to be full power again). You keep your moves and everything but the stats are those of a lower level version of your pokemon.
-Legendary Pokemon and rare pokemon will be location or region wide events that get trainers hunting all over the place for the fethers and more or less act as raid content.
-Different teams would make trouble in different parts of the world and the general story of that region would unfold as normal. But also OTHER teams could show up in different regions tied to events. Pokebucks, rare pokeballs/items are rewards and maybe even pokemon.
So, base line leveling up/game play involves a mix of completing Pokedexes, breeding, and raising and training pokemon. Earning badges and beating leagues. Then, you have the side games of beauty contests, dress ups, battle towers, pvp, whatever.. Then you get the end game of really breeding and raising the best teams which are inherently a group activity because of the way the class system works. Then there is the difficulty of hunting down legendaries. No give aways. You gotta earn them. Expansions add new regions which open up new areas with more Pokemons to get. - This could also include things like the portals and gak.
LordofHats wrote: I do think the biggest missed opportunity of Pokemon is that there isn't a full-blown MMO. The franchise is ripe for it, but Nintendo and its partners seem averse to mixing the formula up that much.
Their current business model is selling pokemon over and over again, once a year like a sports franchise. I guess they might be worried about an MMO being a single purchase that players burn out on.
LordofHats wrote: I do think the biggest missed opportunity of Pokemon is that there isn't a full-blown MMO. The franchise is ripe for it, but Nintendo and its partners seem averse to mixing the formula up that much.
Their current business model is selling pokemon over and over again, once a year like a sports franchise. I guess they might be worried about an MMO being a single purchase that players burn out on.
Why would they release a game in a genre that not only they have very little if any experience in, but also one that kills, murders and buries companies and franchises? WoW aside, because it's Pokemon of MMO world, every other MMO has much smaller reach than any single Pokemon game.
Most MMOs have the risk that they are either taking a game that has a singleplayer market established and try to take it into a new market of MMO, hoping that enough fans make the jump initially to get it going; or they are totally new ventures.
Pokemon has the bonus that whilst it has core games, it also has anime, cards and a huge market outside of just the games itself. So they have a vast potential to get it started. If anything, outside of the social aspects I noted above, their other issue would be having strong and robust enough code and enough servers to take the initial launch stress. They'd probably benefit greatly from an "open beta" just to try and spread out the initial load jump so that they can have as smooth a launch as possible.
Though they would never have a bug free launch; at least it would cut down on the "I want to play but I can't connect/server lag" issues that plague most mmos in launch weeks.
The other bonus is that if it sunk they've still got their regular revenue streams to fall back on. I guess the issue is with it being apparent how comparatively little of their money goes into their current games; I wonder how much the company actually holds for re-investment. It might be that they manage to remain relevant but advertising, marketing and other areas are leaching away vast sums to keep the whole structure float; or perhaps its just a cash cow leaching money out to managers; or into other projects/games/regions
Again, not seeing any advantage to launching an MMO for the company. And if they actually did, MMO fans (so people in 30-40s now) wouldn't even enjoy it anyway. Look at how limited interactions are in Splatoon games.
Nintendo is a company that loves it's family friendly reputation, so they'd have to cut communication down to keep it that way.
Cronch wrote: Again, not seeing any advantage to launching an MMO for the company. And if they actually did, MMO fans (so people in 30-40s now) wouldn't even enjoy it anyway. Look at how limited interactions are in Splatoon games.
Nintendo is a company that loves it's family friendly reputation, so they'd have to cut communication down to keep it that way.
Also there's the MMO market as a life service before it was cool and it is allready oversaturated.
If it were me? Generic "questing" and catching Pokemon would still be a primarily solo event. Someone could come along to help, but as in the Pokemon world, a player would need to catch their own mon. I see no reason to alter this from the basic formula. Contrary to the idiocy of some MMO developers, not everything in an MMO needs to be group-based. In fact, making everything in an MMO group based is generally detrimental to design. There are times where people just want to play alone, or who like being in a world full of other people they don't play with (cause some people are weird).
I think that's more or less why Nintendo isn't all that interested in the idea. This is basically how the games exist now, at least in Japan where player density is high enough that catching and questing can be a solo event, with occasional multiplayer encounters. Those encounters just happen in the real world instead of over the internet. That's part of why Go has worked as well as it has. It's helped localize players into encountering one another over more dispersed populations.
LunarSol wrote: It's helped localize players into encountering one another over more dispersed populations.
... at least in places with as dense a population of PokeGo players as Japan, anyway. Here I can go days without being able to access a pokestop without hopping in my car to drive to an out of the way location. And I do not live in some bumf***ville in the cracked backside of nowhere-- Dallas/Fort Worth is one of the biggest metroplexes in the world, but there's a lot of places within D/FW where Pokemon: Go is flat out unplayable.
And wouldn't you know it? You can't submit new areas to be pokestops here, and haven't been able to for years. The inadequacy and incompleteness of PokeGo is the reason why I'd love a Pokemon MMO.
Weird. I don't live in a particularly dense location and can hit 3-5 stops on about a mile loop. Even the really small town I'm from has a good selection of gyms and stops that don't take any real effort to get to. I've not seen that be an issue, but I don't doubt there's spots where the initial Ingress playerbase wasn't there to get things started. Weird you actually can't submit new stops though. I see them added all the time around here.
LunarSol wrote: It's helped localize players into encountering one another over more dispersed populations.
... at least in places with as dense a population of PokeGo players as Japan, anyway. Here I can go days without being able to access a pokestop without hopping in my car to drive to an out of the way location. And I do not live in some bumf***ville in the cracked backside of nowhere-- Dallas/Fort Worth is one of the biggest metroplexes in the world, but there's a lot of places within D/FW where Pokemon: Go is flat out unplayable.
And wouldn't you know it? You can't submit new areas to be pokestops here, and haven't been able to for years. The inadequacy and incompleteness of PokeGo is the reason why I'd love a Pokemon MMO.
Huh, I never knew you were in DFW. *waves from Lake Worth* Anyway, yeah, all the Pokestops were originally built off of Niantic's previous game's locations, that used various landmarks and points of interest on the map. If you're in an area without even so much as a single public park with a sign, or a restaurant with a particularly interesting statue, then you can definitely be out of luck.
Why would you need to follow what anyone else has done?
You wouldn't *need* to follow what anyone else has done, however, reinventing the wheel is also not the best idea, no?
I don't think anyone here is saying that if there were a AAA level supported Pokemon MMO, that it needs to be a carbon copy of some other previous MMO.
Commercially speaking, I would think they would want at least some of the "traditional elements" of an MMO, to give veteran MMO players a sense of familiarity. Just use those elements in new or different ways. My earlier comment was more a train of thought than a "real" idea. . . Its just that I basically cannot think of an MMO that DOESNT have a white-green-blue-purple-weird purple-gold leveling scheme for item rarity, and I was typing up some idle musings on how could a game universe like Pokemon make use of such a scheme.
I think if you are going to make a Pokemon MMO then you should build it to appeal primarily to the millions of pokemon players. And that means building each element to build the best pokemon experience. I cannot think of a single reason why tiered rarity equipment would do anything for the pokemon experience.
It would certainly make MMO players feel more comfortable. But it would make it less pokemon and more wow. At which point why the hell did you make a pokemon game?
Lance845 wrote: I think if you are going to make a Pokemon MMO then you should build it to appeal primarily to the millions of pokemon players. And that means building each element to build the best pokemon experience. I cannot think of a single reason why tiered rarity equipment would do anything for the pokemon experience.
It would certainly make MMO players feel more comfortable. But it would make it less pokemon and more wow. At which point why the hell did you make a pokemon game?
I would agree with this. Items shouldn't be the focus of a Pokemon game. Pokemon should, though there's probably room in there for cosmetic items. People love that gak.
Some itemization makes sense, items are an important part of strategy in the handheld games. Plus TMs, HMs and such, but if we're racing for rare drops we've missed the point. Pokemon should be rare, maybe with challenging quests to capture unique or distinct Pokemon. Personally I'd seize the change to create a whole new stats and battle system, one that could provide a wider viability to a wider range of Pokemon. So many are solely limited by specific move pool or stat limitations. I'd design systems to redress that.
Lance845 wrote: I think if you are going to make a Pokemon MMO then you should build it to appeal primarily to the millions of pokemon players. And that means building each element to build the best pokemon experience. I cannot think of a single reason why tiered rarity equipment would do anything for the pokemon experience.
It would certainly make MMO players feel more comfortable. But it would make it less pokemon and more wow. At which point why the hell did you make a pokemon game?
I would agree with this. Items shouldn't be the focus of a Pokemon game. Pokemon should, though there's probably room in there for cosmetic items. People love that gak.
Some itemization makes sense, items are an important part of strategy in the handheld games. Plus TMs, HMs and such, but if we're racing for rare drops we've missed the point. Pokemon should be rare, maybe with challenging quests to capture unique or distinct Pokemon. Personally I'd seize the change to create a whole new stats and battle system, one that could provide a wider viability to a wider range of Pokemon. So many are solely limited by specific move pool or stat limitations. I'd design systems to redress that.
I'd rather see Nintendo not go the liveservice MMO subscription / monetization route.
Atleast one company should stay as far away as possible before that bubble detonates in everyone elses face.
Depends what you mean by accessibility. By most metrics, PoGo is more accessible than most MMOs (no monthly fees, straightforward gameplay, maps that are familiar from outside of the gameworld etc).
Daba wrote: Depends what you mean by accessibility. By most metrics, PoGo is more accessible than most MMOs (no monthly fees, straightforward gameplay, maps that are familiar from outside of the gameworld etc).
Unless you mean wheelchair access.
And, most importantly perhaps, it is played using a piece of tech that pretty much everybody owns without any need for hardware considerations.
Pokemon go is an overly simplistic game with none of the depth I’d expect from a real MMO. It’s a mobile game with an emphasis on mobile. It’s only real good idea is the GPS aspect. It’s mechanics are otherwise so basic it effectively plays itself.
Daba wrote: Depends what you mean by accessibility.
Being able to play it no matter where you live. There's a lot of places in the world where you simply cannot play it for long, you'll run out of resources because there are no pokestops nearby.
LordofHats wrote: Pokemon go is an overly simplistic game with none of the depth I’d expect from a real MMO. It’s a mobile game with an emphasis on mobile. It’s only real good idea is the GPS aspect. It’s mechanics are otherwise so basic it effectively plays itself.
Combat wise its much closer to an MMO than the normal Pokemon battle engine. I've started to prefer it, but only really because every single Pokemon doesn't know Earthquake.
Pokemon go isnt even an actual game. It has no gameplay so its not a game. Or what few game play elements it does have are so simplistic its like "playing" LIFE.
Calling pokemon go a game is being extremely liberal with the definition of games.
LordofHats wrote: Pokemon go is an overly simplistic game with none of the depth I’d expect from a real MMO. It’s a mobile game with an emphasis on mobile. It’s only real good idea is the GPS aspect. It’s mechanics are otherwise so basic it effectively plays itself.
Combat wise its much closer to an MMO than the normal Pokemon battle engine. I've started to prefer it, but only really because every single Pokemon doesn't know Earthquake.
Has the battle engine changed since release? That’s not how I remember it.
LordofHats wrote: Pokemon go is an overly simplistic game with none of the depth I’d expect from a real MMO. It’s a mobile game with an emphasis on mobile. It’s only real good idea is the GPS aspect. It’s mechanics are otherwise so basic it effectively plays itself.
Combat wise its much closer to an MMO than the normal Pokemon battle engine. I've started to prefer it, but only really because every single Pokemon doesn't know Earthquake.
Has the battle engine changed since release? That’s not how I remember it.
Not tremendously. You still have a quick attack that charges up to a heavy attack with the ability to dodge in raids (and block now that they've implemented proper PvP). There's a little more to it now, as in PvP battles they've added little mini games to increase the damage on your heavy attacks. The sensation of having a passive quick attack while waiting for your "cooldown" to become available still feels rather MMO to me.
i'll wait for the fridge version). It is gonna be a removed. At this point if' we'd bet we would nearly get a 100: 1 ratio
