Third person view MWO?

Wow, PGI is actually now talking about how they could include a third person view.

This has been a hotly requested and denied request. Just about 50% of noobs, players of other mmos have either asked about it or stated this game will fail without one.

Old school players, beta players and everyone else has either stated they will quit or learned to play without it.

So what is PGI to do ..they have to appeal to the masses because they are a F2P game or languish in obscurity. They are talking about how to add it in without giving an advantage - something that everyone could turn on and off.

How about a 3rd person view after you die that is limited to what other mechs can see?
How about a remote cam you can release as a module limited to one shot per game?
How about third person view to take screenshots? Maybe even after a match like a replay mode?


What would you suggest? Remember it cannot give an advantage to your team.

What is success in a gaming MMO?

First
What is an MMO?
MASSIVE - Supporting Hundreds of players.
MULTI-PLAYER - must allow multiple people to play simultaneously in a persistent world
ONLINE - must be online to play

Second
What is success?
Well no one will give the same answer. The truth is success is a measurement of happiness and money. For example, if I owned my own business and barely made any money but I loved what I do - I would consider that a success. But say I had creditors ...then I owe money and I am also quite unhappy. What if I make enough to pay my creditor but cannot pay my employees what they deserve and they are unhappy.

Now look at the gaming industry MMOs in particular.
The most successful game in the history of gaming World of Warcraft. Even if you haven't played it I bet someone you know close to you has. WoW became the standard of what gaming companies thought they should be. So now every single game that comes out says well its like WoW but the setting is different or Wow doesn't include this we do.
When someone steps outside of what makes WoW successful they either fail, or are looked down on like a failure.
EQ2 has been running as long as WoW ...it has a deep lore, made players happy with wants and fulfilled many roles. Yet no where near the player base of WoW, gone free to play, yet no advertising.
Warhammer Online - huge opening day, too big in fact they underestimated the need for servers and had long queues. They resorted in opening new servers and after the newness wore off they had to shutdown and combine servers. While they had lots of testing they failed by not including a 3rd realm for combat and could not support huge battles when 300 people entered a combat zone the servers just could not handle the load.
SWTOR - after a huge bump and push to take over the top slot ...failed as of this writing it looks like they are combining ALL servers just to get a reign on population. Froogle
Guild Wars 2 - nothing truly original and yet, so far, highly successful. 2 million subscribers when it opened.

There is no magical formula. WoWs numbers are slipping even though they have a huge expansion coming out. Almost every game on the horizon is free to play. How much time are you willing to invest ... and how does that equate to money and success for the company making the game? Can they paid developers with that success? Do companies just keep making games as fast as possible and move to the next one until they make a successful self running game and then come back to it and "fix" it? At what point is it considered a success?

Athene

Hey you
If you are reading this you owe it to yourself to check this guy out.
His "Athene" persona is OVER the TOP ...completely insane. He really is one of the best gamers in the world. He gets backed by a lot of people and does some really incredible stuff. I can watch him play for hours.

Tactic Tip 101

Rufus: Very basic strategy. If your enemies know where you are, then don't be there.

Rufus is played by Chris Rock in the Kevin Smith movie Dogma.
A recent reviewing of this movie I picked up on this quote and well ...its just too good to not be applied in PVP games.

So move swiftly and do not be where your enemy suspects you are. This will result in a retargetting or new acquision.

In call of duty a grenade thrown can signal your location so throw and move.
In WoW there was a battle in Alterac Valley where a team could raise a Avatar to destroy the enemy but this avatar was noisy ..your enemy would know what you were doing and would try and stop you.
Shooting from a tank or a rocket launcher is a dead give away of your location.

MOVE
MOVE
MOVE
COVER and HIDE
then light them up when assistance arrives :D

Another MMO is leaving the fold. Cost of Gaming.

Another blog I read Ancient Gaming Noob points out the fact that even while F2P model is working for some companies. City of Heroes is throwing in the towel in November. It has survived where others have failed even being assaulted by Marvel for infrigement.

This reminds me of a quote that was credited to anonymous
"Linux is only free if your time is worthless."

It is so true; I mean how many games can you think of off the top of your head. I can name probably 15 without pausing ...some are gone, some are running.

Everquest for example; I was addicted to this game. I promised myself an account for finishing my MCSE and I never stopped playing it ..every waking moment was obessed with it.

Yet, I have tried to go back and play it and I just can't it hurts me to play it now. The fond memories I have are fond because of the people I played with not because fo the game itself. Even free I cannot handle it.

I am looking forward to what is ahead for MMO's ...it kills me because the cost of the game is no longer the issue (since everything is going free to play). It is all about YOUR time.

TIME = money

I enjoy entertainment; in fact, if you were to get to see my checking account I believe you would see about 60% goes toward enterainment. Dining, groceries, movies, video games, hardware all are entertainment to me. Yet the value is in the time spend.

Movies: 3 hours = $7.50

• I am (usually) entertained
• Great escapism
• Fun to attend as a group or watch solo

Dining out: 2 hours = $20.00 (x2 for 2 people)

• Good food
• Great Company
• Satisfies a need (usually in abundance)

Dining in: 3 hours (I am talking about cooking, eating, clean up) = $10 (per person)

• I enjoying fixing a meal especially with my wife. The more elaborate the more I enjoy.
• I enjoy the eating part.
• I hate the clean up.

Videogames: X Hours = $800

• Hardware (just upgraded everything about $500 total)
• Software (about $300 this year)
• I enjoy everything about it and I spend a minimum of 1 hour a day.

So to me the cost/value lies in the time I willing to spend. Every hour of my life has a dollar amount just as your hours cost you money to ...either making it or spending it. What value do you have in entertainment? What are you willing to invest your time in?

Death of MMOs?

EQ2Wire: What George Smokejumper said about the MMO industry

 

SmokeJumper on Taking Risks in the MMO Industry

Written by Feldon on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 at 11:46 pm

In response to a thread asking the perennial question “Is the MMO Genre Dying?“, SmokeJumper had some comments that may resonate with readers who have tried, or plan to try some of the new concept MMOs on the near horizon:

I think the main problem with most MMOs today is lack of imagination and fear of failure.
Individual developers at any given company have slews of good, innovative ideas. However, what matters is what the person that signs the check will authorize…and that involves risk assessment.
So yeah, we have a few models out there of “chase loot, get check” that work really well. So everyone starts making their games do exactly that as the only main goal. Thus, we’ve trained our own players to do only one thing.

Well, bad on us. But we’re reaping what we sowed.
That being said, the reverse is true. Once you start playing a game, you don’t really want it to morph into another completely different game over time, because you fell in love with the original game…not this new one. (And yes, we’ve done our share of that morphing ourselves. We’re changing that approach to our games now.)
So, MMOs are not dying. However, players that have played those MMOs many times over many years are…surprise, surprise…tired of playing that particular game model. They want something new.
So, enter the new breed. Things like Tera and GW2. They’re trying new ideas. Maybe they work, maybe they don’t, but no one has hit it out of the park yet. We all know…feel in our bones…that change has to occur and we’re all working toward new ways of doing things.
Part of that is gameplay. Part of it is business. And part is something no one has seen yet. EQN is where we take our theories and practice and combine them into the form of something new.
But no way is the genre dead. That’s like the rumors of “the PC is a dying platform”. It’s just not true. We do nothing but grow because people like being around other people.

Georgeson also made a point of reiterating that while EQNext will be different from EQ2, it will not be “simpler”.


TL;DR version:
Bottom line is MMO's are changing into something new out of the gate instead of changing what is already out.