Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Reasons New MMORPGs Do Not Succeed
I want to get the communities thoughts as to why MMORPGs after release don't succeed e.g. Rift, SWTOR, WildStar, Warhammer, etc... Not bashing any of these games. Some of them are still holding their own. They just never stayed at the top compared to other games of their genre.
Some of the reasons I believe MMOs fail are pretty obvious and others are my personal opinion. In no order:
1. Launching with a lot of bugs/glitches and broken gameplay mechanics.
2. Laggy servers and queue times.
3. Not having stable server populations. Controlling server population, how I have seen, is usually done by merging lower populated servers together. How AOC is going to do this with each server being very unique I have not idea.
4. Questing bottlenecks. Here are a few examples if you don't know what that is <a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/329385-quest-bottlenecks-in-shadowmoon-valley/" target="_blank">Link</a>
5. Not being able to play the game on older computers.
6. No end game content.
7. Boring/Grindy quests.
8. Releasing the game when the most popular games in your genre (WoW, FFXIV, etc..) are releasing something big like an expansion.
9. Keeping players in the dark about what the developers are working on. E.g. fixing gameplay and new content.
10. Too much lag when a large group of players are gathered for an event. If anyone played WoW when the gates of Ahn'Qiraj were opened, you know what I'm talking about. It was a chaos.
The rest are my opinion.
11. Reaching max level too quickly. I enjoy the leveling process. It took an average of 15 days played time to reach max level when WoW was released. It was some of the most memorable times I had in WoW.
12. It should be obvious what a low/mid/high level player is just by seeing their armor, abilities, and other items they might have. I want to work towards having all those cool things.
13. Not a good balance of solo content and group content. I believe most people like more solo content, but there has to be some group content as well.
14. There should be a way to play with your friends even if they are not the same level. (Controversial, I know)
15. Bad/Clunky character mechanics. When I use an ability it should happen instantaneously (unless it has a cast time). I should also be able to cancel a move immediately if it does have a cast time <em>for the most part</em>.
16. Dungeons and Raids are too easy/not creative.
17. Not knowing what to do/where to go. I personally like to figure things out on my own, but a lot of people just want to hop on do a couple of quests and log off.
I know AOC developers have already addressed some of these concerns. I just want to discuss what other issues make or break a new MMORPG for you.
Edit: Adding a few more I read from the community
18. Not keeping hackers/bots under control
19. Developers promising a lot and not delivering
20. Bad customer service
Some of the reasons I believe MMOs fail are pretty obvious and others are my personal opinion. In no order:
1. Launching with a lot of bugs/glitches and broken gameplay mechanics.
2. Laggy servers and queue times.
3. Not having stable server populations. Controlling server population, how I have seen, is usually done by merging lower populated servers together. How AOC is going to do this with each server being very unique I have not idea.
4. Questing bottlenecks. Here are a few examples if you don't know what that is <a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/329385-quest-bottlenecks-in-shadowmoon-valley/" target="_blank">Link</a>
5. Not being able to play the game on older computers.
6. No end game content.
7. Boring/Grindy quests.
8. Releasing the game when the most popular games in your genre (WoW, FFXIV, etc..) are releasing something big like an expansion.
9. Keeping players in the dark about what the developers are working on. E.g. fixing gameplay and new content.
10. Too much lag when a large group of players are gathered for an event. If anyone played WoW when the gates of Ahn'Qiraj were opened, you know what I'm talking about. It was a chaos.
The rest are my opinion.
11. Reaching max level too quickly. I enjoy the leveling process. It took an average of 15 days played time to reach max level when WoW was released. It was some of the most memorable times I had in WoW.
12. It should be obvious what a low/mid/high level player is just by seeing their armor, abilities, and other items they might have. I want to work towards having all those cool things.
13. Not a good balance of solo content and group content. I believe most people like more solo content, but there has to be some group content as well.
14. There should be a way to play with your friends even if they are not the same level. (Controversial, I know)
15. Bad/Clunky character mechanics. When I use an ability it should happen instantaneously (unless it has a cast time). I should also be able to cancel a move immediately if it does have a cast time <em>for the most part</em>.
16. Dungeons and Raids are too easy/not creative.
17. Not knowing what to do/where to go. I personally like to figure things out on my own, but a lot of people just want to hop on do a couple of quests and log off.
I know AOC developers have already addressed some of these concerns. I just want to discuss what other issues make or break a new MMORPG for you.
Edit: Adding a few more I read from the community
18. Not keeping hackers/bots under control
19. Developers promising a lot and not delivering
20. Bad customer service
0
Comments
1. A bad launch. I've lost track of the number of games that have died on day 1 purely because the devs weren't prepared for the amount of traffic their game would get on launch day. This usually leads to anything from lag and queue times right up to the servers downright failing completely.
2. Trying to cater to too many or too few people. If you try and please everyone, you will end up pleasing nobody and this is partly why WoW's subscription numbers are on the decline (relatively speaking) because they are trying to cater to literally everyone, which is impossible. On the other hand, games like Wildstar were too niche and their target demographic was too small to create a stable playerbase. Old-school Pure Arena Shooters like Unreal Tournament and Quake also have this problem.
I think it ultimately boils down to what people expect going into the game (hype, promises, media coverage), what's delivered at launch (No Man's Sky, Archeage), and how they plan to retain you (Warlord's of Draenor, BDO's gear treadmill, Tera RNG enchant mechanics). If a game has a lukewarm reception, it won't get a lot of players at the outset and will effectively be DoA. If the game starts off on the wrong foot (lag, shutdowns, missing features), it will quickly lose a huge surge of players. If a game has nothing in it to keep you interested or it's a massive hamster wheel lined with spikes coated in lemon juice and salt, you'll drift away.
I think Intrepid is nailing the hype so far. what they have shown in pre-alpha footage looks as good as some games that are already on the market. The open Q&As have been great, and they've fielded a lot of difficult questions as well. There's very little of their promises so far that I have to seemingly take a leap of faith for. As for execution and retention, we'll have to wait until they show some of their end game or let us play around with the alpha.
1. Players exploiting and being allowed to exploit left right and center. I like a fair game.
2. Companies exploiting the arse out of the player base.
3. Toxic playerbase where the game ceases to be fun because the community isnt fun.
4. Change of game design/direction toward something other than what I paid for.
Second, players stay because of the social connections they make with other people within your game. You can have a pretty great game (thinking SWTOR), but if it doesn't help facilitate social connections between the playerbase, your playerbase will leave as soon as the content treadmill is over.
There's a bazillion other small things that can add up to a long term game failure in conjunction, but I feel the game must facilitate the above two areas at its core.
This is hardly a roadmap to success, as the specifics of how you accomplish adding player created content and bring people together is full of endless possibilities, and no dev team can see the future. But I do think asking yourself if each specific design decision you make along the way benefits either of these two aspects would be very worthwhile.
-A lot of bots running around really get on my nerves too. Not only does it ruin the economy but it makes the game look populated when it's not.
-As mentioned above, companies taking advantage of their player base and I think even Steven mentioned this before with the RNG boxes giving a bear for them to put the bear on the cash shop after the fact. I also hate if a company has bad customer service.
-Another thing that really gets to me is when the game becomes easy mode. I don't see the point in playing a game where everyone can get everything. If I work hard for something in the game to acquire an item and a couple months down the road they make it possible for everyone to get it, I am done. I value my time and I definitely don't mind putting time into a video game but only if it means something.
I do have to say that my guild and friends keep me in the game for the long run. Once my friends and guildmates start leaving it gets harder and harder to stay.
This contributes to much of the 'launch issues' that many games have:
*The game is hit with a massive influx that the servers can not handle.
*The population explodes across all servers and often there is huge additional expense to bring up more hardware/datacenters immediately.
*The hype train people leave in the first week or two, now the server populations are all screwed up and that automatically hurts the game's continued ability to keep the remaining people engaged.
*Media headlines blither on with statistics like 'half the population quit in the first month' (as though that was not inevitable) and damage the game's reputation.
As for #6 I'd say that the entire 'end game' philosophy is a core problem in itself. I liked Ragnarok Online's idea to buck that concept back in the day with rebirth, to get stronger by replaying <strong>the game</strong>. Developers should think of it this way: the only thing left to do when a player hits <strong>end game</strong> is to <strong>quit playing</strong>.
I would be interested to see a game completely abandon the concept of a hard max level and instead just soft cap it with exponentially increasing experience requirements. In theory long term players would have huge prestige simply for being 'above level cap', but in order to be meaningful the developers could never raise the level cap later on so it's understandable that no one does it.
As for why I personally leave games? Aside from general 'boredom', the game shutting down, or running out of people to play with:
*I left WoW originally because I couldn't handle being left out of raiding due to poor luck in RNG. I raided every week in WotLK after it launched and I was still getting best in slot gear from snaxramas ALT raids on my MAIN when the argent dawn thing was the main progression raid. Since arenas were the only other content available at end-game and I was not a FotM of the class I never got back into the game. I also always hated how WoW led the industry to destroy any tactical positioning in PvP (they may not have, it just seemed that way to me at the time). It was always so stupid to me to have a warrior charge up an unclimbable cliff to smack me in the face with with his axe, just because it was 'unfair' if someone took the effort to get the high ground had an advantage because of it.
*I left AA because while I loved what the game was in Alpha I couldn't muster any interest in the game after it launched. Whether it was the shift in population size from alpha to launch, the labor system that prevented me from playing the game when I had time to sit down and play the game, the bots, the gold sellers, or the gutting of exploration just before beta's launch I could not say. All I know is that something between alpha and launch made me completely lose interest in the game.
In general I think the number 1 reason that New MMOs have problem is HYPE. No developer can ever match the unchained expectations of the community or the people who try out a game that they heard of even if it's something they know they won't play.
This contributes to much of the 'launch issues' that many games have:
*The game is hit with a massive influx that the servers can not handle.
*The population explodes across all servers and often there is huge additional expense to bring up more hardware/datacenters immediately.
*The hype train people leave in the first week or two, now the server populations are all screwed up and that automatically hurts the game's continued ability to keep the remaining people engaged.
*Media headlines blither on with statistics like 'half the population quit in the first month' (as though that was not inevitable) and damage the game's reputation.
As for #6 I'd say that the entire 'end game' philosophy is a core problem in itself. I liked Ragnarok Online's idea to buck that concept back in the day with rebirth, to get stronger by replaying <strong>the game</strong>. Developers should think of it this way: the only thing left to do when a player hits <strong>end game</strong> is to <strong>quit playing</strong>.
I would be interested to see a game completely abandon the concept of a hard max level and instead just soft cap it with exponentially increasing experience requirements. In theory long term players would have huge prestige simply for being 'above level cap', but in order to be meaningful the developers could never raise the level cap later on so it's understandable that no one does it.
As for why I personally leave games? Aside from general 'boredom', the game shutting down, or running out of people to play with:
*I left WoW originally because I couldn't handle being left out of raiding due to poor luck in RNG. I raided every week in WotLK after it launched and I was still getting best in slot gear from snaxramas ALT raids on my MAIN when the argent dawn thing was the main progression raid. Since arenas were the only other content available at end-game and I was not a FotM of the class I never got back into the game. I also always hated how WoW led the industry to destroy any tactical positioning in PvP (they may not have, it just seemed that way to me at the time). It was always so stupid to me to have a warrior charge up an unclimbable cliff to smack me in the face with with his axe, just because it was 'unfair' if someone took the effort to get the high ground had an advantage because of it.
*I left AA because while I loved what the game was in Alpha I couldn't muster any interest in the game after it launched. Whether it was the shift in population size from alpha to launch, the labor system that prevented me from playing the game when I had time to sit down and play the game, the bots, the gold sellers, or the gutting of exploration just before beta's launch I could not say. All I know is that something between alpha and launch made me completely lose interest in the game.
-Fear
I want my devs to care, I want them to dream of great stories and all everyone to partake in them. I want a route to achieve a role within a world with regard to that story. So if I'm a sneaky elf rogue who loves stealing things for power, wealth and immortality I want that expressed for her in-game.
I'm super excited for social organizations. I'm glad we get to somewhat define our questing with them.
-Fear
</blockquote>
Just about to post the same thing - couldn't agree more.
My first MMO was Everquest. I probably only completed two quest lines on my monk. The monk Celestial Fists of my Ring of Coldain Frostweaver the 10th.
Those two quest lines I will NEVER EVER forget. Know why?
Both quests were willing to eat my items should I fail at certain points. I'm not talking about "lost some random loot I need to kill boars for".
I'm talking about dozens of hours worth of items. On the Coldain ring quest if we failed to defend their city from the Giants, the emissary I gave my 9th ring to would die and my ring would be lost. That 9th ring took me months to get and this event was almost zone wide that required dozens of players to help out just so I could get my ring.
Know why I was helped? Becuase my small guild had friends in larger guilds. They asked around and said "hey, Sci is trying to complete the ring war on Friday, can we help?"
And you know what, almost 50 players showed up. Sure, there is loot from the final boss, but they came to help me.
I was one of maybe 10 people on my server with that ring. That ring took me months to complete, so many corpse runs and so much research on my own. We didn't have quest helper. We had Allakhazam. We had to read guides, ask friends, ask strangers.
I could go on and on about Everquest becuase the game had high risk and high reward.
If the devs give the players the ability to go on epic quests that take months, all the more welcome.
With the node system, depending on its final form, will be completely player driven content and that is what makes a game last.
Kind of sad really...
1: Clearly rushed / incomplete (buggy, class features not working etc)
2: Generic: So many MMOs come out, promising a new feel, a new flow. But it's the same cookie cutter MMO with a different aesthetic. Same combat systems, same grindy quests, same crappy UI.
3: Crappy community. I know this is a hard one to really blame on the MMOs, but so many of them you reach the end game content, fresh faced and raring to go. And no groups will let you join, or if you use a PUG high level players immediately quit because they don't want to waste their time with noobs. (In some low level raids this still happens) kinda wish more games would punish this behaviour.
4: Server issues. I've found a few new MMOs (okay a lot actually) seem to start out with a minimal number of servers, so even though you want to play, you spend a few hours just trying to get into character creation, and then the server is laggy as hell because it's so overloaded. This continues for a few weeks until they get new servers up and running, but by that time half the people who wanted to play have given up, and those who are playing are still annoyed.
5: Terrible UI. This one is pretty much all me and not a general one though. I have terrible eyesight. I often find with a lot of MMOs that I can barely read half the quest dialogue or the chatbox. It's surprising how few MMOs have a 'change font size' option for the visually impaired... Wonder if they have a suggestions box for ashes so i can get that in early.
Sort of similar to the way GW2 scales you down when in certain zones, but that wouldn't work in AOC as it doesn't have zones, so would need to be groups.
Some of the reasons I believe MMOs fail are pretty obvious and others are my personal opinion. In no order:
1. Launching with a lot of bugs/glitches and broken gameplay mechanics.
2. Laggy servers and queue times.
3. Not having stable server populations. Controlling server population, how I have seen, is usually done by merging lower populated servers together. How AOC is going to do this with each server being very unique I have not idea.
4. Questing bottlenecks. Here are a few examples if you don’t know what that is <a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/329385-quest-bottlenecks-in-shadowmoon-valley/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Link</a>
5. Not being able to play the game on older computers.
6. No end game content.
7. Boring/Grindy quests.
8. Releasing the game when the most popular games in your genre (WoW, FFXIV, etc..) are releasing something big like an expansion.
9. Keeping players in the dark about what the developers are working on. E.g. fixing gameplay and new content.
10. Too much lag when a large group of players are gathered for an event. If anyone played WoW when the gates of Ahn’Qiraj were opened, you know what I’m talking about. It was a chaos.
The rest are my opinion.
11. Reaching max level too quickly. I enjoy the leveling process. It took an average of 15 days played time to reach max level when WoW was released. It was some of the most memorable times I had in WoW.
12. It should be obvious what a low/mid/high level player is just by seeing their armor, abilities, and other items they might have. I want to work towards having all those cool things.
13. Not a good balance of solo content and group content. I believe most people like more solo content, but there has to be some group content as well.
14. There should be a way to play with your friends even if they are not the same level. (Controversial, I know)
15. Bad/Clunky character mechanics. When I use an ability it should happen instantaneously (unless it has a cast time). I should also be able to cancel a move immediately if it does have a cast time <em>for the most part</em>.
16. Dungeons and Raids are too easy/not creative.
17. Not knowing what to do/where to go. I personally like to figure things out on my own, but a lot of people just want to hop on do a couple of quests and log off.
I know AOC developers have already addressed some of these concerns. I just want to discuss what other issues make or break a new MMORPG for you.
</blockquote>
1. They are an experienced team and very eager about it. they will be careful to stop most bugs.
2. headstart
5.they are making it so that you can run it(obviously in lower quality)
6. the end game is going to be dynamic and fun for sure.
7. mid-game is essentially the same as end-game, likely a little easier/harder.
8. It's a big game itself. and no, they'll be careful.
9. have a look in discord, twitch or anything. I doubt that'll ever be a problem.
12. there are many gears so you can make it clear.
13. node seiges, world bosses, dungeons amongst several other things are group content. the game has plenty of both.
14. I agree. let's see what the devs have in mind.
15. if that's a problem, get a better computer. and internet.
16.Eeh... not sure what to say
17. not something I worry about. I prefer to explore.
If you create power boundaries, you create content people cant play together.
If you use vertical progressions systems, you are instantly dividing the playerbase.
If the players want to separate themselves form each other, that should be 'their' <ul>choice</ul>.
Not an enforced and compulsory result of bad game design.
So, in short, I guess it's simple: Don't promise me one thing, then take it away or alter it. Do that, you're taking away the reason I gave you my money, and I'll take my money away in return.
<strong>Tera Online</strong> and <strong>Wildstar</strong> took a good amount of time (3 - 6 weeks) to get to the max level and it was a nice experience with learning each skill and monster mechanic with nice(not easy) low level dungeons. (getting a new character on max level with exact the same quests was very boring though)
<strong>Wildstar</strong> failed for me because the end game took to long to reach. You had to get materials from dailies, so after playing 4-6 hours per day you just did your dailies for roughly 1 hour and had to wait for the next day (it took nearly 2 weeks for that). In the end we couldn't do raids because there weren't enough casual people who got to this point and as far as I know it took 2 months until you could get enough people for a raid without waiting for 2 hours with spaming the lfg chat.
<strong>Tera</strong> had a nice PvP battleground and some complex dungeons which I really liked. Even with the best gear you wiped if you did one mistake and I hope AoC will have something similar. I played it nearly 2 years but it was always the same concept and it never changed.
"New dungeons = new materials to craft the new best items which takes 1-3 months to farm and than it takes roughly the same amount of time to get all these items on max level".
A new way of getting the newest items would have been more exciting (wildstar had a nice concept with tasks you had to fullfill in the dungeon to get better rewards) . I hope it will not always be the same way to get the high tier items in AoC cause in my opinion it can get boring after a while (afterall it took me 2 years in Tera to get bored :D ).
<strong>Guild Wars 2</strong> had an awesome and unique leveling experience but it failed with having no end game content for more than 3 months after release.
It's just my own opinion but if AoC can avoid my mentioned fails it would be an awesome game for sure :D
<strong>An MMO is only as good as its community</strong>.
Reasons in no order respectively
1.) Endgame content
-We all strive to hit the endgame content only to find it is the most unpolished part of the game. defend a point of interest, battle each other for rank points. But this becomes tedious an repetitive, their needs to be a reason for endgame, a reason to be max level.
Releasing updates to increase the amount you must do to reach endgame makes no sense. World of Warcraft had a great game, but they never refined what they had, they just added more without fixing what was already amazing. Now its left barren wastelands across the world.
2.) The Grind (a)
-Personally I have always enjoyed the grind, but only when it has a rewarding feeling behind it. Feeling of Progression.
an example would be, level 1 to 10, you feel weak, from the moment you hit level 10, you can clearly see that you can handle your own.
2.) Leveling system (b)
-This is a massive impact to the quality of a game, as far as i can tell, no mmorpg has ever done it better than the Korean MMO "Ragnarok Online" But came to end after making it too far gone. You now needed to start again to be stronger, and then again. But to no end. Instead of creating a reason. They created a cycle.
3.) Transport
-Another let down is when everything is too easily accessible, we all want things now. But until we understand that its not whats "there", its the journey we take the get "there". The best example I can think of is from "Maplestory" along time ago they had a Flight system that can only be boarded at certain times. The community would all wait around an people would bring out in game board games to play and socialise. A 30 minute transport time would be over before you knew it. When this system was removed, the game had a large hole missing from its immersion.
4.) Skill System
-MMOs have come to the idea that DPS, Tank, Support is the trifecta that cannot be changed. I will have to agree that these 3 are the undeniable base line. But making sure that your role is not bound by these is crucial. a Tank should be able to add utility, Support should be capable of burst amount of damage (why else do they carry soo much magic?) and DPS should be known to bring support capabilities to the field. You ever met a soldier without a medkit?
But I also believe allowing no restrictions is only problematic.
Enclosing,
of course these are all subject to my own opinion, take with a grain of salt. I believe what we all want is a game we are the best at, but if we are all the best, we are also all the worst. An MMO is only as good as its community.
Also making the game difficult to learn for new players!!
<blockquote><div class="d4p-bbp-quote-title"><a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/reasons-new-mmorpgs-do-not-succeed/page/2/#post-25945">Helzbelz wrote:</a></div>Honestly this really has no place on the Ashes forums period. This post is just being negative and brings a negative aspect to a game that does not need any negativity right now.
</blockquote>
Agree to disagree yes its negative but its productive negative. It lets the dev know what we don't like and sharing our opinion
Agree the game is really still new so talking about its down fall etc.... is not a good thing!!
also coming into a new game expecting things should be like this is a never good thing to go into your only going to downfall yourself their will be
things you don't like about the game! its to be expected can't please EVERYONE
Also making the game difficult to learn for new players!!
@Helzbelz
Agree to disagree yes its negative but its productive negative. It lets the dev know what we don't like and sharing our opinion
Agree the game is really still new so talking about its down fall etc.... is not a good thing!!
also coming into a new game expecting things should be like this is a never good thing to go into your only going to downfall yourself their will be
things you don't like about the game! its to be expected can't please EVERYONE
So i think it's all-good in that Area
Have to attend to property and can't take a break from game without losing it. No mechanic for being absent from game for more than a few days.
No housing in game...hate being "homeless".
Toxic people and Devs turning a blind eye...includes bots, haxs, etc. Not taking care of spam quickly. No /report system in game.
Bad UI (font sizes, chat selection, being able to ignore people)
Not fixing bugs. Not being able to make bug reports in game.
Leveling too fast.
No mentoring system (where higher level can go down to level of low level player)
Inability to share quests with other group members .. everyone not getting rewarded for group quests.
Labor Point system.
Pay 2 win, imo, also kills MMO's. It's great for the company sure, but in my limited experience it just adds to the toxic environment in the game and in dedicated forums.
Player generated content that's not properly throttled by devs (too much treasure, too easy to gain loot, etc.), not to mention player created add-ons which I am generally against anyways. This leads to 'must have' d/l's that were not created by the devs.
A lot of the other things mentioned in the thread too; sporadic RNG loot, community, lack of housing, immersion breaks that can't be ignored, and static content.
I also think end game kills MMO's too. There is a rush through content to "start the real content" and then there is no more character progression which leads to doing the same thing over and over until and expansion and then repeat. There will always be players in a hurry to get to the end and those that dilly-dally all the way there, but imo encouraging the rush to the finish line is always a bad idea.
In the end I suppose an amazing game could do all of this and never fail, so it really comes down to how well thought out and produced the game is.
*I too missed this thread, not a bad topic.