Sims Medieval, Civ World, Sims Online ... imvu and 2nd life ... minecraft ....
I'm not so certain that any of these games (other than Civ World of course) failed miserably ... but I'll look up how long Sims Online lasted.
I see a certain type of future ahead of us, but we are so far behind it that all we can see are 'games'.
Sure the creators and the publishers are out to fulfill their creativity or to make a buck, but those that participate are often sucked into an alternate reality even if only within their own minds. Add in a life support system and a mind-machine interface and you have yourself a voluntary Matrix.
I wonder where publishers got this idea that MMOs are lucrative, I think only a tiny proportion make any significant money. I guess, everyone wants to score a WoW, but chances don't look that good. Still, this Civilization Online thing reminds me more not of Sims Online, but of that random game that came out in early 00s, which was basically a base-building tactical deathmatch in the general spirit of age of empires, but where you played as one of the actual units. Maybe someone recalls the name.
EDIT: Savage, it was. And it's still running, apparently, as a fan continuation.
(August 8th, 2013, 04:49)Bacchus Wrote: I wonder where publishers got this idea that MMOs are lucrative, I think only a tiny proportion make any significant money. I guess, everyone wants to score a WoW, but chances don't look that good. Still, this Civilization Online thing reminds me more not of Sims Online, but of that random game that came out in early 00s, which was basically a base-building tactical deathmatch in the general spirit of age of empires, but where you played as one of the actual units. Maybe someone recalls the name.
Publishers love MMOs because the monthly fee you have to pay. This insures a profit even if the game is resold. And reselling is video game's biggest bane. I've heard that the average console game is resold five times and that piracy is less harmful than reselling. And it's no accident that you cannot resell games on Steam* or anything else like that. Games are different than other entrainment media; like movies, paintings, music and books. Movies have theaters and you obviously cannot resell your experience. This is why there are so many action movies; they want you to see the movies in theaters as much as possible and action movies can justify that. Everything else the production costs are so low that the creators can just eat the fact that they cannot resell and still come away with a good profit.
Of course, the problem is that you have to be better than (or at least close to) World of Warcaft in order to make people care, much less buy your game. That's way so many MMOG's bomb hard; for example FF14 which Gamespot gave a 4 out of 10. Which is quite terrible as they use a A-B-C-D-F grading system; not a system were 5 is average.
I understand the lure of a successful MMO, it's just that the chances of actually making one don't look that good — even for games which have actually been released, and god knows how many there were that have been cancelled at various stages of development.
The problems with reselling given the increasing dominance of online selling seem to stem from a poor understanding of incentives, anyway. You can let people resell all they want, as long as you raise the price of first sale in line with the expected number of resales. People eager to play the game as it comes out would have no problem paying more, if they know that they can then sell the game on and recover most of the price. And actually, it might stimulate more buying — as if you buy the game on day 1 and hate it, you can resell there and then whilst the price is still high. In fact, this would turn the whole market into faux-rentals — as all games would depreciate, the actual cost of the game you pay would be directly related to the length of time you hold it.
Also, with online selling platforms, there are plenty of ways to generate running income through updates, expansions, DLC's, etc.
Makes sense since MMOs are big in Korea. Though, I don't think it'll do that well either way especially since everything needs to compete with LoL there these days.
In Soviet Russia, Civilization Micros You!
"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
“I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.”
(August 10th, 2013, 07:49)Tasunke Wrote: maybe its a multi-phase release, and first phase is Korea.
Alon those lines, I wouldn't be surprised if they are using Korea as a pseudo-test market.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
