Not an MMO? :(

Hey there,

Long time UO fan, played it for many years and could easily say its the most fun ive ever had in any game ive played in my life.

I came across SotA today for the first time and as I kept reading more and more about what this game was going to offer, all I could think was 'finally'. Finally a new game which I am actually excited to give a go, I havnt been in the gaming scene much these days, but seeing this definitely put a smile to my face... until.

When I read that it wasnt going to be a MMO.. damn, that was really a big disappointment for me, this game has so much potential and limiting it like its going to be is a real shame.

 

It's actually more like an MMO than you probably imagine. It just doesn't plunk you in a big open area with other people running around. The game essentially transforms thanks to influence from other players.

An example they used recently: your friends might be offline, leaving you playing alone. But you run to an inn to recruit a mercenary to join you on your quest. That mercenary, though an AI NPC, could actually be your friends character. It could also be your friend.

Sounds like an MMO to me. Where Ultima Online, Everquest, EVE and World of Warcraft are one type of MMO, this is another.

 

If you're playing in the multiplayer online mode, it's basically an MMO - you will run into other players all the time, can fight them, adventure with them, whatever. The implementation is just different than traditional MMOs

 

If you play "Open Play Online (OPO)" you are going to play a MMO, more or less.

 

I still don't think it's going to be like an MMO. I'm going to only be playing on OPO, but I'm still disappointed in the overworld map which will make the game seem very single-player-esque. I want to see others wandering the map, place a house out on some island on the sea, etc. I have a feeling this will feel like an instanced lobby type game, where there are a few hubs where you see a dozen people running around, but then you go out and zone into areas from a world map and maybe see a couple of people the server THINKS you should see.

As much as I don't like getting PK'd, I think that there should be some way for them to exist, and zoning into an instanced area where I suddenly get Corp Por'd in the face isn't fun. Granted, I know the PVP system probably won't allow for this totally non-consensual stuff, but RG has mentioned that upper areas are supposed to be dangerous in regards to PVP. How is this going to be fair without a world map that's explorable instead of zoning in to find a wall of murders, or on the opposite side, just zoning out to safety if monsters or other players are too threatening? It totally kills the immersion of a living world and is totally console-style RPG.

 

But all this points are not about to be a MMO or not, is about the game style.

 

Think of an MMO as something that costs 10x+ as much to develop and maintain and can only recoup this back by getting many hundreds of thousands of players and charging a monthly fee.

They're basically saying we're not willing to sell our souls to make this investment yet but we'll make something smaller, that works, and see where it goes from there.

 

"I have a feeling this will feel like an instanced lobby type game, where there are a few hubs where you see a dozen people running around, but then you go out and zone into areas from a world map and maybe see a couple of people the server THINKS you should see"

If you're playing OPO, you will always be playing with dozens of people in each zone. Unless there are only a couple people, throughout the entire game, in the same area as you, then you will only see them. But with a decent population of a few hundred thousand, its' likely you will always be around 50-75 other players (depending on the engine limits).

 

Marketing is the biggest expense. It can vary, but the trend is that it is by far the biggest expense for a game.

The second biggest expense is the server. This is also the biggest obstacle in game development. It's really hard to code a server and it has direct consequences for all aspects of an MMO.

The third expense is wages. The average yearly income in the industry is roughly $80,000. This is a particularly vicious one, because you need to hire a lot of people to maintain an MMO. Independent developers aren't paid that much, their average income is around $20,000.

Nothing else is even remotely as expensive as the top 3.