Naoki Yoshida recent interview

[justinjarjar]

Many MMO's are making money, the idea that they are magically going to die tomorrow is silly, give it time maybe they will die out or maybe they will continue on, no one can predict the market change that far in the future, even yoshi. If it is making money most people will not fix it and major mmos are, so what are we talking about at this point?

[KisaiTenshi]

Think through the implications of this applied to an MMO. If the NPCs keep a schedule, how would you prevent lockout? Meaning, how would you ensure that if a person (with limited time) wants to clear content, how would you ensure there's always at least 7 NPCs around that can help him? Also, how much time would a person need to spend managing relationships with NPCs. Dating sims work well in a single player setting, I've yet to see one scale out to multiplayer.

I'm not trying to shoot down the idea, more just interested in seeing some of the downsides to it.

I mean they keep a schedule. Like the game has a day and night cycle right? So you will always have NPC's attending their shops (your regular shops) during the day, and sleeping at night, and shops that are only open during the night (eg blackmarkets) and are attended by more "dark" NPC's. Should you choose to embark on a quest that requires 7 players, whoever is available (depending on content,) player or NPC will join the party. If the NPC's die during the quest they are subject to the same rules players are. So if you kick them from the party while they are knocked out, they will revive back in town and "remember you for that" and the next time you look for a party, that NPC will not join you again until you make it up to them. Or you could just go about an never try to fix it, there are plenty of other players and NPC's.

If there is an especially good NPC (let's say for the sake of argument, you wanted to take the "King" out on an adventure) they will likely not join players that aren't popular with NPC's. But should you get the King in your party, the King will want the quest to succeed at all costs, so they may "rent" you all the gear you need for the quest for free as long as you're on that quest. Shopkeep NPC's may do the same. Adventurer NPC's can only rent gear they own. Smithy-type NPC's may craft or repair gear just go out on such quests. And so forth.

As for downsides...

Most NPC's will likely not join you on quests that are anti-alignment. You need to seek players/NPC's of the same quest alignment. If you're in "Herotown" and you want to start the quest "Who wants to be A Villainare?" , chances are nobody will join your party until you wander outside Herotown, or find the shady backalley at night. So most of the time un-aligned quests will find party members in the immediate vicinity that will be willing to do that quest. NPC's shopkeepers are always interested in joining because they can get "Free loot", and taking a shopkeeper NPC with you will make that shopkeeper NPC unavailable to the rest of the world until they are dismissed from the party or the quest ends. Most NPC's will keep their own narrative, and failing certain quests will make them unwilling to join players again if that quest is not yet completed.

Some NPC's will have "blank" slate narratives to begin with, and will join anyones party, but they are basically "NPC-casual" and can only learn how to fight other monsters by copying what players do. Where as specific NPC types (Eg Deity, Celebrity, Shopkeeps, Light Adventurer, Dark Adventurer) will have a certain style and alignment in order for them to join, and some are better than others for certain quests. Celebrity NPC's would include socialites and royalty, and you'd need to be "on their list" just to speak to them. They might be awful combat partners, but they have high charisma, so it may be possible to solve a quest peacefully that would otherwise require bloodshed. A Deity NPC (think more along the lines of the primals in FFXIV) would require sacrifices of time or inventory to their shrine or temple, so they would be very-powerful but also very expensive in game resources to summon.

Like just to touch back on the "dating game" concepts. In a MMORPG context, the only game that did this was Mabinogi, but every time your character was "reborn" the NPC's all forget, so there wasn't really much point to it. There were certain quests and gear available if you made the NPC's like you enough, but none of them joined you in any quest.

The idea here isn't to have 3-4 NPC's that follow you around like a lost puppy the minute you login, but rather the NPC's will keep a popularity table, and should you be on their list when you open a party, they will join you automatically if you don't invite them first. If a quest requires 3 healers, then only NPC's that have a healer AI would join.

If shopkeepers are absent due to being out on a quest, or sleeping, other shopkeepers will take their place if their shop is regularly busy.

As I said, it would require a great deal of foresight to plan a smarter NPC-Player interaction system, and it requires the world actually functioning like a world with needs, not just having NPC's that give out their one quest while being part of the map.

[Panzer]

I think he's pretty spot on with his opinions of the future of MMOs... So many studios develop MMOs with the goal of unattainable subscriber numbers, and eventually compensate (or start from the beginning) by catering to the instant gratification generation (F2P/Cash Shop). The market only has the customer base for a handful, if that even, of polished high-quality sub type games. The way most modern gamers chew through content, or get bored when there is too much time/effort requirement, and move on to the next flavor of the month is a huge part of this problem.

People seem to think that WoW was this eye-opening explosion of "converted" MMO customers... Realistically, these are new MMO customers in the sense that new gamers were created with the Wii. Developers seem to think they can steal some of the players away from WoW, but a lot of that core playerbase isn't even aware your new game exists. They play WoW because it is the game they play occasionally - just like the Wii - they're not going to feed into random new MMO - or the Wii U (obviously) - customers because they're completely content spending their handful of playtime hours where they're safe and comfortable.

Until the industry realizes that WoW's phenomenon was exactly that - a fluke phenomenon - they'll continue spamming new MMOs with too-high production budgets that will never recoup their costs without a subscriber count in the upper hundred thousands. It's one of the few things SE has done right with their MMOs; set realistic expectations of profitability, and make a consistent and stable profit by keeping your core audience around. Sure XIV has messed with the formula a bit because it's unrealistic to not include modern MMO features and expect people to stick around, but overall they've done a much better job than the majority of the massive amount of MMO competitors over the past 10 years.

[AzraelX]

Sandbox MMO. Hasen't been done for years.. Q.Q R.I.P. SWG.

Sandbox mmo is too costly and how do you gate certain things to keep people subbed longer

[justinjarjar]

snip .

It's cute and you might find some of these ideas added, but at that point why don't I just go outside and interact with people? And AI is just not there yet, but I could see some ideas being worth while to pursue. In the end all I want a game not a replacement for life.

[AzraelX]

i personally think final fantasy will be one of the last/greatest mmos out there. like someone stated it used to be only mmos that had social/online/multi player aspect - now almost everything game is offering that with DLCs with no monthly fees- less of time sink and easy for most people to get into and leave.

[Panzer]

now almost everything game is offering that with DLCs with no monthly fees

Maybe it's just me, but I'd take monthly fees and consistent quality content over this "Season Pass" BS, where you pay $30 upfront for some content that should've been included in the game in the first place, or was designed specifically as a cash grab, or may even be just a promise of new updates with no real details on what is included (e.g. multiplayer maps and costumes instead of the content you were hoping for).

[Kikoten]

There aren´t any big projects on the horizon like there were almost every year in the last 12 - 15 years.

There are, but they're being developed in another country. Actually, fairly recently, a game called Tree of Savior got put on Steam Greenlight, and it will be coming here to the states, in English. From what I've heard and seen, it's a fairly big project, and it's been in the works for a few years now. I just hadn't heard about it till last year, and most still haven't even heard of it. But if you've played/heard of Ragnarok Online, Tree of Savior is considered its spiritual successor, as it's being made by the father of RO himself.

Personally, I'm excited to see what it's like. I've been hyped for a long time.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfil.../?id=441500423

[Xairos]

It's harder because, as for Gaming today, there is so many different sources all vying for our "Consumer" attention. Look at Twitch and you will see that the whole of gaming today is riding a "Hype" train. As a result, companies have to (and somewhat want to) make a game that people feel drawn to where they can get superficial things done and "feel" accomplished. Very few games have a in-depth, robust, truly "alive" feel to them. Most rely on PvP interaction to create that "alive" feel.

Top Games at 12:31 PM (noon, Central US Time):

Dota 2
League of Legends
Speedrunners (Summer Games Done Quick 2015)
CS:GO
Hearthstone
DayZ
Starcraft II
Minecraft (the exception)
FIFA 15
Destiny
World of Tanks
Rocket League
Call of Duty: AW

The first game that isn't pvp and isnt online matchmaking is "The Walking Dead". But most dont even consider that a "real game"

[Risvertasashi]

Maybe it's just me, but I'd take monthly fees and consistent quality content over this "Season Pass" BS, where you pay $30 upfront for some content that should've been included in the game in the first place, or was designed specifically as a cash grab, or may even be just a promise of new updates with no real details on what is included (e.g. multiplayer maps and costumes instead of the content you were hoping for).

Which is probably why FFXIV will be around for a long time to come. There's enough of us.

But there's a reason f2p is doing so well. On paper, sure, a lot of people will say they'd prefer to sub with consistent quality or some other ideal. As a reality that many people getting into game design must face... if you want people to play your game, you're going to have to get involved in f2p. Most people simply aren't willing to try something that requires up front investment.

Enough of us to keep XIV and maybe a few alternatives going, I think. But there's far, far more of them.