Naoki Yoshida recent interview

[Adventica6]

Read the whole interview, basically mmo's are becoming very casual, and development is aligning to that style, with weekly caps on tomes/scrips, daily provisioning/leves, it's all rigged up to be a massive casual sandbox and I'm quite fine with that.

They just need to be careful not to make everything dummy proof or the people who aren't as casual will just find something else, have to have a little bit of both, I like these guys and hope the best for our game.

[elemental10]

I want to throw opinions that has me in the center of the universe but seeing as this thread is already filled up with it...

In the end, it's just a game. There are other games as well and if one game doesn't satisfy you, there are other games that would one way or another.

Yeah, I once wished a new MMO would have some kind of Dark Souls/Monster Hunter playstyle but even those have been made. It's just single-player stuff. But I gave up and just enjoy the game as what it is. If I don't like it, I stop and get another one.

Maybe someday I'll stop playing FFXIV but that would a couple of years from now on. Until then, I'm satisfied with where it's going.

[Kyonika]

So, reading over this thread, I got that MMOs are going in the direction of more casual and that they risk losing traction and possibly falling out of favor altogether. But also, that VR (like Oculus) can possibly, maybe extend its life-cycle - if done right.

VR, as it is today, just..plain.. sucks.. for MMORPGs. There's too much going on, and you need an effective method to communicate (and as it is now, that is via a keyboard and, optionally, with voice chat). It's not really that feasible to do with a keyboard. To have VR immersion, AND full control of your character, AND communication, you would need to have that computer thing that Stephen Hawking uses that, while you lay motionless in your chair or bed with controllers in your hand to play the game with, while wearing your Oculus. But that would require a more disciplined mind than most people possess. Basically, VR + BCI -- as it exists today.

However, what if we put those two ideas together, but put a spin on it to do it right?

I'm thinking of those types of headsets from Anime/Manga like SAO and the .hack// series. You know, the ones that give you total immersion, can read your thoughts and emotions and convey them to your online avatar, and allow for only a simple gamepad to move your character around, while also having built-in voice chat in the game. That could sorta work. However, to cater to more casual play (and as many have said their play time keeps shrinking), that technology has to move a whole generation in one fell swoop.

Imagine this: doing all the things you normally do in your day and spending all your time doing them. You return home, go for a workout, eat dinner, watch TV, do your routine, whatever, get ready for bed, tuck yourself in...and then .... you slip on your VR headset, turn it on ......

...And in a few moments, it gently sweeps your brain from Beta to Alpha and then to Delta brain wave states. Your body thinks it's asleep. Your brain paralyses your body (like normal when in a deep sleep) ... but as your consciousness pans from awake to dream-state sleep, you slowly see images, hear sounds and feel slight sensations as you wake up in your game character's body. You look around, you get up and walk outside your room and out into the streets of Ul'dah. The sun is shining and you can almost feel the heat of the sun on your cheeks. You notice your clock in the top right corner of the screen telling you you have about 8 hours of game time remaining until the VR headgear wakes you up. "Alright, let's have an adventure today!" you exclaim.

In essence, you are dreaming the game. The ultimate solution for casuals, and the ultimate tool for hardcore players: casuals can get more close to hardcore levels while still having a fully functional IRL life, and hardcore gamers can invest all of their waking AND sleeping time in the game.

I don't know if we will ever get there, but that would be the ultimate way to go I think.

[SQBoard]

Businesses are more than happy to let players login, do 1-2 hours worth of play and logout, because it costs them less money. However RMT completely takes advantage of this. So the less "Active players" on simultaneously can cause instances where 50% of the active players sit around one zone, and all the remaining zones are filled up with RMT bots because nobody is actually watching.

Not sure why this came up, RMT has nothing to do with design considerations for casual game elements.

I'd rather have a "3-5 hour" dungeon experience broken up where the "boss rooms" are broken up like Alexander/Coil is, but 2-3 hours of it is actually "Solving" the dungeon (Wizardy Online did this) the first time as a form of progression.

Yes, i'm sure you would rather have that 3-5 hour dungeon run. But as i mentioned, that's not reflective of the marketshare "today". Your example of Wizardry Online is probably a good example of this since it was shut down on 7/31/14.

Like it or not, the market changed and so followed the suppliers. Not saying there's absolutely zero demand for such old school hardcore gameplay. There's still games being developed with some of those elements in mind. But as it stands now, they'll most likely be niche in comparison but if their devs plan for that, they could be fine.

And who knows, the market changed before, it could change again. Or one of those indie projects could strike gold. Still curious how star citizen will do, it got a lot of funding but it seems to come from a small number of contributors on kickstarter. Will be interesting to see how that turns out at launch.

[Fendred]

I hope Yoshi is wrong about MMORPGs being in decline in future. I don't really think I will ever be focused on other genre than MMOs and some social games never were my cup of tea.
Problem with MMOs is, that there are thousands of them but only about 5 of them are good. If developers made good MMOs built on player feedback, they wouldn't have to worry that their game would be a fail. FFXIV used a lot of feedback I believe and the game is going strong and well. They just need to react better to what their players really hate and suggest and I believe the game will be here for next 10 years.

They answered some of our suggestions really well with Heavensward but also made some dumb mistakes, lets hope they can fix it in future and do even better with 4.0.

EDIT: For example battlecraft and fieldcraft leves are kinda broken in HW, redscrips aren't really working that well too, there is too high ilvl progression and gear gets thrown away in 1 week etc..

They are in decline due to clueless developers like Yoshida. They've been harping the death of MMORPGs long before Yoshida ever showed up and they aren't dead. The current reality is that we have hundreds of thousands of players wanting some game they can enjoy but are forced to play WoW-MMO after WoW-MMO. These devs have been killing the market for years. Yoshida is working for a company that only knows how to make single player games or games with optional multiplayer. I mean, he was surprised that hunts, something implemented due to player request, "even worked." He doesn't have a clue how to make a long lasting MMORPG.

[Risvertasashi]

They are in decline due to clueless developers like Yoshida.

You mean the guy that managed to turn around a failed game into the most successful one in recent (post-wow) history, in a genre that has been declining as a whole?

We've been getting some alternatives (and some have been around for a long time and updated to current technology constantly, like EVE online). Wildstar and ArcheAge, for example. Now you can try to point the finger at various flaws but the fact is, if there's a solid foundation and people want to play, games can do well despite them.

But all of these are destined to remain niche.

I do hope someone reinvents the genre someday but, well, castle in the sky.

[Airget]

They are in decline due to clueless developers like Yoshida. They've been harping the death of MMORPGs long before Yoshida ever showed up and they aren't dead. The current reality is that we have hundreds of thousands of players wanting some game they can enjoy but are forced to play WoW-MMO after WoW-MMO. These devs have been killing the market for years. Yoshida is working for a company that only knows how to make single player games or games with optional multiplayer. I mean, he was surprised that hunts, something implemented due to player request, "even worked." He doesn't have a clue how to make a long lasting MMORPG.

Thing is if you are going to call someone clueless for reviving a failure from the fires then go ahead and make your own MMO and realize how hard it is to pull in people with "hardcore" mechanics that force you to spend an excessive amount of time to just keep up with those around them.

[Risvertasashi]

Thing is if you are going to call someone clueless for reviving a failure from the fires then go ahead and make your own MMO and realize how hard it is to pull in people with "hardcore" mechanics that force you to spend an excessive amount of time to just keep up with those around them.

Wildstar is an excellent case study here. Both in terms of accessing endgame (time sink) and scaling rewards based on performance of the group. Among other things.

spoiler: It ain't pretty.

[Fendred]

... by copy catting the general structure of a game long since in decline and slapping a few things from GW2 on as an afterthought. Yes, he is skilled as a game developer, and he saved the company by creating a game that managed to sell over 4 million copies. There is a big difference between the genre being stagnant and being in decline. Wild Star's structure is WoW with action combat, although the housing is uniquely its own. ArcheAge is something I have no experience with and will not comment on. The forces at play in the MMORPG market obscure whether it is truly a niche genre because it has been overrun with copy cats created by devs who haven't done their sociology homework.

Compare the life of older MMORPGs to these new age ones. The developers for those games, especially Ultima Online, claim to have delved into sociology to learn more about human interaction before building their games. Considering the features implemented in today's MMORPGs are far less social than those of earlier ones, I sincerely doubt the devs for all those WoW clones really did any homework.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

There won't be any changes until a True Sandbox MMO with updated graphics (not 2001-2002) comes in. =)

I love to go back and play them. Graphics though...

Also, whilst Eve is a Sandbox game. I really don't think it fits into the Sandbox MMO genre. It is more like a simulator MMO then a Sandbox one, even though it has a ton of cool sandbox features I would LOVE in modern MMOs.

SWG (Pre-CU)
70% Sandbox, 30% Themepark.
Being able to literally create your own cities in the world. Being able to PvP anywhere, everywhere, being able to craft events... truley an amazing game. Realistic gameplay, bounty hunting, crafting... The players truley controlled the world. Every server had different crafting/resources and each server was unique due to cities.

Multi-Classing. No, its not like here. You can be SEVERAL classes at once, AND all of them at once, AND get all of their buffs and defenses. You crafted your own class from many classes. This changed the game genre for many people. For example, I could be a Warrior AND a Dragoon both at once, with every single skilll/cross-class skill they have access to.

EVE
55% Space Simulator, 45% Sandbox.
Sparse Faction Wars, Piracy, Corporations, Conquest. What more can I say?

Archeage
80% Themepark, 20% Sandbox.
Currently ruined due to Trion, they removed sandbox elements from the game and put them on the cash shop and made the game more like a themepark mmo. It actually used to be VERY fun at the start of its launch. It is now pretty much a pay to win game. CREDIT CARD!
This is the most Pay to Win MMO I have ever played in my life. Literally you can buy a weapon that is 10 times better then everyone elses weapons for 3000$-4000$

Seriously though, no MMO has touched what SWG has done. No MMO has 10% as good as crafting as SWG has yet. =(

Create an MMO with the best features of SWG/Archeage/Eve and make it semi-realistic and have players make content for other players and you will have a game unlike any other.