Pixels or Death's Adam Harshberger writes:
"Here’s the problem: in an MMORPG, it’s really fucking hard to not know something. It’s really hard to resist the temptation of a wiki, or the allure of simply asking a veteran player for help, especially because of how much MMORPGs rely on the idea of progress to become enjoyable. To not ask for help, to not take the easiest path, is to impede progress – and that impedes your fun. I know that’s a fucked up way of thinking, but it’s true: look at the people who race to the level cap in days upon the release of a new game. We’re all hardwired to think that way, because of a multitude of things – demons I won’t dare attempt to face here.
What that leads to is very little exploration. The Vast Unknown is an illusion, shattered by endlessly accessible information. Exploring isn’t what you do in an MMORPG; instead, you just follow the same paths that everyone has already beat into the ground.
Except during open beta time."
"Following a great event in November of last year, DevGAMM Lisbon is coming back to the beautiful and sunny Cascais region to catch up with old friends, connect with game developers from around the world, hear from seasoned professionals, and have a great time all around." - DevGAMM.
A look into the sad trajectory of indie games from high successful releases to complete irrelevancy in just a few weeks or months.
That's the thing with gaming there's always new experiences to have why spend months or years playing a single game when there's a new experience right around the corner.
Indie or AAA if your building your game expecting long term player counts you'll probably be disappointed as gamers often enjoy something for a few weeks and move on only to return if it's truely a classic.
Out of all the generations I've experienced there's games from 30 plus years ago I still dust off and play like super Mario bros, earthbound, vice city and san Andreas being games I treasure and revisit every few years but I'm not going back to play a game designed to keep me engaged for months on end because it's also designed to milk my wallet in most cases.
Build a great game that people love make it playable offline and ask does it matter if the concurrent player count is under 100 a year post launch more often that not it doesn't
The price of entry is too high to take chances like I used to. Was looking at V Rising and that ranges from $50-$130 CAD. That’s a lot for an indie imo. By the time it goes on sale, the player count might be dwindling. But that’s the trade-off, I guess.
GB: "We take a look at 15 amazing games that had the perfect length."
Pretty good list. Botany Manor would be the newest addition that encapsulates that title.
nice stuff, agree except the part he say that every1 is noobs on OB every1 have the same knowledge so no1 can give advices, probably he forget that there is ALPHA & CLOSE BETA before OB so I am sure u can find a lot of ppl with gr8 knowledge on every games OB and those ppl r usually the one that reach the lvl cap first.