A diminished economy means that companies have look for ways to decrease production costs. For MMOG fans, that spells smaller worlds at launch with less variety. Drawing from his experience with both F2P and P2P games, Danny "Ralsu" Gourley considers the ups and downs of expansive virtual worlds:
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P2P gamers often stick with one game for longer periods than do F2P gamers, making a lot of real estate to explore a real boon. Larger worlds also spread out content to give smoother transitions between areas with encounters for different level ranges.
Follow the rest of Ralsu's exploration as he tries to answer the age old question "Is Bigger Really Better?" in this week's Top Ten Free-to-Play Games.
This post reserved for Savanja to answer that size really matters, realize that I was talking about gaming space, and then back out of the conversation.
Savanja sez: Bigger is only better if you're gonna use it. This applies on all counts.
Last edited by Savanja; 02-23-2009 at 04:48 PM.
Reason: He made me do it
i am more likely to make multiple characters to explore different areas of a game world if the world is massive.
I really can't argue with that because it is true about me, too. One thing I can say is that I tried every class and race in Vanguard and doing so was a bad idea. All the newbie level repetition made me keenly aware of the doldrums you feel any time you get burned out with an MMOG. Having so many starting areas and different bits of lore to see were great for a few alts. Instead of that, I'll take a story that keeps me reeled in for level after level.
And even though Vanguard had numerous places to go at level 20, everybody ran CIS anyway. Gamers are just weird that way sometimes; they'll choose the exact same path with a character because it is familiar instead of learning about something new.
Ultimately, who is gonna say no to more of a game? The way going smaller can work is if it means you polish your product very well and make what is there engaging. For that, I think of a smaller world like LOTRO or DDO. Now, you might only get one or two play throughs, but I am seeing more and more of that. Tough balance: keep people piddling around on alts for a long time but then quitting or give them fewer paths but have them play deeper in?
I don't mind a smaller world at first as long as content updates are fairly regular. I play more than 1 game, so I would most likely not explore all the content of a really massive game.
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I'd say yes, bigger is better... but only so long as the content in the bigger is also better.
As a quick, non-MMO, example; Soldner Vs Battlefield 2.
Both multi player FPSs, both released around the same time, both larger scale featuring vehicles.
The first difference is Soldner comes in at a massive scale. More guns, but soldier types, more vehicles. The maps are huge and varied and it's perfectly possible to have people in multiple holecopters searching a mountain side for an elusive sniper who's camping a spawn without ever finding him. BF2 is compact by comparison.
But the content in BF2 is just so polished and right. You can tell there's nothing in BF2 that wasn't agonised over before being included.
It's an extreme example as BF2 is possibly the best multiplayer FPS on pC while SOldner is, well, crap. But it does show that size is nothing without quality. Or so my wife tells me.
i refuse to accept that a game cant be huge AND polished at launch, i think our standards are just dropping from all the crap they have tossed at us lately.
vanguards starter island is probably turning more people off to the game than it is pulling in; the non-updating quest npc (which illustrates honestly all the bugs still in the game) right off the bat and the repetitiveness don't exactly show off the magnitude of the world. i also cant imagine anyone's pulse racing upon learning about diplomacy..maybe its just me. i think people all do the same quest chains for the sake of gear...maybe if they had more choices of chains that give good gear people would not funnel to those quests.
i wont really even look at a game that doesn't have atleast a 1 gig install anymore (though i do wish they would work on compression technology instead or making 20 gig games), just like i never buy those little tiny bags of chips. f2p has the advantage that they can start a small game and add to it as people buy cash shop stuff (if they don't feel like simply pocketing the $) but i honestly don't see ANY f2p developer/publisher that piques my interest like bethesda does when they announce a new game.
i also feel that f2p developers are gunning for lower end rigs, i have a high end rig and i LIKE to push it. there is no f2p game out there that i cant max the settings on, and when i do there is no change in fan speed, so i know the machine is pretty much twiddling its cores.
i refuse to accept that a game cant be huge AND polished at launch, i think our standards are just dropping from all the crap they have tossed at us lately.
I am going to have to agree with you on this point. Disappointments piss me off. Devs need to just spend a bit of extra time and/or money to get the job done right before launch. If they don't have the operating capital to finish the game before release, then they should be in a different industry. I'm all for raising the standards we look for in an MMO.
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EVE - Brutus Agrippa - Currently looking for an active corp
Atalntica - Germanicus - Macedon Server - Enclave Guild
I actually do think that an MMO can't be both huge and polished at release. The reason being are the devs. Speak to any decent dev and to them, thie rwork is never finished and give them more time to 'finish' a game, they'll fine even mroe stuff to do.
Case in point: Warhammer Online. Mythic was supposed to be not too far off finishing it when EA chimed in and threw money at them and look at what they ended up releasing, and it's not like WAR was the largest virtual world ever made.
Commentary: Is Bigger Really Better in MMOGs?
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