Project: Gorgon is a 3D fantasy MMORPG (massively-multiplayer online role-playing game) that features an immersive experience that allows the player to forge their own path through exploration and discovery. We won't be guiding you through a world on rails, and as a result there are many hidden secrets awaiting discovery. Project: Gorgon also features an ambitious skill based leveling system that bucks the current trend of pre-determined classes, thus allowing the player to combine skills in order to create a truly unique playing experience.
The Project: Gorgon development team is led by industry veteran Eric Heimburg. Eric has over a decade of experience working as a Senior and Lead Engineer, Developer, Designer and Producer on successful games such as Asheron’s Call 1 and 2, Star Trek Online and other successful Massively Multiplayer Online Games.
I've loved Gorgon with all my soul from the very first moment. It does things differently, thinking outside the box, innovating, but at the same time returning to what MMOs are supposed to be.
Inspired by this game and many other factors, I started a project with some friends and friends' friends to further understand MMORPGs. We hope we can shine some light on the problems that stall innovation and growth in the genre as whole. I know many of you have tried a number of MMORPGs, so I humbly ask for your help.
Do you feel like MMORPGs are declining as a genre? Why? What would be the problems, if any?
Feel free to stray away from the question and discuss things such as why is gorgon different, if it is so, or other similar analysis.
1. People are expecting MMOs to have AAA gaming quality graphics along with an almost real-worldesque build of skill trees and economy. One of the reasons I think that everquest took off was because there were no stringent expectations as there are today. I imagine it's pretty hard to make something as outside-the-box when all your investors say "It must have X, Y, and Z, so we can make our money back!"
This is part of the reason it's nice that crowdfunding has taken off as a way to back some of these projects.
I would also say that a lot of the critiques I read from people about what they want from a new MMO seems to be spoken through the tinted goggles of nostalgia as they remember their first/favorite MMO. Every game will have its strengths and weaknesses, the key is for the developer to acknowledge this and decide which items they want to focus on working and which will just be an accepted weakness (at least in the foreseeable future)
2. A lot of projects want to grab the largest market share that they can. I dare say it's near impossible to make an MMO that will reach everyone. There's too many things that just don't carry well across cultures. What makes an MMO desirable to the main gamer community in Asia is different than Europe, which is different than what it would be in North America or South America.
That's one thing I must commend the Elder Games team on is that they know who their target market is, they seem to understand what interests that group and they are focused on developing content around that. People come in and ask for something outside of that plan, the answer isn't "no", but it is "not at this time" because they are well aware of how limited their resources are and can see the amount of work in front of them just to capture (and sustain interest in) the small market segment for which the current iteration of the game is aiming.
I try not to be cynical, but in this case i find it difficult.
I'd say the reason is because consumers are idiots. Cash grabs make easier money (on average) than does hiring a dedicated team of developers who really care about their game. If consumers stopped spending money on pay-to-win games fueled by microtransactions, game producers wouldn't keep turning out all the shlock.
This isn't to say making money is the only thing driving people to produce MMOrpgs, but it's certainly one of the bigger reasons people make games.
@Anikitos
You hit the spot perfectly, good read!
I totally feel what you are saying. and i actually hope mmorpgs declines so much that we go back to the era before all the single player mentality. Will kinda make mmorpgs a niche thing again which is good.
Screenshotted your post and stored on my pc, i wanna keep this one
My main problem with MMOs tends to be the, uh, other players. Unfortunately even games like Skyrim don't quite have the same depth that MMOs tend to. Thus I end up soloing in MMOs. I'm not saying all players are bad, it's just 1) I have a lot of social anxiety, 2) even with players I generally like, hell even with IRL friends, grouping tends to make me feel rushed. I don't like feeling rushed. I can usually duo with my husband in games and not feel that way, but sometimes even he gets impatient and I do.
The point being for me to really commit to an MMO it needs solid soloing options and accommodations for players in dinky guilds. We need to be able to get really good equipment without having to join uber guilds to do massive raids or end game really ends up just being the end period. If you get to a point where you have to join a massive guild or there is nothing left to do, I'm going to move on. So will my husband who has even less patience for that nonsense than I do. I have done the massive raiding in original EQ and in WoW and the drama in big guilds is just not worth it to me.
I'm currently playing FFXIV. The likelihood of me even doing a pick up raid is pretty slim BUT I can get really good gear just by being a serious crafter, I am, and doing some PUG instances since FFXIV has quite a good matching system. Most of my friends who play are taking a break till the new expansion but I am logging in to keep working on my crafting even though I am level capped in most crafts and in the class I play. That's the kind of thing I want in an MMO, one where even at level cap I am spoiled for choice on what I can do that day to keep making progress even if it's just making stuff to sell or running instances to get even small upgrades.
The way I see it - big companies don't want to take big risks, so they copy what's worked in the past and you end up with a lot of games that are very similar to existing games. This trend constantly seems to fall flat with western developers, though, and a lot of these games aren't well received or don't meet long-term expectations after the initial hype.
So instead, we see publishers moving over games from Korea and I expect that'll be the trend for AAA MMOs for the next several years at least - most of these end up being cash grabs, designed to pull players in for brief windows while they spend a bunch of money, and then end up moving on to the next thing (only to play the game again later when new content is released) - often we'll get overwhelmed with new content as the game tries to "catch up" to its equivalent.
So for most companies, it just seems more reasonable to make CoD and get a bunch of money time and time again, rather than risk another MMO based entirely on innovation that may or may not be well-received.
This makes indie MMOs a lot more appealing - unfortunately, most of them need money to push their game over the finish line, and we end up with a lot of crowd-funding campaigns that end in disappointment.
So until a couple indie MMOs hit the mark and prove that the genre isn't dead, big publishers are probably only ever going to localise international games that've already had some level of success.
What that entails for the players is a bunch of early-access games that pray on the desperation of a declining genre (spend $150 to play this game right now sort of deal) while we're still waiting for any sort of innovative game to latch on to - a lot of people find that in Project Gorgon.
UI and terrible animations. Notice how I don't say graphics.
Lack of difficulty. Doesn't mean put twenty hours of grinding in.
Meaningful rewards.
Sandbox. (And yes, this is an opinion. I would rather have more choice. i.e. To be able to kill you outside of a town and take your stuff.)
Not focusing the game around one aspect (Mainly PvE - Mainly PvP - Mainly RP. Allow for a combination of all)
All manners of crafting being allowed on one character (Which PG has done very nicely.)
Don't shoe horn players into playing with others. Try to have a range of things to do from one player to forty. (Obviously top tier stuff should require a sum of people, if not highly experienced)
I mean I come from a game called Mortal Online. But I've since quit cause its turned into a sandbox mmo to an arena deathmatch on a huge map. Every thing people do is geared towards PvP, the AI and PvE content is bland and generic, and while its most redeeming quality is combat - it has terrible server issues. There are other external issues such as hackers (and hackers who aren't banned, but are -QUITE- public in the community) and terrible support service / staff. Mortal Online would be my choice MMO if it didn't carry a numerous amount of flaws caused by poor design issues.
I would say right now - if Gloria Victis were to push out their combat animation update, and it was really good - I'd probably say that would be my definition of a nice MMO.. At least for me.