a pure rvr/wvw/pvp game?

So do you think the market could sustain a purely world vs world/ realm vs realm/ player vs player game.  It would have absolutely no player vs enviorment.  The closest it would have would be the "guard" npc's on forts/supply camps/keeps/castles/etc.

What I mean about "market sustainability" is would it get enough gamers to keep something like that running and engaging.  What are your thoughts?  Am I missing a game out there that is like that?

planet side 2?

Planetside 2, tho it's a shooter and not a traditional fantasy MMO.

In a fantasy themed MMO It depends on the design, Pathfinder Online is attempting something akin to EvE Online but set in the River Kingdoms of Golarion (Pathfinder RPG) but it is a sandbox/themepark hybrid with FFA PvP and looting, but ibeing design around it from the ground up may he a success. Endgame in PFO will consist of player run kingdoms fighting over resources, Adventurers searching for dragon hoards and Bandits waylaying merchants and supply caravans. They also have encumbrance so even if you are a bandit and slay some poor merchant, you can't carry all the loot without a donkey and cart. In a sci-mmo it's already in place with EvE Online and Planetside2

Here is another sandbox /themepark mmo coming out next year . in this game you can be /do pretty much anything you wish. since you can buy /sell land clear land chop down trees plant new ones etc no two servers will be the same . say you want to be a farmer you can buy land clear it plant a farm and sell your goods at the market. want to be a crafter you can buy a shop hire npcs to run the store and sell what you craft . it has ship building as well as house building even entire player made cities . several hundred possible classes as you can play a set archtype or you can choose between 10 diff trees and pick 3 of them , example want to play a oldschool EQ shadowknight ? pick warrior tree and combine death magic and necro trees . player built ships too say you and your friends want to be merchant fleet shipping /traders you can , it takes 6 + people to man 1 ship . However say you would rather be a pirate well you can build your ships and raid shipping as well as raid /bomb coastal cities . Siege warfare you can invade and destroy enemy player made cities , destroy wall, use siege towers, burn their city to the ground . naval combat in old clipper style ships . or you can be a adventurer dungeon crawling, etc . there are 3 land masses 2 are semi safe from pvp if you hate pvp , the other is a huge land mass that is pvp enabled as well as all the islands and the oceans are pvp areas . here are two vids showing some of the stuff all are actual ingame footage . naval battle here the other two are siege warfare, overview and showing interior desgin oif player made houses and other stuff . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6g82AupNM0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmOyBIY7prY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs4VWg2PjpE

» Edited on: 2012-12-27 07:08:04 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsGRUF_rC1Q

» Edited on: 2012-12-27 07:10:29

» Edited on: 2012-12-27 07:12:55

There are some. Why have you not heard of them? Well, I think that answers your original question. ;) I'm not sure if the ones I recall are still online, but its been in the past couple of years. For their names, I'd have to dig through all my old emails to find them, I just recall getting Beta invites and wasn't interested in pure PVP type games like that. TBH, I don't even know if they did make it to launch.

@ Elth - Pathfinder Online looks very interesting to me!

There actually are some that have been made. Savage Realm was perhaps the most popular one that I know of. These types of games at first tend to be successful but drop off after a few months due to the fact its very hard to add new content without majorly affecting the game. And also due to lack of financial support. 90% of games out there lack the financial support to make it out of beta. Guild Wars 1 was almost a part of that 90%. I like to use that example to show there are some amazing games out there that just get unnoticed simply due to lack of advertisement.

From talking with game developers, it's insanely hard to get funding for a full WvW game. There's no unicorn to chase which tends to make short lived player base. Warhammer kinda scared the venture capital folk. The problem with full PvP games (See Darkfall, who ran itself into the ground and had to be completely rebuilt by a new developer) is that player attitudes dictate the livelyhood of the game. If you get a whole mess load of jackwaggons it will cut into revenue streams. PvE profits largely are based on how well a developer can entertain a player base and keep the unicorn in front of them. PvP based games are largely based on player community or lack there of. If the battles aren't fun people don't play. We can see this a lot in GW2. So for a company to build a full WvW game they need to either have their own funding, or look to other avenues of funding (ie Kickstarter) as most VC companies wont touch them. Their risk is far greater than their reward.

Yup.. seems as the kickstarter method is the way of Pathfinder Online.. sure sounds interesting. Will see how develops...

Honestly unless pathfinder gets some VC its not gonna make it. A small MMO will cost you over 30 Million. Right now they're having trouble breaking 1 million. Their design draft is massive. The things they want to include exceed that of ANY MMO on the market today. With that size of ambition and the scope of their project they will not be able to build a Tier 1 AAA MMO for under 100 million. They've got great ideas but the reality of the situation is that unless they get a big brother it wont see the light of day. The average salary in most game development companies is 48,000. So far they've made 307,000. Not including business operations costs and taxes they could only employ a team of 6 developers for one year. Most MMO studios range from 50 - 100 people and go into 4-6 year development cycles. For a barebones operation they would need 2+ million per year. They've got some great ideas but the pure business side of things is far from what is required.

Agreed, I still hope for them and will be interesting watching development or failure.. In all seriousness, I really hope we can get 1 or 2 truly generation changing MMO's going in the next few years.

I have also read something (it has been awhile ago) about Richard Garriott (Lord British creator of Ultima) creating a new kind of RPG that taps into social media. I was quite curious has to how he would get that to work but haven't heard much beyond that.

Its great to hear all your input guys/gals. I really like GW2 and will keep me entertained for a long while. I guess the reason for my question is I always hear people complaining about some aspect of any game. I know that no game is going to be 100% perfect for me and/or anybody else for that matter. I wvw a lot in gw2. I ran endgame raids in WOW and that was a perfect way to burn me out of that game. It will be interesting to see what Blizzard throws at the industry when "Titan" is made public. My only experience with mmo's, however, are WoW, Swtor, and now GW2. I tried trials of conan, gw, and a couple others but was blown away by any of them. So far i really enjoy GW2 and hope it thrives. I will enjoy elder scrolls also (i hope) when it comes out. Does anybody know that pay method of that game? have they released that info yet?

@dirk- what this game reminds me of is Sid Meier's Civ come to life. That is not a bad thing. My only worry is that this type of game allows for easy hacks. People really complain about gw2 hackers / game exploiters all the time. This game looks like it allows you lots of freedom and by giving that freedom makes it an easier target for hackers. That being said, i have no idea what type of security system they may be running so my fears may be unwarranted.

Darkfall is still being developed by Aventurine (same developer as the original). We are in beta atm. Tasos is still at the helm and he has secured additional funding. AV made improvements upon the original game and will be re-releasing it via Steam in 2013. Beta is still feeling rough atm, but they are tackling bugs and fixes kinda quickly actually, and some of the changes in DF 2.0 are pretty nice. There were several thousand players bottlenecking the login servers when beta opened, which was nice to see. PvP'ers are hungry for more Darkfall.

» Edited on: 2012-12-27 18:45:00

@Sklurb I am in Darkfall 2.0 beta, will see how it comes along

Fog expounded upon my comment perfectly. There have been some games that have tried the sandbox PvP design, but they came and went for the exact reasons that Fog stated. You can blame lack of funding, poor management, poor design, poor execution... player entitlement, and often its some or a little of all of those, but getting a new MMO game out on the market and viably profitable is like playing the Mystic Forge. The promise of that Legendary item (game) is so tempting, but its a costly process and you'll may just not ever get it. Apply that to a real life scenario, where you have investors, bills, salaries and tons of monetary and time expenses, and ... well, sadly the odds are against a MMO's success before its ever off of the idea table. As gamers and players, most of us really don't even think of that, much less understand it. We just see a game idea that we can get excited about, and expect it to magically happen and fulfill all of our gaming dreams. Several years ago, I had some venture capitalists approach me. They wanted to get in on the MMO scene, they knew of my expertise through my father and wanted to know the viability of funding a project and whether or not I would design and lead it. I turned them down and educated them on the volatility of that sector of the gaming market and the risks. The market was highly saturated, there were several projects that were closing, some games that had launched and shut down a few months later and I felt that it was not worth the risk. So yea, its all fun and games for us, but real money and real risks for the folks behind the scenes. I try to not be too critical, but sometimes I see the same mistakes being made, over and over and over and... so I get a little exasperated and vent. :) So all of that said, the closest thing you will find to what you want, are the MOBAs. Planetside, SMITE, LoL, DOTA2. Even the Firefall folks got spooked by Beta feedback and decided to implement a PVE element to their open world content. They seem to have actually attracted more players, so at this time, it appears to have been a good decision for them. Darkfall. I was very critical of that project in another thread and I have not changed my mind or opinions, so all I'll say here is that I wish them luck with the redeux.

When I want some pvp fun, I break out my Unreal Tournament 3, and have some crazy times :)