When did the Korean MMORPG model suddenly become acceptable for the masses?
When the western versions have been so shit. To be fair that's just the big studios, indies are doing well. The Asians just know they need 3 things to get players in their games:
Beautiful/sexy characters
Great story
Great soundtrack
I have NIKKE fans saying spoilers over a their story so they're doing something right!
After WoW's success, Western devs just stopped trying. They attempted a few like Tabula Rasa and the Hellgate games, but either it was a creative concept wrapped up in a bad design, or a bad idea wrapped up in a boring design. That's about the gist of most Western MMOs.
The Koreans focused on the three things you mentioned, plus moving away from tab-targeting and having real-time combat like in Vindictus, Black Desert, or TERA Online.
Tabula Rasa was basically proto-Destiny but 7 years early.
I don't doubt garriot wasted waaaaay too much money on the way and that's why it released basically half finished, but if NCSoft had enough balls to support it to the finish line they could have had all that Destiny 1 market share.
Everytime a Korean style game gets popular, its because the big dogs in its category shit the bed.
POE wouldn't have gotten anywhere without D3 doing most of the marketting for it. None of the older KMMOs would have a Western base if WoW wasn't in decline when they launched.
And now Stellar Blade is literally just doing basic "hot chicks" but is somehow the best game ever because the entire Western industry has screwed up.
Looked at PoE back around when Diablo 4 came out. Bought Grim Dawn instead. Spent $25 on sale for the game and all the expansions. It won't ask or gatekeep anything behind any additional money until the next expansion comes out, so I'm happy.
A lot of people love Grim Dawn, and more power to them, but it didn't really grip me. My most recent ARPG that I've enjoyed is Last Epoch. And people are often mixed on it, but I like D3 as well.
My favorite part about Last Epoch was their insane "recruit a friend" system in the game on launch, that basically derailed their entire first few days and killed a lot of momentum they might have had by gutting any attempt to build a community.
They removed it and gave everyone the pet for free, which good on them, but it was such a stupid idea that it blows my mind they let it reach launch.
Also D3 is better than most of these games simply because it doesn't even pretend like it isn't a skinner box meant to be "BIG NUMBERS" and "SHINY COLOR DROPS." They don't jerk you around with any of the nonsense of building a gear set or skill points. Every season you basically get a free Set that makes you explode everything in your vision and then you go around exploding it until you hit a wall where you explode first.
Its a game filled with flaws, but its the most upfront with its "fun" and mindless nature. You don't have to pay someone to powerlevel you through 3 Acts or grind until you get that one drop that makes a build work or any of the other reasons why most people give up on games like Grim Dawn. You are given BIG NUMBER and then can play until that gets boring.
It grabs me for a couple weeks here and there, but that's every game for me. I just don't have the autist in me to go crazy in just one game forever. I know it will keep me interested for a long time as there's so many different builds and I never look up "perfect builds" or whatever I just play around and see what works.
I liked D3 too, but totally skipped it until they'd moved well on from all the things at launch. I won't touch D4 for principle sake and I could download it for nothing on Game Pass at the moment.
The West hasn't made an MMORPG since 2006 as far as I know. That's probably why.
But man, Korean MMORPGs are just so trash. Grindy to a point that it's not even fun. Gambling systems to enhance gear that are just frustrating. And like 10,000 different bonuses and currencies in my inventory I just don't have the patience to try to figure out.
Hahaha. This man is talking about Lost Ark. What a hideous time-wasting dumpster fire. I got like 400 kokomos or whatever the fuck they're called and was like, the fuck am I doing?
Not just Lost Ark. I was actually thinking of BDO when I made my post. All Korean MMORPGs are the same though regarding the above so anyone who has played one will see the similarities.
The West hasn't made an MMORPG since 2006 as far as I know.
Just off the top of my head there's Warhammer Online, New World and The Old Republic. Everyone wanted to make a "WoW killer" to take a cut of Blizzard's pie, even if they haven't been successful in that goal.
free to play yet that's what the majority of the cons00mer types seem to be playing now.
From what I've seen, these types of games tend to attract people who don't have the money or the equipment to play better quality games. It's mostly children, Third Worlders, and bored non-gamers who want to check out whatever their friends are playing without risking any money over it. I don't mean any of this in a snooty way; it's only to point that it's a different playerbase with different needs and expectations than traditional gamers.
...it looks like any kind of co-op game is just some god awful grind fest if it's free to play
To be fair, considering they're still trying to make money on F2P, there's always bound to be some offset there. I get what you're saying, and agree to some extent. If that nonsense isn't your thing, and I get why it wouldn't be, it's a completely reasonable reaction to go to just buy it/own it singleplayer games.
At least Stardew Valley and Helldivers 2 can be called video games but honestly I tried PoE and it bored me to death...
I never got in to it either, but I think that's actually that it takes a while for your to warm up to it. PoE has it's issues, but those are largely issues inherent in most ARPGs, F2P or otherwise. PoE just isn't going to grab some people, and some people also don't give it long enough, as it does start out a little drab, in my opinion. Not every game is going to be for every person.
I don't think I could ever play co-op with people if they just quit halfway through and inevitably the instance ends right there so you're fucked and have to immediately jump to a queue only to have another twat abandon a game right after.
I mean, that's generally pretty rare, in my experience. Frustrating when it happens, but quite rare. You have to determine what's important to you. Multiplayer will always be at least a bit of a gamble, because it introduces that human element into it by default. You'll get some shitters, you'll get some bad matchmaking, you'll even get the occasional troll or rager. You'll also get a more challenging experience because you're fighting other humans, though (in PvP at least), and that it will be balanced around trying to have 50:50 winrate at an equal skill. If that's your thing, it's great...assuming competent execution. If it's not your thing, it's not your thing.
Yep, offline or solo play only for me.
Again, completely valid. I sort of go back and forth myself. I also prefer solo play, generally, but do also love the competition of some PvP games, so hit up the multiplayer from time to time.
When corps realized that retarded goblins would whale for mobile games.
That was the death knell for gaming - the mobile market blowing up showedthe suits the untapped wallets of millions of retards with no gaming experience and no standards. Then came the push for endless expansion of the audience until everhthing is the same fucking sludge.
Freemium is the fucking devil. If it is in a game, the game is poisoned, rotted from the development level. They have to deliberately make the game worse when implementing those systems.
I played that for a bit. The first act was really fun and well made with super varied quests, and then you finished and went to act two and it took a massive nosedive, like they expended most of their effort on the first part and then realized way too late it wasn't enough content so they tacked on a bunch of extra stuff way late in development. And yeah the controls were godawful. Shame.
I have noticed that Korean mmos come out of the gate in a pretty decent state
Then some three or four years down the line the updates and new content have managed to fucking ruin everything
Take archeage for example at the start the life skills were super important and you could get a fair amount done just focusing on those because the product was sought after and the labour and land system somewhat restricted supply so the prices were not insane (it was possible to keep your sub up by making an alt in the other region, buying raw materials and then processing them because the processed product was worth more due to the labour system, in other games like runescape and wow buying the raw materials and selling the processed result is usually a loss)
Then with updates they added ways to get character power (gear usually) that did not require the life skills and instead just required endless daily quests and grinding
When the western versions have been so shit. To be fair that's just the big studios, indies are doing well. The Asians just know they need 3 things to get players in their games:
Beautiful/sexy characters
Great story
Great soundtrack
I have NIKKE fans saying spoilers over a their story so they're doing something right!
This is the answer.
After WoW's success, Western devs just stopped trying. They attempted a few like Tabula Rasa and the Hellgate games, but either it was a creative concept wrapped up in a bad design, or a bad idea wrapped up in a boring design. That's about the gist of most Western MMOs.
The Koreans focused on the three things you mentioned, plus moving away from tab-targeting and having real-time combat like in Vindictus, Black Desert, or TERA Online.
I cry. So much wasted potential. Fun for a bit, but when all is said and done, extremely bland and empty. Again..."wasted potential" sums it up.
I liked Tabula Rasa, the game mostly die as it had no end game what so ever.
Tabula Rasa was basically proto-Destiny but 7 years early.
I don't doubt garriot wasted waaaaay too much money on the way and that's why it released basically half finished, but if NCSoft had enough balls to support it to the finish line they could have had all that Destiny 1 market share.
Everytime a Korean style game gets popular, its because the big dogs in its category shit the bed.
POE wouldn't have gotten anywhere without D3 doing most of the marketting for it. None of the older KMMOs would have a Western base if WoW wasn't in decline when they launched.
And now Stellar Blade is literally just doing basic "hot chicks" but is somehow the best game ever because the entire Western industry has screwed up.
Looked at PoE back around when Diablo 4 came out. Bought Grim Dawn instead. Spent $25 on sale for the game and all the expansions. It won't ask or gatekeep anything behind any additional money until the next expansion comes out, so I'm happy.
A lot of people love Grim Dawn, and more power to them, but it didn't really grip me. My most recent ARPG that I've enjoyed is Last Epoch. And people are often mixed on it, but I like D3 as well.
My favorite part about Last Epoch was their insane "recruit a friend" system in the game on launch, that basically derailed their entire first few days and killed a lot of momentum they might have had by gutting any attempt to build a community.
They removed it and gave everyone the pet for free, which good on them, but it was such a stupid idea that it blows my mind they let it reach launch.
Also D3 is better than most of these games simply because it doesn't even pretend like it isn't a skinner box meant to be "BIG NUMBERS" and "SHINY COLOR DROPS." They don't jerk you around with any of the nonsense of building a gear set or skill points. Every season you basically get a free Set that makes you explode everything in your vision and then you go around exploding it until you hit a wall where you explode first.
Its a game filled with flaws, but its the most upfront with its "fun" and mindless nature. You don't have to pay someone to powerlevel you through 3 Acts or grind until you get that one drop that makes a build work or any of the other reasons why most people give up on games like Grim Dawn. You are given BIG NUMBER and then can play until that gets boring.
It grabs me for a couple weeks here and there, but that's every game for me. I just don't have the autist in me to go crazy in just one game forever. I know it will keep me interested for a long time as there's so many different builds and I never look up "perfect builds" or whatever I just play around and see what works.
I liked D3 too, but totally skipped it until they'd moved well on from all the things at launch. I won't touch D4 for principle sake and I could download it for nothing on Game Pass at the moment.
The West hasn't made an MMORPG since 2006 as far as I know. That's probably why.
But man, Korean MMORPGs are just so trash. Grindy to a point that it's not even fun. Gambling systems to enhance gear that are just frustrating. And like 10,000 different bonuses and currencies in my inventory I just don't have the patience to try to figure out.
Hahaha. This man is talking about Lost Ark. What a hideous time-wasting dumpster fire. I got like 400 kokomos or whatever the fuck they're called and was like, the fuck am I doing?
Not just Lost Ark. I was actually thinking of BDO when I made my post. All Korean MMORPGs are the same though regarding the above so anyone who has played one will see the similarities.
Just off the top of my head there's Warhammer Online, New World and The Old Republic. Everyone wanted to make a "WoW killer" to take a cut of Blizzard's pie, even if they haven't been successful in that goal.
From what I've seen, these types of games tend to attract people who don't have the money or the equipment to play better quality games. It's mostly children, Third Worlders, and bored non-gamers who want to check out whatever their friends are playing without risking any money over it. I don't mean any of this in a snooty way; it's only to point that it's a different playerbase with different needs and expectations than traditional gamers.
the 2000's free to play game boom most likely.
To be fair, considering they're still trying to make money on F2P, there's always bound to be some offset there. I get what you're saying, and agree to some extent. If that nonsense isn't your thing, and I get why it wouldn't be, it's a completely reasonable reaction to go to just buy it/own it singleplayer games.
I never got in to it either, but I think that's actually that it takes a while for your to warm up to it. PoE has it's issues, but those are largely issues inherent in most ARPGs, F2P or otherwise. PoE just isn't going to grab some people, and some people also don't give it long enough, as it does start out a little drab, in my opinion. Not every game is going to be for every person.
I mean, that's generally pretty rare, in my experience. Frustrating when it happens, but quite rare. You have to determine what's important to you. Multiplayer will always be at least a bit of a gamble, because it introduces that human element into it by default. You'll get some shitters, you'll get some bad matchmaking, you'll even get the occasional troll or rager. You'll also get a more challenging experience because you're fighting other humans, though (in PvP at least), and that it will be balanced around trying to have 50:50 winrate at an equal skill. If that's your thing, it's great...assuming competent execution. If it's not your thing, it's not your thing.
Again, completely valid. I sort of go back and forth myself. I also prefer solo play, generally, but do also love the competition of some PvP games, so hit up the multiplayer from time to time.
When corps realized that retarded goblins would whale for mobile games.
That was the death knell for gaming - the mobile market blowing up showedthe suits the untapped wallets of millions of retards with no gaming experience and no standards. Then came the push for endless expansion of the audience until everhthing is the same fucking sludge.
Freemium is the fucking devil. If it is in a game, the game is poisoned, rotted from the development level. They have to deliberately make the game worse when implementing those systems.
I remember the hidden world MMO. Terrible controls, but fun world. I guess I can describe that for a lot of games like this.
I played that for a bit. The first act was really fun and well made with super varied quests, and then you finished and went to act two and it took a massive nosedive, like they expended most of their effort on the first part and then realized way too late it wasn't enough content so they tacked on a bunch of extra stuff way late in development. And yeah the controls were godawful. Shame.
Just the subject has me remembering games like that. I can't remember any of the names.
Tbh the current poe league is utter trash so I'd suggest Grim Dawn instead.
Single player, decent mechanics, decent updates after all this time. Good build verity.
I have noticed that Korean mmos come out of the gate in a pretty decent state
Then some three or four years down the line the updates and new content have managed to fucking ruin everything
Take archeage for example at the start the life skills were super important and you could get a fair amount done just focusing on those because the product was sought after and the labour and land system somewhat restricted supply so the prices were not insane (it was possible to keep your sub up by making an alt in the other region, buying raw materials and then processing them because the processed product was worth more due to the labour system, in other games like runescape and wow buying the raw materials and selling the processed result is usually a loss)
Then with updates they added ways to get character power (gear usually) that did not require the life skills and instead just required endless daily quests and grinding
Guild Wars 2 had some novel ideas but it didn't hold long term interest for me.
Ditto. That's why I play World of Warcraft.