Really, that's a marketing gimmick more than anything. Sure they can call it whatever they want, but it still fits the definition of a "MMO" and everyone else is completely in the right to refer to it as such (and most do). People come up with their own wonky categories to put their own stuff in to make it stand out more. I notice it the most with crazy music genres.

But, really, this nitpicking is getting away from the point. Is Guild Wars really so far removed from the "MMORPG" genre that it doesn't count as an example of how a PvP focused MMO could be successful?

edit: Even if you don't consider it a MMO, it still teaches a lot of lessons that a PvP focused MMO could learn.

1) Don't nerf PvP for PvE, and vice versa. Split functionality of the skills if you have to.

2) Let people jump right into the PvP from day one and be competitive if that's what they want. GW lets you make a max level PvP only character right from the beginning, and lets you unlock new skills as you PvP. No one has to do anything they don't like just to get to the part of the game they want to enjoy.

3) Put everyone on an equal footing, or very close to it. Someone who spends months on PvE shouldn't have a statistical advantage over PvPers and vice versa. If you can get something through one then you should be able to get it through another. PvPers could unlock all of the armor and weapon modifiers through PvP if they wanted to.


I'd say a large reason why most PvP focused MMOs fail is because they don't come up with suitable solutions to these (and other) issues.

I believe that GW was sucessful for three reasons and not because it had a PvP focus.

1. How it was marketed and developed. Remember back before the game launched there was a free to play weekend of the very early game (pretty decent as well I seem to recall). Then people could buy an "empty box" for $5 (I think it was $5 in BestBuy at any rate). For that people got to play the weekend "development" trials that ran about 1 a month for 6 months or so. (That type of thing anyway). And then box holders got a $5 discount if they bought the full product.

Good marketing.

2. The financial model. People bought the box and the expansions - no monthly fee. It limited their costs if they didn't like the game. And ultimately the average GW subscribers probably paid more $ than a 'typical' monthly subscriber - the last figure I read being 7 monthly subs.

3. A genuinely well done game "bug free".

Those are all valid factors. There's also the more recent(ish) marketing tactic of letting people earn cosmetic rewards for GW2 by playing GW1. It's pulling in people now that are excited for GW2, and it's sure to continue to do so after GW2's release. It's an interesting approach to the sequel issue Sony ran into with EverQuest 2 (the release of EQ2 basically gutted the original EQ's population, from what I recall).

WoW and EQ2 launched at the same time.. its impossible to say for sure if it was eq2 or wow that gutted eq's population ...

its far more likely though that they went to WoW ... being as EQ2 peaked at 300k subs... and WoW is still climbing well past 10million....

 

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I think the mystery on Daoc2/Gaoc (lol) is even bigger than Duke Nukem Forever , as DNF is coming after all (or at least even dared to be announced).

And Daoc"2" wouldn't even need much. It's just a damn old engine. It can't be that hard to just clone the game itself to viable engines while ignoring WoWification.

And just to add to the mistakes or "supplemental" list:

Financial capacity back and forth, they (Mythic) had the potential -regardless of what so ever.

all in all, and at the end, they just frakked it up.


It is about as fail and painful as missing the signals of a fun girl at a party.

 

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DAoC 2 would fail...

do you know how we know this... because history tells us so

sequals to western MMO's dont work, not a single one of them...

eq still has a larger population then eq2...

weres Asherons call 2 at these days? ... oh thats right it failed, horrible... but Asherons call 1 is still up and running...

so DAoC 2 Would go nowhere at all... its better to work on and improve the current one then try to make a sequal...

and... DAoC engine *ISNT* old.. its been updated many times over the years ... check out the new MMO Rift.. same game engine as DAoC is currently running...

 

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I've got tentative hopes that EA may be planning on throwing some money at their other MMOs once TOR is finally out, and then eventually offering something like Sony's Station Pass or whatever it is. They obviously intend on the game bringing in a decent amount of new players somehow or they wouldn't be updating the site, adding a wiki, or improving the new player experience.

I mostly agree. Sequels to western MMO’s do not work and with the existing mindset of the typical game developer, DAoC 2 would go nowhere.


But, and I have no proof as this is just an opinion but the opinion is based on what is actually happening in the game world, the reason that sequels fail is because the makers of the sequel have no clue what the customers need. One reason developers make a sequel is because they do not know what to make and are hoping to cash in a bit on the original title. If the game makers ever actually figured out what the customers need in a MMO, then the paradigm shifts.


Also, there is such a huge quantity of change that is needed to make DAoC viable again the only way to implement the massive amount of change, and the only viable way to get players to accept the massive changes/rollback of problem features (no bots, no PLing, etc. . . ), would be to have players start over on a new set of servers in a new iteration of the game.


The new game need not be promoted as DAoC 2. It would be better if it were advertised as a new game that just happened to contain those features from DAoC that developers found were the most loved by players. The game could be called “The Golden Age of Camelot” or “Arthur’s Legacy” or The Battle for Camelot” or etc. . . .


If we leave reality behind just a tiny little bit and give Mythic more insight and intelligence than they actually have, an iteration of DAoC (if called something completely different) could actually be a viable and very profitable/popular game. DAoC done correctly still has huge potential because no company has yet to do it correctly.


But in today’s reality, you are completely correct that there do not seem to be any game developers that have the necessary insight into what the customer needs and consequently any attempt to make DAoC2 would fail.

 

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Wasn't Mark Jacobs whole problem like trying to make a "WOW Daoc hybrid clone"?


He ditched Daoc so fast when he seen the succes of WOW......


I mean hell Warhammer online was order and destruction.... wow is horde alliance... how much of a clone are you trying to make?


Warhammer was a massive fail... even though it hit 1 mil copies sold.... it was down to 300k subs after like the first month or 2.


I really hate the "post WOW MMORPG game world".


My 2 cents~~~~~~

Yes, yes, ten times yes. He saw WOW coming and created trials of abortions, ramming it down the players' throats against all objection. Still smitten with the WOW bug, he created Failhammer.