Mabinogi, Who's in beta?

[Raydeus]

Re: Mabinogi, Who's in beta?

Google ftw.

At any rate, I'm DLing the client now, so I'll check it out and see what's up. Just for shits and giggles, I'll prolly make a girl and name her LilithAngel or something along those lines. Y'know, cuz that'd be me and all.

Or, to try something totally different, I could make a guy. Now, I wonder what name I'll give him. Hmmm...

Lady Lilith it is.

[LilithAngel]

Re: Mabinogi, Who's in beta?

Ha ha.

[Feba]

Re: Mabinogi, Who's in beta?

the odds are it's unbalanced and not very engaging long term without having to keep buying items.

That's like saying that FFXI is made to take forever so that SE can milk the most money out of you, and hopefully keep you from accomplishing much before the next expansion/update comes out and you have more to do. Partially, yes, but much more than that it is fun. The difference is, with item shop games, you aren't forced to pay for things, and you can have fun without paying. Yes, there might be some useful items. Most times, however, they are just for show.

Eventually you either quit playing or you do end up buying something.

And for FFXI, you either quit playing, or you end up paying a monthly fee. Except in item shop games, there's hardly ever very much reason you would REQUIRE buying something, whereas in FFXI you can't play any other way.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Mabinogi, Who's in beta?

The difference is, with item shop games, you aren't forced to pay for things, and you can have fun without paying. Yes, there might be some useful items. Most times, however, they are just for show.

Having never played one of those, I merely look at value added service model as different incentive schedule for the developers.

Basically, making a desirable item has a lot higher short term reward for the developer in such a model than the monthly subscription model. To me, that does not encourage balance--in fact, it may be far more profitable to repeatedly and intentionally unbalance the game multiple times to induce additional item purchases so players feel like they can "keep up" with other players.

Perhaps most of the items are fluffs in these type of game, but if there is any significant population of hardcore players, it'd be hard to pass up the business opportunity presented by offering high priced, game balance altering items.

Not to say there are no MMORPG firms which can resist the temptation, of course. Still, the incentive structure is questionable for long term health of any MMORPG which rely on the value added service model.

[Feba]

Re: Mabinogi, Who's in beta?

Except that in a free game, if you make things horribly unbalanced, people leave. In games like FFXI, people feel like they've made a much larger investment in their character.

It's bad business for any game company to ruin it's own games. The business model in either case has the top priority of keeping people playing, and then once they're playing try to get some money out of them.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Mabinogi, Who's in beta?

Except that in a free game, if you make things horribly unbalanced, people leave. In games like FFXI, people feel like they've made a much larger investment in their character.

It's bad business for any game company to ruin it's own games. The business model in either case has the top priority of keeping people playing, and then once they're playing try to get some money out of them.

Well, the obvious counter argument to that is that free games have very low entry barrier, and thus can afford to lose more players since it's easier to get more. Kind of like how people complain that bad Bards can blow off parties and still get more.

Would be interesting to see the retention rate and average active length for player accounts for different revenue models. (No illusions about any company releasing such treasured data. Meh.)

In any case, I wasn't arguing any company would be out to ruin its own MMORPGs, just pointing how one model may have additional (read: financial) short term incentive to do more of the bad things.

[Feba]

Re: Mabinogi, Who's in beta?

Well, the obvious counter argument to that is that free games have very low entry barrier, and thus can afford to lose more players since it's easier to get more. Kind of like how people complain that bad Bards can blow off parties and still get more.

Not at all. The sorts of people that will play one free game will have no problem playing any of the dozens of other ones. If you get a bad reputation, you would kill off much of your incoming players, because they'd just go elsewhere.

In any case, I wasn't arguing any company would be out to ruin its own MMORPGs,

Yes, you are. If you aren't talking about a company intentionally ruining it's own game, you're just putting words together without realizing what you're saying.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Mabinogi, Who's in beta?

Yes, you are. If you aren't talking about a company intentionally ruining it's own game, you're just putting words together without realizing what you're saying.

I tend to forget The Feba always decides what was the meaning behind other people's words. My position is fairly nuanced, but I've lost interest in explaining it.

* * *

Looks like Mabinogi has been around for some time. Perhaps it's all about recycling existing code and art assets in an attempt to pump out additional revenue from those investments.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Mabinogi, Who's in beta?

Looks like Mabinogi has been around for some time. Perhaps it's all about recycling existing code and art assets in an attempt to pump out additional revenue from those investments.

Yep, my inbox gets flooded with invites to these games and when I try them all I keep saying to my son is "Same s**t, different wrapper."

[InuTrunks]

Re: Mabinogi, Who's in beta?

well, I'm enjoying the game, infact so much I'll be playing retail. The game has been out for about 5 years now in Korea. It's much like Harvest Moon combined with Ragnarök Online.

I'm really enjoying the crafting aspect of the game (more so then the fighting). Though, the failing making something at 95% seems a little annoying. Money is easy to come by, but you need alot of it.

Being a mage is a pain in the ass, apperently it is OP, but still needs alot of fixing (Having to drink a mana pot after every cast, no thanks). Defense is over powered in you can't be killed, if you don't use it, monsters can still one shot you.

hah.

Yes, graphics aren't amazing, but you know, graphics arn't everything in the game.

[Feba]

Re: Mabinogi, Who's in beta?

all I keep saying to my son is "Same s**t, different wrapper."

You say that to your son?

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Mabinogi, Who's in beta?

You say that to your son?

Yes? We often talk about new MMO's/gaming. Is that ok?

[Raydeus]

Re: Mabinogi, Who's in beta?

Necromancer skillz ftw.

Seriously though, is anyone still playing this game? I've been kinda thinking about trying it out (yes I'm a sucker for Anime-like characters ).

[InuTrunks]

Re: Mabinogi, Who's in beta?

Na, it died out for me when the closed beta ended, I havn't kept up with it. When I learned that we were 6 years behind the korean's in terms of gameplay and other features I said I'd wait a bit for it to be polished.

now this is the game i'm looking most forward to Mythos

Mythos

It's made by Flagship studios, old blizzard crew who made D1. It's seriously D3.

[Karinya]

Re: Mabinogi, Who's in beta?

Basically, making a desirable item has a lot higher short term reward for the developer in such a model than the monthly subscription model. To me, that does not encourage balance--in fact, it may be far more profitable to repeatedly and intentionally unbalance the game multiple times to induce additional item purchases so players feel like they can "keep up" with other players.

All they need to do is invent the booster pack and they'd have Magic: the Gathering! Then people would buy mystery items over and over again hoping to get that really good one (which, come to think of it, is kind of like Nyzul Isle, except with money.)

Which, incidentally, refutes Feba's point that ruining the game will drive players away. M:tG has been badly unbalanced basically since it came out, and each new expansion creates new balance problems, usually without bothering to fix the old ones. But people still play it - and have fun playing it, balance or no balance.

Saying that you can have fun playing an unbalanced game doesn't refute the criticisms of its balance. Chess is unbalanced in favor of white, but lots of people still play and enjoy it, even at highly competitive levels. (Of course they play several games alternating sides, which is not usually a reasonable option in an MMO.)