Throwing Out the Rulebook For MMOs 245
MMORPG.com's Dana Massey asks about the possibility of throwing out the rulebook for MMOs, suggesting that the next blockbuster title in the genre will be one that ignores many of the features and conventions that have come to be standards over the years. Quoting:
"Who said that MMOs require hot bars? Who proclaimed that it's not a proper MMO unless you have quests? Blizzard took a formula that almost all MMOs had been using for years and distilled it down to addictive perfection. Love or hate WoW, it's a polished, polished title. It's no coincidence that on hardcore MMO sites, like this one, WoW is not the most hyped or trafficked game around. It's not that it's bad, but veteran MMO players don't have the same love for it, simply because we've all seen some variation of it before. The WoW community has always been a bit apart from the larger MMO community. Based purely on the number of subscribers, WoW articles should statistically annihilate every other game on this site, but they don't. A huge percentage of people who truly love WoW, I've always believed, do not know or particularly care about this whole world of MMOs out there. They're WoW players and that's it."
MMO*** (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that everytime a game is made with the first three letters above, the last three always seem to be RPG and this is always the problem. I am a gamer who spends a lot of time and money on gaming. I have a young family so going out socialising isnt a real possibility like it was 10 or even 5 years ago. I've tried WoW and i've tried Eve, whilst both seem initially interesting they fall foul (to me) in one key area - gameplay. In short there isnt really that much.
All of these MMO(rpg's) seem to make their money and selling point around what's round the corner. You might have a Thorax or a +5 shield now, but in one more month you could have a Deimos and a +9 shield AND a new hammer! Its also this point that raises my next.
Skill
Alot of these MMO's have painted themselves into a corner with regard to creating a level playing field between established players and new players. You could have two players of equal skill squaring off but because one has been feeding his habit for a few months or even years longer they win in the random number generator fight that occurs.
I am hoping that the new jumpgate game chages this a bit with its reliance on player piloting skill for combat if the read-ups are to be believed but in the meantime I rely on games like Left4Dead to provide my social gaming fix. The number of hours I have got in on it are absurd. Its a class based game, with a social setting - especially if you play vs mode and best of all you dont get your ass handed to you by someone Jonesing bad for a fix from a 3 year habit, getting the kill simply because the developer is giving them an I win button for their money.
To me games are about skill with a little bit of luck and that is what alot of these MMO's with their endless levelling seem to forget, I have money and am willing to give it to a developer who can figure that out.
Re:No Love (Score:2, Interesting)
My anecdotal sample goes the other way, of the 10 or so wow players I know only one has played another MMO besides wow (everquest).
'Customers' (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:MMO*** (Score:3, Interesting)
The trouble is with GW, if you want access to all the game skills and items unlocked for PvP _immediately_, you have to pay:
USD10 for PvP item unlock pack (this unlocks all item mods so you can make any item you want for your PvP characters that you can create and delete on demand).
USD10 for Core Skill unlock pack - this unlocks all the skills common to all campaigns.
USD10 for Prophecies campaign skill unlock pack - this unlocks the prophecies specific skills - some which can be rather useful...
USD10 for Factions campaign skill unlock pack - same as above but for Factions
USD10 for Nightfall campaign skills
USD10 for Eye of the North skills.
So that's a total of USD60, on top of the USD20 for just a PVP only account.
Now of course you could pay USD20, get a limited bunch of skills and then grind your way by winning battles and thus get faction to gradually unlock the stuff you want), but I think most PvP-only players won't like that sort of bullshit (would you?).
As it is, while GW could have been a more "player skill counts" game, it won't really attract the sort of players who play counterstrike, left4dead, starcraft, etc. Those sort people don't mind "grinding" _5_ minutes to unlock all stuff, but anything much more, they play a different game.
Re:You HAVE to change the formula (Score:4, Interesting)
"You cannot create an MMO at the same "polished" level as WoW"
Sorry but your wrong. Apart from the other. There are a few MMOs out there that are very polished. Eve Online, City of Heroes are two recent ones. Older ones like for example Asherons Call would be on par (excepting graphics) of WoW.
The issue isn't with being polished. There is a formula that makes a great game. For example take Neocron. I played it pre-dome of york. It was extremely buggy, crashed a lot , graphics were OK'ish, limited maps in relation to other MMOs. Yet it was a horribly addictive game. Playing it gave a rush. The fact the client was a buggy pile of poo is what kept others joining the game (was nightmare to install). Having the subscription raised is what pushed me out of the game.
1. For a great MMO you need to satisfy all the Bartle food groups [wikipedia.org]. While at the same time ensuring they don't adversely impact each other.
2. You have to give rewards that mean something (feel you accomplished something in game). Rewards without some level of work do not act as rewards.
3. You have to give an investment to the player. In UO+AC for example this was housing. A bad example of housing is CoX for Supergroup bases.
4. The players have to feel they actually impact the environment. Not have everything reset later. Eve Online does this very well. Likewise with WOW some maps controlled impact gameplay elsewhere. Best one I saw was Asherons call (a town was nuked based on some random players comments). Even the virus outbreak in WOW gave a feeling of the players impacting the environment.
5. You have to build (controlled) conflict, so that communities form. Alliance v Horde, Eve corps.
6. A level of customization. Most of long standing WOW players actually run with multiple plugins.
Re:Reasons, reasons (Score:3, Interesting)
They tried an almost completely free sand-box style of play, and had arguably the best theme for an MMO ever, and it totally sucked.
Mostly because they tried to dumb it down from that sandbox, in order to draw in new players, thus alienating their player base -- which is suicide for an MMO. They pretty much drove it into the fucking ground.
From what I've read, the things they did wrong were:
- They completely changed combat to be more twitch-based and less RPG-based, thus alienating any of its player base who don't like FPSes, including some disabled people.
- They killed off whole classes and skills -- I believe over half of these were removed, to make the game simpler to balance and understand -- thus alienating the existing player base who liked such things, and failing to provide any real draw to people who were already playing "simpler" games like WoW.
- They made Jedi common. Really fucking common. Seriously, in any realistic Star Wars universe, especially one set between movies in the original trilogy, Jedi had better be rarer than GMs. Thus, they disrespected both the storyline and the original Jedi, who became Jedi when that was actually hard to do.
- They changed all this stuff. And they changed it relatively frequently. Yes, everyone likes updates to an MMO, but there's a difference between an update -- just adding more content, keeping everything balanced and relatively stable -- and a catastrophic change like wiping out half the professions.
Basically, they had a game that, while it wasn't living up to their expectations, it did have a bit of uniqueness, and a cult following, and would likely have lasted a long time. And they went in and ripped out that quirky uniqueness and replaced it with their idea of what might appeal to the lowest common denominator -- and in so doing, they lost both their niche and the lowest common denominator.
And that's why, while I might not like some aspects of WoW, they will never change, as long as Blizzard is smart.
It's also why these guys are partly right, and partly wrong. They're wrong that the WoW-killer will be completely unlike WoW -- it will have to be both like and unlike it, and absurdly better than it, just as WoW was all of these things for Everquest. But they're right that, if you're making an MMO now, unless you have a budget bigger than Blizzard, you do not want to be competing with them -- you want to carve yourself a niche, and hone that niche to a fine edge.
So, for example, I don't really like the Sims, but it's a pretty popular game. Second Life is popular as well. That proves that "sandbox play" is a viable niche, at least.
Re:Dancing Elves On Mailboxes And Cows In Skirts (Score:4, Interesting)
That's basically what made WoW the huge success it is: It is trivially easy to level up. It takes time. Nothing else. I've heard of 3 year olds playing it and being quite successful, and I do not doubt that a single moment. Which is cool, before you mod me flamebait, if that's what you're looking for. Many people do have a challenging life and want to relax and unwind in a game, not to face more challenging obstacles and tough decisions. Others again don't get anything done and want at least a sense of accomplishment in a game, and an easy game gives you that more, well, easily.
It is a bit more of a challenge (well, was before it was dumbed down so anyone could do it again) when you got to the point where you needed a group for raids. Compared to the rest of the MMO world, they tend to be fairly easy too (just watch where you step so you don't run into the wanderers and look up a cycle for your styles/spells to max out DPS isn't quite what I'd consider a challenge).
But this is what is wanted. The majority of people don't want challenging games. They want rewards.
Re:No Love (Score:4, Interesting)
That's a laugh. I don't know anyone of the 20 or 30 people that play or have played WoW for thousands of hours that haven't tried out other MMORPGs - Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, EVE, a slew of free or freemium ones, etc.
Maybe because that is because you play WoW and don't encounter anyone who didn't come back.
I'm on a very large guild on Warhammer Online (1000+ members) and the concensus is that we don't like WoW. I mean it was good, but it had flaws for what most of us wanted in an MMO and that is why we are sticking with War.
There are many debates on vent about why say Conan failed or what Mythic could do better with Warhammer online, but not everyone wants to play that game for lots of different reasons. I think at least the WAR followers like the PvP and RvR which WoW has but pulls off rather poorly in some aspects in getting more than several hundred people onto the open battle field at the time.
Anyways, its really from your personal perspective of who says what. If you play WoW, you probaly didn't like WAR and if you are currently playing WAR there are reasons you aren't playing WoW.
On a side note... I've been reading some very interesting blogs about Darkfall Online [mmorpg.com] about the game politics and game mechanics. Perhaps when they release an North America server and iron out the bugs I'll take it for a spin.
Class/Level = Skill/Stat (Score:5, Interesting)
The Ultima Online skill system and skill systems in general are another form of the class/level system. This idea did not spring Minerva-like from my mind, but I have forgotten where I first read the idea (perhaps Lum the Mad had something to say about it.)
Look at UO as an example. Distinct classes with small variations emerged from the skill and mechanics balancing at a particular time. There were three major classes that I recall: the "Dex Monkey," the "Tank Mage," and the Thief/Archer. A player effectively leveled by advancing their skills and stats towards their perfect build for their objective class.
However, the skill and stat system provided extreme flexibility. A player could take their "maxed out" character and completely change their stat and skill distributions. While initially it was huge chore to accomplish, the difficulty of this process was greatly reduced as the game matured.
In some ways, class and level systems can have a similar flexibility: talent resets, skill resets, etc. The key distinction between the two is that in any class/level system that I have played, you could not fundamentally change the class of a character, just the level of variation provided within that class.
Even in a game such as EVE Online, classes tend to emerge. They are perhaps the most nebulous classes out of any MMORPG that I have seen, yet characters tend to have skill concentrations associated with a particular purpose: hauler, carrier pilot, covert ops pilot, etc. The main distinction with EVE is that it lacks a zero-sum skill or leveling system. The only constraints on leveling are time and resources. However, the sheer complexity of the game lends itself to extremely blurred class distinctions (Would all the Marxists in the audience please sit down.)
I could go on and on about Ultima Online, EVE, and MMORPGs in general, but I will end my monologue with a few parting thoughts.
I think the two major things that drew me to EVE and Ultima Online were the consequence of death and something that I call the "grief economy." Basically in UO and EVE, death had very real consequences. In UO, anything you were carrying on your person was "lootable" after death. In EVE, you lost your ship and potentially some of your skill levels. Furthermore, in both games the victor of a player versus player confrontation stood to gain significant economic reward. A "grief economy" arises in both situations, and the balancing of that economy is paramount for the success of the game. Yet, it is precisely that economy and the incentives to do harm to others that prevents those games from gaining a large market share in todays MMORPG environment.
My comments are not meant to pigeon-hole either game. I am just discussing some relevant aspects of each.
Re:Reasons, reasons (Score:1, Interesting)
SWG was by far the absolute best MMO I've ever played in terms of its world. The immersion factor was truely immense. Say for instance when you and your guild decided to go hunt a Krayt Dragon (what amounted to a raid boss earlieron in the game), you had to go find it. There might be 2 of these things spawned in an area twice the size of the barrnes. And they moved around. So, if your guild didn't have a Master Ranger you had to go out and find one, and pay him for the service of tracking this thing down for you, and setting up a base for your raid to organize. Swap that with "LF2M BRD, can summon PST" Its just not the same.
Or when your in Corellia, essentially the Orgimar/Ironforge of SWG, you don't just see "Enchanter LF work, tips appreciated, [linked enchanting skill, thats completely identical to every enchanter]" Instead you have what amounts to a de-facto bazaar emerging. People are lining up for Doctor buffs, a creature handler has a few mounts out on display is hawking his wares. An armorsmith boasting about how good he is at repairing items, and a half dozen druids advertising their masters buisness somewhere else on the planet or on another world.
If you didn't like the major cities, screw em. Goto your favorite PLAYER MADE city, where your favorite shops are, not to mention your house. That you could decorate.
At some point you may want to go visit your factories and harvesters, catch a show at a cantina, or just explore..which was NOT easy.
SWG was amazing, yea the 'quests' were a side thought, but they werent really the point of the game anyway. The point was a society made wholly from scratch, and it was amazing.
Aging (Score:3, Interesting)
"blizzard is warming up to the fact that the game is aging"
I'd like to see the characters age, ya know, peak and then decline. One of the reasons I won't play an MMORPG is that starting at the bottom and knowing you'll never catch the early/elite players is a drag. There are lots of WoWsers around the office and hearing them talk about leveling and which quests they've completed almost always makes me laugh a little. Where's the role playing if your character can never get old, never really die and has done the exact same things as every other character.
I think some of the early non-MMO RPGs had aging and real death as features. Sure, they weren't expecting people to shell out $$$ every month, but there are ways to make aging and death be kind of cool. Maybe have an heir system where you get to have your main character, who goes out questing and such, and if they die, you can create a new, lower level character that inherits what's left of their stuff.
If you had the right set of skills, you could have some of the skills peak at different times, so that agility plateaus before constitution and intellect plateaus last. This way, you wouldn't have young, level 80 mages. They would be old, like mages were back in the good old days before Harry Potter.