Raph Koster On Sony Online's MMO Plans, Hopes 48
Thanks to Warcry for its interview with Sony Online's chief creative officer, Raph Koster, as he discusses his relatively new job ("My job is primarily to help the teams make their games better, not to have them make my game. I know a lot of folks have been wondering if I'm here to change EverQuest to be more like Ultima Online or Star Wars Galaxies, and the answer is no"), the evolution of the MMO ("I see a little bit of a backlash here and there against the MMORPG in its classic form. There's maybe a sense that we haven't advanced the genre fast enough. My main answer to that one is 'it takes three years to make one of these things, give us a break, we haven't actually gotten to iterate very much yet'"), and why it's not just about designing the game ("I've been reading more and more in psychology and anthropology and sociology... Game design is only one facet of online world design, frankly.")
thats just great ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess its just a matter of terms, but I'd prefer he focused on the spirit of the game, rather than turning it into numbers and analyses and breaking it down into this terribly typical corporate newspeak... but then it could be my general dislike of the video-game industry in general which could be swaying my view. I'll admit that I find any group who seek to profit by wasting peoples time as much as possible [(*(void *)consumer-time)] to be a relatively despicable bunch...
Anyway, my point is, justifications of 'not enough iterations' not-withstanding, MMORPG's have just lost a lot of spirit.
Its like, the RPG's which used RPG 'format' as a means by which to tell a story compared to the RPG's which use RPG 'format' just to cover a market seem to be better.
All this format and over-analytical plot-mongering which comes from 'load balancing' and 'average mean time to next bathroom break' measurements seems to detract from the humbler purpose of RPG's, MMORPG's, and video games in general, and that is to tell some sort of story
Re:thats just great ... (Score:2, Troll)
If you hate games so much and game companies in general, why are you reading and posting in the games section? Leave this to those of us who actually like these subjects.
Your villification of the "video-game industry" is so arbitrary that I am actually in awe of your modification. "Wasting peoples time" is entirely in the eye of the beholder. Are you arguing that the concept of play is a waste? The concept of playing structure
Re:thats just great ... (Score:1, Interesting)
Dude, why do you have to be so freakin' linear? Life is not black and white, nor does it have a left hand constantly fighting the right for wank-factor.
Even though I have an aversion to this industry, this does not preclude me from having an opinion, nor should it mean that my voice has any weight, + or -, over anyone elses. Insight d
Re:thats just great ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Now as to why insight comes from "the 'experts', the chosen few, or the h
Re:thats just great ... (Score:2, Insightful)
in actual fact, consumer-time-online *is* tracked, *is* monitored, and it *is* a statistic which fat pink execs like to harvest.
the games industry has evolved into a 'hollywood model' for consumer attention. time spent playing is eyeballs controlled, focused on your product, and you're damn tootin' that this statistic is an important one to the people who run these businesses, online service overloa
Re:thats just great ... (Score:1)
Re:thats just great ... (Score:1)
Re:thats just great ... (Score:1)
This isn't a game. Its a conversation.
No, they get paid the same if the user plays 1 minute or 600 hours per month. They would prefer the former to the latter.
In fact, they do not. If I were to tell you how MMORPG game companies made money from their player statistics, I'd be giving away a very big secret or two indeed...
The box-profit counts, yes, and is clear
Re:thats just great ... (Score:2)
Re:thats just great ... (Score:1)
I'm not saying his intentions aren't to actually 'accomplish fun', just that there appears to be an over-corporatization of the process to the point where something essential appears to have been squeezed out of the whole.
I don't know what it is, I don't play RPG's much any more, but I think that the marketing schizm is definitely having an impact on style, and therefore, culture, of RPG management and design
I keep wondering why there aren't more significant tie-ins between video
Re:thats just great ... (Score:2)
NO.
no, no, nono no no NO!
RPGs, CRPGS, MMORPGs, and all other kind of GAME has one purpose, and it's certainly not "tell a story." It's to BE A FUN GAME!
MMORPGs and traditional pen & paper RPGs, with their inherent open-ended n
Facets. (Score:3, Insightful)
True. I'll be the first admit that (having obtained a psychology degree at university). However, game design still remains the most important facet. And frankly, you didn't get that right with Star Wars Galaxies. Jedi system, anyone?
Re:Facets. (Score:1)
Re:Facets. (Score:1)
And there are bugs that cause you to loose money and resources which you have no way of getting back.
I am really struggling to justify my subscription to this game due to the lack of interesting stuff to do.
SW:G defiantly needs some more work on setting up interesting quests and implementing a more definite story line.
They are slowly making progress: Mounts and vehicles were
Re:Facets. (Score:2)
Re:Facets. (Score:2)
1- Totally player economy. No vendor buys or sell to keep the market in check, and no monsters drop equipment. In FFXI the common items can be bought at npc's, capping prices at AH, and they can be sold to npc's for reasonable amounts, keeping a minimum value to goods.
2- Armor and equipm
"chief creative officer" (Score:1)
Re:"chief creative officer" (Score:1)
What the hell is a "chief creative officer"? That sounds about as made up as a "chief happiness officer".
What's to stop a corporation to have someone to handle their er, 'creative' side of the business? It may be almost as important as the other facets of a business, and something they shouldn't neglect. Really, they can have as many types of chief whatever officers as they want.
Re:"chief creative officer" (Score:1)
Exactly. 15 years ago you really didn't hear about Chief Financial Officers or Chief Operating Officers, either. It was the CEO and that's about it (Chairman of the Board, maybe, but most of the Board of Directors didn't have additional titles like CFO and COO or CCO). The company can more or less determine what officers it needs to best run their company, and with a large creative staff in the biggest money-making division of you
Get In The Game! (Score:3, Interesting)
One thing I think Mr. Koster needs to do at all costs is to get into the games. Get in there and play, so that he has a really good feeling of what the players are experiencing and sometime griping about. I know that MMORPGs are very complex beasts where there is no escape from paying the beta test. There's just no way to get it all right on day one (though FF XI is doing a good job I hear). Given that, maybe the best way to evolve and move the game on is from the inside. Live it, breathe it, eat it! Grok it!
Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Raph should take a close look at FFXI, and remind himself that people want to play a game. The word MMORPG ends in G, and that should be the most important aspect, not creating some sort of microcosm of human society. People often play their games as a form of escapism, to get away from the everyday world. They don't want every aspect of reality within this world. Players "pay to play", this isn't a MUD, where devs can play as gods. Customers are just that, and a clash of egos between players and devs does more to hurt the genre.
Another thing people want is content. Not make your own world type content, but real content, that they've paid for. The idea is that MMO's should be worlds built for players, not built BY players. Vocal minorities among players will say one thing, but it's often "pie in the sky" ideals. The vast majority of players will determine what they want, aka "Skinner Box" mentalities via money they've spent.
Re:Missing the point (Score:1)
It seems that these game systems have the potential to consistently remind us that we are really not alone in our struggles as individual human beings, and should both remind us and shield us from the infinite reality of life, which is:
Many have tried to grok how this entropy can be diverted, or channeled, or made consequential to
Re:Missing the point (Score:1, Insightful)
A typical single player game has 20-40 hours of content.
In MMORPGs players average 18-20 hours per week. A player may stay for 6 months or more. So for even an average player, that's around 500 hours of content. How much are you willing to pay for this?
Re:Missing the point (Score:2, Interesting)
In MMORPGs players average 18-20 hours per week. A player may stay for 6 months or more. So for even an average player, that's around 500 hours of content. How much are you willing to pay for this?
What you're missing, though, is that in a typical single player RPG the amount of content you experience in 18-20 hours (I also can't see that being an average player, though it may be an average for players that play 5+ days a week) is significantly more
Re:Missing the point (Score:2)
I agree that people want content. But why make a distinction if quality content can come just as much from the players as from the company running the servers?
I am of the opinion that a company running an MMO cannot provide adequate content *AND* good customer support. They have only so many resources that ca
Stories are Not Possible or Desired... (Score:3, Insightful)
People have complained time and time again that what they miss the most from an MMORPG is the story. What the same people don't realize is that MMORPGs do not end, thus have no resolution, thus have no story.
I admit it's a fine distinction. It's certainly possible to have episodes and quests where you set out to accomplish a goal. The problem comes when you've accomplished all of your goals. Then what? Sit around and twiddle your thumbs? Grief play?
To further illustrate the point, when you play a conventional single player RPG, you usually either destroy the world, or destroy the threat to the world such that the populace can live in relative peace and harmony. You get a sense of accomplishment and you move on.
I recently stopped playing Asheron's Call (an old MMORPG by today's standards). When I left, I asked one of my friends why she continues to play and she says she loves AC still because it gives her the freedom to do any old thing. Some days she feels like being an archer and sniping titans (Lugians in the game), other days she feels like being a melee and getting down and dirty with Alien style bugs in the underground tunnels (the Olthoi). Once in a while, she doesn't feel like exploring so instead she crafts.
The point being is that she plays for the visceral experience, not because she has a specific purpose in mind. I believe the vast majority of people who stick with all these "terrible, stupid, non-innovative" MMORPGs like Star Wars Galaxy feel the same way; they are not there to co-op towards a goal as in NeverwinterNights, they are merely there to enjoy the freedom of choice in their day to day activities.
And those people are the people most willing to pay monthly fees year in and year out.
I suspect Raph Koster had that in mind right from the begining. The problem is that the Star Wars Universe is very story driven - there's a conflict and there's some resolution that changes the nature of the galaxy, such as the rise and fall of the Emperor. And as many people have since then discovered, not everyone can be a Jedi and change the galaxy, and it's a hell of a lot boring if you want to be one of those Jedi.
At this point, Sony probably wants to create worlds that encourage people to well... "be born", make friends, make enemies, "grow families", build houses, grow old and well... die, over the span of years. The last thing they are interested in is creating a single arc story that a power-gamer can come in, finish in six months and move on to greener pastures. With that thought in mind, I think Koster is a good choice - people do bitch and whine about his worlds, but in the end, they live on for an extremely long time as UO will testify.
Re:Stories are Not Possible or Desired... (Score:2)
"
You really should check out FFXI, there is a story that plays out quite nicely in cutscenes as you do quests in each of the realm, these intertwine and tell a pretty decent little story has you hack, slash and make money at the auction house.
Yet we're still at problem number one (Score:3, Insightful)
How to give a player a role in a larger world without forcing him into it and without belitting everyone else.
The last three letter in MMORPG stand for Role Playing Game. We already know the single player RPGs are coming to a crossroads with the East (Japan) sticking to painfully linear storylines and characters while the West (U.S.A. and Europe) are going with the non-linear development of games. The problem with making a MMORPG is the storyline. Any quest any developer thinks of for a game is quickly blown through by players (even "super" monsters are being taken down by parties/guilds numbering in the hundreds). As such, developers are left with this one option, constantly and quickly add new content on a regular basis. The best successful example of this is Final Fantasy XI.
However, note that I said 'best' not 'only' or 'most'. The reason I point this out is because Final Fantasy XI has not been regularly releasing content that is pertant to the storyline except in irregularly released expansion packs (which non-Japanese players got as part of the original game). However I state that Final Fantasy XI is doing well because they have been successfully holding special events regularly on holidays and have already annouced an expansion which (at least the title) is related to the storyline.
Until a MMORPG successfully manages to constantly release content (free or not) containing quests related to the storyline, current MMO"RPG"s will be nothing more than leveling up or hording phat l3wt games since players will quickly go through whatever quests related to the storyline in a few weeks.
Re:Yet we're still at problem number one (Score:2)
Iterations of MMORPG's (Score:1)
Raph's Website (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Raph's Website (Score:2)
Look at SWG and UO both had him in with early design and work and both did not start to become with while until he left.
In SWG where he had the power to implement alot of what he talkes about with customer support and things of that manner he did not do or even try to push.
Sure read his site but for information on how to do stuff not for example where he has actually done it.
Everquest could learn a few things from Ultima... (Score:2)
The ultima online control system allows you to do the same things in much easier ways more intuitive ways.
Ultima also has the advantage for people who dont want to be combat monsters.
On the other hand the Everquest trading system seems to work a bit better than the chaotic Ultima system...but it does seem contrived.
Psychology and sociology aren't so much a factor (Score:1)
Planetside risky? Maybe, but.... (Score:2)
No mention, though, of Sovereign, a MMORTS game which was an even bigger risk, evidenced by the fact that it was cancelled some time ago after years of development. Nobody's managed to pull off that game format yet, because the concept of persistence is hard to reconcile against the objective of victory in the long term where player competition is direct and the power law relation disadvantages the new player severely.
Re:Planetside risky? Maybe, but.... (Score:2)
Oh, well
Wall of China built around SWG (Score:2, Interesting)
This from the man who closed the SWG forums so they cannot even be read unless you are paying a monthly fee. If SWG honestly became a great game today, we would have no more information than the standard marketing nonsense.