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The Future of the MMORPG: Nothing new
Ihmotepp
Member Posts: 14,495
I don't think the future of the MMORPG is a radical new design that will suddenly make grinding Mobs and quests, and end game designs, obsolete.
I think the future of the MMORPG is the radical niche that explores one aspect of MMORPG design, and satisfies the player interested in that part of an MMORPG.
It will be the hard core PvP game, the Crafting game, the RvR game, the PvE for groupers game, the Solo Questers game, the Puzzle Solvers game, the Roleplayers game, and so on.
What makes this happen?
Bandwidth continues to drop in price. Something like the Hero Engine is released for 20 to 50 thousand dollars. A new cheaper faster way to develop 3d graphics and animations is developed.
Something like the Character Creator in CoH for making Mobs, Characters, and Buildings, along with great terrain generation, current Tree and plant generation, coupled with a fast motion capture system for generation smooth animation. Generating 3D graphics with smooth animation is expensive, but it can probably be streamlined.
The New MMORPG is made in 2 years tops, with a budget of 2-5 million, instead of 50 million, and the radical extreme niche MMORPG is born, catering to all sorts of gamers, instead of trying too cater to EVERYONE, like games do now.
As long as you must continue to cater to EVERYONE, the genre doesn't offer what most of the posters here are looking for. Becasue people read my posts, and most are going to say, well that's crap I certainly wouldn't play it. And I feel the same about most posts I read. No way those designs are going to justify 50 mil spent on a game.
Eitehr the price of production comes way, way, way down, or you continue to see LoTRO, WoW expansions, Aion, and junk like that.
What you want is hundreds of Darkfalls (niche games), only with a much shorter development time, NOT the WoW killer. You won't like the WoW killer, because if you would, you'd be playing WoW right now.
How many times have you read this: Devs are scared to make something innovative, that's why the copy WoW cause it's a sure thing. When will Devs take risks and make something innovative?
The answer is never, because it's not about being "scared". It's simple cost benefit analysis. I spend 50 mil, to make a game that can bring in at most 5 mil a year. I would need to wait 10 years JUST to amek my money back, and no investor is putting up money for that, Project Cancelled. When that turns into I spend 2 mil to bring in 5 mill a year, NOW you get a green light.
Comments
OMG! Part of the sky just fell on my car! Flee!
Baby steps, Ihmotepp. The big MMOG's aren't going away. They always have been few and far between. At least now we have more to do between the big ones.
Agreed.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
I think the devs of MMOs are starting to see that copying the WoW model isn't helping them either. Why would people leave one game just to grind up again in a game that is similiar? Also the big budget games that spend millions are not doing so hot either...AoC n War...neither of them did so well and both big name games.
So I agree we may see more MMOs that go for smaller crowds and cator more towards one gaming style rather than trying to appease them all. IMO the more companies like that mean more chance that we will eventually find the game that suits each playstyle.
Personally, I don't pay much attention anymore to the future 'WoW killers' , I spend more time following up on the small companies that are not making much hype.
well anyway in my opnion there are lots of mmos are still doing their best to take some innovation and upgrading their game and still conituing to improve more and more just for the satisfaction not only by the companies of each game but also for the players as well...
Luminary: Rise of the GoonZu player
If you don't consider WAR/AOC successful due to their population size, you certainly wouldn't consider a niche MMO successful.
Someone put it well in another thread, that there's this huge variety of playstyles/gameplay WOW offers, and that's part of why WOW is successful - no matter who you are, you can find some combination of those playstles and gameplay which appeals to you. Part of why it's retained such a ridiculous player population.
A niche MMO forsakes that, which guarantees it'd never have the big numbers (ie "Success" in the eyes of most gamers). I think such a game could be successful (profitable) but would probably be selling itself short.
That said, copying the WOW model ensures you're directly competing with a company which has put a ridiculous number of years of development into their product. So you either have to have grandiose ideas for how to truly improve upon the model, or you have to offer something which feels different to players.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I agree with you and I am actually waiting for that to happen. I believe that this won't happen very soon though, as the very generic MMOs that we are beholding nowadays are still very attractive for a large crowd. We have to wait until the moment in which those people finally define what kind of MMORPGs they are looking for, and then when we get huge and noisy crowds expecting MMORPGs directed at their specific groups, we may be seeing this phenomenon happening more widely.
Darkfall may be an exception to this, as I am aware that part of its development team was composed of former UO players who were expecting something more specifically directed at the group that they belonged to. They were not a massive crowd, nor noisy, but with time as pre-launch Darkfall's community grew it turned out that Darkfall actually succeeded in showing to everyone how there is a considerable amount of players nowadays looking for something more specific instead of the common genre, as its promises drew the attention of a massive amount of gamers.
Still I don't think it is going to happen just yet. Generic MMOs may still be more profitable nowadays, and even if they aren't, they certainly are a safer investment for developers. They may be more interested in being sure that they will gain some money from their projects instead of taking the risk of losing everything in an attempt to create a very unique MMORPG that in the end attracts no one at all. We have to wait for the specific groups to grow and get louder. Perhaps that way more developers will feel safe by creating a game directed at them.
I was not trying to say in any way that the big MMORPGs are going away. I'm saying don't ask the big MMORPGs to be innovative or different in any huge way, because they won't be.
The big MMORPGs will for the forseeable future cater to players taht like themepark, WoW style casual (in the leveling stage) games with quest grinding and classes.
Players aren't suddenly going to mature and want somethign different. There is a constant influx of a new player base (children that grow up) and they will be entertained by WoW style games, and there's nothign wrong with that.
They won't all graduate from WoW and suddenly all want more sophisticated, immersive, sandbox, skill based games.
Only a tiny portion of gamers will fall into this category. So games must be based on that reality.
If you're spending 50-100 million, that's the sort of game you make, a WoW clone. Not because you're scared to innovate, but because that's the kind of audience you have to cater to in order to make your money back.
Success is measured by ROI, return on investment.
If a game has a 20 mil plus budget, it's going to be some sort of WoW clone. It has to be to cater to the large audience it needs to make a profit. If you are looking for something else, look to the lower budget games.
I think I said that about WoW offering a huge variety for different playstyles...
But Axehilt you have hit the nail on the head and completely disintigrated it. This is one of the most logical, intelligent, and 100% accurate posts I have ever read on these forums, or any MMO forum.
Well done sir. Well done.
I highlighted the truly brilliant parts.
"Copying the WOW model ensures you're directly competing with a company which has put a ridiculous number of years of development into their product. So you either have to have grandiose ideas for how to truly improve upon the model, or you have to offer something which feels different to players."
"There's this huge variety of playstyles/gameplay offered, and that's why it is so successful - no matter who you are, you can find some combination of those playstyles and gameplay which appeals to you."
Genius.
Can anything new actually be done? i mean just look at movies, books, the stories, the characters...i just look around and think damn we have pretty much done everything already.
Anytime something so called new comes out, when you sit and look at it its still basically something that has been done before, just slightly tweaked to make it hopefully a lil different.
I think the world is out of ideas.
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
- Lewis Thomas
I think I said that about WoW offering a huge variety for different playstyles...
But Axehilt you have hit the nail on the head and completely disintigrated it. This is one of the most logical, intelligent, and 100% accurate posts I have ever read on these forums, or any MMO forum.
Well done sir. Well done.
I highlighted the truly brilliant parts.
"Copying the WOW model ensures you're directly competing with a company which has put a ridiculous number of years of development into their product. So you either have to have grandiose ideas for how to truly improve upon the model, or you have to offer something which feels different to players."
"There's this huge variety of playstyles/gameplay offered, and that's why it is so successful - no matter who you are, you can find some combination of those playstyles and gameplay which appeals to you."
Genius.
And there it is in a nutshell. This is the model the average gamer will want to play. So if you are going to invest a bunch of money in development, this is what you are going to run up against.
If you go for something "innovative" you're scaring off most of your potential customers, because you'll be adding features the majority of players just don't want.
Sure WE want those features, the regular forum posters, but we're a tiny minority.
Just look at the posts on here, and what sort of games they are asking for. Do you want to play most of them? I don't. And nobody wants to play the game I'm asking for either.
zI agree with a lot of what the OP says,
However, I believe that true inovation will come from independent companies and not mainstream. Darkfall is not a game for the masses, but those players who enjoy it will play little else. I expect similar smaller scale games to be forged targeting smaller scale audiances. IN the end, the 'long tail model' will rule
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
While you are right it's all about how you present those ideas.
What about Harry Potter is so different from any other story about wizards and witches and good versus evil?
It's the details. It's what makes it different that makes it stand apart and be so successful, not what's the same.
Creativity and innovation do not have to be radically new ideas or concepts, they generally are just better ways to do something that we already did before.
This is very true of MMORPGs as well.
The next MMO that will be hugely popular and successful in the West will be one that feels comfortable and feels familiar because of the things that are similar to previous games, but will also be the game that innovates and creates a better way to do things.
You won't really notice the things that are the same as you are playing, they'll be so familiar and comfortable to you it's almost like you subconsciously expect them... but it's the things that are different that will stand out. And if those things that are different are better then the previous game you've been playing, you'll switch.
Unfortunately the OP is right in that it really comes down to economics.
In order to make a big game that will sell big and give you tons of subscribers you have to have a large team and spend a lot of money.
If you have to spend a lot of money to make this game, the game better appeal to a wide player base so that you can be sure you'll recoup the production expenses and the game will be profitable to maintain.
To appeal to a wide player base you need a game that has a lot to do for many different types of players, and to do this you need a big team and lots of money, leading us back to the first two points.
It's all about risk. You have to manage the risk, as a producers, and as a development studio that your game will be successful enough to warrent the investment. Most of the time this means that you have to go with the trends of what is popular right now, and what is popular right now is story/quest driven games with a hugely recognized and popular IP.
If the barriers to entry, the cost of creating a high quality MMO go down due to technological advances and such then you are right that we will see a lot more games that cater to more specific audiences.
Of course there is also the possibility of a game coming out of left field that is different then the norm and is still a big budget title, but it's such a huge risk if it fails that it'll have to be truly and absolutely amazing and new and innovative enough to warrant such a huge risk.
These hugely innovative and amazing titles that defy the norms and are still very high quality, big budget AAA titles are going to come from the companies that can afford to take risks. These will be the Biowares and the Square Enix's and the Blizzard's.
Conveniently, all three of those companies are developing MMOs right now
I am willing to bet Blizzard's new MMO is going to be completely different then WoW and will be something so out of left field none of us are going to see it coming.
This may be true after all. Perhaps I was wrong by saying that players will consciously claim for they specific genre, as this could be true for these forums, I just can't picture it happening in games right now. Perhaps we just have to wait for those independent companies to bring on the new concepts, and the mainstream companies may just adopt some of the ideas if such specific games grow more popular with time.
WoW/Generic MMOs won't grow forever, and when players attempt to venture into different MMOs, they will figure out what style they enjoy the most, since they will get to understand the differences between the games. Most of WoW's (or "WoW clones") players can't acknowledge the differences between the styles of MMORPGs because WoW is the only model that they've been exposed to. While WoW offers a piece for many styles, it is unable to expose most of such styles equally or efficiently. Socializers will move to community-oriented games as soon as they get to play one of them, as they will probably have more fun by playing a game that intensely focuses on his/her preferences. PvPers will also move, and the same may happen to other groups, while some will still choose to stay with the generic MMOs. Maybe we will have to rely on independent games for this to happen initially, as mainstream companies don't want to venture into this area. Though there is always the chance that we may not even see something like this happening on a large scale.
WoW fails to offer many styles efficiently because it is simply impossible to do so. Some styles are contradictory, like Socializers vs Solo Players. Socializers don't want to share their servers with solo players, they want more vivid and easier interaction with others. Those who hugely love PvP will want a game with more frequent and involving PvP, yet WoW can't offer that because it tries to please everyone, hence PvPers may just move as well. This just happens to every single group around, though most "generic" players are unable to identify themselves as being a member of a specific group just because they can't see this division of groups. Actually the whole division thing is just theory, since it is hard to include a large amount of people in the same category just because they have a single interest in common. But unconsciously after playing many MMOs people will get to realize which ones they prefer, and then we may get to see the genre splitting a bit, but only if specific games get first introduced with the help of independent companies (which is already happening, albeit slowly).
The problem with that is that players don't want to have to spend a ridiculous amount of money, because most players like to do a bunch of different things instead of one thing all the time.
Most players don't want to kill mob after mob after mob grinding kills all day every day.
Most players will either be more into PvP and only dabble in PvE or be more into PvE and dabble in PvP, with some even going fairly evenly between the two.
With these niche games ya'll are talking about, sounds as if you are only trying to appeal to one kind of player when in truth most players, the vast majority, prefer variety and spending time doing different things rather then only one thing.
When you throw in economics, would you rather pay for a game that only has PvP for when you want to PvP and also pay for a second game that only has PvE when you want to PvE?
Or would you want to pay for one game in which you could do both PvP and PvE when you feel like doing either one?
History and sales figures have proven that the vast majority prefer paying for a single game where you can choose how you play it.
The real key to the future of MMOs is going to be a game that offers more choices.
Where you can level your toon doing quests solo or you can grind kills solo... or you can group with other players for quests and instanced story-driven dungeons or you can group up and grind kills in open world crawl dungeons.
Or you can level your toon doing nothing but large scale, open world PvP... or with shorter FPS theme based instanced skirmishes, or you can level doing duels and small team vs. team death matches.
Or you can level doing nothing but crafting and resource harvesting. Or you can level through more social game play like running a guild, managing a store, becoming involved in the politics of a city or creating your own community.
You would also have to have different servers with different rule sets where some are designed to be more challenging or where players have more freedom and also servers that are more casual and laid back.
How do you make this perfect game where you can do anything you want to when you want to?
You'd have to have a massive team and huge financial backing and a lot of talent.
So instead developers choose their battles. They choose what to focus on and what to include in their game. Often times it's the financial and time constraints that do some of this choosing for them. Other times it's technological limitations.
This has been my conclusion for a while now as well.
There is a base expectation of what a MMORGS 'must' have for most people to even consider it. Implementing just this base costs a lot of money and resources. This creates a very large barrier to the 'serious' MMORPG market. As this base cost is reduced game companies will be able to concentrate more on the features that make their games unique.
I recently read the sci fi book "Halting State" by Charles Stross. He uses a similar concept as the basis of his story. He presents a MMORPG industry where the development has been so standardized that many different types of online games run on identical off-the-shelf engines and in fact often run on the same actual server cluster (ie a space MMO shares server resouces with a fantasy MMO). The book's story starts off when a hacker has a gang of orcs rob an in-game bank of one game and then hides his trail by tranfering the loot to another game running on the same server. This is possible because in that near-future most Tier 2 and 3 MMORPGs use the same database structure and protocols for handling in-game items.
See, I don't think it's about risk. The posts on here say, well, if they made a really polished, really fun FFA game then it could be really popular, as popular as WoW, but developers just won't risk it.
I don't think there's any risk involved. I think it's a certainty, this game will be a niche, and not pay off the kind of money you need to invest to make such a game a polished AAA title.
Developers aren't scared, they aren't greedy, they aren't stupid. They just can't do the impossible, make a niche game and get popular game sales numbers. That's what players are asking for, the impossible.
Make a (for example) FFA game, spend as much money as it would cost to develop WoW from scratch right now, and you'll see, players will actually flock to it, and you'll make millions! Uh no, you'll go broke.
But then if yuou make a two million dollar game, players go, that's crap, the graphics suck, the animations suck, the music sucks, it's not feature complete, I'm not paying to play a beta, kthxbye.
You are correct.
However this is the very definition of managing risk as it applies to the MMO industry.
You make a niche game that is almost certainly garuanteed to only capture a niche audience you are only willing to risk the investment ($) neccessary to recoup your expenses and turn profitable with the limited number of subscribers you hopefully will get. Even this niche market is not a garauntee, there are no garauntees in this business.
Even making a AAA MMO is a huge risk. Look at AoC and WAR, both are still running, no idea if they have recouped their production expenses and are remaining profitable.
The risk in making a high profile game that is designed for a niche market, hoping that it will catch on and become popular in terms of sales and move beyond the originally intended niche market is a LOT of risk because it's not very likely.
What wrong in taking a working formula to create a player base before being innovative?
There's always room to improve and set new trends as long as companies play safe for the first months, and play safe=doing what has been done for years with a moderate success. It's way too risky for any company to try and find out what players like without using what experience tells them.
Imo, it's correct to assume that mmorpg's have used every possible genre, so the next step is to be innovative in play style or game mechanics. The next-gen games like Blade & Soul, Tera Online, Mortal Online, Huxley, etc, all offer a new experience that might last a couple of years, but we need to start thinking outside of the box. When i saw Microsoft's E3 release of Project Natal, I was completely blown away by the technology capabilities. When I first casually came across the video on youtube, I thought it was some parody on the "future of gaming", but then i realized how extraordinary this could mean in 10-20 years for the future for mmorpgs. Imagine an open ended rpg world with the ability of full body, voice, facial, emotional detection and if you could implement real world items(yourself, clothing, accessories, etc.) into your game for character customization and personalization.
Project Natal Demonstration
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_txF7iETX0&feature=haxa_popt14us01
I also was impressed with Project Natal's demonstration of Milo and how he interacted with people. What if mmorpgs could implement this technology into their npc's. Each npc would have their own personality that would "learn" your personality and perform accordingly. Imagine the characters in Oblivion being able to recongize your body stance, facial expressions, and remember your past experiences to know what you might do to them.(Lie, Murder, or Theft)
Milo Demonstration
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDvHlwNvXaM
It might just be wishful thinking, but imagine all the possibilities true interactive gaming would actually mean. It would be totally off the top if they implemented a 3D environment with no controller device required along with it.
The point is Faitu that you realistically can't do everything.
Sure you can make a game focused more on PvP that stil has PvE and those who are more focused on PvP will likely enjoy the game more so then a game focused more on PvE.
That's just common sense.
The point I am trying to make is there are a lot of people who don't always like to focus on one thing.
You get tired of PvP you want to do some PvE. But if the game is focused on PvP it's likely that the PvE side of the game is not going to be up to par.
It's like you said though, that this starts to create boundries and limitations.
And also everyone wants different things. So you have to try and appeal to the masses, or you try and appeal to a specific subset or niche.
If you try and appeal to a niche you miss out on all the non-niche people.
You try and appeal to the masses you have to water down some of the stuff so the niche players may not like it.
All I was trying to say is that it's really all about choice. Either you have a single game that is very big budget and just massive that gives you a lot of choice without watering down those choices, or you have smaller niche games.
Problem is, if you really lets say like Raiding and PvE end-game stuff... but you also really love open world PvP and territorial control, owning and capturing keeps and cities etc. unless you have both of these things in one game, you are going to need to play two different games to get both experiences.
Many people don't want to spend the money and split their time between two games.
In my opinion Kryptlin that is about the worst thing that could ever happen to the gaming industry.
These are suppose to be games.
They are suppose to be different and apart from reality.
The moment you start to lose the distinction between reality and the gaming world you end up with all kinds of social and even health related problems. People living inside of games neglecting their real life. It's already bad enough with the current generation, imagine if you could really "plug in" like you kind of describe.
I think using controllers or keyboard and mouse and staring at a TV or monitor is a neccessary part of gaming. It allows us to experience and enjoy the game without blurring the line between reality and the game world.
Sure, these kinds of things are fun and cool and interesting... but they are also dangerous.
You have to make sure games purposefully do not mirror reality too much, because once you cross the line where the distinction cannot be made there is no going back.
I think I said that about WoW offering a huge variety for different playstyles...
But Axehilt you have hit the nail on the head and completely disintigrated it. This is one of the most logical, intelligent, and 100% accurate posts I have ever read on these forums, or any MMO forum.
Well done sir. Well done.
I highlighted the truly brilliant parts.
"Copying the WOW model ensures you're directly competing with a company which has put a ridiculous number of years of development into their product. So you either have to have grandiose ideas for how to truly improve upon the model, or you have to offer something which feels different to players."
"There's this huge variety of playstyles/gameplay offered, and that's why it is so successful - no matter who you are, you can find some combination of those playstyles and gameplay which appeals to you."
Genius.
WoW numbers only went into a serious decline at one point in NA / EU. That point in time was the release of AoC. However, Funcom was releasing a game that only the first 20 levels were polished. The rest of the game was simply not ready for release. AoC basically had huge gaps in content as well as rewards when AoC first came out. Fixing these issues nine months later will not keep people subscribed.
This was the only time that Blizz did a speed up release of new content for both pve and pvp. This does show Blizz is vulnerable, but nothing has emerged that is as polished as WoW and offers alot of play style choices. So in the end, WoW still reigns supreme. I do think that WoW is vulnerable because alot of players have played it for a long time and the graphics are pretty dated. The game to knock WoW from the top will need a very, very high level of polish that is just not something that MMO companies are use to. This also requires alot of money to polish a game to that level. Casual players are now use to a game that runs smoothly and will demand that.
On the other hand, Niche MMOs can do quite well even with low subscriber numbers because they remain profitable. Eve is a great example of this. Eve has grown slowly but Eve is very profitable. So in the end, smaller companies will shoot for the Eve model, while Big companies will risk the shot at Blizzard. I will get to enjoy both styles so I am content.
Well it's dangerous to make assumptions about what people here want. I want "innovation" in the form of refining or twisting pre-existing mechanics. A complete departure from the norm might be fun, but also runs a high risk of failing to providing that addictive foundation that's at the heart of good MMORPGs.
Most of the best innovation doesn't come from the first try a developer makes at a new concept, but rather the subsequent attempts by that developer (or other developers copying the idea, minus the bad parts.)
Buying the first year of a new car model is significantly riskier than the subsequent years, where they've had a chance to iterate on the design. Those subsequent cars aren't innovative anymore - they're copies of the first - but they're better products.
Meanwhile, gamers tend to vastly overrate those new innovative designs when it's the subsequent iterations which really perfect the formula.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver