Just to illustrate one of the points above. Two people,
1, one likes action games and wants MMORPGs to be more like action games,
2, second person who wants the same as the first person for MMORPGs but wants single player RPGs to be the exact opposite i.e when they're not competing directly against other people they want Morrowind / Fallout type games that last for ages but online their competitive streak kicks in and they want it fast, fast, fast.
Games can't give 80% of achiever players what they want because what they want is to be better than 80% of the other players. It's logically impossible.
I disagree. As long as you can create a tree of mutually exclusive achievements in a way that each player feels very attached to the achievement path they are on but still sees the (lower) progress of everyone around them who are actually persuing other paths, I believe it is possible to create a game where everyone feels they are ahead of the average. Games with a lot of different minigames with their own seperate skills/progress counters are generally quite good at this.
I will go even futher and say in my opinion many people don't actually want RPG in their online game.
Mainly based on those people go cap lvl asap, often within a few weeks of play, which has nothing to do with the game they play but all has to do in how they play it, ignoring most of the content and just focus on the content that speed races them to cap lvl as soon as possible. Example would be witin MMORPG that offer crafting, it's a very common thing to hear people ask which item should they craft to get to cap lvl in crafting, or what mobs should they kill to gain the most XP.
Also in my opinion many just want a online action game set in a persistant world, now there is nothing wrong with gamers wanting that, but it has taken MMORPG's in the direction it's currently is with most A-Tittle MMO's. Which for the most part are just online action games.
Games can't give 80% of achiever players what they want because what they want is to be better than 80% of the other players. It's logically impossible.
I disagree. As long as you can create a tree of mutually exclusive achievements in a way that each player feels very attached to the achievement path they are on but still sees the (lower) progress of everyone around them who are actually persuing other paths, I believe it is possible to create a game where everyone feels they are ahead of the average. Games with a lot of different minigames with their own seperate skills/progress counters are generally quite good at this.
Sure. Ifyou can create a tree of mutually exclusive achievements then the rule only applies within each tree.
tupodog, it's a little off to claim Achiever-heavy games can't work longterm, given that the most successful MMO on the market is (a) Achiever-heavy and (b) has dominated the market for way longer than is necessary to be called "longterm".
Also I disagree that 80% of Achievers are unhappy simply because they're not currently more progressed than the other players. The drive to achieve more is not a requirement, but a desire; a motivation. Give them clear progression rules (Invest Time to Progress) and some sense of becoming better, and perhaps a sense of being better than specific other people, and they'll be satisfied.
I think the "complainer" population is too varied to really try to explain via a Bartle lens, but my impression is that (a) achievers don't necessarily make up a large portion of the complainers but that (b) if they do complain, they're simply testing the system by exploring alternative ways to advance ("If I bring down the system, that's the same as advancing to the top of it," may not be something they consciously think to themselves, but it's probably a hidden motivator sometimes.)
I wouldn't advocate the removal of Social/Killer/Explorer elements from a game, but I typically do make suggestions which carry games towards smaller, more efficient implementations of these elements. But hey, I want smaller more efficient implementations of Achiever elements too, so no surprise there.
Still vaguely think Bartle's terms could use a redesign too. Exploration and achievement basically explains the entire breadth of potential activities in a game. It's just a question of "What are you exploring?" and "What are your goals/achievements?" Socializers explore social connections, and achieve various outcomes. Killers explore game systems and ways to kill, and well...they achieve killing! Explorers explore game environs, and achieve an ever-growing knowledge of the world. Achievers explore game systems, and achieve larger numbers in a database. Everything is pattern exploration.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I will go even futher and say in my opinion many people don't actually want RPG in their online game.
Mainly based on those people go cap lvl asap, often within a few weeks of play, which has nothing to do with the game they play but all has to do in how they play it, ignoring most of the content and just focus on the content that speed races them to cap lvl as soon as possible. Example would be witin MMORPG that offer crafting, it's a very common thing to hear people ask which item should they craft to get to cap lvl in crafting, or what mobs should they kill to gain the most XP.
Also in my opinion many just want a online action game set in a persistant world, now there is nothing wrong with gamers wanting that, but it has taken MMORPG's in the direction it's currently is with most A-Tittle MMO's. Which for the most part are just online action games.
Well said and true as well. As a rpg'er this is not a playstyle I feel is common, most of my friends who play/played offline rpg's don't rush through content and very often take longer finishing a game then other gamers but in mmo's it seems a majority of the population of games engage in this type of gameplay.
As a direct result look at the sheer number of comments you'll read where a person says "I don't have any use for voice overs or cutscenes". For the most part because these folks are going to get together and by the end of the first week be at max level raiding for the highest end gear in game.
And as much as you here folks complain about the themepark desig of games this type of playstyle in large part is reason for it, and in some ways so is the sandbox community who in essence tell the devs they also have no need for this type of content which gives the devs the idea there is no need to focus on it.
Most important to remember about this op though is that the design philosophy online rpg/mmo, sandbox,themepark is not the reason for so many game failures, it is technical ineptness coupled with bad business practice more than a simple failure to design games that impress.
The argument is often made that wow didn't have such a great launch and of course WOW is the devil but serious problems as far as WOW at launch were actually relegated to a few servers out of the many they had. I remember the Blackrock server specifically because for a few months almost every weekend they would make characters on my server and "protest" basically troll the other servers since theres went down. Otherwise it had one of the smoothest launches I remember and from then it certainly has not been a problem as far as working reliable content.
When online games in general begin to deal with the consumers with less "yea but" results the games released will stop failing I think and I think this is more important to game development then whether we as the community prefer online rpgs-themepark or mmorpg's-sandbox.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
tupodog, it's a little off to claim Achiever-heavy games can't work longterm, given that the most successful MMO on the market is (a) Achiever-heavy and (b) has dominated the market for way longer than is necessary to be called "longterm".
Also I disagree that 80% of Achievers are unhappy simply because they're not currently more progressed than the other players. The drive to achieve more is not a requirement, but a desire; a motivation. Give them clear progression rules (Invest Time to Progress) and some sense of becoming better, and perhaps a sense of being better than specific other people, and they'll be satisfied.
I think the "complainer" population is too varied to really try to explain via a Bartle lens, but my impression is that (a) achievers don't necessarily make up a large portion of the complainers but that (b) if they do complain, they're simply testing the system by exploring alternative ways to advance ("If I bring down the system, that's the same as advancing to the top of it," may not be something they consciously think to themselves, but it's probably a hidden motivator sometimes.)
I wouldn't advocate the removal of Social/Killer/Explorer elements from a game, but I typically do make suggestions which carry games towards smaller, more efficient implementations of these elements. But hey, I want smaller more efficient implementations of Achiever elements too, so no surprise there.
Still vaguely think Bartle's terms could use a redesign too. Exploration and achievement basically explains the entire breadth of potential activities in a game. It's just a question of "What are you exploring?" and "What are your goals/achievements?" Socializers explore social connections, and achieve various outcomes. Killers explore game systems and ways to kill, and well...they achieve killing! Explorers explore game environs, and achieve an ever-growing knowledge of the world. Achievers explore game systems, and achieve larger numbers in a database. Everything is pattern exploration.
it's a little off to claim Achiever-heavy games can't work longterm, given that the most successful MMO on the market is (a) Achiever-heavy and (b) has dominated the market for way longer than is necessary to be called "longterm".
Well there's the thing. Did WoW do so well because it gradually tailored the default gameplay to what achiever types wanted or did it ride the wave of massive MMORPG expansion brought about by the extension of PC and internet access? I think it was the latter and this is fundamental because in an MMO numbers breed numbers. Blizzard created a great game but they also had the lowest barrier to entry of the 3D MMOs. Did EQII do less well because it was less good as a game or because it had higher barriers to entry? As it happens i think it was both but if WoW had been a significantly worse game but with the same low-tech advantage would they still have won the battle with EQII? I think they would. I give you Runescape as evidence which is the best of those with even lower barriers to entry and which i believe has millions of subs.
I accept that that is not a provable theory however.
Also I disagree that 80% of Achievers are unhappy simply because they're not currently more progressed than the other players
I'm not saying they're all unhappy all the time i'm saying the things they think will make them happier e.g faster levelling and faster access to the best gear won't satisfy them in the end, whereas the things socializers, explorers and killers think will make them enjoy the game more will make them enjoy the game more.
I think the "complainer" population is too varied to really try to explain via a Bartle lens
On a site like this no but all the games i subbed to long-term if you read the actual game forums it was mostly frustrated achiever and / or PvP complaints - which is a subset imo.
I wouldn't advocate the removal of Social/Killer/Explorer elements from a game
In case there's any confusion i'm not advocating trying to remove achiever elements. Obviously they're the driving force in the game. I'm advocating ignoring most of their complaints because if they got what they think they wanted they wouldn't like it.
I'm advocating making the games more crafter / socializer / explorer / whatever friendly so the suckiest achievers still have better gear than most of the player base. I'd also advocate something hinted at in one of the above comments and instead of achieving through gear grind work on distracting them with alternate achievements like being in the top 20% of game tournament jousters or top 20% of barrel racers or top 20% of game PvPers instead of all focused on top 20% in gear terms. That way a larger number of the total achiever players could be in the top 20% of some competitive league table or other.
Exploration and achievement basically explains the entire breadth of potential activities in a game.
Disagree with that. I think killers are a sub-set of achiever but i think socializers are a very distinct group with distinct preferences. I also think they're the most important group long-term as they provide the retention glue. A game can lose explorers and killers through being too achiever focused and still do well but if it loses the socializers then it will be in trouble. The biggest game *can* afford to **** off socializers quite a lot simply because it's the biggest and socializers need people as their raw material but there's still a limit.
Sure. Ifyou can create a tree of mutually exclusive achievements then the rule only applies within each tree.
Except that when you mix fashion with achievement, the illusion can be preserved. Consider mounts as one example ... although in many games a single person can own multiple mounts, they can only ride one at a time, allowing a person's eccentric choice of mount to maintain an illusion of being special snowflake even though half the people around may have access to it (or could have access if they had chosen differently). Similarly, if you have different mounts that require an equal amount of time to get and each person goes after the one they consider most appealing then each person will consider their own achievement more important than the achievements of others who went down different paths.
OP is right. Just about the rest of the responses to OP are wrong.
What differentiates an MMORPG from an online rpg (ala White Knight Chronicles) is one thing: A persistent world.
What has been happening to MMO's since the hayday (EQ1/UO/DAOC/AO/AC) of MMO's is that developers are slowly turning MMORPG's into something they're not.
Its literally the same as this:
Company A makes really badass sports car, lets use a real world example. The Ariel Atom.
The Ariel atom is a tube monocoque chassis with no body panels, roofs, amenities, etc. But it performs extremely well. Its loud, fast, not especially comfortable, etc.
Now, this is essentially the state MMO's were in when they first came out, pretty specialized, took a lot of skill and effort to be good at, etc.
What has since been happening is people having been going, "man, i love this ariel atom, but it would be so nice if i didn't have such uncomfortable plastic seats. So, instead of sticking by their performance mantra, they add weight by covering the seats in leather and padding. Then the customer start complaining that "man, this ariel atom is so awesome now that im more comfy, it would be cool if it had a body panels and a stereo!", so again, bending to the will of the consumer, they add a strereo and some body panels and sound proofing to lessen the impact of road noise and make it more comfortable for the consumer. And again, they add weight, and again, get further and further from what they started out as.
Eventually what happens is they end up with their version of a Toyota Camry. Because at this point, people have complained about the hard suspension, the "difficult to operate" manual transmission, why can't i carry passengers, you're inconviencing me by not letting my have passengers. Wow, the gas mileage sucks because of this powerful engine, this is ridiculous, it should have better gas mileage. The list goes on.
The basic gist is something that was once pure, awesome, and very cool, is slowly turning into the same thing that 18 million other companies have been producing; SIngle player RPG's.
I think a real MMORPG is not the car but the garage containing many different types of cars linked to a road network of city streets, rural streets, highways and open fields for all the different people wanting drive different types of cars to different targest in a differnt way making traffic and bringing the road network and open fields and all connected things to life. Some are Racedrivers, some doing delivery, some make car service and some drive Taxi, there is a place for all of them.
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
I think a real MMORPG is not the car but the garage containing many different types of cars linked to a road network of city streets, rural streets, highways and open fields for all the different people wanting drive different types of cars to different targest in a differnt way making traffic and bringing the road network and open fields and all connected things to life. Some are Racedrivers, some doing delivery, some make car service and some drive Taxi, there is a place for all of them.
Which is why making an MMORPG is so hard, and the end result is not often satisfying.
Everyone must have their place. Very different compared to other multi/singleplayer games.
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
I think a real MMORPG is not the car but the garage containing many different types of cars linked to a road network of city streets, rural streets, highways and open fields for all the different people wanting drive different types of cars to different targest in a differnt way making traffic and bringing the road network and open fields and all connected things to life. Some are Racedrivers, some doing delivery, some make car service and some drive Taxi, there is a place for all of them.
Which is why making an MMORPG is so hard, and the end result is not often satisfying.
Everyone must have their place. Very different compared to other multi/singleplayer games.
That's only true to a certain degree though.
WOW has Racecars but no Taxis.
EVE has Taxis, but no Racecars.
Neither game is providing the entire breadth of "driving", and yet it doesn't matter because Taxi-lovers will play EVE and Racecar-lovers will play WOW. (And the Taxi drivers will make fun of the Racecar drivers for driving on a track; and the Racecar drivers will laugh and say they're having too much fun to care.)
In general I agree MMORPGs tend to need to be more generalist compared to normal games.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Comments
Just to illustrate one of the points above. Two people,
1, one likes action games and wants MMORPGs to be more like action games,
2, second person who wants the same as the first person for MMORPGs but wants single player RPGs to be the exact opposite i.e when they're not competing directly against other people they want Morrowind / Fallout type games that last for ages but online their competitive streak kicks in and they want it fast, fast, fast.
I disagree. As long as you can create a tree of mutually exclusive achievements in a way that each player feels very attached to the achievement path they are on but still sees the (lower) progress of everyone around them who are actually persuing other paths, I believe it is possible to create a game where everyone feels they are ahead of the average. Games with a lot of different minigames with their own seperate skills/progress counters are generally quite good at this.
I will go even futher and say in my opinion many people don't actually want RPG in their online game.
Mainly based on those people go cap lvl asap, often within a few weeks of play, which has nothing to do with the game they play but all has to do in how they play it, ignoring most of the content and just focus on the content that speed races them to cap lvl as soon as possible. Example would be witin MMORPG that offer crafting, it's a very common thing to hear people ask which item should they craft to get to cap lvl in crafting, or what mobs should they kill to gain the most XP.
Also in my opinion many just want a online action game set in a persistant world, now there is nothing wrong with gamers wanting that, but it has taken MMORPG's in the direction it's currently is with most A-Tittle MMO's. Which for the most part are just online action games.
Sure. If you can create a tree of mutually exclusive achievements then the rule only applies within each tree.
tupodog, it's a little off to claim Achiever-heavy games can't work longterm, given that the most successful MMO on the market is (a) Achiever-heavy and (b) has dominated the market for way longer than is necessary to be called "longterm".
Also I disagree that 80% of Achievers are unhappy simply because they're not currently more progressed than the other players. The drive to achieve more is not a requirement, but a desire; a motivation. Give them clear progression rules (Invest Time to Progress) and some sense of becoming better, and perhaps a sense of being better than specific other people, and they'll be satisfied.
I think the "complainer" population is too varied to really try to explain via a Bartle lens, but my impression is that (a) achievers don't necessarily make up a large portion of the complainers but that (b) if they do complain, they're simply testing the system by exploring alternative ways to advance ("If I bring down the system, that's the same as advancing to the top of it," may not be something they consciously think to themselves, but it's probably a hidden motivator sometimes.)
I wouldn't advocate the removal of Social/Killer/Explorer elements from a game, but I typically do make suggestions which carry games towards smaller, more efficient implementations of these elements. But hey, I want smaller more efficient implementations of Achiever elements too, so no surprise there.
Still vaguely think Bartle's terms could use a redesign too. Exploration and achievement basically explains the entire breadth of potential activities in a game. It's just a question of "What are you exploring?" and "What are your goals/achievements?" Socializers explore social connections, and achieve various outcomes. Killers explore game systems and ways to kill, and well...they achieve killing! Explorers explore game environs, and achieve an ever-growing knowledge of the world. Achievers explore game systems, and achieve larger numbers in a database. Everything is pattern exploration.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Well said and true as well. As a rpg'er this is not a playstyle I feel is common, most of my friends who play/played offline rpg's don't rush through content and very often take longer finishing a game then other gamers but in mmo's it seems a majority of the population of games engage in this type of gameplay.
As a direct result look at the sheer number of comments you'll read where a person says "I don't have any use for voice overs or cutscenes". For the most part because these folks are going to get together and by the end of the first week be at max level raiding for the highest end gear in game.
And as much as you here folks complain about the themepark desig of games this type of playstyle in large part is reason for it, and in some ways so is the sandbox community who in essence tell the devs they also have no need for this type of content which gives the devs the idea there is no need to focus on it.
Most important to remember about this op though is that the design philosophy online rpg/mmo, sandbox,themepark is not the reason for so many game failures, it is technical ineptness coupled with bad business practice more than a simple failure to design games that impress.
The argument is often made that wow didn't have such a great launch and of course WOW is the devil but serious problems as far as WOW at launch were actually relegated to a few servers out of the many they had. I remember the Blackrock server specifically because for a few months almost every weekend they would make characters on my server and "protest" basically troll the other servers since theres went down. Otherwise it had one of the smoothest launches I remember and from then it certainly has not been a problem as far as working reliable content.
When online games in general begin to deal with the consumers with less "yea but" results the games released will stop failing I think and I think this is more important to game development then whether we as the community prefer online rpgs-themepark or mmorpg's-sandbox.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
it's a little off to claim Achiever-heavy games can't work longterm, given that the most successful MMO on the market is (a) Achiever-heavy and (b) has dominated the market for way longer than is necessary to be called "longterm".
Well there's the thing. Did WoW do so well because it gradually tailored the default gameplay to what achiever types wanted or did it ride the wave of massive MMORPG expansion brought about by the extension of PC and internet access? I think it was the latter and this is fundamental because in an MMO numbers breed numbers. Blizzard created a great game but they also had the lowest barrier to entry of the 3D MMOs. Did EQII do less well because it was less good as a game or because it had higher barriers to entry? As it happens i think it was both but if WoW had been a significantly worse game but with the same low-tech advantage would they still have won the battle with EQII? I think they would. I give you Runescape as evidence which is the best of those with even lower barriers to entry and which i believe has millions of subs.
I accept that that is not a provable theory however.
Also I disagree that 80% of Achievers are unhappy simply because they're not currently more progressed than the other players
I'm not saying they're all unhappy all the time i'm saying the things they think will make them happier e.g faster levelling and faster access to the best gear won't satisfy them in the end, whereas the things socializers, explorers and killers think will make them enjoy the game more will make them enjoy the game more.
I think the "complainer" population is too varied to really try to explain via a Bartle lens
On a site like this no but all the games i subbed to long-term if you read the actual game forums it was mostly frustrated achiever and / or PvP complaints - which is a subset imo.
I wouldn't advocate the removal of Social/Killer/Explorer elements from a game
In case there's any confusion i'm not advocating trying to remove achiever elements. Obviously they're the driving force in the game. I'm advocating ignoring most of their complaints because if they got what they think they wanted they wouldn't like it.
I'm advocating making the games more crafter / socializer / explorer / whatever friendly so the suckiest achievers still have better gear than most of the player base. I'd also advocate something hinted at in one of the above comments and instead of achieving through gear grind work on distracting them with alternate achievements like being in the top 20% of game tournament jousters or top 20% of barrel racers or top 20% of game PvPers instead of all focused on top 20% in gear terms. That way a larger number of the total achiever players could be in the top 20% of some competitive league table or other.
Exploration and achievement basically explains the entire breadth of potential activities in a game.
Disagree with that. I think killers are a sub-set of achiever but i think socializers are a very distinct group with distinct preferences. I also think they're the most important group long-term as they provide the retention glue. A game can lose explorers and killers through being too achiever focused and still do well but if it loses the socializers then it will be in trouble. The biggest game *can* afford to **** off socializers quite a lot simply because it's the biggest and socializers need people as their raw material but there's still a limit.
Except that when you mix fashion with achievement, the illusion can be preserved. Consider mounts as one example ... although in many games a single person can own multiple mounts, they can only ride one at a time, allowing a person's eccentric choice of mount to maintain an illusion of being special snowflake even though half the people around may have access to it (or could have access if they had chosen differently). Similarly, if you have different mounts that require an equal amount of time to get and each person goes after the one they consider most appealing then each person will consider their own achievement more important than the achievements of others who went down different paths.
I agree with you OP.
All the convenience people demand seems to be derived from single player design.
But thats what we called "spoonfed", "hold by hands", "carebear"...
People want things easy, streamlined, instantaneous, automatic...
Like sitting on the confortable chair on a theater to watch a movie, or getting a blow job. "Satisfy me, now!" the masses scream.
Thats what people want and thats how games have been designed.
I don't think it is a bad thing in itself, but I think they should be properly distinguished from each other.
That is exactly what I want. Especially when I'm paying for it.
I think a real MMORPG is not the car but the garage containing many different types of cars linked to a road network of city streets, rural streets, highways and open fields for all the different people wanting drive different types of cars to different targest in a differnt way making traffic and bringing the road network and open fields and all connected things to life. Some are Racedrivers, some doing delivery, some make car service and some drive Taxi, there is a place for all of them.
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
MWO Music Video - What does the Mech say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF6HYNqCDLI
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0x2iwK0BKM
Which is why making an MMORPG is so hard, and the end result is not often satisfying.
Everyone must have their place. Very different compared to other multi/singleplayer games.
That's only true to a certain degree though.
WOW has Racecars but no Taxis.
EVE has Taxis, but no Racecars.
Neither game is providing the entire breadth of "driving", and yet it doesn't matter because Taxi-lovers will play EVE and Racecar-lovers will play WOW. (And the Taxi drivers will make fun of the Racecar drivers for driving on a track; and the Racecar drivers will laugh and say they're having too much fun to care.)
In general I agree MMORPGs tend to need to be more generalist compared to normal games.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver