If you let me do everything, I will. And more importantly, since I can do it all, I will not talk to anyone. I will get to end game by myself never having grouped with anyone or even talked to anyone. Rinse and repeat for every class and then quit the game because it has nothing to keep me there.
You have to make me be social. After that, who knows. I may start helping people in the game and actually talking to them. It's not my nature but I know that is the way I was in my years of play in DAOC.
The majority of people can't seem to comprehend what MMO means (its too simple). So any game thats online can be branded MMO. On Steam currently, under popular new MMO releases there is Final Fantasy Mobius. When the ignorant ruin the definition to mean anything online, there is nothing unique about it anymore. Now we need to find different words to describe the simple meaning that MMO stands for.
There was a time when "Massively Multiplayer Online" was a new fangled and exciting thing. Nowadays it's like Massively Multiplayer is expected in a free game. Its not a selling point by itself and I think people have learned that MMO in a game that is just running quests solo or raiding with the same 20 ppl isn't really a critical or exciting feature.
What made mmorpg unique were the social gameplay and the gameworld.
Once they started to cater to people with no desire to cooperate with others or be social they ended up removing a huge part of what mmorpg different. At the same time people already played through the mmorpg style of gameworld and its all made worse due to how many games are really similar.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
Not sure why is WoW referenced so much. This is the game that actually kickstarted the downfall of the genre. The game that had no innovations whatsoever, which just took features from tens of other games, glued them all together and dumbed down gameplay so it could become mainstream and make money. And it did succeed at that. It made online game mainstream and made every other "competitor" out there seeking the WoW magic recipe to make money, effectively destroying tons of other projects that could be very interesting. And as a bonus due to clever marketing, promotional material, misinformation and lack of better knowledge, the majority of its playerbase cites WoW as an innovative game that revolutionalized the genre when in fact all it it did was copy features from other games and make the genre mainstream.
I am a collector of games for over 25 years and a software and games developer currently working on RealBench benchmarking software for ASUS ROG. I started dabbling into online game development with the Akkadia MUD codebase which we released under GPL in 2000. Half of the people that were in the Andreasen's MUD Developer's mailing list were later involved into major MMORPG's at the time. In that particular mailing list you would see amazing conversations on MMO game development that ranged from engine/feature types to the social and psychological aspects of it. Great people were involved, great ideas, great minds. When you start mixing those with the money making aspect, this is where things start go wrong as investors and producer companies care about only one thing. Return of investment.
There have been amazingly innovative games out there. There are still such games out there. The problem is that they are not considered successful and fall into what you all called niche games (for the most part). Throw a better graphics engine to Anarchy Online and I would go play that again in an instant. Funcom has been very innovative in general (TSW?) yet is plagued with financial problems because complex/interesting/innovative games DO NOT SELL.
WoW sells, cookie cutter games sell. Dumbed-down spoon-fed gameplay sells because it enlarges the target demographics. Intelligent games appeal to intelligent people and unfortunately (in danger of sounding incredibly cynic) intelligent people are not the norm. Chess is not mainstream. Turn-based games are amazing, yet the majority can't stand them as they need more utilization of the grey matter than twitch reflexes..they find them..boring.. One only need to compare global chat channel content in the era before WoW and after. There used to be a time where global chat channels were full of information, helpful people answering questions about the game, roleplaying and where the occasional troll (a rare thing back then) was shunned, blocked and reported. In contrast with the after WoW era, where global chat channels are filled with the same not-funny jokes that we're seeing for the past 13 years or so (ALT-F4, etc etc) and people trying to provoke other people by saying stupid things. We went from trolling being a damnable offense to being cool and the norm while now roleplayers get shunned and ridiculed...in RPG games. How wrong is that? We don't have gaming communities anymore, we have playgrounds where people can partake in juvenile behavior due to their online anonymity. The problem with online communities boils down to human behavioral patterns and how by making online gaming mainstream, something that was "geek"-only years ago, you now have a better representation of actual society in online communities. It is not by chance (nothing is really) that more intelligent and complex games (eg EVE) have better communities. Food for thought.
My point is that this is an endless cycle, an uroboros of sorts. As long as games focus on becoming the next WoW, they will have no innovation and there will be no evolution on the genre. So yes, the genre needs to go back to niche sandbox games. Instanced content again boils down to one thing, cost-effectiveness. It is much easier and less costly to develop and maintain (as in server infrastructure/backend) instanced content. How cool was the original SWG (One more great example of a game that managed to kill itself twice in.. 6 months if I remember right, by trying to become mainstream)? DAoC? AO? Amazing games. Nowadays you have 1000 games with x classes that have only 2 possible builds per class (sometimes only 1), bad optimization or not fully exploiting PC capabilities (or made UIs that make sense only on a joypad/limited keys) due to cross platform development with consoles (non-online games are also a victim of this), simplistic gameplay, huge grinds that evolve around instanced content, etc etc. Playing the same dungeon/raid 5000 times is no fun. Having a virtual world where your character can do stuff is. Games need more interesting content, not perpetual repetitions of boring content, chasing the perpetual carrot from a randomized loot table.
Not sure why is WoW referenced so much. This is the game that actually kickstarted the downfall of the genre. The game that had no innovations whatsoever, which just took features from tens of other games, glued them all together and dumbed down gameplay so it could become mainstream and make money. And it did succeed at that. It made online game mainstream and made every other "competitor" out there seeking the WoW magic recipe to make money, effectively destroying tons of other projects that could be very interesting. And as a bonus due to clever marketing, promotional material, misinformation and lack of better knowledge, the majority of its playerbase cites WoW as an innovative game that revolutionalized the genre when in fact all it it did was copy features from other games and make the genre mainstream.
I am a collector of games for over 25 years and a software and games developer currently working on RealBench benchmarking software for ASUS ROG. I started dabbling into online game development with the Akkadia MUD codebase which we released under GPL in 2000. Half of the people that were in the Andreasen's MUD Developer's mailing list were later involved into major MMORPG's at the time. In that particular mailing list you would see amazing conversations on MMO game development that ranged from engine/feature types to the social and psychological aspects of it. Great people were involved, great ideas, great minds. When you start mixing those with the money making aspect, this is where things start go wrong as investors and producer companies care about only one thing. Return of investment.
There have been amazingly innovative games out there. There are still such games out there. The problem is that they are not considered successful and fall into what you all called niche games (for the most part). Throw a better graphics engine to Anarchy Online and I would go play that again in an instant. Funcom has been very innovative in general (TSW?) yet is plagued with financial problems because complex/interesting/innovative games DO NOT SELL.
WoW sells, cookie cutter games sell. Dumbed-down spoon-fed gameplay sells because it enlarges the target demographics. Intelligent games appeal to intelligent people and unfortunately (in danger of sounding incredibly cynic) intelligent people are not the norm. Chess is not mainstream. Turn-based games are amazing, yet the majority can't stand them as they need more utilization of the grey matter than twitch reflexes..they find them..boring.. One only need to compare global chat channel content in the era before WoW and after. There used to be a time where global chat channels were full of information, helpful people answering questions about the game, roleplaying and where the occasional troll (a rare thing back then) was shunned, blocked and reported. In contrast with the after WoW era, where global chat channels are filled with the same not-funny jokes that we're seeing for the past 13 years or so (ALT-F4, etc etc) and people trying to provoke other people by saying stupid things. We went from trolling being a damnable offense to being cool and the norm while now roleplayers get shunned and ridiculed...in RPG games. How wrong is that? We don't have gaming communities anymore, we have playgrounds where people can partake in juvenile behavior due to their online anonymity. The problem with online communities boils down to human behavioral patterns and how by making online gaming mainstream, something that was "geek"-only years ago, you now have a better representation of actual society in online communities. It is not by chance (nothing is really) that more intelligent and complex games (eg EVE) have better communities. Food for thought.
My point is that this is an endless cycle, an uroboros of sorts. As long as games focus on becoming the next WoW, they will have no innovation and there will be no evolution on the genre. So yes, the genre needs to go back to niche sandbox games. Instanced content again boils down to one thing, cost-effectiveness. It is much easier and less costly to develop and maintain (as in server infrastructure/backend) instanced content. How cool was the original SWG (One more great example of a game that managed to kill itself twice in.. 6 months if I remember right, by trying to become mainstream)? DAoC? AO? Amazing games. Nowadays you have 1000 games with x classes that have only 2 possible builds per class (sometimes only 1), bad optimization or not fully exploiting PC capabilities (or made UIs that make sense only on a joypad/limited keys) due to cross platform development with consoles (non-online games are also a victim of this), simplistic gameplay, huge grinds that evolve around instanced content, etc etc. Playing the same dungeon/raid 5000 times is no fun. Having a virtual world where your character can do stuff is. Games need more interesting content, not perpetual repetitions of boring content, chasing the perpetual carrot from a randomized loot table.
Great post, you nailed it!! I was particularly impressed about your comments about the repetitive nature of modern instanced based MMOs, totally agree with the sentiment.
Well, if the MMO genre is dying. We need to figure out when that started. Most people will say the genre reached it's pinnacle during the early years of WoW. So we are looking at a range between 2004 and 2008. However, in my honest opinion, I have played games that I enjoyed way more than WoW in recent years. Where this MMO and now most MMO's fail for me is primarily due to F2P and cash shops.
The game I'm referring to is ArcheAge. During the Founder Alpha, I seriously thought it was the best MMO I had ever played. Thanks to greed, like most game companies today, it failed. I think we understand, the online gaming industry is a business, but it's an entertainment business. If players are not entertained, they simply lose interest and move on to something else. Problem is, game companies try to maximize profits and focus too much on that, instead of maintaining customer satisfaction.
100% agree with this. ArcheAge Alpha was the best mmo I've ever played as well. It hit all the marks for me.
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
Not sure why is WoW referenced so much. This is the game that actually kickstarted the downfall of the genre. The game that had no innovations whatsoever, which just took features from tens of other games, glued them all together and dumbed down gameplay so it could become mainstream and make money. And it did succeed at that. It made online game mainstream and made every other "competitor" out there seeking the WoW magic recipe to make money, effectively destroying tons of other projects that could be very interesting. And as a bonus due to clever marketing, promotional material, misinformation and lack of better knowledge, the majority of its playerbase cites WoW as an innovative game that revolutionalized the genre when in fact all it it did was copy features from other games and make the genre mainstream.
I am a collector of games for over 25 years and a software and games developer currently working on RealBench benchmarking software for ASUS ROG. I started dabbling into online game development with the Akkadia MUD codebase which we released under GPL in 2000. Half of the people that were in the Andreasen's MUD Developer's mailing list were later involved into major MMORPG's at the time. In that particular mailing list you would see amazing conversations on MMO game development that ranged from engine/feature types to the social and psychological aspects of it. Great people were involved, great ideas, great minds. When you start mixing those with the money making aspect, this is where things start go wrong as investors and producer companies care about only one thing. Return of investment.
There have been amazingly innovative games out there. There are still such games out there. The problem is that they are not considered successful and fall into what you all called niche games (for the most part). Throw a better graphics engine to Anarchy Online and I would go play that again in an instant. Funcom has been very innovative in general (TSW?) yet is plagued with financial problems because complex/interesting/innovative games DO NOT SELL.
WoW sells, cookie cutter games sell. Dumbed-down spoon-fed gameplay sells because it enlarges the target demographics. Intelligent games appeal to intelligent people and unfortunately (in danger of sounding incredibly cynic) intelligent people are not the norm. Chess is not mainstream. Turn-based games are amazing, yet the majority can't stand them as they need more utilization of the grey matter than twitch reflexes..they find them..boring.. One only need to compare global chat channel content in the era before WoW and after. There used to be a time where global chat channels were full of information, helpful people answering questions about the game, roleplaying and where the occasional troll (a rare thing back then) was shunned, blocked and reported. In contrast with the after WoW era, where global chat channels are filled with the same not-funny jokes that we're seeing for the past 13 years or so (ALT-F4, etc etc) and people trying to provoke other people by saying stupid things. We went from trolling being a damnable offense to being cool and the norm while now roleplayers get shunned and ridiculed...in RPG games. How wrong is that? We don't have gaming communities anymore, we have playgrounds where people can partake in juvenile behavior due to their online anonymity. The problem with online communities boils down to human behavioral patterns and how by making online gaming mainstream, something that was "geek"-only years ago, you now have a better representation of actual society in online communities. It is not by chance (nothing is really) that more intelligent and complex games (eg EVE) have better communities. Food for thought.
My point is that this is an endless cycle, an uroboros of sorts. As long as games focus on becoming the next WoW, they will have no innovation and there will be no evolution on the genre. So yes, the genre needs to go back to niche sandbox games. Instanced content again boils down to one thing, cost-effectiveness. It is much easier and less costly to develop and maintain (as in server infrastructure/backend) instanced content. How cool was the original SWG (One more great example of a game that managed to kill itself twice in.. 6 months if I remember right, by trying to become mainstream)? DAoC? AO? Amazing games. Nowadays you have 1000 games with x classes that have only 2 possible builds per class (sometimes only 1), bad optimization or not fully exploiting PC capabilities (or made UIs that make sense only on a joypad/limited keys) due to cross platform development with consoles (non-online games are also a victim of this), simplistic gameplay, huge grinds that evolve around instanced content, etc etc. Playing the same dungeon/raid 5000 times is no fun. Having a virtual world where your character can do stuff is. Games need more interesting content, not perpetual repetitions of boring content, chasing the perpetual carrot from a randomized loot table.
WoW's also the game that kickstarted everyone's interests in MMORPGs as a whole. Problem was everyone tried to imitate WoW in order to make quick money rather than make their own thing.
Not sure why is WoW referenced so much. This is the game that actually kickstarted the downfall of the genre. The game that had no innovations whatsoever, which just took features from tens of other games, glued them all together and dumbed down gameplay so it could become mainstream and make money. And it did succeed at that. It made online game mainstream and made every other "competitor" out there seeking the WoW magic recipe to make money, effectively destroying tons of other projects that could be very interesting.
For the record, this is *exactly* why WoW was referenced so much. Besides it being a common reference point you can safely assume everyone has played, it's largely responsible for the MMO paradigm shifts away from the genre's core strengths and into the stagnant mess we've seen over the last four years. That's why changes in WoW make an excellent microcosm for discussion.
I don't think it's that they've lost it exactly as they still have the highest player count (on one server). I think what has happened is the novelty of such a thing no longer exists for many. Now the actual game is far more important to many potential customers.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Not sure why is WoW referenced so much. This is the game that actually kickstarted the downfall of the genre. The game that had no innovations whatsoever, which just took features from tens of other games, glued them all together and dumbed down gameplay so it could become mainstream and make money. And it did succeed at that. It made online game mainstream and made every other "competitor" out there seeking the WoW magic recipe to make money, effectively destroying tons of other projects that could be very interesting.
For the record, this is *exactly* why WoW was referenced so much. Besides it being a common reference point you can safely assume everyone has played, it's largely responsible for the MMO paradigm shifts away from the genre's core strengths and into the stagnant mess we've seen over the last four years. That's why changes in WoW make an excellent microcosm for discussion.
I somewhat agree. It is a valid case study but not in the context it was discussed. Meaning, we should not be discussing when was WoW's beginning of the end for WoW's game community as that point is rather moot. We should be discussing how the WoW paradigm is effectively blocking innovation in the genre.
What we are seeing here is the "junk food" phenomenon. The MMO industry is no different than any other entertainment industry. The problem is that junk sells. Crappy pop music sells, quality music not so much. Same stands for the movie business, etc etc. A movie that is a work of art will be appreciated by few. A movie with huge explotions, FX and nudity, no plot whatsover and bad acting will make millions. As long as producers want to make the explosion-fest movie, we will get less and less masterpieces. Lots of great ideas in game development are scrapped because they wouldn't sell.
This is what has brought the rise of indie development. With the advent of crowdfunding etc etc developers are now trying to make the games the dreamed of, things they were passionate about. Indie development is returning the artistic element to video games because frankly making video games is an artform. It's hard to do something like that on the MMO genre though, because the cost of development is way high.
I really hate to say this but my opinion is just about "the MMO is dead on arrival". There is no investor cash any longer and the "crowd funding" scheme will have it's share of fraud giving gov't the opportunity to get involved with regulation and there goes that.
I see MMO dev after MMO dev moving towards phone app games, they're quick, dirty, have cash shops, a return, and a life expectancy of months so they can move on to the next one.
I doubt that the industry can rebound from what it's done to itself. Even TESO went full blown cash shop and some1 above called it #2 in the market now. Our entire guild left at the announcement as we've all seen it before and don't wish to watch another main stream MMO implode upon itself, yet again.
IF and until, and that's a very large word/phrase in this context, the industry gets it head out of it's tail, I'll stick to private servers of a game that was mentioned above as what to do in a MMORPG. In fact, I bought and started my own servers so, yep, I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is and insure I can still get what I found back in 2003-on. That being, a game with large worlds, (we've added more even), very few instances, housing, deco, crafting (best of any game IMHO), non-combat toons for when you just don't want to go kill something, socializing, etc etc etc. And in this case anyway, private servers can provide this all for free with no cash store and no pay gates.
When MMOs are at their best, they provide a sense of community without needing artificial forced grouping or other gimmicks in order to accomplish it.
The best way to do it is to provide "realm wide" benefits for all actions in the game: be they solo, small group, large group, instanced or open world actions.
DAoC was an early pioneer with their system of realm-wide buffs dependent on relic ownership in the frontiers. But even that didn't go nearly far enough in that it was only relative to PVP performance (the buffs affected everything including PVE, but the only way to earn them was through PVP) and the changes were all or nothing. This was emphasized even more with the way they handled Darkness Falls, the best open world dungeon in the game at the time: you could only enter it if your realm earned control. (This could also have been the case with the ESO Imperial City, but they totally screwed up its potential community building impact by making it open to all 3 factions at all times simply because they sold it as a DLC and didn't want to deal with the flak of "DLC owners" whining about not having access whenever they felt like going there.)
Ashes of Creation, IMO, is on right track tying the growth of their "nodes" (read: regions with a city) to all player actions within that node... whatever those actions happen to be. My only worry with Ashes (other than whether it actually gets made ) is that having too many nodes to feel a part of may just scatter the population too much into small clannish communities. I thought DAoC's 3 realm system was actually quite good in that you could feel like you were part of a rather large whole that accommodated several guilds and alliances of guilds with several hundred players each all within one realm.
Feeling like you're part of a community doesn't mean you need to group a lot or even socialize a lot. You can be a solo loner and still get satisfaction from seeing your community grow and do well relative to others and feel part of it. Especially if what you choose to do with the game is also contributing to that success.
That is the key to making MMOs feel special again and provide that one thing that the other genres can't.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
I like to think that an MMORPG had three unique selling points over other games, persistence, continuance and completeness. The persistence shows up in the game continues while you you left off. Continuance is that the world keeps changing while you are away. Completeness includes a variety of activities to do, and a choice of places in which to do them.
Other games have elements of these unique points. Almost every multi-player game has some degree of continuance -- the game doesn't end when your participation does. Single player games have persistence in the form of save games. Some RPGs have completeness. The MMORPG was the first genre to incorporate all three of these elements into a single genre.
Are other genres encroaching on these USPs? Yes. I do see a way for MMORPGs to maintain that difference -- by expanding on the completeness aspect. Currently, the completeness consists of the world and the various systems the players can interact with that world -- combat, magic, gathering, movement, etc. Expanding on the world gives players more to do, more places to visit. But simple expansion of zones or adding new zones won't completely drive the genre forward.
For that, the completeness needs other ways to interact with the world. More things to do, like religion and politics would be a start. A viable ecosystem to watch and study. Even social structures and events could add layers of complexity to the game world. Even the most basic social structure, the family. A character should be more than an isolated individual. A character should have parents, grandparents and siblings within the game, possibly even controlled by other players.
Developing and expanding what we know as game worlds to include more elements is one way of maintaining the unique aspects of MMORPGs, and hopefully keeping the genre healthy.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
The genre use to be a living world, a place with unlimited amount of content, a place where you can meet friends, play together, build a community. Games that were deep, where multiple strategies could be employed to overcome lack of gear. Content which could involve all your friends/guild not just a small static group of people. Gear was situational keeping large amount of content relevant for long duration.
Today we have the following:
1) Game focused on soloplayer aspects, because it is the largest playerbase in video games 2) Cash shop to make a quick buck. Players are able to get quick instant progression if they spend money. 3) Focus on low man content utilizing dungeon finders. Removing the need for a strong community and guild. 4) Vanity only crafting, all BIS Bind of Pickup gear in dungeons. Removing any need for a real economy. 5) Quick content which last about 1-2 month per patch cycle which typically is 4-6 months. 6) Focus on Achievements and Mounts (Which either A give no benefit, or B literally are the same thing as something else with a new skin) 7) Ultra linear game play (Dungeon a => Dungeon B / Gear Score 100 => GS 110 => GS 120) 8) Removal of Crowd Control and Buff Style classes. (DPS/Tank/Heal ONLY!!) 9) Focus on strict dps rotations for everything. 10) Shallow/Extremly limited stats 11) Item Levels (The biggest culprit of the switch to pure linear gameplay) 12) Over balancing of everything (If all classes are = in everything... then why have different classes) 13) Gear with extremely limited stats, no unique features.
Seriously the MMORPG genre is not the genre it use to. I changed into something that ok has mass market appeal, but has nothing special above a non-mmo game. Seriously some multiple player games offer just as much content as mmos. Hell soloplayer Skyrim has more traditional mmo elements in it today then some mmos do and that is sad.
WoW was a great game loved by millions, but the shift to mass market appeal is why the genre is dying. When WoW came out it was a world people of all types could enjoy. The game over the years has been dumbed down to the masses, complexity has been removed, choice has been removed, professions have be nerfed to hell, time required to accomplish anything has been removed. And the stupid part is every single MMO company is copying them step by step by step.
If WoW launched today with the current model it is using now with MoP/WoD/Legion... I would bet my life savings it would crash and burn just as fast as any other mmo being made. It is why Blizz scrapped Titan and turned it into Overwatch, they realized it would too so they went to a genre that is more sustainable.
Cash shop is the 2nd hellish cancer that is destroying games which could be successful. People will not stick with games where someone can simply buy their way to power, it has been proven again and again. It is also BS to have to pay $100-500/month to stay competitive at a mmo... IT SHOULD COST $15 max. Seriously why would anyone invest long term into a mmo where you can't compete without signing over your paycheck.... Cough AA and Revelation.
No one is creating living worlds anymore (At least no AAA studios).
People are just creating games designed to get quick enjoyment out of
the shelf for the next one, while making the devs a quick buck. In the current mmo model Offline games, MOBAs, Dungeon crawlers simply offer the same experience without the grind or paywalls so why play a current gen mmo?
The best chance for a good mmo anymore is going to be the indies... lets hope a few can actually finish a decent game. AAA companies cannot make good lasting ones anymore it has been proved over the last decade.
I'm one of those "Old Gamers" I turn 60 in a little over a month. I played WOW when it appeared but before that I played things like Star fleet Command II, and Fighter Ace. Multiplayer Gaming but not MMO's per say. Today I play World Of Warships (where we are desperately waiting for further development of "Clan" wars. well, at least my clan is.. and we're well over 200 active members and not just names on the roster) and crusty, old, not for everyone Aion. Warships is skill, experience, and no "I Win" button. Take several thousand fights before you actually "get Good". The combat in the game is tactical and subtle, and is constantly evolving. It also sports a surprisingly older player base. We have folks in my clan that call me "Kid", and the community as a rule Isn't very tolerant of "leet" speak and trash talking. Good sportsmanship is encouraged. But I still have my MMORPG of choice and thats crusty old nasty AION. It's difficult to do well in, and gets very repetitive at times, but it's also evolved over the years and it will run on an utterly crap-tastic older computer (Lenova T-510 "business" laptop!..talk about NOT a gaming rig! Money is very tight I got it last year used for $150 ) that does not have all the bells and whistles and still looks damd good even on a low end computer. The games couldn't be more different, nor the communities.
No MMO is going to provide everything for every one. Especially when it comes to MMO-RPG's. RPG's need story, they need lore, they need good solid writing, and group adventure element that make sense in the context of that lore. SWTOR did have that nailed down pretty decently, but in spite of the huge amount of money is was making the owners chose to not put as much back into the game to develop it along it original format and it's starting to loose players as they burn through all the content and then discover there's not much left. Having "Star Wars" (or Star Trek) in the tatle does not mean you get a guaranteed persistant herd of elephants forever to support your game and keep the money flowing. Older gamers, such as my self find that a totally obnoxious attitude on the part of content creators and it tends to drive us away eventually. And the younger population, they eventually wise up. Content providers have found their jobs get more difficult as the genre has evolved. Mixed blessing.. but if you can pull it off it is some serious job security.
One of you mentioned "Down Time" and how it's important. I agree, but more importantly is the need for the mmo creators to structure in settings for that "down Time" guild halls, social zones, places to hang out and look good. Social tools that are immersive and add to the flavor of the fantasy or SciFi world your part. This is an area where EVE has really shown the way by incorporating Community Contributors into the game.. EVE is all about community (even if most of em are a rapacious bunch of damd opportunistic pirates that make conquistadors look like nice guys!)
Development studios need to cast their eyes about more, look at what works, what doesn't, and incorporate what does as best they can into their persistent worlds. They also need to respect the intelligence of their community's. We players, we don't mind if you make money off of us. We under stand that it's not actually "free". It has to be paid for. F2P allows for larger communities, but the wonderful elephants that support F2P cannot be catered to specifically. Oh yea throw them a bone, show appreciation to them, and make sure they get goodies to show off. But don't let them dictate the game. After all, if they actually knew what they were about, they would be developers, not players.
Apologies for the ramblingness of the comment, but it's not something that can be looked at in isolation. Every aspect of online MMO-RPG's must be considered. Revenue, Player base, content, structure, focus. The ones that do it best are still here. As for that Unique Selling Point. Ladies and Gents.. it's a myth.. It never really existed because it's not unique. It's something that "historical re-creationists" have known about for decades.. Folks like the Society For Creative Anachronism, various and assorted Civil War re-en actors and more.. it's a long long long list. It's Community. It's always been community. If you can provide a space and frame work for community to develop within your online world then your product will have longevity even if the game it's self is dated (ehem-Aion, Linage-II, Everquest).
If you are going to right on a forum, try to make it concise. Most of us just don't read past the first few paragraphs.
If someone had the time to update the graphics on many of these older MMO's they would be head and shoulders better than most of the current MMO's Take Asheron's Call, update the graphics and it would be 100% more fun than anything else out there IMO.
I have to agree with many of you, Wow started the downfall of the MMO. While initially fun, Blizzard managed to bleed every iota of fun out of the game, trying to make it more appealing to the masses.
The F2P movement did not help either. Bunch of over monetized slop. There is no point in grinding away for days on end to get something when some whale can come along and purchase it outright. Some are much worse than others, looks at you Trion.
I am not impressed with most of the indies either. Their modus operandi seems to be promise the moon and sell as many gilded calves as possible along with the usual full loot pvp that is a well known game killer. It just amuses me that people think they can make that work.
I guess we will just have to sit back and wait and see if someone comes along that gets it.
Suzie: Honestly, I think that the biggest problem with most MMOs is trying to be all things to all players. That's where the niche comes in. Find a niche for a certain type or types of players and they'll come and you'll make money.
This is something I disagree with very strongly.
The only unique selling point of MMOs is being massively-multiplayer. No other genre is built around 1000s of players interacting with one another, be it through the economy, grouping / questing together, or pvp. Now, sure, most MMOs have forgotten this and have stopped offering MMO features (pvp is pretty much the last bastion of the mmo) but never the less, that is the usp.
That means MMOs need to focus on being multiplayer, which means focusing on the community and all the social aspects that entails.
The strongest communities are those that are the most diverse. If you focus on a very small niche then you may well end up building a better game for that one niche, but the longevity will suffer. Niche groups are fragile. A single wrong move might end up killing your game, because it affects 99% of your playerbase. A more diverse game is more stable because feature issues affect a smaller proportion of your users.
In addition, diverse games offer more variety in gameplay, so are better able to suit the players mood. This is, again, absolutely essential for building strong communities and thus increasing the appeal of your game. For example, I am looking forwards to playing CU when it comes out, but being almost 100% pvp focused means it's going to wear me out. If I catch a night where my side is consistently losing, or no guildies are online, I'm left with no other options within the game - I either have a bad time playing, or log off. That is not good for the game or the community.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
Comments
Can you guys please give Suzie a raise? She pretty much hit the nail on the head with this sentence alone.
You have to make me be social. After that, who knows. I may start helping people in the game and actually talking to them. It's not my nature but I know that is the way I was in my years of play in DAOC.
Nanulak
http://baronsofthegalaxy.com/ An MMO game I created, solo. It's live now and absolutely free to play!
Once they started to cater to people with no desire to cooperate with others or be social they ended up removing a huge part of what mmorpg different. At the same time people already played through the mmorpg style of gameworld and its all made worse due to how many games are really similar.
I am a collector of games for over 25 years and a software and games developer currently working on RealBench benchmarking software for ASUS ROG. I started dabbling into online game development with the Akkadia MUD codebase which we released under GPL in 2000. Half of the people that were in the Andreasen's MUD Developer's mailing list were later involved into major MMORPG's at the time. In that particular mailing list you would see amazing conversations on MMO game development that ranged from engine/feature types to the social and psychological aspects of it. Great people were involved, great ideas, great minds. When you start mixing those with the money making aspect, this is where things start go wrong as investors and producer companies care about only one thing. Return of investment.
There have been amazingly innovative games out there. There are still such games out there. The problem is that they are not considered successful and fall into what you all called niche games (for the most part). Throw a better graphics engine to Anarchy Online and I would go play that again in an instant. Funcom has been very innovative in general (TSW?) yet is plagued with financial problems because complex/interesting/innovative games DO NOT SELL.
WoW sells, cookie cutter games sell. Dumbed-down spoon-fed gameplay sells because it enlarges the target demographics. Intelligent games appeal to intelligent people and unfortunately (in danger of sounding incredibly cynic) intelligent people are not the norm. Chess is not mainstream. Turn-based games are amazing, yet the majority can't stand them as they need more utilization of the grey matter than twitch reflexes..they find them..boring.. One only need to compare global chat channel content in the era before WoW and after. There used to be a time where global chat channels were full of information, helpful people answering questions about the game, roleplaying and where the occasional troll (a rare thing back then) was shunned, blocked and reported. In contrast with the after WoW era, where global chat channels are filled with the same not-funny jokes that we're seeing for the past 13 years or so (ALT-F4, etc etc) and people trying to provoke other people by saying stupid things. We went from trolling being a damnable offense to being cool and the norm while now roleplayers get shunned and ridiculed...in RPG games. How wrong is that? We don't have gaming communities anymore, we have playgrounds where people can partake in juvenile behavior due to their online anonymity. The problem with online communities boils down to human behavioral patterns and how by making online gaming mainstream, something that was "geek"-only years ago, you now have a better representation of actual society in online communities. It is not by chance (nothing is really) that more intelligent and complex games (eg EVE) have better communities. Food for thought.
My point is that this is an endless cycle, an uroboros of sorts. As long as games focus on becoming the next WoW, they will have no innovation and there will be no evolution on the genre. So yes, the genre needs to go back to niche sandbox games. Instanced content again boils down to one thing, cost-effectiveness. It is much easier and less costly to develop and maintain (as in server infrastructure/backend) instanced content. How cool was the original SWG (One more great example of a game that managed to kill itself twice in.. 6 months if I remember right, by trying to become mainstream)? DAoC? AO? Amazing games. Nowadays you have 1000 games with x classes that have only 2 possible builds per class (sometimes only 1), bad optimization or not fully exploiting PC capabilities (or made UIs that make sense only on a joypad/limited keys) due to cross platform development with consoles (non-online games are also a victim of this), simplistic gameplay, huge grinds that evolve around instanced content, etc etc. Playing the same dungeon/raid 5000 times is no fun. Having a virtual world where your character can do stuff is. Games need more interesting content, not perpetual repetitions of boring content, chasing the perpetual carrot from a randomized loot table.
Great post, you nailed it!! I was particularly impressed about your comments about the repetitive nature of modern instanced based MMOs, totally agree with the sentiment.
100% agree with this. ArcheAge Alpha was the best mmo I've ever played as well. It hit all the marks for me.
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
WoW's also the game that kickstarted everyone's interests in MMORPGs as a whole. Problem was everyone tried to imitate WoW in order to make quick money rather than make their own thing.
For the record, this is *exactly* why WoW was referenced so much. Besides it being a common reference point you can safely assume everyone has played, it's largely responsible for the MMO paradigm shifts away from the genre's core strengths and into the stagnant mess we've seen over the last four years. That's why changes in WoW make an excellent microcosm for discussion.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I somewhat agree. It is a valid case study but not in the context it was discussed. Meaning, we should not be discussing when was WoW's beginning of the end for WoW's game community as that point is rather moot. We should be discussing how the WoW paradigm is effectively blocking innovation in the genre.
What we are seeing here is the "junk food" phenomenon. The MMO industry is no different than any other entertainment industry. The problem is that junk sells. Crappy pop music sells, quality music not so much. Same stands for the movie business, etc etc. A movie that is a work of art will be appreciated by few. A movie with huge explotions, FX and nudity, no plot whatsover and bad acting will make millions. As long as producers want to make the explosion-fest movie, we will get less and less masterpieces. Lots of great ideas in game development are scrapped because they wouldn't sell.
This is what has brought the rise of indie development. With the advent of crowdfunding etc etc developers are now trying to make the games the dreamed of, things they were passionate about. Indie development is returning the artistic element to video games because frankly making video games is an artform. It's hard to do something like that on the MMO genre though, because the cost of development is way high.
I see MMO dev after MMO dev moving towards phone app games, they're quick, dirty, have cash shops, a return, and a life expectancy of months so they can move on to the next one.
I doubt that the industry can rebound from what it's done to itself. Even TESO went full blown cash shop and some1 above called it #2 in the market now. Our entire guild left at the announcement as we've all seen it before and don't wish to watch another main stream MMO implode upon itself, yet again.
IF and until, and that's a very large word/phrase in this context, the industry gets it head out of it's tail, I'll stick to private servers of a game that was mentioned above as what to do in a MMORPG. In fact, I bought and started my own servers so, yep, I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is and insure I can still get what I found back in 2003-on. That being, a game with large worlds, (we've added more even), very few instances, housing, deco, crafting (best of any game IMHO), non-combat toons for when you just don't want to go kill something, socializing, etc etc etc. And in this case anyway, private servers can provide this all for free with no cash store and no pay gates.
Looking forward to: Crowfall / Lost Ark / Black Desert Mobile
The best way to do it is to provide "realm wide" benefits for all actions in the game: be they solo, small group, large group, instanced or open world actions.
DAoC was an early pioneer with their system of realm-wide buffs dependent on relic ownership in the frontiers. But even that didn't go nearly far enough in that it was only relative to PVP performance (the buffs affected everything including PVE, but the only way to earn them was through PVP) and the changes were all or nothing. This was emphasized even more with the way they handled Darkness Falls, the best open world dungeon in the game at the time: you could only enter it if your realm earned control. (This could also have been the case with the ESO Imperial City, but they totally screwed up its potential community building impact by making it open to all 3 factions at all times simply because they sold it as a DLC and didn't want to deal with the flak of "DLC owners" whining about not having access whenever they felt like going there.)
Ashes of Creation, IMO, is on right track tying the growth of their "nodes" (read: regions with a city) to all player actions within that node... whatever those actions happen to be. My only worry with Ashes (other than whether it actually gets made
Feeling like you're part of a community doesn't mean you need to group a lot or even socialize a lot. You can be a solo loner and still get satisfaction from seeing your community grow and do well relative to others and feel part of it. Especially if what you choose to do with the game is also contributing to that success.
That is the key to making MMOs feel special again and provide that one thing that the other genres can't.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Other games have elements of these unique points. Almost every multi-player game has some degree of continuance -- the game doesn't end when your participation does. Single player games have persistence in the form of save games. Some RPGs have completeness. The MMORPG was the first genre to incorporate all three of these elements into a single genre.
Are other genres encroaching on these USPs? Yes. I do see a way for MMORPGs to maintain that difference -- by expanding on the completeness aspect. Currently, the completeness consists of the world and the various systems the players can interact with that world -- combat, magic, gathering, movement, etc. Expanding on the world gives players more to do, more places to visit. But simple expansion of zones or adding new zones won't completely drive the genre forward.
For that, the completeness needs other ways to interact with the world. More things to do, like religion and politics would be a start. A viable ecosystem to watch and study. Even social structures and events could add layers of complexity to the game world. Even the most basic social structure, the family. A character should be more than an isolated individual. A character should have parents, grandparents and siblings within the game, possibly even controlled by other players.
Developing and expanding what we know as game worlds to include more elements is one way of maintaining the unique aspects of MMORPGs, and hopefully keeping the genre healthy.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Today we have the following:
1) Game focused on soloplayer aspects, because it is the largest playerbase in video games
2) Cash shop to make a quick buck. Players are able to get quick instant progression if they spend money.
3) Focus on low man content utilizing dungeon finders. Removing the need for a strong community and guild.
4) Vanity only crafting, all BIS Bind of Pickup gear in dungeons. Removing any need for a real economy.
5) Quick content which last about 1-2 month per patch cycle which typically is 4-6 months.
6) Focus on Achievements and Mounts (Which either A give no benefit, or B literally are the same thing as something else with a new skin)
7) Ultra linear game play (Dungeon a => Dungeon B / Gear Score 100 => GS 110 => GS 120)
8) Removal of Crowd Control and Buff Style classes. (DPS/Tank/Heal ONLY!!)
9) Focus on strict dps rotations for everything.
10) Shallow/Extremly limited stats
11) Item Levels (The biggest culprit of the switch to pure linear gameplay)
12) Over balancing of everything (If all classes are = in everything... then why have different classes)
13) Gear with extremely limited stats, no unique features.
Seriously the MMORPG genre is not the genre it use to. I changed into something that ok has mass market appeal, but has nothing special above a non-mmo game. Seriously some multiple player games offer just as much content as mmos. Hell soloplayer Skyrim has more traditional mmo elements in it today then some mmos do and that is sad.
WoW was a great game loved by millions, but the shift to mass market appeal is why the genre is dying. When WoW came out it was a world people of all types could enjoy. The game over the years has been dumbed down to the masses, complexity has been removed, choice has been removed, professions have be nerfed to hell, time required to accomplish anything has been removed. And the stupid part is every single MMO company is copying them step by step by step.
If WoW launched today with the current model it is using now with MoP/WoD/Legion... I would bet my life savings it would crash and burn just as fast as any other mmo being made. It is why Blizz scrapped Titan and turned it into Overwatch, they realized it would too so they went to a genre that is more sustainable.
Cash shop is the 2nd hellish cancer that is destroying games which could be successful. People will not stick with games where someone can simply buy their way to power, it has been proven again and again. It is also BS to have to pay $100-500/month to stay competitive at a mmo... IT SHOULD COST $15 max. Seriously why would anyone invest long term into a mmo where you can't compete without signing over your paycheck.... Cough AA and Revelation.
No one is creating living worlds anymore (At least no AAA studios). People are just creating games designed to get quick enjoyment out of the shelf for the next one, while making the devs a quick buck. In the current mmo model Offline games, MOBAs, Dungeon crawlers simply offer the same experience without the grind or paywalls so why play a current gen mmo?
The best chance for a good mmo anymore is going to be the indies... lets hope a few can actually finish a decent game. AAA companies cannot make good lasting ones anymore it has been proved over the last decade.
No MMO is going to provide everything for every one. Especially when it comes to MMO-RPG's. RPG's need story, they need lore, they need good solid writing, and group adventure element that make sense in the context of that lore. SWTOR did have that nailed down pretty decently, but in spite of the huge amount of money is was making the owners chose to not put as much back into the game to develop it along it original format and it's starting to loose players as they burn through all the content and then discover there's not much left. Having "Star Wars" (or Star Trek) in the tatle does not mean you get a guaranteed persistant herd of elephants forever to support your game and keep the money flowing. Older gamers, such as my self find that a totally obnoxious attitude on the part of content creators and it tends to drive us away eventually. And the younger population, they eventually wise up. Content providers have found their jobs get more difficult as the genre has evolved. Mixed blessing.. but if you can pull it off it is some serious job security.
One of you mentioned "Down Time" and how it's important. I agree, but more importantly is the need for the mmo creators to structure in settings for that "down Time" guild halls, social zones, places to hang out and look good. Social tools that are immersive and add to the flavor of the fantasy or SciFi world your part. This is an area where EVE has really shown the way by incorporating Community Contributors into the game.. EVE is all about community (even if most of em are a rapacious bunch of damd opportunistic pirates that make conquistadors look like nice guys!)
Development studios need to cast their eyes about more, look at what works, what doesn't, and incorporate what does as best they can into their persistent worlds. They also need to respect the intelligence of their community's. We players, we don't mind if you make money off of us. We under stand that it's not actually "free". It has to be paid for. F2P allows for larger communities, but the wonderful elephants that support F2P cannot be catered to specifically. Oh yea throw them a bone, show appreciation to them, and make sure they get goodies to show off. But don't let them dictate the game. After all, if they actually knew what they were about, they would be developers, not players.
Apologies for the ramblingness of the comment, but it's not something that can be looked at in isolation. Every aspect of online MMO-RPG's must be considered. Revenue, Player base, content, structure, focus. The ones that do it best are still here. As for that Unique Selling Point. Ladies and Gents.. it's a myth.. It never really existed because it's not unique. It's something that "historical re-creationists" have known about for decades.. Folks like the Society For Creative Anachronism, various and assorted Civil War re-en actors and more.. it's a long long long list. It's Community. It's always been community. If you can provide a space and frame work for community to develop within your online world then your product will have longevity even if the game it's self is dated (ehem-Aion, Linage-II, Everquest).
BIttena sends
If someone had the time to update the graphics on many of these older MMO's they would be head and shoulders better than most of the current MMO's Take Asheron's Call, update the graphics and it would be 100% more fun than anything else out there IMO.
I have to agree with many of you, Wow started the downfall of the MMO. While initially fun, Blizzard managed to bleed every iota of fun out of the game, trying to make it more appealing to the masses.
The F2P movement did not help either. Bunch of over monetized slop. There is no point in grinding away for days on end to get something when some whale can come along and purchase it outright. Some are much worse than others, looks at you Trion.
I am not impressed with most of the indies either. Their modus operandi seems to be promise the moon and sell as many gilded calves as possible along with the usual full loot pvp that is a well known game killer. It just amuses me that people think they can make that work.
I guess we will just have to sit back and wait and see if someone comes along that gets it.
This is something I disagree with very strongly.
The only unique selling point of MMOs is being massively-multiplayer. No other genre is built around 1000s of players interacting with one another, be it through the economy, grouping / questing together, or pvp. Now, sure, most MMOs have forgotten this and have stopped offering MMO features (pvp is pretty much the last bastion of the mmo) but never the less, that is the usp.
That means MMOs need to focus on being multiplayer, which means focusing on the community and all the social aspects that entails.
The strongest communities are those that are the most diverse. If you focus on a very small niche then you may well end up building a better game for that one niche, but the longevity will suffer. Niche groups are fragile. A single wrong move might end up killing your game, because it affects 99% of your playerbase. A more diverse game is more stable because feature issues affect a smaller proportion of your users.
In addition, diverse games offer more variety in gameplay, so are better able to suit the players mood. This is, again, absolutely essential for building strong communities and thus increasing the appeal of your game. For example, I am looking forwards to playing CU when it comes out, but being almost 100% pvp focused means it's going to wear me out. If I catch a night where my side is consistently losing, or no guildies are online, I'm left with no other options within the game - I either have a bad time playing, or log off. That is not good for the game or the community.