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General: MMORPG.com PAX East Panel Report #1
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
At the recent PAX East 2011, MMORPG.com played host to a developer panel featuring some of the industry’s best and brightest including Curt Schilling of 38 Studios, Craig Alexander of Turbine, Jeremy Gaffney of Carbine, Scott Hartsman of Trion, Brian Knox of En Masse, James Ohlen of BioWare, and Colin Johanson of ArenaNet. Find out what the discussion revealed in Lead Writer Bill Murphy's report. Leave us a comment or two when you're finished.
(Our guests) were all lined up on the panel ready and eager to answer the questions of the hundreds of fans who turned out to see what these movers and shakers had to say about their favorite pastime and what the future holds. This is the first part of our panel recap, so be sure to tune in next week for more opinions on the future of online gaming. After some brief introductions, and plenty of applause from grateful fans, the questions began.
Read more of Bill Murphy's MMORPG.com PAX Panel Report #1.
Comments
"...person’s most valuable commodity isn’t in their wallet, but in the time that they spend to choose with whatever game they’re playing. ..."
bingo
The F2P and Freemium models were the better way to go for years now. Western audiences just resisted because of years of conditioning. The entire notion that people with more money would enjoy the game more (and the feeling that they should not) is what held it back from catching on as a business model.
We have to be forever grateful to Turbine,SOE and others for opening the door to what is a better way of earning from a MMORPG for the customer.
"James Ohlen of BioWare went the contrary route. He stated that the future of online gaming, especially MMORPGs, will focus more on story or the RPG aspect of the game."
when will these guys from Bioware learn, that story which mostly leads to linearity (see DA2) and RPG is not the same. it even can be very conflictuary like most modern MMOs (questgrinder) show.
but i am aftraid, he is right. some companies will follow that route and they will find their customers. however, i prefer to applaud to the guys going with open dynamic worlds.
played: Everquest I (6 years), EVE (3 years)
months: EQII, Vanguard, Siedler Online, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2
weeks: WoW, Shaiya, Darkfall, Florensia, Entropia, Aion, Lotro, Fallen Earth, Uncharted Waters
days: DDO, RoM, FFXIV, STO, Atlantica, PotBS, Maestia, WAR, AoC, Gods&Heroes, Cultures, RIFT, Forsaken World, Allodds
That's bull. The entire thing about selling things for cash is that players want those things, and those who spend more get more. On top of that, almost all, and eventually they all do, sell various means to "level" faster. That's "pay-to-win" in both cases.
Once upon a time....
I don't think Story and Role playing are at odds with each other.
If I'm in a play there is a story. There are even lines. However that doesn't stop me from adopting the role and fleshing it out in my own way.
If I play a part I will be playing that part differently from another actor.
I dont see why games can't incorporate this. It might not be for everyone but I can see that what bioware is doing is one way to go with the genre.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I have to agree, there is a difference between lore and story and I think MMOs are meant to go by the former rather than the latter.
SWTOR, GW2 and TSW also heavily invest into story, so I think the devs of new upcoming MMO's are of the opinion that MMO's could use more of the latter. If they're right in that we'll see when the games come out.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Yes, but that's only because lore isn't properly used in MMOs yet, there are simply not enough elements to define one's own story other than being told by an NPC that you did your work well and therefore are a hero instead of being recognised as one by your own actions or through other players. In which I have faith in a Bethesda MMO or quite possibly WoD.
I had to LOL at the responses to your first question. The Bioware dev said the future was story, the Arenanet dev claimed it was dynamic content, and the Trion dev proclaimed alternatives to RPG being the future of MMOs. They basically said the selling points of their own upcoming MMO was the future of gaming. Gimme a break. Curt Schilling was the only one not pimping his own product's viewpoint in his answer, probably because he's too marketing naive to take that question as an opportunity to promote his game. Biased answers answer nothing.
Of course they answer towards what they put in their game...
If they think the future is headed towards a certain path, why the hell would they develop a game going the other path?
Ask yourself, where do you want MMO's in the next couple of years. Then ask yourself, would you develop a game contrary to your wants/beliefs? No you wouldn't, unless you were in it for bankruptcy.
Bioware believes stories are where it's at, and so, they develop a story-based MMO. If they believed gear-grinding was where MMO's were heading, they would have deveolped a gear-grinding game. And then when asked about the future of gaming, they would have said gear-grinding is where it's at.
Makes perfect sense to me...
the pay to win argument has died. I play lotro and Sto outside of WoW and in those games everything i could ever want can be achieved in game for free, sure it takes a little more time, but it's not anywhere near as impossible as people claim. And the things they are offering are not game breaking. The only thing in turbines lotro stores that even affects gameplay is enhancements available for legendary weapons that one CAN get in game as well. STO has new ships but even those are available with a collections of easily obtainable badges from dailies and explores. the Ships in STO do have unique abilities however, the retrofit ships that used to be store only are now obtainable after reaching Vice Admiral for free. So all of these people who are claiming the the freemium model is somehow unjust or crooked are just whining at this point and need to learn to play, or work a second job for the things they want in game. It's all virtual anyways.
“Facebook is somehow going to strongly impact the MMO space.”
It already has had an effect, many of us have comented on this as long as two years ago.
“If a player is going to choose to spend their entertainment time with 38 Studios’ product that said time is a valuable piece of currency right up front.”
Only if a company makes some money out of it; advertsing, flat fee, store purchase, just being there is not good enough.
"The Bioware dev said the future was story, the Arenanet dev claimed it was dynamic content, and the Trion dev proclaimed alternatives to RPG being the future of MMOs." - Well spotted Senadina, marketing had obviously had a word with them before they went to the convention.
Pay to Win is as relevent now as it always has been 'itgrowls', for your infomation a +10 to +40 to stats is availible in the Lotro store that effects gameplay in my eyes. The problem with a store is what will they sell next year? You already have all the game breaking items from last year so the pressure is on the MMO company to introduce new ones. Thats what happens in any F2P MMO. Turbines model is just getting there a lot more slowly.
Interesting to get all these exciting devs in one place and then talking heads ensues business as usual...
A lot of MMO development will be technology driven and market driven:
eg Dynamic content - tech
eg Pricing - market
eg Story - both actually to differentiate and add another selling point: "We can do everything they can do... and more."
One thing that devs should look at is providing a scene/niche/interest/category that a particular social group will gravitate towards and make their home... not CLONE MMOs: "Friends of all, friends of NONE."
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
Herp derp of course they did! You have it backwards though: they decided what they thought would be the future of MMOs, and then built a game to do that. How is that surprising in the least? What would you have expected them to say, "Well, we really think the future of MMOs is in X, which is why we're ignoring X completely and focusing on Y instead,"?
the screenshots in this article, what game is that?
Which FF Character Are You?
This is actually my only serious problem with Guild Wars 2 right now. A single story, even if it is long and varied and has many choices to change the path of the story, is not roleplaying. Roleplaying is playing a role in a world. Single player roleplaying games obviously have to tell a good story, like any good single player game, but a MMO should be about creating a world to live in rather than creating a story in which each player becomes the hero. Obviously, we cannot all be the hero. It is ridiculous and the reverse of online community roleplaying. Even having dynamic events in a dynamic world does not negate the idea that your character has the same best friend as every human noble, or the same rival as lots of norn.
I can almost understand it with Bioware, though. I mean, this is what they do. They write stories. Even in the videos I have seen, the dialogue is just like in their single player titles. Single player games are what they do. So of course their story is going to at least carry over some of that mentality. The question becomes to what degree. There is a point, and I think it is different for everyone, where this sort of storytelling makes the game a single player game where you can meet other people, instead of a MMO with community.
I do think things like the Guild Website and pre-launch stuff is amazing and is a great direction to go for building community. Bioware makes great single player games. I suppose we just have to wait and trust them.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
Voice over alone will kill BW when it is time for a new expansion which include a new class. I am not worry if GW2 sucks cos it is B2P. Well in my opinion the West Dev should get some of the Korean progammer just like Arenanet.
Pardon my English as it is not my 1st language
Consider this though -- part of what drives the success of an mmorpg is at least the perception of population, if not reality. People don't play games that appear to be dead, whether it's absolutely devoid of people, or you just assume everyone is max level and transcended the newbie areas, thereby leaving you unable to compete (think DAoC or EQ before the progression server).
I think a large portion of CoH's ongoing success (until recently) has been maxxed out players re-rolling alts, thus always creating a constant influx of players in all zones throughout the game, but particualrly the newbie areas -- most no other p2p game sees that. BUT, if a game has a F2P option, it opens the door to new players always joining and inflating the population; a thriving population can incentivize subscribers to stay on longer rather than move on, thus the company makes money out of it.
they should try to start putting ads on billboards or load screens in mmos to help cover costs, like if 8 million (wow) saw an ad every time there was a loading screen thats like a super bowl ad, and include bill boards in the game here and there which could make enough money for the game to be free, so that "...person’s most valuable commodity isn’t in their wallet, but in the time that they spend to choose with whatever game they’re playing. ..." becomes true as people with more time make the game more money. So the amout of player doesn't matter but the quality of the players.
I don't think so becuase they proably have software that helps them becuase about every character ( non - player and player) has voice over, and I think that in wexpansions their going to add new features, not new classes like maybe a nuetral fraction and the ability to change fraction if your choices in game get you banned from one side, like killing lots of citzens on the republic then become a sith instead, changing your skills.