You lost me at "win". I won't want to play the games you make. If you create games for people who want to win and brag about it, then you'll get people who want to win and brag about it, and that's fine if that's what you want (and certainly the raiders and PvPers are the life of many an MMO).
You are thinking way to narrow here.
"win" doesnt necessarily mean downing that big raid boss or capturing a keep in PvP. Where i disagree slightly with Dave here is that its not the ability to brag thats the key, its the feeling of accomplishment. That was the #1 key to Everquest's success.
I was never a hardcore raider in EQ. I didn't play on a PvP server. But I sure felt personal wins very frequently in that game, and I felt accomplished regardless if I needed to brag to others or not.
My gear was 2 expansions behind top tier, but i was damn proud of it and could remember acquiring most of it. I may not have had very many AAs, but I felt good about how much my character had grown. I may not have been the best Ranger in the world, but those times i saved group wipes with timely roots or aggro steal/weapon shield made me feel damn good (even if i did die when weapon shield ran out).
I agree with his assessment however there is obviously one exception to the rule and too many point to that exception withotu realizing the WHY.
WOW failed that CORE game and with flying colors,so much so that nobody talks about it ,ALWAYS end game this or raid boss that.Wow created a core game that had zero versatility,every player followed the exact same path,can't be less defining as a game than that.However the big WHY,they got away with it?Super easy,90% of those players had nothing to draw comparisons to,so it WAS THE game so they thought.Then gain some friends,spend countless hours and they are never looking back.
Since that time really every single game aside from a handful have copied thta game design and i would have to admit done it worse,so i can see why they still think Wow is THE game.
However the few that did not do it in a SIMPLE fashion the way Wow was designed,are imo vastly superior.Then we have the two games that are similar that are imo identical but have a few bonuses and better graphics,that being EQ2 and VG.
My point i guess is that as witnessed by the two superior products EQ2 and VG and yet they did not have that "FIRST game" experience for gamer's they could not survive the same as Wow did.That is why it proves that design really does NOT work,the ONLY success stories have died off rather quickly after launch because all they do is get the BORED gamer's jumping ship to ship.
What i don't agree on is the difficulty in saving a game or bringing a game back or even creating these games,imo it is ONLY the budget that holds back superior game design.Instead of countless features and content ideas,instead we get ONE idea for game play,you guessed it ,chase around yellow markers over npc heads,that takes what all of 5 minutes in the board room to draw up that design,been there,done it,seen it,not interested.
I don't think you even played WoW at launch. Every player absolutely did not have to follow the same path. There were almost always 3+ zones you could be leveling in and everyone had their own preferred path.
But WoW's core combat is quite simply the best the genre has ever seen. I personally prefer games like Everquest that have a greater focus on teamwork (although WoW had a bigger empahsis on support earlier on), but WoW's combat has a smoothness to it that still reigns supreme today. It has the right amount of action in it where it doesnt become a chore to play, but its not passive either. Its also easy to learn but difficult to truly master. Also keep in mind that WoW was a fair bit harder back when it built its massive player base. You can argue that WoW proves Dave's point about changing your core, because making the core of the game significantly easier, streamlining the game flow (and the talent system too) has turned a lot of people away
Originally posted by Vorthanion Georgeson is the perfect example why developers can't get past raiding as the singular end game design. The "I Win" and "I'm Better Than You" crowd flock to that design paradigm and it's what makes the incredibly monotonous raid grind so worthwhile. Its very existence in game completely trivializes and diminishes other content and play styles. What gets my goat is that raiding is fairly niche gameplay. Grouping down to soloing is where the majority are at, yet they get the least amount of focus in most MMO's end game.
Yet the last game Georgeson was running before EQNext had probably the most endgame content for soloers. EQ2 certainly has a raid game, but its also a game that can be rewarding for just about anyone.
After reading the comments, it seems like more people have a problem with the usage of "win" and "brag" than the actual concepts Dave was talking about (as seen my the majority of those people following up their statements by describing themselves liking things they do well at and or describing themselves in terms of accomplishments).
So I guess, poor form on Dave for not using whatever politically correct terminology would appeal to the most people while offending the least.. And kudos to Dave for having the guts to point out that the truth that many (even most) gamers play games to fill voids or make themselves feel good.
You lost me at "win". I won't want to play the games you make. If you create games for people who want to win and brag about it, then you'll get people who want to win and brag about it, and that's fine if that's what you want (and certainly the raiders and PvPers are the life of many an MMO).
If you ask me what my favourite game is, and I told you Planescape: Torment (I don't have a real top game, but that's one I liked a lot), is that because I was good at it (whatever that means), or is it because had good story, characters and interactions. Was City of Heroes my favourite MMORPG because I was good at it, or because it had neat stories and a wide variety of characters I could create?
MMORPG players aren't all out to win. Some want, you know, to experience the RPG part. Some want to explore a world. If I stayed with CoH and left EQ2 it was not because I was better at CoH, but because EQ2 had less story content. If I was more of an explorer, on the other hand, I might have preferred EQ2. And what I did like about EQ2 never amounted to winning or bragging.
It's possible that designing a game for those who like to win and brag can bring in more money, but I personally hope that few game designers take that advice to heart.
Unfortunately "story driven" MMO's are really not MMO's and they burn out quickly. The vast majority of people who played SWTOR and then left subsequently because they burned through the "story". "story" belongs in single player RPG's, not MMOs. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be an underlying story/mythos, etc to the world and the game, but it shouldn't be the main driving factor. You should know who the main characters are, why they're there, how they interact with the world etc, but you shouldn't be "the one" and the guy who directly deals with these nebulous characters in any real capacity.
MMO's work better when you're one of the wheels in the cog. It doesn't make sense when you're doing a quest where you're the "saviour of the town" and 2 hours later when you come back to sell some loot to the vendor, and you see 14 other people doing the same "saviour of the town" quest.
This was one of the main reasons EQ worked so well. It felt like a real world. Yes, there were generals, and lords and ladies, etc. But they were off in the castle or the whatever, and the only quests they gave were guild level stuff (stuff that made sense). One of the coolest things i ever saw was in Velious when the big guild on our server first did the last step of the Coldain Ring quests. It was cool and a bunch of people who werent directly involved were sitting around watching them do the big fight and such. It only happened a half a dozen times on the server and it made it special. Something that is completely lacking in our participation trophy world of MMO design.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
Originally posted by Ludwik I disagree with George.
Devs spend way too much time on coming up with other reasons for players to interact and socialize.
Everquest had one goal: advancement. You grouped, socialized, and grew as a guild because everyone had the one singular focus in mind. If you didn't participate, you didn't advance.
UO it was about survival. DAoC and WoW followed the EQ model with advancement. DAoC did it through RvR, Darkness Falls and realm orbs. Classic WoW it was about grouping and raiding to advance.
Today's MMOs are too diverse with far too many objectives. Take a game like Guild Wars 2 which suffers tremendously from a lack of identity. You have PvE, SPvP, and WvW and within these branches there are numerous subgroups. WvW has people that play for points, play for zerg fights, play for small fights, duels, achievements, etc. All these subgroups hate each other because they're not playing for a singular purpose and often times one group is directly hurting another group by playing it's preferred style.
Games need focus and purpose to get people to communicate towards those goals. They don't need to be a giant dartboard of shallow ideas that often compete with other shallow ideas at the detriment of the gamers.
AMENO. And your example is top notch and helped me realize why I dislike so many recent MMOs. It's funny because, when I was younger, I was more OCD, energetic, and WANTED more more more things to do. Now it's the complete opposite.
I'd rather have a single focus, given it's a fun one, than 10 different features, 6 of which I do not care about. All that development time that went into those 6 features is wasted on me. So I end up with half a game and don't feel contempt.
But that's the way of business and game development costs nowadays. Niche games barely make it and those who do, is because they are happy with their niche (EVE). But it's those niche games that will always get your particular style, if you aren't the "more is good" kind of person.
So this is Dave Georgeson's new role in the industry, some kind of columnist.
That would be OK if he stood back from the hubris now and again and admitted to breaking those principles he is now espousing. This guy was the most damaging producer Everquest II ever had. In addition he seems to have been instrumental in killing the next installment in the Everquest franchise and creating something entirely different which only used the name and the sketchist elements of the lore.
I do not blame him for the F2P change, after all that was almost certainly the task he was assigned on hiring. But his other actions could do with some admissions of guilt and an explanation.
most of you read too literally. you see the words win and brag and misinterpret what he's saying. also see people saying they disagree with his "core" theory then use a game like guild wars 2 as an example as to why he's wrong. a game with a fractured core
most of you are just echoing what he wrote, but in your own tough guy way of trying to make it appear you disagree. youre just missing his point and rewriting his words
Okay, I have to disagree heavily with this article. I have been playing MMOs since 2000 and it was never for the "I Win" factor. The first one I played was EQ. Why do I still go back and play that game after I get bored with everything else now? It is the nostalgia and the players. That game was the first MMO for me, plain and simple. It introduced me to the genre. I made life long friends in that game. That is the sole thing I look for now when I look for a new MMO, to capture that same feeling I had back then. It wasn't about the bragging, it was the exploration, the people, the character progression skills, the questing we actually stopped to read or had to figure out how to function. The social aspect of corpse runs, fishing waiting for the boat; that first dungeon that you had to do over 12 times to beat, watching a twilek dancer in the cantina for a buff, your first player city, your first guild, the time you and your friends actually got the jump on those jerks camping your buddies corpse (and camped theirs in return); these are the things we remember fondly from the games we play. They all involved other people; whether you were two grouped or 50 manning. MMOs are about the Multiplayer; the more social and easier you make it for people to get together the better it is for your players. WoW has the best tool for finding players to do dungeons and raids of any game I have played. This helps solve the LFG for 10 hours and logging out. I don't want to hear the "Stop whinning and go start your own group? thing either; not everyone is a leader, but they can still be a great game buddy and group mate.
The next big problem with games now is the twitch based part of them. The red telegraphs and 5 to 7 abilities gets old fast. I don't consider this the better combat system. This is specifically designed to take the PC games and move them to the console and developers just need to admit it now and get over themselves. Not that I need 3 hot bars and macros for each one to play. I also shouldn't need 10 custom guis to play. How is having a gui tell me when to cast my frostbolt challenging play? Tactics should be the concentration, don't make it about the fastest connection or you will alienate half of your potential player base that has no option to get a better connection. Bring back the complexity and the uniqueness of the character. Not every character should be able to range attack or heal or crowd control at the same levels. I know the trinity has a bad rap, but I hear just as many complaints on the cookie cutter character. We should be able to create a unique play style and be viable, but not have that same skill set be the best for every other character. I want to be an undead calling battle mage. So you then say okay well you can wear this armor with a penalty and this one staff will cast magic. Uhmm so what about me is unique? How is my character gaining ability and knowledge and becoming unique?
Next problem, impact on the game and the quest. I have to admit some of the things I love about LOTRO, SWTOR, TSW and ESO are the story. You feel like you are working toward something; well done voice actors really are great additions to the atmosphere. When the story is great you want to play longer to see what comes next. Does this only belong in a single player game? No, we all like a good story and there are plenty of MMO players that love lore and really thrive on that sort of thing. I can't tell you how many times I have heard people in games say they would love if their efforts in game made some impact that lasted in the game world. If someone destroys x box in the corner should it really be back 20 seconds later? If I just defeated the threat to your village; why is it back again already when I run my alt through? Also make the quests interesting. Maybe the newbie area needs to teach you to fight, but do I really need to kill x number of snakes for lazy dwarf to make soup? Something like this would fit if I was a cook and had to skin x snakes to learn a better way to prepare snake soup with some special buff to it. Please give us something interesting that makes sense in the setting and game. This is the big problem with MMOs right now, we want replayability.
Next issue housing.. a lot of players like this and probably a good amount don't. However, when you implement it you usually forget about it despite grand claims to not do that. The model we like is open world housing plain and simple. You designate areas in the world to limit the graphic impact, but instanced housing or neighborhoods just aren't as much fun as a player run city. Let the players take care of them and give them the tools to have events in them; players should travel to these cities to buy their goods beyond basics needed for regular game survival. Make the crafting matter and be the, at least, second best in game below the top raiding or interesting gear upgrade option.
Next currency in game. You know how to get rid of those botters and gold farmers? Simple make money plentiful in the game to acquire. Make it easy. The object of the MMO isn't who has the most gold and it never has been. There are plenty of other things one can acquire without money and that should be more of the focus. I should make enough easily to pay for housing, repairs, mounts, travel, crafting and even mid grade purchases. Don't make money the time sink. It isn't fun.
PvP, casual players and raiders... Does anyone really all fit in any of these categories? Is it a good idea to cater a game to try and cover all these bases? I dont' think so; you invariably loose one group of more. I have yet to see a game with a PvP server that didn't have the lowest population on that server of all the others. The answer to that is the PvPers weren't happy for one of two reasons: you didn't have enough of a fun experience for them or players got tired of the "I am better than you and I am going to camp your corpse till you log off" mentality. Seriously, there is always going to be someone better than you or someone trying to knock you off the top to become the best. Either way it isn't fun for the other 90% of us that just want to have a good chances at winning with small/medium groups and strategy and development of our characters. But again, does this really belong in an MMORPG? Or is this more geared toward another genre and we should stop trying to put it in every new game coming out? Why do I have to be forced to do some PvP game for my one of my five daily choices? If I wanted to play that kind of game there are plenty of better titles to handle it. The top raiders.. they are great they test your stuff, find the bugs and get all the glory. They are the braggers and they generally have the "we don't give a crap about the peons" mentality too. Again, not the largest population of your game. Hence what usually happens in the game down the road after the guys have blown through your content as fast as possible and moved on to the next game; you start the so called "dumb down the game process". Here is where the poor casual player gets a bad rap. This is your slower player that is working with a family, but really enjoys your content and is in a smaller guild. This may be the your husband and wife team or your solo players that just like the general chat aspect of the game. However, this is your core player bases that gets the word out about your game and keeps the lights on. This is the guy you forget about until a year or so in when the others have left. This is the guy that you really need to not forget about in the beginning. Make your game fun from start to finish without invalidating old content and old accomplishments and this player. There is no reason this casual gamer should have to interfere with your PvPers or your Raiders. They probably don't even care much about tier 12 gear and know they will never acquire it, but don't make them feel worse for not having it either. Make it so they can still get gear for that lower alt with their no raider top level toon or help their friend level up.
My next big complaint.. nerfs. I can see this happening when a game first comes out. Seriously though, after 5 years or more what is there to really be nerfing? NO one likes to hear you just drastically reduced your favorite toon's abilities by 50 pct to bring him more in line with the other players! Just bring up the other players or test your new skills a bit better before you release them. If the player figures out a better way to play their character than you designed, then they deserve the gold star for it.
The final big beef with current MMOs.. the dailies. Dear god if this can't be more mind numbing than anything else in the game. I just spent x amount of time getting to top level to participate in grander adventures.. oh I get to do this one pvp zone 5 times today and tomorrow and the next day just to earn some coins to buy the better gear that I need to do x raid?!! Does that sound fun to you developers? It is worse for the casual player who may use up all there play time on this one goal and by the time they have achieved it, they now hate your game. Please please get rid of the daily and make something more interesting. I don't want to do the same 5 instances in EQ2 every day for currency or some small chance at some low level raid gear that might make me able to attend a raid. Maybe I don't want to raid at all. Maybe I find the same raid over and over again with no variation to gear up my entire guild pretty boring. There is no longer a sense of accomplishment and that kills the fun. There must be another way.
I agree with many and disagree with DG.. Sorry, DG, but you have a very Esport attitude with MMO's, and maybe that is the main reason why I dislike any design you've ever come up with.. First, building a world isn't that hard if you have the right creative mind focusing on a core design.. The problem most devs have today, DG included, is your desire to design games that assimilate diverse gameplay into YOUR method of fun.. Seldom do people change their likes and dislikes, no matter how much you wish to use smoke and mirrors and trickery..
PvP and PvE mix like oil and water, and it's clear from any interview and reading from you that you desire Esport mentality of "winning" against other players.. This can be direct PvP, or indirect challenge of PvE rankings and status.. Not all games have to have a win condition.. Destruction is not FUN to me, and I think it's rather arrogant of you to imply it should be of everyone.. No offense DG, but I get the feeling you are very confrontational, and that shows in how you design games..
The trick to creating new worlds is first to create what gameplay you wish to promote and focus on.. Do you want a community building game, or PvP, or lobby based, or this, or that.. As one gent put it, you can't just have a dart board of ideas and mechanics tossed into a game and expect success.. This reminds me of the core plot in the movie "City Slickers".. Find out your "ONE THING", and everything else just falls into place.. That said, devs need to stop trying to appease everyone with a game that is put together like a hodge podge bowl of potpourri.. Yes, vanilla smells good, so does chocolate, so do flowers, and pine, and fresh cut grass and burning leaves.. but try putting all the smells together and you end up with SHIT in a can..
PS Edit:.. For those that defend Dave saying we misunderstood what he was saying.. Here is his own words.. >> "And that should come as no surprise, because every gamer…100% of us…likes to brag. Don’t get defensive or PC on me. You know you do. We all do."........ There is NO spin to those words.. I don't brag, I hate braggers and I do not play games to WIN either.. If you keep designing games believing that everyone "100% of us" gamers like what he likes, then we are ALL doomed.. LOL
Everything I read makes sense and I agree with it, but I have to ask the question "what went wrong at SOE then?" because to me SOE haven't been following what you've just said Dave.
Here seems to be SOE's cycle
1. Talk about how you're going to spend the time getting it right and listening to the community.
2. Rush the product out to launch even though the core just isn't there.
3. The player base leaves and the game never recovers.
Rinse and repeat.
Or in the case of the SOE games I once loved (EQ, EQ2, SWG and PS)
1. Rush the product out with the core game being great
2. Never realising the full potential so the player base slowly falls off
3. Make stupid changes that ultimately kill the game
What I don't get with SOE is why the post launch content is so bad, it all feels very rushed. Why is every new dungeon three randomly generated NPCs standing in an empty space where you've just copied and pasted a few items about the place? Why is every new bit of content so sparse? It is never dense and full of quality, I mean most of the time you forget the flora...
Looking at an SOE expansion and comparing it to a Blizzard expansion, it is night and day. Tbh that isn't about budget because once upon a time SOE had the budget to compete and they still didn't put that money into quality content.
Everything SOE has done lately has been a failure and I've played Landmark.. it is shit. No one I know likes it, every streamer on Youtube played it a few times and dropped it, none of those videos even got many views. The core isn't there and Landmark needs a major overhual... tbh I'd just scrap it, but I would have done the same with H1Z1 and it is clear the people over at SOE don't care about quality.
I don't want to offend people, but when someone with the budget of SOE has worse level design than what I can do on UE4 in a day... I find that scary. Seriously walking into buildings in H1Z1, it is like walking into an N64 game, square rooms where everything is made out of in engine brushes... it is sad.
It is weird looking at the genre on the whole though because for the past 10 years MMOs haven't been made by people who love the genre. They've been made by people who want to make WoW 2 and they've all failed, I haven't played a single one for more than a few days. All I see now is games like Destiny taking over the MMO reigns, they aren't MMOs but for some reason people don't care about that. That and delusional twats making their lackluster ego titles like Richard Garriott who should not be getting funded any more, he is like Peter Molyneux or Brad Mcquaid... stop giving these people money!
+ One more thing.
The one thing I still don't get about EQ2 is why in beta the game had one server and each zone was cloned over and over again. Then after launch there were 40+ servers that spread the population too thin, it became impossible to find a group and so people left because of it.
The beta of that game was the most amazing experience I've ever had grouping in an MMO. You couldn't progress without a group but the player base was kept so together nicely that you always had people around you asking. It was much more fun grouping from 1 - 20 in EQ2 than it was soloing in WoW, yet post launch we never got that option because of the servers.
SOE always makes mistakes like these and is too slow to react or never admits they're wrong.
Why weren't BFRs taken out straight away? Why didn't you just scrap them in testing?
Why didn't you listen to the problems of Planetside 2 in beta? Most of those problems still exist today. I don't understand how you created such giant bases, yet in reality they're tiny because they have next to no indoor plan.
There are so many examples like this through every SOE game.
I still don't understand why EQ2's character models have never been changed, they've always been so ugly and off putting, yet no effort has been put into making them look good.
either dave is trying to get his job back or he thinks he knows what it takes to create a AAA MMO these days. good luck with the latter, don't think even smed has a clue.
let it go dave and move on. EQ is in it's final days. even if they manage to produce an EQN it will be a microtranfesting dress-up grind game fer sure. it will be B2P also with no AA.... no way this new company can support 3 EQ MMOs. dont think any company in their right mind would even try.
So this is Dave Georgeson's new role in the industry, some kind of columnist.
That would be OK if he stood back from the hubris now and again and admitted to breaking those principles he is now espousing. This guy was the most damaging producer Everquest II ever had. In addition he seems to have been instrumental in killing the next installment in the Everquest franchise and creating something entirely different which only used the name and the sketchist elements of the lore.
I do not blame him for the F2P change, after all that was almost certainly the task he was assigned on hiring. But his other actions could do with some admissions of guilt and an explanation.
My thoughts and yours on how negatively impactful Dave's presence and actions were are pretty much aligned. Unfortunately, the damage is done even though the rotten tooth was pulled out. EQN should be renamed, and sold to the far east alongside Dragon's Nest and it's ilk.
Originally posted by superconducting
Damnit Dave.
What will it take to get you back on EQN?
Shall we start a kickstarter?
I think you missed the memo. Dave was surgically removed from Daybreak a heartbeat after Sony dropped it for underperforming in the tune of millions annually. Daybreak is trying to move forward, not bring back the people who were seen as either instrumental in its misdirection and failure, or simply fat to be trimmed.
Originally posted by madazz This guy doesnt even know what an MMO is. He thinks it means virtual world.... What a piss poor representation of an MMO dev.
Both are interchangeable and with mixed concepts, if by virtual world you mean SL, imvu, etc. MMO devs create a virtual world for their purposes, whereas a virtual world like imvu and SL, are created by it's users. Neither concepts are exclusive. Both are essentially 3d environments.
... Daybreak is trying to move forward, not bring back the people who were seen as either instrumental in its misdirection and failure, or simply fat to be trimmed.
I sure hope you're right.
But I suspect that DGC's "new direction" is more about "removing risk and getting the game to market" than it is about encouraging new and untried features or game design concepts...
Everyone has a different idea about what makes a great game, whilst I appreciate that Dave has worked in one of the oldest and best games gone by. The only thing I'm currently interested in is where are you going to next Dave or is this some cryptic clue as to you getting ready to announce your own venture into EQU EQUtopia....Loading please wait!
I'm glad that at the end of the article he said that these insights all came from hindsight because the whole time I was reading the article I kept wondering why it was, if he's so wise in the ways of game design, that SOE hadn't made a worthwhile game in years, was losing money, and was ultimately sold off by it's parent company.
As to the actual points he made I didn't disagree with everything but I felt that he associated "bragging" with "fun" a little to strongly. Yes, it's true that people like to have that cool piece of equipment to wear or gain a title for their character or just be able to say "I did this-----". But he was equating players having those "feather in their cap" things with players having fun. As if simply providing feathers for players to put in their caps is going to make the game fun for them all by itself.
I would argue that the gameplay leading up to gaining that <feather in your cap> has to fun in it's own right before you ever get <the thing to brag about>. His philosophy seems to be --pander to the players and they'll love your game---. Give them pats on the back, shower them with shiny trinkets, have NPCs tell them what a great HERO they are and that alone will make the game fun for them. Basically, if you paste little gold stars on the players foreheads to mark their "accomplishments" they will be all giddy and run to tell their friends how great your game is even if the stuff they do to gain those gold stars is dull as ditchwater.
Actually, I shouldn't rag too hard on Dave for this because it seems to be a standard of MMO design these days. It's not just him.
I do have to admit, you would think after more than a decade an MMO company like SOE, nka Daybreak Games, would have learned not to make these same mistakes over and over again. Be original, it was what Everquest was and why it was great. They players have known for years not to take off the day of a game release or an expansion; the game is usually not up or stable for most of that day, and sadly, sometimes the next week. They still haven't learned this one. Plenty of games have bad launches, but when you are known for constant bad launches you really need to do something about it. They also have a habit of releasing new systems, like shrouds and LDoNs, and letting the system drop and not further develop. For the life of me, I can't figure out why they have such bad housing systems in EQ2, and now EQ. You have had the system preferred since SWG. So you have the technology and experience...why abandon what was a popular system for instanced single housing?
I could go on with the missteps here. I hope they can pick up the pace now and I am sorry Dave can't be a part of it. I liked his passion if nothing else. My fear is that Daybreak hasn't learned these lessons. What their game community needs now is some reassurance, after watching live streams of Q&As and hearing very few answers, despite questions being submitted well before said Q&As... well it just isn't reassuring. It makes it feel like you are either seriously disorganized or clueless as to what you are actually creating or supporting. Also the stance of ... "We will release it when it is ready", just isn't a good idea right now. We need to see what you can't do as a result of your takeover and what you are keeping clearly. I mean there is too fast and then there is I am growing old here waiting. Is the game coming out in a year, 2 years, 3 years? You must have some reasonable educated guess after over a decade of experience in making games.
I respect David, but he is so off base on his assumption of 'the brag'. Not only that, he's rather arrogant in his assumption that we gamers, all of us, must fall into that motivation.
I play Minecraft. I love single player survival. I am in no way good at the game. I have no skill in art or architecture to build pleasing structures. I die all the time to creepers. In my modded version, I create the most ineffecient systems which usually renders my game too laggy to play so I must start a new map.
Yet I absolutely LOVE Minecraft. I love it because it allows me the child-like feeling of play that is missing in so many games these days. Even when I play Skyrim, I'm not that good at it. I usually dial down the difficulty level so I can just enjoy the story and explore.
So this is what bothers me about current MMO developers. They have this absurd presumptions about their players, and because their positions have conferred a certain amount of authority (largely by other colleagues) they feel superior in their judgement.
Then someone like Notch comes along and makes Minecraft and proves them all wrong. Their 'expertise' means jack all.
Perhaps that's why David was let go from SOE. He's got a tired, closed mind about gaming, unwilling to question his own assumptions.
""Additionally, core gameplay has to be buttressed and interlaced with humanity (as in “reasons for players to act like humans instead of anonymous accounts with no culpability”) for it to stay interesting and engaging as a long-term world.""
So very true.
When has this ever been the case in the last 10 years? The only games I can ever recall this being true was in early MMO's when your reputation meant something. If you acted a fool, your name ended up being mud, and you got zero done.
Would love to see a dev make a game and just flat out say "this is a social / grouping game. If you like to solo, this probably isn't the game for you."
Comments
You are thinking way to narrow here.
"win" doesnt necessarily mean downing that big raid boss or capturing a keep in PvP. Where i disagree slightly with Dave here is that its not the ability to brag thats the key, its the feeling of accomplishment. That was the #1 key to Everquest's success.
I was never a hardcore raider in EQ. I didn't play on a PvP server. But I sure felt personal wins very frequently in that game, and I felt accomplished regardless if I needed to brag to others or not.
My gear was 2 expansions behind top tier, but i was damn proud of it and could remember acquiring most of it. I may not have had very many AAs, but I felt good about how much my character had grown. I may not have been the best Ranger in the world, but those times i saved group wipes with timely roots or aggro steal/weapon shield made me feel damn good (even if i did die when weapon shield ran out).
I don't think you even played WoW at launch. Every player absolutely did not have to follow the same path. There were almost always 3+ zones you could be leveling in and everyone had their own preferred path.
But WoW's core combat is quite simply the best the genre has ever seen. I personally prefer games like Everquest that have a greater focus on teamwork (although WoW had a bigger empahsis on support earlier on), but WoW's combat has a smoothness to it that still reigns supreme today. It has the right amount of action in it where it doesnt become a chore to play, but its not passive either. Its also easy to learn but difficult to truly master. Also keep in mind that WoW was a fair bit harder back when it built its massive player base. You can argue that WoW proves Dave's point about changing your core, because making the core of the game significantly easier, streamlining the game flow (and the talent system too) has turned a lot of people away
Yet the last game Georgeson was running before EQNext had probably the most endgame content for soloers. EQ2 certainly has a raid game, but its also a game that can be rewarding for just about anyone.
After reading the comments, it seems like more people have a problem with the usage of "win" and "brag" than the actual concepts Dave was talking about (as seen my the majority of those people following up their statements by describing themselves liking things they do well at and or describing themselves in terms of accomplishments).
So I guess, poor form on Dave for not using whatever politically correct terminology would appeal to the most people while offending the least.. And kudos to Dave for having the guts to point out that the truth that many (even most) gamers play games to fill voids or make themselves feel good.
Unfortunately "story driven" MMO's are really not MMO's and they burn out quickly. The vast majority of people who played SWTOR and then left subsequently because they burned through the "story". "story" belongs in single player RPG's, not MMOs. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be an underlying story/mythos, etc to the world and the game, but it shouldn't be the main driving factor. You should know who the main characters are, why they're there, how they interact with the world etc, but you shouldn't be "the one" and the guy who directly deals with these nebulous characters in any real capacity.
MMO's work better when you're one of the wheels in the cog. It doesn't make sense when you're doing a quest where you're the "saviour of the town" and 2 hours later when you come back to sell some loot to the vendor, and you see 14 other people doing the same "saviour of the town" quest.
This was one of the main reasons EQ worked so well. It felt like a real world. Yes, there were generals, and lords and ladies, etc. But they were off in the castle or the whatever, and the only quests they gave were guild level stuff (stuff that made sense). One of the coolest things i ever saw was in Velious when the big guild on our server first did the last step of the Coldain Ring quests. It was cool and a bunch of people who werent directly involved were sitting around watching them do the big fight and such. It only happened a half a dozen times on the server and it made it special. Something that is completely lacking in our participation trophy world of MMO design.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
AMENO. And your example is top notch and helped me realize why I dislike so many recent MMOs. It's funny because, when I was younger, I was more OCD, energetic, and WANTED more more more things to do. Now it's the complete opposite.
I'd rather have a single focus, given it's a fun one, than 10 different features, 6 of which I do not care about. All that development time that went into those 6 features is wasted on me. So I end up with half a game and don't feel contempt.
But that's the way of business and game development costs nowadays. Niche games barely make it and those who do, is because they are happy with their niche (EVE). But it's those niche games that will always get your particular style, if you aren't the "more is good" kind of person.
So this is Dave Georgeson's new role in the industry, some kind of columnist.
That would be OK if he stood back from the hubris now and again and admitted to breaking those principles he is now espousing. This guy was the most damaging producer Everquest II ever had. In addition he seems to have been instrumental in killing the next installment in the Everquest franchise and creating something entirely different which only used the name and the sketchist elements of the lore.
I do not blame him for the F2P change, after all that was almost certainly the task he was assigned on hiring. But his other actions could do with some admissions of guilt and an explanation.
Damnit Dave.
What will it take to get you back on EQN?
Shall we start a kickstarter?
most of you read too literally. you see the words win and brag and misinterpret what he's saying. also see people saying they disagree with his "core" theory then use a game like guild wars 2 as an example as to why he's wrong. a game with a fractured core
most of you are just echoing what he wrote, but in your own tough guy way of trying to make it appear you disagree. youre just missing his point and rewriting his words
Okay, I have to disagree heavily with this article. I have been playing MMOs since 2000 and it was never for the "I Win" factor. The first one I played was EQ. Why do I still go back and play that game after I get bored with everything else now? It is the nostalgia and the players. That game was the first MMO for me, plain and simple. It introduced me to the genre. I made life long friends in that game. That is the sole thing I look for now when I look for a new MMO, to capture that same feeling I had back then. It wasn't about the bragging, it was the exploration, the people, the character progression skills, the questing we actually stopped to read or had to figure out how to function. The social aspect of corpse runs, fishing waiting for the boat; that first dungeon that you had to do over 12 times to beat, watching a twilek dancer in the cantina for a buff, your first player city, your first guild, the time you and your friends actually got the jump on those jerks camping your buddies corpse (and camped theirs in return); these are the things we remember fondly from the games we play. They all involved other people; whether you were two grouped or 50 manning. MMOs are about the Multiplayer; the more social and easier you make it for people to get together the better it is for your players. WoW has the best tool for finding players to do dungeons and raids of any game I have played. This helps solve the LFG for 10 hours and logging out. I don't want to hear the "Stop whinning and go start your own group? thing either; not everyone is a leader, but they can still be a great game buddy and group mate.
The next big problem with games now is the twitch based part of them. The red telegraphs and 5 to 7 abilities gets old fast. I don't consider this the better combat system. This is specifically designed to take the PC games and move them to the console and developers just need to admit it now and get over themselves. Not that I need 3 hot bars and macros for each one to play. I also shouldn't need 10 custom guis to play. How is having a gui tell me when to cast my frostbolt challenging play? Tactics should be the concentration, don't make it about the fastest connection or you will alienate half of your potential player base that has no option to get a better connection. Bring back the complexity and the uniqueness of the character. Not every character should be able to range attack or heal or crowd control at the same levels. I know the trinity has a bad rap, but I hear just as many complaints on the cookie cutter character. We should be able to create a unique play style and be viable, but not have that same skill set be the best for every other character. I want to be an undead calling battle mage. So you then say okay well you can wear this armor with a penalty and this one staff will cast magic. Uhmm so what about me is unique? How is my character gaining ability and knowledge and becoming unique?
Next problem, impact on the game and the quest. I have to admit some of the things I love about LOTRO, SWTOR, TSW and ESO are the story. You feel like you are working toward something; well done voice actors really are great additions to the atmosphere. When the story is great you want to play longer to see what comes next. Does this only belong in a single player game? No, we all like a good story and there are plenty of MMO players that love lore and really thrive on that sort of thing. I can't tell you how many times I have heard people in games say they would love if their efforts in game made some impact that lasted in the game world. If someone destroys x box in the corner should it really be back 20 seconds later? If I just defeated the threat to your village; why is it back again already when I run my alt through? Also make the quests interesting. Maybe the newbie area needs to teach you to fight, but do I really need to kill x number of snakes for lazy dwarf to make soup? Something like this would fit if I was a cook and had to skin x snakes to learn a better way to prepare snake soup with some special buff to it. Please give us something interesting that makes sense in the setting and game. This is the big problem with MMOs right now, we want replayability.
Next issue housing.. a lot of players like this and probably a good amount don't. However, when you implement it you usually forget about it despite grand claims to not do that. The model we like is open world housing plain and simple. You designate areas in the world to limit the graphic impact, but instanced housing or neighborhoods just aren't as much fun as a player run city. Let the players take care of them and give them the tools to have events in them; players should travel to these cities to buy their goods beyond basics needed for regular game survival. Make the crafting matter and be the, at least, second best in game below the top raiding or interesting gear upgrade option.
Next currency in game. You know how to get rid of those botters and gold farmers? Simple make money plentiful in the game to acquire. Make it easy. The object of the MMO isn't who has the most gold and it never has been. There are plenty of other things one can acquire without money and that should be more of the focus. I should make enough easily to pay for housing, repairs, mounts, travel, crafting and even mid grade purchases. Don't make money the time sink. It isn't fun.
PvP, casual players and raiders... Does anyone really all fit in any of these categories? Is it a good idea to cater a game to try and cover all these bases? I dont' think so; you invariably loose one group of more. I have yet to see a game with a PvP server that didn't have the lowest population on that server of all the others. The answer to that is the PvPers weren't happy for one of two reasons: you didn't have enough of a fun experience for them or players got tired of the "I am better than you and I am going to camp your corpse till you log off" mentality. Seriously, there is always going to be someone better than you or someone trying to knock you off the top to become the best. Either way it isn't fun for the other 90% of us that just want to have a good chances at winning with small/medium groups and strategy and development of our characters. But again, does this really belong in an MMORPG? Or is this more geared toward another genre and we should stop trying to put it in every new game coming out? Why do I have to be forced to do some PvP game for my one of my five daily choices? If I wanted to play that kind of game there are plenty of better titles to handle it. The top raiders.. they are great they test your stuff, find the bugs and get all the glory. They are the braggers and they generally have the "we don't give a crap about the peons" mentality too. Again, not the largest population of your game. Hence what usually happens in the game down the road after the guys have blown through your content as fast as possible and moved on to the next game; you start the so called "dumb down the game process". Here is where the poor casual player gets a bad rap. This is your slower player that is working with a family, but really enjoys your content and is in a smaller guild. This may be the your husband and wife team or your solo players that just like the general chat aspect of the game. However, this is your core player bases that gets the word out about your game and keeps the lights on. This is the guy you forget about until a year or so in when the others have left. This is the guy that you really need to not forget about in the beginning. Make your game fun from start to finish without invalidating old content and old accomplishments and this player. There is no reason this casual gamer should have to interfere with your PvPers or your Raiders. They probably don't even care much about tier 12 gear and know they will never acquire it, but don't make them feel worse for not having it either. Make it so they can still get gear for that lower alt with their no raider top level toon or help their friend level up.
My next big complaint.. nerfs. I can see this happening when a game first comes out. Seriously though, after 5 years or more what is there to really be nerfing? NO one likes to hear you just drastically reduced your favorite toon's abilities by 50 pct to bring him more in line with the other players! Just bring up the other players or test your new skills a bit better before you release them. If the player figures out a better way to play their character than you designed, then they deserve the gold star for it.
The final big beef with current MMOs.. the dailies. Dear god if this can't be more mind numbing than anything else in the game. I just spent x amount of time getting to top level to participate in grander adventures.. oh I get to do this one pvp zone 5 times today and tomorrow and the next day just to earn some coins to buy the better gear that I need to do x raid?!! Does that sound fun to you developers? It is worse for the casual player who may use up all there play time on this one goal and by the time they have achieved it, they now hate your game. Please please get rid of the daily and make something more interesting. I don't want to do the same 5 instances in EQ2 every day for currency or some small chance at some low level raid gear that might make me able to attend a raid. Maybe I don't want to raid at all. Maybe I find the same raid over and over again with no variation to gear up my entire guild pretty boring. There is no longer a sense of accomplishment and that kills the fun. There must be another way.
I agree with many and disagree with DG.. Sorry, DG, but you have a very Esport attitude with MMO's, and maybe that is the main reason why I dislike any design you've ever come up with.. First, building a world isn't that hard if you have the right creative mind focusing on a core design.. The problem most devs have today, DG included, is your desire to design games that assimilate diverse gameplay into YOUR method of fun.. Seldom do people change their likes and dislikes, no matter how much you wish to use smoke and mirrors and trickery..
PvP and PvE mix like oil and water, and it's clear from any interview and reading from you that you desire Esport mentality of "winning" against other players.. This can be direct PvP, or indirect challenge of PvE rankings and status.. Not all games have to have a win condition.. Destruction is not FUN to me, and I think it's rather arrogant of you to imply it should be of everyone.. No offense DG, but I get the feeling you are very confrontational, and that shows in how you design games..
The trick to creating new worlds is first to create what gameplay you wish to promote and focus on.. Do you want a community building game, or PvP, or lobby based, or this, or that.. As one gent put it, you can't just have a dart board of ideas and mechanics tossed into a game and expect success.. This reminds me of the core plot in the movie "City Slickers".. Find out your "ONE THING", and everything else just falls into place.. That said, devs need to stop trying to appease everyone with a game that is put together like a hodge podge bowl of potpourri.. Yes, vanilla smells good, so does chocolate, so do flowers, and pine, and fresh cut grass and burning leaves.. but try putting all the smells together and you end up with SHIT in a can..
PS Edit:.. For those that defend Dave saying we misunderstood what he was saying.. Here is his own words.. >> "And that should come as no surprise, because every gamer…100% of us…likes to brag. Don’t get defensive or PC on me. You know you do. We all do."........ There is NO spin to those words.. I don't brag, I hate braggers and I do not play games to WIN either.. If you keep designing games believing that everyone "100% of us" gamers like what he likes, then we are ALL doomed.. LOL
Everything I read makes sense and I agree with it, but I have to ask the question "what went wrong at SOE then?" because to me SOE haven't been following what you've just said Dave.
Here seems to be SOE's cycle
1. Talk about how you're going to spend the time getting it right and listening to the community.
2. Rush the product out to launch even though the core just isn't there.
3. The player base leaves and the game never recovers.
Rinse and repeat.
Or in the case of the SOE games I once loved (EQ, EQ2, SWG and PS)
1. Rush the product out with the core game being great
2. Never realising the full potential so the player base slowly falls off
3. Make stupid changes that ultimately kill the game
What I don't get with SOE is why the post launch content is so bad, it all feels very rushed. Why is every new dungeon three randomly generated NPCs standing in an empty space where you've just copied and pasted a few items about the place? Why is every new bit of content so sparse? It is never dense and full of quality, I mean most of the time you forget the flora...
Looking at an SOE expansion and comparing it to a Blizzard expansion, it is night and day. Tbh that isn't about budget because once upon a time SOE had the budget to compete and they still didn't put that money into quality content.
Everything SOE has done lately has been a failure and I've played Landmark.. it is shit. No one I know likes it, every streamer on Youtube played it a few times and dropped it, none of those videos even got many views. The core isn't there and Landmark needs a major overhual... tbh I'd just scrap it, but I would have done the same with H1Z1 and it is clear the people over at SOE don't care about quality.
I don't want to offend people, but when someone with the budget of SOE has worse level design than what I can do on UE4 in a day... I find that scary. Seriously walking into buildings in H1Z1, it is like walking into an N64 game, square rooms where everything is made out of in engine brushes... it is sad.
It is weird looking at the genre on the whole though because for the past 10 years MMOs haven't been made by people who love the genre. They've been made by people who want to make WoW 2 and they've all failed, I haven't played a single one for more than a few days. All I see now is games like Destiny taking over the MMO reigns, they aren't MMOs but for some reason people don't care about that. That and delusional twats making their lackluster ego titles like Richard Garriott who should not be getting funded any more, he is like Peter Molyneux or Brad Mcquaid... stop giving these people money!
+ One more thing.
The one thing I still don't get about EQ2 is why in beta the game had one server and each zone was cloned over and over again. Then after launch there were 40+ servers that spread the population too thin, it became impossible to find a group and so people left because of it.
The beta of that game was the most amazing experience I've ever had grouping in an MMO. You couldn't progress without a group but the player base was kept so together nicely that you always had people around you asking. It was much more fun grouping from 1 - 20 in EQ2 than it was soloing in WoW, yet post launch we never got that option because of the servers.
SOE always makes mistakes like these and is too slow to react or never admits they're wrong.
Why weren't BFRs taken out straight away? Why didn't you just scrap them in testing?
Why didn't you listen to the problems of Planetside 2 in beta? Most of those problems still exist today. I don't understand how you created such giant bases, yet in reality they're tiny because they have next to no indoor plan.
There are so many examples like this through every SOE game.
I still don't understand why EQ2's character models have never been changed, they've always been so ugly and off putting, yet no effort has been put into making them look good.
either dave is trying to get his job back or he thinks he knows what it takes to create a AAA MMO these days. good luck with the latter, don't think even smed has a clue.
let it go dave and move on. EQ is in it's final days. even if they manage to produce an EQN it will be a microtranfesting dress-up grind game fer sure. it will be B2P also with no AA.... no way this new company can support 3 EQ MMOs. dont think any company in their right mind would even try.
My thoughts and yours on how negatively impactful Dave's presence and actions were are pretty much aligned. Unfortunately, the damage is done even though the rotten tooth was pulled out. EQN should be renamed, and sold to the far east alongside Dragon's Nest and it's ilk.
I think you missed the memo. Dave was surgically removed from Daybreak a heartbeat after Sony dropped it for underperforming in the tune of millions annually. Daybreak is trying to move forward, not bring back the people who were seen as either instrumental in its misdirection and failure, or simply fat to be trimmed.
Bring him back?
Both are interchangeable and with mixed concepts, if by virtual world you mean SL, imvu, etc. MMO devs create a virtual world for their purposes, whereas a virtual world like imvu and SL, are created by it's users. Neither concepts are exclusive. Both are essentially 3d environments.
I sure hope you're right.
But I suspect that DGC's "new direction" is more about "removing risk and getting the game to market" than it is about encouraging new and untried features or game design concepts...
Asbo
I'm glad that at the end of the article he said that these insights all came from hindsight because the whole time I was reading the article I kept wondering why it was, if he's so wise in the ways of game design, that SOE hadn't made a worthwhile game in years, was losing money, and was ultimately sold off by it's parent company.
As to the actual points he made I didn't disagree with everything but I felt that he associated "bragging" with "fun" a little to strongly. Yes, it's true that people like to have that cool piece of equipment to wear or gain a title for their character or just be able to say "I did this-----". But he was equating players having those "feather in their cap" things with players having fun. As if simply providing feathers for players to put in their caps is going to make the game fun for them all by itself.
I would argue that the gameplay leading up to gaining that <feather in your cap> has to fun in it's own right before you ever get <the thing to brag about>. His philosophy seems to be --pander to the players and they'll love your game---. Give them pats on the back, shower them with shiny trinkets, have NPCs tell them what a great HERO they are and that alone will make the game fun for them. Basically, if you paste little gold stars on the players foreheads to mark their "accomplishments" they will be all giddy and run to tell their friends how great your game is even if the stuff they do to gain those gold stars is dull as ditchwater.
Actually, I shouldn't rag too hard on Dave for this because it seems to be a standard of MMO design these days. It's not just him.
I might be in the minority, but what matters to me the most is moving those numbers upward.
Great article!
Werewolf Online(R) - Lead Developer
I do have to admit, you would think after more than a decade an MMO company like SOE, nka Daybreak Games, would have learned not to make these same mistakes over and over again. Be original, it was what Everquest was and why it was great. They players have known for years not to take off the day of a game release or an expansion; the game is usually not up or stable for most of that day, and sadly, sometimes the next week. They still haven't learned this one. Plenty of games have bad launches, but when you are known for constant bad launches you really need to do something about it. They also have a habit of releasing new systems, like shrouds and LDoNs, and letting the system drop and not further develop. For the life of me, I can't figure out why they have such bad housing systems in EQ2, and now EQ. You have had the system preferred since SWG. So you have the technology and experience...why abandon what was a popular system for instanced single housing?
I could go on with the missteps here. I hope they can pick up the pace now and I am sorry Dave can't be a part of it. I liked his passion if nothing else. My fear is that Daybreak hasn't learned these lessons. What their game community needs now is some reassurance, after watching live streams of Q&As and hearing very few answers, despite questions being submitted well before said Q&As... well it just isn't reassuring. It makes it feel like you are either seriously disorganized or clueless as to what you are actually creating or supporting. Also the stance of ... "We will release it when it is ready", just isn't a good idea right now. We need to see what you can't do as a result of your takeover and what you are keeping clearly. I mean there is too fast and then there is I am growing old here waiting. Is the game coming out in a year, 2 years, 3 years? You must have some reasonable educated guess after over a decade of experience in making games.
I respect David, but he is so off base on his assumption of 'the brag'. Not only that, he's rather arrogant in his assumption that we gamers, all of us, must fall into that motivation.
I play Minecraft. I love single player survival. I am in no way good at the game. I have no skill in art or architecture to build pleasing structures. I die all the time to creepers. In my modded version, I create the most ineffecient systems which usually renders my game too laggy to play so I must start a new map.
Yet I absolutely LOVE Minecraft. I love it because it allows me the child-like feeling of play that is missing in so many games these days. Even when I play Skyrim, I'm not that good at it. I usually dial down the difficulty level so I can just enjoy the story and explore.
So this is what bothers me about current MMO developers. They have this absurd presumptions about their players, and because their positions have conferred a certain amount of authority (largely by other colleagues) they feel superior in their judgement.
Then someone like Notch comes along and makes Minecraft and proves them all wrong. Their 'expertise' means jack all.
Perhaps that's why David was let go from SOE. He's got a tired, closed mind about gaming, unwilling to question his own assumptions.
When has this ever been the case in the last 10 years? The only games I can ever recall this being true was in early MMO's when your reputation meant something. If you acted a fool, your name ended up being mud, and you got zero done.
Would love to see a dev make a game and just flat out say "this is a social / grouping game. If you like to solo, this probably isn't the game for you."
AND true eqn was born....