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The things that undid commercial graphic MUDs, or online RPGs, from the beginning
pkpkpk
Member UncommonPosts: 265
While what are now called MMORPGs may have seemed a promising field in the beginning, it was really already in peril from the time NSFNET restrictions were relaxed. American RPGs had been solely the sphere of Electronics Arts, Activision, SSI, Origin, and soon New World Computing from the year 1985. While it may have seemed other companies sometimes made RPGs, in fact a brief investigation shows these were generally affiliates of Electronic Arts or Activision or simply companies they owned, or sometimes on contract they would have games made, such as that by Interplay in '85. For instance Infocom, as it were, published the licensed RPG Battletech in '88, but in fact they had been bought by Activision in the previous year for 7.5 million dollars. Interstel that made Scavengers of the Mutant World in '88 was also an affiliate of Electronic Arts. By the year 1996 Origin had been bought, in '92, for 37 million dollars by Electronic Arts, and New World Computing in '96 by 3DO for 10 million dollars. In this kind of market, what would be the fate of these new, promising online RPGs?
Not a good one, I fear. Both 3DO and Electronic Arts meant to release an online version of the franchises they bought, Ultima Online and Might & Magic Online. The second was never released. The first was released in 1997. This had been preceded by Meridian 59, by a studio named Archetype, which 3DO promptly bought in the same year. In this same year Sony's 989 Studios (named Verant Interactive for Everquests release, then absorbed into Sony the next year) began development on Everquest. Microsoft also made a contract with Turbine that year, who was making Asheron's Call. Sierra Online also released The Realm Online in '96. And SSI was not absent either, releasing an MMO with their AD&D license, Dark Sun Online. So leading the way into this new world of graphical online RPGs were Sierra, 3DO, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, SSI, and Sony. Well this was nothing new. But it is important to illustrate that while text MUDs began humbly, often made by lone persons who made no money at all from them, graphical MUDs such as these immediately drew the largest companies in America and by '96 were large commercial investments for most. At the time it was good, but what would it hold for the future?
Note also the person Jake Song. He made the online RPG Nexus in '96, and by '98 had already made another. Short-sighted? Or are we deluded who thought much would come of these graphical online RPGs? Sure they were growing....
In '98, only one year after its release, Electronic Arts made an expansion pack for Ultima Online. More games, more expansion packs, &c. But let me provide a more detailed analysis of the faults of online RPGs that eventually undid them.
1) They were highly commercial from the beginning. There was never a low key period in graphical online RPGs. That had only been the priviledge of text MUDs.
2) The main concern for all these companies was money. Not bad for a few years, but 3DO shut down Meridian 59 in 2000, in which year the fledgling RPG Everquest had already released its first expansion (maybe in response to the many demands from the new recruits to online RPGs they had attracted, whose attitude is still visible on Google Groups. A typical post might be, "I will leave this game if they do not release an expansion". They were a very crude audience they had attracted.) Ultima Online completely changed in this year too. No more Mr. Koster designing the expansion pack, I note, for what this means. As the marketing division of EA in 1987 had given Escudero 5 weeks to change the theme of his completed game from Norse to Oriental, I do not imagine they were much better 13 years later.
3) Loss of touch with good game design. So here in the only the fifth year of MMOs the original is already gone, and Ultima Online is irrevocably changed. The new leader is Everquest, yes Everquest that had been called on newsgroups "hack and slash", and that removed PvP altogether. Traditional PvP became extinct. Dark Age of Camelot brought something like it back in 2001, but there was no looting any more, and no attacking people on same faction. Shadowbane almost dared to have equipment looting in 2003, but changed their minds in the end. What early games had done without much thought, was now nearly impossible. How was this so?
4) The games were far too popular. Although Everquest had no partnership with Pizza Hut till 2005, when World of Warcraft aired its first Coca Cola commercial in China, the people coming into these games were ignorant, very much so. Good, for a while--the virtual worlds were filling up with players, of all kinds, and that is what a virtual world is about. But what happens then?
5) Too many young players. Yes games will always have young players, but without any barriers to entry it gets ugly fast. Problem with young players--their future is uncertain, they have no principles, they jump from one game to next, their opinions are easily changed, they are very accepting of change.
6) Companies treated online games like any other. Big mistake. It never comes back when you have replaced it. There is no way I think this could have been averted.
7) Inexplicable inability of games to coexist peacefully. Why did Meridian 59 shut down in 2000? Why did Ultima Online change completely in 2000? I have no answer for this, except to assume it is some combination of the above, or some kind of mental deficiency of the companies or players. How can you make a good online RPG and people not appreciate it? I could understand if they were selling toys, but these were serious worlds, ones that could entertain you for years and years. What kind of people were playing these games?
8) Endless change after endless change and complete loss of trust in companies. Unlike all other games, even text MUDs in general, MMOs changed often and changed fast. Although many older MMOs are still run today, few have reason to believe that they are anything like they were. The change of a game like Everquest was dizzying. It was in utter overdrive. In two years they had completely changed their interface. They had charged headlong into mudflation with their first expansion, though I have no doubt they were counseled against it by people that had played MUDs. They were releasing an expansion every single year. In five years the "sequel" was released, but the game had become distasteful in the previous year or two. World of Warcraft was even worse. The game was released in November 2004 and practically overhauled in January 2007, a little over two years.
Not a good one, I fear. Both 3DO and Electronic Arts meant to release an online version of the franchises they bought, Ultima Online and Might & Magic Online. The second was never released. The first was released in 1997. This had been preceded by Meridian 59, by a studio named Archetype, which 3DO promptly bought in the same year. In this same year Sony's 989 Studios (named Verant Interactive for Everquests release, then absorbed into Sony the next year) began development on Everquest. Microsoft also made a contract with Turbine that year, who was making Asheron's Call. Sierra Online also released The Realm Online in '96. And SSI was not absent either, releasing an MMO with their AD&D license, Dark Sun Online. So leading the way into this new world of graphical online RPGs were Sierra, 3DO, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, SSI, and Sony. Well this was nothing new. But it is important to illustrate that while text MUDs began humbly, often made by lone persons who made no money at all from them, graphical MUDs such as these immediately drew the largest companies in America and by '96 were large commercial investments for most. At the time it was good, but what would it hold for the future?
Note also the person Jake Song. He made the online RPG Nexus in '96, and by '98 had already made another. Short-sighted? Or are we deluded who thought much would come of these graphical online RPGs? Sure they were growing....
In '98, only one year after its release, Electronic Arts made an expansion pack for Ultima Online. More games, more expansion packs, &c. But let me provide a more detailed analysis of the faults of online RPGs that eventually undid them.
1) They were highly commercial from the beginning. There was never a low key period in graphical online RPGs. That had only been the priviledge of text MUDs.
2) The main concern for all these companies was money. Not bad for a few years, but 3DO shut down Meridian 59 in 2000, in which year the fledgling RPG Everquest had already released its first expansion (maybe in response to the many demands from the new recruits to online RPGs they had attracted, whose attitude is still visible on Google Groups. A typical post might be, "I will leave this game if they do not release an expansion". They were a very crude audience they had attracted.) Ultima Online completely changed in this year too. No more Mr. Koster designing the expansion pack, I note, for what this means. As the marketing division of EA in 1987 had given Escudero 5 weeks to change the theme of his completed game from Norse to Oriental, I do not imagine they were much better 13 years later.
3) Loss of touch with good game design. So here in the only the fifth year of MMOs the original is already gone, and Ultima Online is irrevocably changed. The new leader is Everquest, yes Everquest that had been called on newsgroups "hack and slash", and that removed PvP altogether. Traditional PvP became extinct. Dark Age of Camelot brought something like it back in 2001, but there was no looting any more, and no attacking people on same faction. Shadowbane almost dared to have equipment looting in 2003, but changed their minds in the end. What early games had done without much thought, was now nearly impossible. How was this so?
4) The games were far too popular. Although Everquest had no partnership with Pizza Hut till 2005, when World of Warcraft aired its first Coca Cola commercial in China, the people coming into these games were ignorant, very much so. Good, for a while--the virtual worlds were filling up with players, of all kinds, and that is what a virtual world is about. But what happens then?
5) Too many young players. Yes games will always have young players, but without any barriers to entry it gets ugly fast. Problem with young players--their future is uncertain, they have no principles, they jump from one game to next, their opinions are easily changed, they are very accepting of change.
6) Companies treated online games like any other. Big mistake. It never comes back when you have replaced it. There is no way I think this could have been averted.
7) Inexplicable inability of games to coexist peacefully. Why did Meridian 59 shut down in 2000? Why did Ultima Online change completely in 2000? I have no answer for this, except to assume it is some combination of the above, or some kind of mental deficiency of the companies or players. How can you make a good online RPG and people not appreciate it? I could understand if they were selling toys, but these were serious worlds, ones that could entertain you for years and years. What kind of people were playing these games?
8) Endless change after endless change and complete loss of trust in companies. Unlike all other games, even text MUDs in general, MMOs changed often and changed fast. Although many older MMOs are still run today, few have reason to believe that they are anything like they were. The change of a game like Everquest was dizzying. It was in utter overdrive. In two years they had completely changed their interface. They had charged headlong into mudflation with their first expansion, though I have no doubt they were counseled against it by people that had played MUDs. They were releasing an expansion every single year. In five years the "sequel" was released, but the game had become distasteful in the previous year or two. World of Warcraft was even worse. The game was released in November 2004 and practically overhauled in January 2007, a little over two years.
Comments
10) Short term thinking. We live in the conclusion of this faulty thinking. What is there to say? Understanding players only care for classic games, slightly less understanding ones are always awaiting the RPG on the horizon, which never seems to be made. Wouldn't it be great if those classic games were still there?
11) Video games had cast their nets too low. By 1987 the better part of the several thousand video games being made a year were games where you moved in one direction beating everyone you saw with your fists, stabbing them with weapons, or shooting them with guns. Every RPG on store shelves in America that year, other than Dungeon Master and Deathlord, though the latter was made by them, was a sequel made by Electronic Arts or SSI. Ultima Online, a game I hate to mention continually, cause I would never play it, intended to have a living ecology system where animal behavior would be affected by ecological events. Well they had a test for this, and in the test all players killed everything they saw so fast that nothing could be done with this and it was abandoned. They even killed the avatar of the creator of Ultima. Ultima Online (yes again) never had a naming policy, they were lax on cheaters, people using macros, they never enforced roleplaying, &c.
12) Scale too large. While text MUDs can prosper with a dozen players, online RPGs became larger and larger. Everquest particularly was huge. That game needs several hundred to a thousand players at least to function properly, and even then three quarters of the world will be empty. It is very hard to revive any of these games today, cause those numbers are not practical, and can only be raised through marketing and new releases.
13) Low morality. I am no game designer and will not harp on about this. But I know that when you go into Final Fantasy XI (2002) you see bats, worms, &c. but then the game pauses...what? Is it over? Do I just talk to people? Oh no...I kill the...bats..and worms...and what? And Everquest is just about like this too. In games such as Diablo, Meridian 59, Tibia and Lineage this was not an issue. I don't know...what happened here. Very awkward and strange. Ragnarok Online is not as frightening as it might be, cause Seiken Densetsu 2 did the same thing ten years before. But these games became very strange very fast. In theory graphical online RPGs had an early age where the games were somewhat tasteful, in practice I am not sure they did. I just think these games were doomed before they even began. Contrary to other kinds of games, online RPGs may never have made a tasteful transition from text to graphics. As Damion Schubert wrote in his history of Meridian 59, "As for the game, I do not lament Meridian's death but praise it's life. Meridian had a great ride for something that started in a garage and had the muscle of EA, Sony and Microsoft waiting to crush it like a grape." This was as vaguely early as graphic MUDs got, for a company that was bought by 3DO in the same year their game was released.
My conclusion about MMORPGs is that they were doomed from the start and nothing could be done to save them. To the companies that were making them, MMOs were just objects. They didn't see them as worlds. Oh yeah Ultima Online, that's cool, two or three years it's dead, Everquest--we'll give that a few years. You can't separate the games from the time after all. Though MMOs may have been new in '96, video games were not, and the attitudes and methods of the companies by then were deeply degenerate. For EA to have spent 35 million dollars on Origin in 1992, RPGs must have been incredibly popular. And I think when people saw Ultima on store shelves followed by "Online" they thought nothing could be cooler than to go online with people and play an RPG.
As MMOs were never divisible from large corporations, when we speak of their early days we need to speak of large corporations. Thus by the time of Everquest, I think roleplaying was no longer a concern for companies. Unfortunately this is the earliest that remains with sufficient players. But there is a lot to love in Everquest. Though the overworld with its non aggressive creatures that give you experience when you kill them are a low point, and likely at their worst, outside of the starting zones, at places such as Overthere and Oasis, dungeons in Everquest remain the most exalted cooperative roleplaying experience on the Internet today in graphics, outside of free form roleplaying and shared storytelling. This is on Project 1999 of course; the other Everquest is a skeleton in the closet and we don't speak of it. It is like Dorian Gray, lying dead on the ground.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
With game creation there is no "set parts value" like more concrete products. It is a "valued at" kind of system. Creativity kind of runs that way
It seems to me, and I could be wrong, that MMORPGs went from "Let's make a cool world and, Hey! We can make money with this!" to "Let's make a bunch of money. I know, let's make an MMO."
That's my take on it, anyway
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
I don't know...... we may be equal, but in a completely different way. It's like I'm from one planet and he's from another.
I'm intrigued by him !
I'll be loosing sleep over this
And all those design which some people supposedly likes are also dislike by many others such as FFA full loot pvp. So if you continue design games that way, you cut out some potential players which would play.
I wasn't talking about RPGs in point 11. There were good RPGs in '87 (albeit sequels), but they had neverthless been made by EA and SSI only since '85. I was talking about the general video game, not the four or five RPGs that year. But the thousands of action games like Contra, Double Dragon, Rastan, Mega Man, Castlevania sequels, Zelda sequels, Wizards & Warriors, Flying Dragon, Ikari Warriors sequels, Ninja Warrior, Shinobi, Wonder Boy sequels, etc. That was the beginning of a new age of video games, and there had been nine years of that by the time players ran through and murdered everything in sight in the Ultima Online test, including the avatar of its creator. It's not a vital point, except it sets the stage for the state of video games then. Yes depending on your perspective that may not be notable (it's been going on 32 years now). But that is when that kind of violence overran everything. Compare the sales of Pool of Radiance in 1988 (264,536) to those of Diablo in 1996 (1,300,000). Quite a lot of difference in interest in RPGs then. My point is that after nine years of punching, kicking, shooting and stabbing there was quite a lot more interest in video games, and some of that interest spilled into RPGs. A writer for CNET Gamecenter in October 1997 wrote of Ultima Online "If October's list is any indication, RPGs are back". What does he mean? That RPGs were out of fashion and now back? And they had gone out of fashion to Quake, Doom, Heretic, and System Shock. So we might assume the two were interchangeable.
And onto the scene comes Ultima Online. And we are hoping people will roleplay? One user on Usenet writes:
"After being a hardcore PC gaming fanatic for several years, ive
noticed a few things (as im sure most everyone has) of todays genre
of gamers.
Most Gamers today might be just hitting puberty, in High School, basicly
teenagers. All of which have attitudes, and language from their
age group. For example, these gamers seem to have a slang language
all of their own derived from "Gangsta Rap" or something similar.
IE, constanly over Diablo chat rooms do you see the word "Beotch".
I suppose thats some type of way to spell the word "Bitch" as they
would pronounce it... To me, this is how they are demsonstrating
their age an maturity.
Anyway, you take the genre of this mentality, and stick them in a game.
Well, of course their going to PK, cuss, have an attitude, and generally
ruin your gaming experience. Why? Well for one, its just the genre
attitude, and for two..... Up until now, Mulitplayer games have
been stuck in the "Deathmatch Rut". Think about it... 90% of all
mulitplayer PC games revolve around a deathmatch. Doom, doom2, quake,
hexen, Mechwarrior2, Red Alert, Interstate 76, etc, etc.
Most of the hot selling game titles are for deathmatch! I think its
gotten to the point where people are so used to deathmatching, and the
games where you "Kill everything you see" that they really havent
thought of playing any other way.
The greatest example of this was during Phase 1 of the UO beta test.
People were killing EVERYTHING they came accross. Ask one of them
why, he/she might respond.. "Theres not enough monsters around to
kill." I imagine this was in reference to character building. People
were after experience to build up their characters. But to what end?
To kill more? This type of thinking is from Diablo. In Diablo you
kill EVERYTHING you see. UO does not work on that mindset. If you
kill something in UO, its for a reason. IE animals for fur, fur for
gold. Maybe its just people have played these hack n slash games for
so long, its what theyve come to expect, so thats how they play. Id also
like to add that people were so blinded by this type of thinking that
they were killing Horses in the game. I think this is utter stupidity.
Maybe they couldnt tame it... but someone else could have. A horse
in UO is like a car. It gets you around alot quicker then on foot." - shogun on alt.games.ultima-online in 1997
As to PvP, I wouldn't call it PvP in the early MMOs. The better part of them did not restrict player combat. That is the way I refer to it. Not as a specific feature in the game, but its restriction as a specific feature. All the early MMOs I know of did not forbid players to fight each other; Meridian 59 (1996), Nexus (1996), Tibia (1997), Ultima Online (1997), Lineage (1998), Underlight (1998). At the same time posts on the Ultima Online newsgroup about PK were sometimes hysterical, and a few spoke about class action lawsuits. Most of the people simply needed to quiet down; play or leave; but as we know that was not the future, Microsoft and Sony raced to deliver them from those free worlds, and that was the end of it.
"Newbies come to virtual worlds with a set of preconceptions acquired from other virtual worlds; or, failing that, from other computer games; or, failing that, from gut instinct. They will not consider virtual worlds that confront these expectations if there are others around that don't." - Richard Bartle
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Nice walk down memory lane. I would place the blame squarely on studios wanting to bring online roleplaying games into the mainstream. They succeeded at that but at the cost of losing the niche soul of the genre.
Communities were better in the old days simply because those of us who played then were a self selected niche group with shared interests. It wasn't a mix of FPS and RPG players or the "play whatever's hot on social media" locust.
As long as games try to be everything to everyone this will never change. And yes, dreams of megabucks drives this. It would take a lot of restraint for someone these days to develop a good mmorpg for a small audience and be satisfied with modest returns.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
....Being Banned from MMORPG's forums since 2010, for Trolling the Trolls!!!
____________________
There are plenty of actual MUDs that are pretty great. I dive into AlterAeon every once and while because it's archtype/class system, and crafting can be pretty sweet (at least in how it allows crafting to alter your play style). And there are plenty of others that will be better for someone who's not me.
There are also plenty of "graphical MUD" experiments going up like Screeps, which changes MMO play in pretty interesting directions. RainingChain which is more about being a complete open source MMO. Others like Haven and Hearth or WurmOnline.
If you're only following MMO news based on what Game Informer or Polygon posts, the genre is pretty dead. Though if you're willing to play smaller games that do one or two things you'll be able to find something.
______________________
Personally I think that if you can't find something that has a mechanic that you want, it's more of a You issue due to not knowing what you actually want.
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."