The long list of mass market MMOs that everyone is playing

October 2, 2012

So if you did not pick up on the fact that yesterday’s post was a long-winded setup to tell you that EVE is the best MMO ever, you are either new here or not paying attention. Also if you are someone who likes to dismiss EVE because it’s a niche MMO in a genre full of mass-market MMOs, this should prove educational.

Let’s cover the niche part first though, since it’s pretty easy. WoW is an outlier with millions of subs, so I’m going to put it aside for now. Yes, EVE is niche compared to WoW, but based on that logic GW2 selling 2m boxes is also niche because 12m subs > 2m boxes. Same goes for SW:TOR, LotRO (who had a lovely “come play with millions of others” ad campaign pre-release. How’s that working out for ya?), or… actually any MMO not called WoW in the NA/EU (silly Asia).

So WoW aside, how do the 400k subs (I know I know, it’s just one guy with 400k accounts, and he buys PLEX in-game so even he is not paying anything, but let’s pretend for a moment that somehow magically those 400k subs still somehow count as 400k x $15 per month for the sake of CCP’s revenue) stack up to everyone else? Well no one has 1m subs, so now we are talking thousands rather than millions.

A whole slew of ‘mass market’ MMOs are now F2P because not enough people found them worth $15 a month. SW:TOR, which will soon join the F2P fail-ranks because it could not keep its 500k or bust target, cost more money than any MMO before it, and EAWare famously stated that if you are not spending $300m, you can’t compete with WoW. I guess if you DO spend $300m+, you can’t compete with EVE either. In fairness to EAWare EVE probably cost somewhere close to 300m to develop as well. Well 300m Yen anyway.

GW2 just launched and rewrote the whole MMO formula, including that nagging issue of having to pay to keep playing, because really, who likes paying when you can get the exact same thing for free? Not surprisingly GW2 sold fewer copies than Skyrim though, another “buy the box and play forever” fantasy title. To be fair, Skyrim is in the more mass-market sandbox genre, while GW2 has to carry the heavy burden of being a themepark. Also the NPCs in Skyrim are more helpful and less likely to go poof after a month, and the dynamic events don’t repeat as often. Both games do feature loot piñata dragons, meh combat, and nice visuals. I’ll be kind and not compare the main storylines.

Rift is still a sub-based MMO, and it’s a mass-market themepark. It has fewer subs than ‘niche’ EVE if various data sources are to be believed, and somehow if Trion retained half a mil subs I think we’d here about it. Plus get back to me when Rift has 400k subs at its ten year anniversary. Hey only about 8 years to go, but to be fair when EVE launched it had way fewer subs too, so maybe Rift will grow much like EVE has. Maybe. That said, out of the last few years, Rift is the only major MMO to actually stay a sub-based MMO for a year+, so it would not be totally unreasonable to call it the most successful launch since… WoW?

So I ask, what ‘mass-market’ MMO are people talking about when stating EVE’s 400k subs is ‘niche’? I thought we got over the whole “WoW or bust” thing in 2007? Or are people really still thinking the ‘MMO market’ is 12m strong, and surely the NEXT title is going to hit that mark? Because if you do I’m sure EAWare has a spot for you on the team! Or maybe Funcom. Or Mythic. Wait is Mythic still a thing? No, why, what happened? Didn’t they have that huge surefire IP and mass-market MMO that was going to crush WoW? (I hate you whiteshades.)

And once you realize that 400k subs is not niche, but near the top of the not-WoW market, you can reasonably set expectations for design and market size if you are actually aiming to design a game that is intended to be played beyond the first month. You know, an MMO. Or what the old folks called an MMO before Anet came along and ‘fixed’ it for all of us.

Furthermore, if you can’t make $18m in yearly revenue work for you and your dev team (100k subs for a year, and assuming zero box sale money), you are doing it wrong. Probably to the tune of $300m wrong that leads the head doctors to call it quits because people pointed out that you delivered $300m worth of garbage while helping to shut down a game people loved (which may or may not have had more players than SW:TOR currently has actually playing).

But seriously, $18m a year is not peanuts, and I don’t think retaining 100k people for a year is asking for the moon. Hell, maybe would call that hyper-niche and laugh while they go back to their 1m+ subs MMO not called WoW, so it must be easy! And look, if EQ1 got 500k people back when you had to use a rotary dial to login, I’m pretty sure a team of devs can make something today to get 100k. Or 50k and try to survive off $9m in revenue. The horror.

Or you know, keep pumping out those ‘mass market’ MMOs all the kids are talking about. The ones just crushing it in terms of numbers like… WoW. Release in 2004.

Yea, those!

62 Comments | Age of Conan, Aion, DDO, EQ2, EVE Online, Fallen Earth, FreeRealms, Global Agenda, Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings Online, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Rant, Rift, SW:TOR, Vanguard, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

Splitting the genre in two

September 27, 2012

Let’s move past why GW2 sucks and onto a bigger topic; why so many recent MMOs suck, shall we?

Chris thinks all MMOs are good for 3 months or less, and that’s just how things are today. Keen has a pretty solid counter, but it raises the question that will (hopefully) clear the air here: are you looking to play a game for a while, or not?

Because I think that really cuts to the root of the issue. In the ‘good old days’, I think the vast majority of MMO players WANTED to get sucked into something long-term (group 1). Much of the original hype behind an MMO was that it was an RPG that never ended, and that is EXACTLY what people wanted. New Ultima game but with unending content? Hell ya! Take my money!

Today not everyone is on the same page. There are a lot of players who DON’T want to get sucked into something long-term (group 2). They WANT a 3-monther or something to do for a month and move on, and nothing short of a miracle (WoW) is going to change that.

One group is not more right than another, and however you arrive at either group is an unrelated issue (got old, more money, kids, whatever).

What does matter is that the two groups are looking for very different experiences, yet are being lumped into one group (MMO players). Worse still, studios are designing games with the impression that they can design content for the short-term group, and expect long-term retention. SW:TOR is the latest poster-child for this, but it’s just one of many such failures. And make no mistake, these games ARE failures, because the target they are aiming at is WoW, which prints money not because it sold a ton of boxes, but because it RETAINED millions of players for years. EAWare expected SW:TOR to RETAIN at least 500k subs, and at one time the expectation was 1m+. They sold a ton of boxes because group 2 wanted something new. They failed because solo-story content does nothing for group 1, and even if it did, group 1 is just not that big.

Both markets, the short-term ‘MMO’, and the original model, are viable. EVE is an undeniable success, DESPITE the fact that it’s a niche within a niche product (non-IP Sci-Fi with no avatar). CCP is successful because they understand who their market is, and they design the game around the long-term retention of their core rather than the short-burst of group 2 (Incarna aside). Misleading talk aside, GW2, much like GW1, will likely do fine because the model is not around providing long-term entertainment, but rather just a short burst every now and then.

This also clears up the F2P vs sub aspect as well. F2P ‘works’ because a tiny subset of your entire base is willing to pay enough to subsidize everyone else. That’s why so much of the design around a F2P is aimed at catering to that tiny minority, or to convert some of the unpaying masses into cash cows. By contrast, the sub model is designed to provide enough content for the long-term majority, in the hopes that most people will stick around and play/pay.

And if you combine the intent of group 1 or 2 with the business model and content design around a game, you have your target.

Developers are doing a decent job catering to group 2. There are countless F2P titles that are good-enough to play for a month, and occasionally one will get some cash out of you. Those that don’t, shut down or get their support slashed, but even the most marginal titles end up surviving in one form of zombie mode or another.

Designing a solid title for group 1 is much harder, in part because it’s so different from the rest of gaming. Instead of just making sure the current content is fun once, the devs must consider how the content will play in a year, or for the 100th time, or when someone with 1000 hours plays alongside someone with 10. That’s hard. Just as EAWare, Mythic, Turbine, or any other studio that has tried and failed. Maybe the original big three were really lucky, or really good, or understood the market better than most do today. Regardless, it worked then, and it continues to work today.

The extreme example of success in group 1 is WoW, but that’s misleading if you buy into the fact that WoW’s success was as much good timing as it was solid design. Make no mistake, 2004 WoW was very well designed, but that’s not the entire story IMO.

Regardless, it’s unlikely that we will see another WoW-like success. Far more likely is someone hitting EVE-like numbers. And again, CCP is making very good money off EVE. But that’s happening because they understand the size of the market, in addition to how best to cater to it.

You can’t spend $300m today because you predict 1m+ subs. It’s not going to happen. Plan to get 100k with a solid title, figure out the budget to make that happen, and good luck. And let’s not kid ourselves, with 100k subs you can make a VERY solid game. Maybe you won’t have all your dialog voiced by professional actors, but you won’t be limited to Pong-like graphics either. Spend smart, spend S-mart!

46 Comments | Age of Conan, Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot, Darkfall Online, EVE Online, Fallen Earth, Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO design, Rift, SW:TOR, The Elder Scrolls Online, Ultima Online, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

The more things change…

March 1, 2012

In a sign of the apocalypse, Keen is playing Darkfall again (100% joking, everyone should be playing Darkfall (unless they are playing EVE)), which brings about the old “I’m playing Darkfall until the minute something better comes along” comment we often hear. Darkfall sucks, but it sucks the least amongst fantasy sandbox games (insert Democracy quote here).

Now one could say this is because no one has really bothered to make a quality fantasy sandbox, and so Darkfall is only alive (for three years…) until someone bothers. Sure Mortal Online and Xyson have come out (do we count Fallen Earth here? No, ok), Wurm and ATitD are still out, but shhh. The moment someone bothers DF is dead!

Another popular comment to make here is that fantasy sandbox MMOs are niche and not an area worth pursuing. Yup, only Sci-Fi Excel sandbox MMOs can get 400k subs after 8 years (most successful MMO not called WoW, no big deal), and a fantasy equivalent has no chance. Niche yo. The big money is in themeparks, as clearly demonstrated by… well that one game use to make a lot of money! Ignore that all the other AAA themeparks to come out after are now in the F2P minors selling you the One Ring or wings. They ships (and maybe sold) a million boxes, and only cost about 10 or 1000 times the cost of DF/EVE to make. Success like you read about (in the PR release, telling you that a day after going F2P, F2P-based sales are up 100%. No wai! Still waiting on the follow-up PR release telling me how growth has continued…)

Of course maybe, just maybe, the reason Darkfall is still online, a sub game, with its original servers still up (all two), is because it’s good at what it does, and that what it does is not nearly as easy to get right as people think? Naw, that can’t be it, right? That maybe the fundamental ideas behind the game, ones Aventurine copy/pasted from UO rather than EQ (if you want to do the whole ‘EQ was the original themepark’ thing), work a bit better at this whole “MMO retention” thing the sub model and the genre was built on? Crazy talk.

When I wrote that the genre is finally emerging from the dark ages, part of that is the ability for developers, those talented and those working for EA or SOE, to finally be given the chance to produce something that is not DoA. Post-WotLK WoW is trash, and no matter how talented the dev team, being tasked to copy trash is still going to result in trash. It might have a cool soul system attached, it might have a great fantasy IP, or it might be fully voiced, but at the end of the day you built off of trash, and no amount of good ideas or tweaks is going to change that foundation.

And so now, finally, after 7 or so years of repeating the same mistake and seeing the genre come to a grinding halt in terms of innovation (CCP aside, of course), we are starting to see signs that real MMOs might start getting made again. Be they in the indy space (Pathfinder) or the ‘AAA’ space (GW2), finally the core is not being built on the solo-hero trashheap that everyone was convinced worked so well if you only did X or spent Y.

So hopefully in 2012 or 2013, we do see a game or three that comes out and is that “better than DF” MMO. Maybe then AV won’t have the luxury of not updating the game for A YEAR! Maybe finally as much effort/resources will be put into refining that formula rather than racing to the bottom of the ‘accessible’ failheap, and we end up deciding which MMO to play on merit rather than buying a box and praying the content lasts until the next one ships.

It’s happened before, after all, but not many were paying attention (or had internet) back then.

20 Comments | Age of Conan, Allods Online, Darkfall Online, EQ2, EVE Online, Fallen Earth, Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO design, Rant, Rift, SW:TOR, Ultima Online, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

Burnouts Anonymous

April 11, 2011

Quick break from the PvE Sandbox series to make an observation about Rift, but no worries (you were worried, I could tell), another post in that series is coming soon.

Over a month in and I’m still having a ton of fun with Rift, sitting on the edge of tier 2 expert dungeons and a few (thousand) points away from rank two in PvP. I’m also amused whenever I read something on Massively about the game, or rather, the comments that follow. There is very clearly a large portion of the MMO population that is simply burned out on themeparks, yet at the same time that population only really plays themeparks. From the outside looking in, it’s a pretty comical situation.

From my personal perspective, Rift does enough things different/better than other themeparks to make it feel fresh and enjoyable. Of course, the last themepark I seriously played was over two years ago (WAR, oops), and that was before Darkfall launched. And before WAR I was playing EVE for well over a year, with some LoTRO mixed to play something with Aria. WoW was before that. Prior to WoW I was playing DAoC, AC, and UO. Other titles have come and gone, but really those are the ones that I’ve spent a significant amount of time with. I’d say it’s a pretty solid mix of themeparks and sandbox titles, with both PvE and PvP focuses.

Had I stayed with WoW from 2004 to Rift’s launch, or jumped between WoW/EQ2/LoTRO during that time, perhaps I’d be as upset or worked up about Rift as well. I’m sure some of the things I’m finding interesting in Rift now are somewhat familiar territory to themepark regulars, and the number of truly unique features Rift sports might indeed be short. If you already hate themeparks (but can’t admit it to yourself), that short list won’t be the cure.

If every dungeon or encounter reminds you of something else, I think that might say more about your gaming history than the game itself. Let’s be honest here, that are only so many ways to design “don’t stand in the fire”, and when you go off the beaten path and create something unique, most of your playerbase won’t be able to handle it, with you either Blizzard’ing it (30% buff!), removing it (Rift werewolf curse), or the players will slowly learn to skip it if the reward is not super-shiny. Skipped content is poor content.

Going back to that burned out playerbase, the sad truth is options do exist for them, whether it be EVE, DF, Fallen Earth, or other titles, but what those games offer is not what these players are actually looking for. Oh, they will tell you it is, just with more polish, or more/less PvP, or just a UI like WoW, or countless other excuses, but for most the honest answer is they just want WoW, but they want it to also feel as fresh as it did for them in 2004. It’s an abomination of the rose-tinted glasses theory in a way, only with a game that is still current rather than something that has truly passed (unless you are playing on the EQ1 progressive server anyway).

It’s also an impossible situation from a dev’s perspective. If you give them what they actually want, you make Rift. If you give them what they say they want, you make Darkfall. The burnouts don’t want either title. They want a revolutionary themepark that feels comfortably familiar. Oh, and can it run on a toaster maxed out while looking like top-end GCI and handling 100s of players on-screen? For free. Gotta be free.

I’m sure someone is crafting that right now, and it’s due to be announced “soon”. Until then, your anguish will continue to entertain us all.

27 Comments | Dark Age of Camelot, Darkfall Online, EQ2, EVE Online, Fallen Earth, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO design, Rant, Rift, Ultima Online, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

Looking back at 2010

December 17, 2010

Prompted by Lum doing it, lets review my 2010 predictions and see how I do. I’m not sure when I’m going to do my 2011 predictions, but my guess is sometime next week. I’ve not really thought about 2011, but there certainly should be some major activity and plenty of prediction-fodder. On to last year’s predictions!

Darkfall

Two expansions will be released in 2010, each one bringing something as new and interesting as the first two. Best guess is a major enhancement to the economy/trading that brings DF’s economy closer to EVE-levels, and something that really focuses on improving PvE, perhaps expanding the current dungeons and somehow making them better PvE destinations and PvP hotspots. I’m thinking AV uses the center dungeon as an example and gives each region its own great dungeon, with all the other dungeons serving a distinct purpose (chests, specific mobs).

We only got one expansion, HellFreeze, which was delayed from summer to fall, with the next one currently set for Q1 2011, so no points there. The expansion and other patches did however revamp a lot of PvE, and that was significantly improved in 2010. Dungeons also got updated and have indeed become hotspots with more specific purposes. No go on the economy aside from smaller stuff like rare ore from normal nodes.

PvP itself will continue to be refined and balanced, and the specialization system will continue to get fleshed out. The worry of ‘uber’ toons will subside as many reach a highly competitive level, and overall the time to reach that level is decreased thanks to specialization.

Swing and a miss here. Specializations did not get expanded, although stat gains were altered and the HP formula was changed. The first phase of meditation was added, although for 2010, the path to becoming truly viable is still (debatably) not in great shape. The hybrid character still dominates, and 90% of PvP’ers still all use familiar tactics/methods.

Ships and such ARE more common, warhulks not so much (especially the higher-tier ones, and still no one uses them in actual combat. They are mobile cannon batteries to be brought out after combat to tear down a city/stone). The NA server has still not seen a true world war, although sieging and conflict are very common. The overall population seems to be on the rise, and retention is high, with many of the same names from 2010 looking to be big time players in 2011.

I did stay subscribed for all of 2010, although for a few months I was not very active. The Community Publisher Program continues to fund all of my gaming, and I expect that the release of the next expansion will indeed increase sales to second Ferrari levels.

Warhammer Online

I hope Mythic is given enough resources to release an expansion, one that brings a third faction to the game and basically saves it from getting AutoAssaulted.

Still no third faction, still no hope for WAR. Things did settle down in terms of tech, but 2010 was a year full of revamps and removals rather than strong additions to push WAR forward. At this point I’ve given up hope for WAR, because while it still DOES have that great base to be a fun casual PvP MMO, it’s been a full year and still Mythic has done nothing to impress me or really improve the game. WAR needs massive changes to core systems, not minor tweaks and updates.

World of Warcraft

Cataclysm will eventually be released

Check.

Many will be disappointed that not as much of the old content got a makeover as they expected

50/50. Most like what was changed, but some are disappointed that some zones saw little attention. 2/6 capital cities being updated is laughable, although my prediction that vanilla raids being redone for 85s did not happen (right?).

The ‘new shiny’ of Cataclysm will be shorter lived than WotLK

I believe someone reached the cap in WotLK in just over 24 hours, it took someone 5 to cap in Cata. Many are also reporting already sitting at 85 with their guild, and some bloggers have predicted that the overall life of Cata may be shorter than WotLK. Still too early to fully call this one, but it’s looking correct so far.

Blizzard will be focusing on starting up the hype for their next MMO

Titan.

One highly-touted feature of Cataclysm will ‘fail’ similar to WotLK’s WinterGrasp

Not the case, or too early to call? I’ve not heard of anything really being a disaster though, and I assume I would have by now?

WoW will be even less of an MMO at the end of 2010 than it was in 2009.

I think I nailed this one. Given how linear the questing in new Azeroth is, and how phasing makes group questing more of a hassle than a bonus, WoW truly is less of an MMO (in terms of being a virtual world and all about playing with thousands) than it was pre-Cata. I’ve seen post-Cata WoW called a great single player RPG by more than one WoW blogger so far. WoW players of course don’t care, but that just further drives the point home that most of them are not MMO players to begin with.

The rest

Stuff will be released, the AAA stuff will be flooded with tourists, they will leave after a month, and everyone will be wondering why in 2010 no MMO outside of WoW has a million subs. Some will still cling to the believe that WoW really is just that good and something like it will also get millions of subs, more will accept that the MMO market is just not that big. Those in the second group will find a way to profit, those in the first will be unemployed and asking ‘why’.

10/10 here?

I mean more or less this is exactly what happened to Aion (late 2009 release, 2010 fade), Champions, Star Trek, and FFXIV (in record time). The games that aimed lower mostly found their niche (though it is sad to hear Fallen Earth is doing just so so), while big studios are giving out play time, going to the minors (F2P), or cutting staff/costs.

The blog

I’ll continue to mix in-game reports from DarkFall with opinion posts about the game itself, plus commenting on whatever happens to be going on in the MMO space.

Overall I think 2010 more or less went this way. As expected no other MMO jumped out to pull me away from Darkfall, and the biggest addition to my gaming time is League of Legends, a non-MMO.

Darkfall aside, I feel 2010 was a down year for the genre as a whole, not only in terms of quality titles, but worthwhile blogging topics. There is only so many times you can write about some AAA-aspiring game failing due to poor basics a month after release, or that upcoming AAA-aspiring game is promising the moon and the stars on a 4th, 5th, or 19th pillar.

Games like EVE kept growing, games like EQ1/UO continued to stay alive, and the post-Wow crop of major titles continued to try and differentiate themselves with unique themepark rides.

Luckily 2010 is coming to a close, and 2011 looks to at least be a whole lot more interesting (and hopefully successful).

7 Comments | Aion, Darkfall Online, EVE Online, Fallen Earth, League of Legends, Random, Site update, Ultima Online, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

Swing and a Miss: Dice or You?

September 29, 2010

The somewhat recent re-launch of EGM magazine has, so far, delivered. The new quarterly version contains more interviews and ‘blog-like’ content than just a slew of preview and review sales hype (though it still has some of that as well), and overall just comes across as an in-depth look at the current state of gaming and what direction key people are taking it in. It’s odd that someone like me, who already reads a ton of gaming coverage online, would need yet another source, but the new EGM manages to deliver unique and interesting content, and while the computer is fine for reading, physically having a magazine in your hand is a nice change of pace as well.

In the most recent issue EGM interviewed Todd Howard from Bethesda, and while overall an excellent interview, one part jumped out at me as being both so obvious and yet so critical. Todd was talking about the difference between The Elder Scrolls Morrowind and Oblivion, specifically the “to hit” dice roll that was used in Morrowind and removed in Oblivion. His point was that for core gamers, we accept a “to hit” dice roll, but for ‘casual’ gamers, it’s confusing to see your character swing a sword, the sword look like it connects, yet the result being that you just missed. He explains that the change was rather simple overall in terms of balance; in that they wanted to keep the overall length of combat the same, so they simply tuned down the amount of damage each swing deals in Oblivion to compensate for the fact that you can’t miss due to a bad dice roll.

In almost every MMO, the “to hit” dice roll exists, along with the stat to track it. In something like WoW it’s far easier to accept due to how static the combat is. You run up to a mob or it runs up to you, you both stand and exchange attacks, and either the mob or…. well the mob dies. The scrolling combat text will inform you of hits or misses, and the miss is needed to add at least some variety to an otherwise almost static and pre-determined sequence. Bonus points for having yet another stat to tack onto items and get players to chase.

In a game like DDO or Fallen Earth, missing is more difficult to accept, because although you can tab-target mobs, you are still required to run up to them to engage, positioning somewhat matters, and you can freely swing in the semi-active combat systems. It’s an odd mix, similar to what Morrowind had going for it. Looking at it after reading the interview, it’s almost like game designers feel compelled to include such dice rolls to keep the RPG-ishness of the game, when in fact such an inclusion seems to only detract from the experience.

Darkfall has no “to hit” stat or dice roll, and instead gives the player full control over whether they hit a mob/player or not. The advantage is greater reliance on player skill vs lucky dice, but this also means that the gap between the elite and the ‘average’ is very noticeable. In a game with auto-targeting, while hopefully player skill still factors in, even someone fairly inexperienced can target someone and deal some damage, contributing to the battle. In Darkfall, a highly skilled player (or mob) will run circles around you and ‘flawless’ you in combat, which can lead to frustration and a feeling of hopelessness.

In EVE, hit or miss is actually a deep (and very confusing) system that smart players will use to their advantage, because rather than a set “to hit” statistic or random dice roll, hitting in EVE is a complex calculation with variables that the player can, in part, control. Whether this is a step up or step down from straight dice rolls or all-aim systems depends on both the game and the player playing it. It’s fun to master a game and see improvement, but do you really want to be doing algorithmic calculations during your one hour of ‘downtime’?

It’s also important to note that like many current MMO system, part of the adoption of the “to hit” dice roll is due to early technology. When everyone was gaming on a 28.8k connection, it would have been impossible to ask a game to do complex collision detection calculations, and so the latency-friendly “stand and trade” system became popular. Technology has caught up however, and what was once difficult is now very possible, so the question remaining is do the players want the change?

As noted here before, exposing a player’s skill level is not something you always want to do, as most people highly overestimate just how good they really are, and when the illusion is shattered, many don’t take it well, especially when that skill level is directly compared to others. It’s one thing for Oblivion to ask you to aim, and punish you when you miss. You always have the option to turn the difficulty down, and no one will know you played the game on “lulznoob” level but you.

It’s entirely something else when you start getting kicked from a raid because you can’t hit a boss 95% of the time, or someone destroys you in PvP despite the fact that you have a superior character and gear. Even worse, what if the base PvE game is tuned to a certain level of skill, and you are just under that? Do we see the creation of an ‘easy’ server, with all that comes with it? Or do you simply drop the skill level to the lowest common denominator? If you can distract everyone with shinies, it might work, but if player skill is actually a core feature, what then?

24 Comments | Combat Systems, Darkfall Online, DDO, EVE Online, Fallen Earth, Fallout 3, Mass Media, MMO design, PvP, World of Warcraft | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

The future: Farmville or bust?

March 18, 2010

Scott Jennings (Lum) has another entry up on his MMORPG.com blog, this time talking a bit about Farmville and Co and what it might mean for MMO gaming. Lots of quality quotes from around the industry, and some good insight from Lum himself. Overall I agree that social gaming (or whatever term is finally settled upon) is a huge market and one that is and will continue to be very profitable for some (unless the whole Facebook fad fades as quickly as MySpace). I also agree that just because Farmville or whatever comes after it is successful, it does not mean more ‘traditional’ MMOs will be replaced and we will all be growing virtual crops in a few years.

I view the situation similar to what happened to the MMO genre once WoW became such a breakout success. Just because we have a slew of WoW-clones today does not mean we also don’t see games like Fallen Earth and DarkFall catering to players looking for something different (or old, if the base is Ultima Online). And just like the next AAA MMO won’t have the 80 million or whatever Farmville accounts, a more niche game like FE or DF won’t have the 1 million or so users that the AAA MMO has. This does not mean that there is not money to be made in the AAA MMO field, or the FE/DF field.

Like always, it comes down to accurately identifying your potential market and planning accordingly. If I think my particular MMO can attract 100,000 subs and I get 150,000, it does not mean my MMO ‘failed’ because WoW has 11 million. What would be a failure is if I plan to get three million and end up with only two. To an outsider the two million sub MMO might look like a smashing success compared to the 150,000 sub MMO, but when everything is factored in and one balance sheet is red while the other is black, the total number of users really does not mean much. So long as your particular server is populated, do you really care if there are two or twenty others like it, so long as the devs are paid and keep producing?

Plus the last year or so has only reinforced the idea that you don’t need a huge studio and a mega-million budget to produce a quality MMO experience (Not to mention that even if you do have a huge studio and mega-millions, odds are decent that you won’t deliver a successful or entertaining game anyway). EVE has been doing it for years, and now both Fallen Earth and DarkFall are well established and successful ‘small time’ players. And while one might think Blizzard having access to a billion dollars of revenue would mean they can dwarf everyone else in terms of content delivery, engine upgrades, and overall features, I’ll take Aventurine’s first year of deliverables over the ‘coming soon’ pace Blizzard has been using any day. Plus I’m paying a lot less for what I would consider a lot more, since only the big guys seem to be charging extra for expansions. I don’t think FE fans mind the upgrades they have seen either, and most are familiar with EVE expansions and what they bring to the table. I’m sure others can bring up many other examples as well, but the point being that the smaller studios are not only able to keep pace with the ‘big guys’, but often outshine them.

So while I’ll likely continue to watch the FB explosion from the sideline, and keep my distance from ‘games’ like Farmville, I won’t be doing it without an MMO I enjoy playing, and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon.

14 Comments | Console Gaming, Darkfall Online, EVE Online, Fallen Earth, Mass Media, MMO design, Patch Notes, Random, SW:TOR, Ultima Online, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

Is Vanguard a good choice?

February 4, 2010

My fiance would like to get back into the MMO gaming scene with me, and I’m wondering if Vanguard would be a good choice for a duo to tackle? Games we have already played include WoW, LotRO, EQ2, WAR, DDO (making my fiance more qualified than all of EGs staff when it comes to MMOs), so all of those are out, and she is too carebear for DarkFall.

The game more or less has to be a fantasy themepark, so games like Fallen Earth are out as well. Ideally the setup would allow us to play about an hour or two a few nights a week and make some progress. Does Vanguard fit that bill as something to play for a few months? Hardware requirements are a non-issue as we don’t play on toasters. Things like endgame and min/maxing are not a factor here as well; we likely won’t get that far.

And if not Vanguard, any other suggestions?

64 Comments | Darkfall Online, DDO, EQ2, Fallen Earth, Lord of the Rings Online, Site update, Vanguard, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

Ignorance is not bliss

January 14, 2010

I don’t have much interest in personally playing Star Trek Online. Between being totally happy and engrossed with DarkFall, not being a huge fan of the ST IP, generally not being a big Cryptic fan, and not seeing/reading anything about the game that really lines up with my style of play, my motivation to actually play it is non-existent at the moment.

My interest in following it as it goes through beta and launch is not however, as I’m a general fan of the MMO genre and it’s always interesting to see how these things play out. The first piece of interest in all this is Tobold’s negative review of the game versus Darren’s positive one, and then Tobold’s response to Darren’s review (you still with me here?).

Two things from Tobold’s response, this in the context that the first 10 levels or so might not fully show off what STO is all about:

The majority of players reacts in exactly the same way: Test the game in the open beta, or buy it and play the first free month, then unsubscribe if the game didn’t live up to whatever you hoped it would be.

Now replace ‘players’ with ‘tourists’ in the first line, and I agree. Because if STO is a game you have been following and are truly interested in (Darren, TAGN), I doubt you are going to throw in the towel after only a few hours, not after all that waiting and spending $50+ on it. Secondly, if you are somewhat new to the MMO genre (unlike the two reviewers and basically everyone reading here), those first ‘boring’ 10 levels probably are not nearly as boring, but rather a whirlwind of ‘new’ concepts and ideas to wrap your head around. Those players are not nearly as bored of kill ten rats-style gaming as we are.

The only ones who are likely to leave before the first ten levels are up are indeed the tourists, people just looking to ‘check out’ a game, but knowing that short of being blown away completely, they will move on after seeing the new shiny. And if that shiny is not shown 100% to them immediately, out they go a week or so early than they planned.

Let’s all take a moment to morn such a huge loss to any MMO community; whatever will we do without all you little Zitrons running around in the starter areas and flooding the server/forums with “Why is this not like WoW”, or better still, your attempts to bring Barrens chat to any new world you temporarily visit.

Finally, any reviewer that tourists a game like this and then tries to pass off a full review (rather than upfront stating they loaded it up and saw the character creator) is clearly working for EG, and we all know what those people are truly good for (just keep it legal).

The second part that stuck out to me from Tobold’s post is this line, talking about him skipping Fallen Earth because he disliked the 30 minute or so tutorial:

But as long as I’m having fun with whatever else I’m playing at the moment, me having missed a game is the loss of the game developer, not my loss.

While obviously any developer wants to get as many players in their game as possible, the ‘ignorance is bliss’ approach to gaming I just don’t agree with. If I had skipped DarkFall and stayed with Warhammer, I could still say I’m happily gaming because WAR has improved and I enjoyed the game despite its flaws, but without knowing it I would be missing out on a far, far superior (for me) MMO in DF.

Tobold is still in WoW single-serving it up, chasing tokens, asking for builds, and running an AH mod. He might still be having enough fun to not cancel his subscription (plus how else would he get freebies from Blizzard for promoting their game?), but for all we knew FE might be EXACTLY what he is looking for right now, and I fail to see how that’s not a potential loss (since everyone’s time is limited and all that) to his gaming.

How many posts or reviews stating that once you adjust to an MMO not being WoW (FE/DF, or whatever comes up) does it take to make some people realize a skewed (thanks to WoW) first impression is not always the correct one? How many times does someone have to read “once I adjusted my play, I saw what the game was really about” before they don’t write something like that off in the first 30 minutes?

And we wonder why Alganon gets made…

31 Comments | beta, Fallen Earth, Mass Media, MMO design, Random, Rant | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

World of Warcraft is this decades Final Fantasy 7

January 4, 2010

By now I’m sure many of you have read/seen the Gamasutra top 12 games of the decade piece, which has World of Warcraft at #1. The whole piece is a nice look back at many of the big games in the last ten years, and I agree that WoW should be placed at the top.

To me, WoW is to the MMO genre as Final Fantasy 7 was to the RPG genre back in the 90s. Both games opened their genre up to the ‘mass market’ by not just being great games, but also in part by NOT following what everyone else was doing in the genre at the time.

For FF7, that including top-shelf graphics in a genre that is usually a few years behind in that area, and a story told more like a blockbuster summer movie than something written by Tolkien. It was also (for that time) more streamlined and ‘accessible’, with only the optional bosses requiring extra work and in-depth knowledge of game mechanics and secrets. For many FF7 was their first RPG, and they would go on to look for similar qualities (movie-like story, fancy graphics, quick progression) in future purchases.

Most know what WoW did to the MMO genre in terms of solo play, hardware requirements, and bringing a release-ready product to a genre accustomed to playing paid beta for months. Like FF7 before it, WoW is the first MMO for many, and those first-timers go into future games expecting similar qualities (plus the added ‘problem’ of the first-MMO love syndrome that is impossible to reproduce).

Much like after FF7 ‘old school’ RPGs became a niche in the RPG genre, today ‘old school’ MMOs like DarkFall and Fallen Earth are the niche games in the MMO genre, while big budget, ‘accessible’ MMOs are in the mainstream. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues into this decade, or whether WoW remains the exception to the rule and too many costly failures turn the big bucks away and leave the space to the little guys.

7 Comments | Darkfall Online, Fallen Earth, Random, World of Warcraft | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

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