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

This post is about one MMO

June 5, 2012

Why is Wargaming.net still calling its MOBA titles MMOs? Especially now that MOBA titles are a bigger genre than MMOs. Someone pass them the memo already.

SW:TOR getting a limited free trial is somewhat of a non-factor (although does this mean it’s no longer free on weekends?), but giving away the content I’m sure EA planned to sell as an expansion? That’s another. I’ll say this about SW, it’s dying in very entertaining fashion.

The upcoming Rift expansion is exactly what one would expect out of Rift, more of the exact same. I think a few readers here are confused about my current opinion about Rift, so let me try and explain it. I hate Rift as a game. The content that was around when I left was soulless (get it), dumbed down, and just not what I wanted out of an MMO. What was an interesting evolution of the themepark model in beta ended up being a 2011 version of current themepark design at launch.

That said, I love Rift as a model. Trion puts out content as fast as a themepark should, and they don’t pretend to be something they are not; they know they are delivering generic themepark MMO content, and they are focused on just that. I wish more MMOs did that in their respective areas (not to be confused with wishing that more MMOs went hyper-generic).

16 Comments | Random, Rift, SW:TOR | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

My favorite genre is coming back!

May 30, 2012

MMOs are a niche genre in gaming. They are games that require additional ‘work’ beyond just loading something up, and to really get the most out of them you have to put in that ‘work’ consistently. They can also be very expensive or absurdly cheap depending on how much you play, and overall the barrier of entry and when the game ‘clicks’ is far longer than most other genres.

In 1997 Ultima Online came out and did far better than anyone expected. Stronger than expected sales, plus the ability to collect money after the initial sale in the form of a subscription, meant a LOT of money was being made from an unexpected source. Those with the ability jumped in as soon as they could, and most games did well if not very well (EQ1) in the MMO niche. You had to try really hard (AO) to screw up an MMO, and even if you did you still survived.

Then in 2004 WoW came out and suddenly a niche genre was flooded. Some called them tourists, others believed the genre had finally ‘made it’. Most importantly, Blizzard was printing money faster than anyone else, regardless of the genre. No matter how awesome Madden X was, after EA got your $60, that was it, and that always somewhat limited the earning potential of games. Not so for MMOs, and with WoW subscriptions toping 10m, the market was no longer collecting $15 a month from a niche crowd.

If UO encouraged others to give the genre a shot, WoW basically forced companies to do it. WoW’s profits made all other genres of gaming seem inept, and hey, how hard could this MMO thing be anyway? Grab an IP, toss a bunch of cash at it, and bam, 10m people throwing $15 a month at you forever!

A few problems.

The first being that 2004 WoW is not the version of WoW being cloned. WoW 04-06 built the foundation for the juggernaut, and the mistakes of WotLK and especially Cata were not realized until recently. The reason? MMOs snowball. Once you have a certain number of people playing, it’s difficult to piss them all off fast enough to boot them all out instantly. Even when you try (NGE), it still might not work.

The second issue is that for most, WoW was their first MMO. You always like your first MMO more because hey, it’s all new to you. That newness only happens once, and even if you perfectly clone the correct version of WoW, you can’t replicate your game being someone’s first MMO. This aspect can’t be underestimated, both for initial impressions and retention.

So you have MMO ‘noob devs’ cloning the wrong version of WoW, and not only that, but you have a fan base that is rather confused. True MMO players hate casual themepark games because they are MMO-lite, while the millions that made WoW such a huge hit say they are looking for more WoW, but time and time again they move on much faster than the previous title; and in a space where retention and collecting $15 a month is king, that’s an issue.

Is it really that surprising that AAA themeparks have sold well and retained so poorly?

The reason I take such pleasure in watching SW:TOR fail is because that game is the very definition of the above, only magnified to such an extreme that even the most casual observers are coming to the correct conclusions (mostly). And if the casuals get it, at some point devs and publishers will as well.

The truth is that the MMO genre is not dying. Not even close. MMOs like EVE or Rift are doing well. MMO-lite titles like SW:TOR and current-day WoW are not. This is very good news for MMO players, who for years have seen the vast majority of resources wasted on AAA themepark failures. Yes, not all of the money will flow into real MMOs, but we don’t need all of it. Just some, and some will most definitely find the right people due to the fact that real MMOs are making money. It’s hundreds of thousands of subs money rather than millions, but the MMO genre never contained millions of players. Just a solid core, and a whole lot of tourists mucking everything up.

In a year from now the story won’t be that the MMO genre is dead. Actually there won’t be a story because who writes about niche stuff anyway? But outside of the spotlight, we will be talking about some pretty cool upcoming games, and how EVE continues to be awesome, and how Rift is still getting content added like crazy, and how GW2 (maybe) feels so fresh and yet so familiar. That will be nice.

PS: It’s tough to judge 38 Studios in the above. If Copernicus was yet another WoW-clone (it sure looked like one), then the studio closing down was just an acceleration of the inevitable. If the game truly was an EQ1-clone, it’s a sad loss and further reason to shake an angry fist at management.

39 Comments | Darkfall Online, EQ2, EVE Online, Guild Wars, Mass Media, MMO design, Rant, Rift, SW:TOR, Ultima 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

David Reid hates themeparks

February 28, 2012

Via JesterTrek, RPS has an interview from CCP CEO Hilmar Petrusson and new CMO David Reid about EVE, Dust 514, and other stuff. Nothing terribly interesting in terms of details, but I was fully entertained by Reid’s rather obvious hate for themeparks now that he has left Trion.

Some fun quotes:

That might be unique in the industry, with World of Warcraft taking a dive last year. Eve is the one game that has grown every year since it launched, the only one.

One of the things that’s distinct about Eve and CCP, in comparison to standard MMOs like WoW , is that you’re getting a lot that’s the same from those other companies but Eve year after year continues to add new elements and gameplay. It’s not just zones or monsters, there are new play patterns all the time.

It’s easy to forget, against everything else that’s out there, with everything being sharded, how shallow those experiences tend to be and how meaningful action in Eve is compared to another game.

Although, that’s interesting to think about; that the question is even worth contemplating for a moment, speaks to something about this game and community. This is really different from selling platinum in Rift.

You make a good point; how many fantasy MMORPGs with tanks, healers and DPSes can the consumer base swallow at one time?

The notion of, at its core essence, of what an MMO is; a game that allows for persistence and massive socialization, yet I still as an individual have a unique identity in that universe… it really feels like this is something that hasn’t any cap in sight. I don’t know if I’d want to invest in the next great fantasy MMORPG, but I wouldn’t want to put my money anywhere else but in this sector.

That last quote, about what an MMO is all about is spot on. Granted its coming from a PR guy, but at least someone is saying it.

I think I actually like this Reid guy. He should start a blog.

24 Comments | EVE Online, Mass Media, MMO design, Rift, World of Warcraft | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

Great games are not great MMOs

February 15, 2012

I’ve often commented that I believe a part of WoW’s success was a perfect storm scenario. I’d like to add one additional factor to that formula: My-First-MMO-ness.

For many MMO gamers, WoW was their first title. This is a very powerful aspect, because the first time you are exposed to ‘genre norms’, they are new and exciting to you. An average auction house is still super-awesome to the new guy because the very concept of a massive multiplayer auction house is new to them. If you are playing your 3rd MMO with an auction house, it’s not that impressive anymore, and you are far more likely to notice the faults (or just differences) than someone new.

What this ultimately means is that the new player has more ‘content’ to explore before he gets bored, because literally everything is new to them. The MMO ‘vet’, on the other hand, is only going to notice or focus on the new stuff, and most of the other stuff is old news and has already been mastered.

SW:TOR is, by most accounts, a good game. It’s just a crappy MMO. And even worse, it’s also identical to the MMO most people have played. This does not mean those who play SW are not going to have fun with it. They will. But the length of time they have fun with it is going to be very limited, not only due to the solo-focused 4th pillar, but also due to how similar it will play/feel for many, and that is fatal for an MMO.

If SW:TOR had launched in 2004, rather than WoW, its future would look a lot brighter. It would still be crippled by the 4th pillar, but most of its players would not consume the total content nearly as quickly, and things like an auction house, battlegrounds, questing, raiding, etc, would all still feel new and interesting. But SW:TOR launched in 2011.

And this is not just an issue for SW, but for all themepark MMOs that stick too closely to the WoW formula. If WoW itself launched today, players would consume it far, far faster than they did in 2004. And again, whether a game is good or not is not really the issue. Skyrim is (IMO) a far better game than most, but I’m done with it after 60-100 hours. Which is perfectly fine for Bethesda, because they got my $60 and will likely get more when they release DLC. But SW, and other themepark MMOs, don’t survive on that $60. They survive on collecting $15 a month for months/years.

The other aspect leading the industry astray here is current-day WoW vs 2004 WoW. The 2004 version (along with the perfect storm scenario) is responsible for 10m subs. The current-day version is aimed to milk that. If 2012 WoW launched today, it would likely perform far closer to SW:TOR than 2004 WoW. It’s not a bad game, but it’s a horrible MMO. The social hooks are not there, the incentives to repeat content are weaker, and the rate of content consumption vs production is more off than it was in 2004.

But unlike SW, WoW today has that massive base, has years of older content, and is no longer expected to grow or even sustain itself long-term. Blizzard is doing what they can (giving out D3) to slow its decline, but decline it will. Blizzard’s focus today is positioning Titan to replace WoW. BioWare is not at that stage with SW:TOR, nor are any of the other themepark MMO studios that released or will release games soon.

It seems that today, the focus for many is to create the best possible game, rather than the best possible MMO. Again this would be perfectly fine if the financial expectations were adjusted as well, but they are not. SW:TOR is not Skyrim in terms of business models, but they are pretty damn close in terms of game length/retention, and that’s crazy.

If the goal really is to create an MMO, a game that will live or die by how well it entertains players long-term, then long-term content is a must, and the only real long-term content is repeatable and/or player-driven content. The quality of your one-off content is, in many ways, irrelevant here. No matter how awesome something like your new player intro is, that content is only going to be consumed once. It being fully voiced, fully animated, or with the world’s greatest scripting is not going to be the difference between someone playing your game for one month or five years. How long they remain entertained by the repeatable stuff is. Figure out how to make that entertaining-enough to play for months/years, and you have yourself an MMO.

22 Comments | Lord of the Rings Online, MMO design, Rift, SW:TOR, World of Warcraft | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

Skyrim 2.0, ELO, lies

February 1, 2012

First, how good does the Skyrim Creation Kit look/sound? The Steam integration part might be the biggest leap in gaming since Rift introduced us to MMO 3.0! Too bad for our genetically inferior slaves (console players) since won’t get this, but hey, if god wanted you to have nice things, he would have given them to you. Take the hint.

Next, file this under example #246234 that ELO in LoL works. As soon as Aria learned to play more than one champion, her ELO went up about 200 points. Weird how that works huh?

Also in a sign that she is becoming a true gamer, a few days ago she glanced at the old 21” monitor she use to play on and wondered how she ever used something so small. It’s not long before she demands a gaming-grade mousepad I tell you (for the record those work).

Finally if your MMO dev tells you they will never do something, start planning for exactly that to happen. First Turbine backtracks on selling you The One Ring, and now Trion is positioning Rift for the F2P minor leagues. What’s next? SW:TOR releasing content that’s not fully voiced? Is nothing sacred in the genre!?

7 Comments | Console Gaming, League of Legends, Lord of the Rings Online, Random, Rift, RMT | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

Lowering expectations across the board

January 25, 2012

To say that the SW:TOR launch has been mediocre would be an understatement, and if you want to go so far as to call it a disaster, considering the amount of resources BioWare had, I wouldn’t argue the point.

And that’s SHOCKING to me.

Now the first time I heard mention of the 4th pillar being the key to SW:TOR is the first time I said the game is going to fail as an MMO and as an overall venture. That has not changed.

What has changed is the timeline of it all. I’m floored by the number of “not going to sub after the first month” comments I’ve seen. I fully, fully expected the first 2-3 months after SW went live to be nothing but “greatest MMO of all time” posts from everyone and their mom. Of EA declaring victory, of Blizzard announced MoP will be fully voiced, and of SOE getting hacked.

Man is that not the case. From the 1.1 clusterfuck, to so many people not being interested in alts, to comments about the amount of side ‘filler’ quests in the game and their (lack of) quality, to people not being able to find a group in the FIRST MONTH of the game, to the silly and embarrassing bugs, it seems that every day brings another joke-worthy news item from the face-blasters. You know its bad when you have the fans saying this is ‘normal’ in an MMO and that everyone should just be patient with BioWare. Are you kidding me? 300m and EA banking the company on you is not enough? And let’s not forget that Trion launched Rift somewhat recently and did not have nearly as many issues, despite having a fraction of the budget and former SOE employees on the team (in retrospect, that totally explains that whole security loophole issue though).

And all of the above does not change the fact that, bugs or no bugs, SW is still a failheap when it comes to being an MMO. It just also happens to be having issue as an sRPG as well. That I did not expect.

Which brings me to my somewhat revised view for the genre, and in particular the miracle known as GW2. I want GW2 to succeed, assuming it’s actually an MMO and not a WoW-clone. I want it to be at least good-enough that I’ll buy it and play it with the Inquisition crew from launch until whenever ArenaNet turns it into WoW. Not because I personally can’t wait for GW2, or because I think it will solve all the genre’s woes, but because an actual MMO game doing well is better than only having failheaps like SW out and… well, failing. Because maybe if GW2 does well, other devs/VCs will look at that and think “hey, maybe we should try making an MMO to cater to the MMO genre!”

Maybe.

50 Comments | Inquisition Clan, MMO design, Rift, SW:TOR | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

Rebuilding the genre on SW:TOR’s ashes

January 18, 2012

I get the feeling that people misunderstand me when I say that I hope SW:TOR is the death of the AAA themepark MMO. I’m not saying the genre would be better if people did not spend 300m to make an MMO game. I’m not saying that spending 300m to make a themepark is wrong. I’m not saying spending 300m to make Darkfall would be right.

Ok that last part I am sorta saying, but more on that in a bit.

Here is what I do know. I do know that spending 300m to clone WoW does not work. Or rather, I know giving BioWare 300m (or 80, or 500, depending on the report) to clone WoW is a waste of money/time/effort. I also know giving Trion 50m to clone WoW is meh. I know giving Mythic any amount of money to clone WoW is doomed. I know that Turbine is one step away from directly selling you the One Ring if it helps save LotRO from shutting down. And finally, I know giving SOE anything is bound to have it hacked, stolen, and made into something you can’t download anyway.

What I, or anyone else for that matter, don’t know is what would happen if you gave someone not trying to clone WoW 50m. Or 300m.

I know that if you have CCP focused, they produce greatness. I know that when they try to go too mainstream and attempt to sell you jeans or vampires, they get into a lot of trouble. And finally, I know they are at least smart enough to realize it and correct that course.

We have at least one example of an MMO that has stuck to its core, and 8 years later it’s as alive as it’s ever been, and the future is looking brighter than most in the genre. It’s not F2P. It’s not “oh that old dated game”. And it’s not “just naturally seeing burnout like every game always sees” (Sorry Raph).

And look, if you are someone who is actually interested in living in a virtual world that evolves but always retains that thing that originally attracted you, how could you not look at EVE and be amazed and wishing that was the case with your favorite MMO? (If you are someone who intentionally jumps from MMO to MMO every 3 months, a bus can’t hit you fast enough. No offense but fuck off.)

What we also know is that when you give someone like Aventurine a bit of money, they release an MMO that has amazing combat (best in the genre IMO), produces some amazing moments, and is rough around the edges (to put it nicely). It’s also a game lacking in a lot of areas. The economy sucks. Crafting is meh compared to the genre norm, but sucks compared to EVE. It was buggy. It sucks that the population is low. Lack of updates. I could go on.

The point is, that even with extremely limited resources, Aventurine still produced an MMO that did a lot more for the genre than SW does, unless you count teaching the world that voice acting is a complete waste in the MMO space, but I’d say EQ2 already did that in 2004.

Furthermore, who is to say that with 50m, someone, be it Aventurine or otherwise, can’t make a version of Darkfall that not only appeals to its current audience, but also others? If Excel Online can get 400k people to play 8 years after release, are you really going to argue against the fact that Fantasy Excel Online would have no chance at 500k+?

We don’t know because, thanks to WoW being what it is, all of the big money has been spent futile chasing that pipedream. That’s why SW:TOR is so significant. It’s the biggest, most expensive copy/paste attempt yet, and when (not if) it fails in spectacular fashion, one would hope the beancounters will wake up and try something else. The world can’t possibly be stupid enough to throw even more cash down that hole, can it? Because make no mistake about it, it is a hole. It’s NOT working. No one has come even close to what EQ1 did, let alone WoW.

And for all of you non-EVE/DF/sandbox players, for those who only really know WoW and its redheaded stepkids, how do you know you only like what WoW offers? Yes, you don’t like EVE because it’s Excel Online. And you don’t like Darkfall because it’s PvP-only. And you don’t like ATitD because it’s crafting-only. And Wurn is dated, etc.

What if someone spent 50m to produce something of Rift’s quality, but with a world and mechanics that were closer to UO than EQ? That the dev team had a plan deeper than “repeat WoW, but with this tweak”? That the community was more than just the die-hard oldschool UO people (if you believe that myth)?

Could you, just maybe, find a game that had more than a few months of solo content to offer you? Could you, possibly, get into something that got its social hooks into you along with its gameplay? Something that, 6 months in, was just getting started rather than scrambling to tack grind on?

Maybe if that was a reality, you wouldn’t need to keep looking into the future, hoping that ‘the next one’ is going to last a little bit longer. That you would leave not when the ‘Game Over’ screen came up, but when you decided it was time for a break. And when you returned, in a month, a year, or five, the core game that you loved was still there, only expanded with a whole bunch of cool stuff as well. And when you did come back, familiar names were there to welcome you back.

Fantasyland.

Right?

(GW2 Jesus-MMO note: Assuming GW2 really is significantly different from current-day WoW, and assuming GW2 really is an MMO in the ‘oldschool’ sense, GW2 being successful, along with SW:TOR burning, may indeed be that ‘trigger’ event, moving us out of WoW’s faded shadow and into a strange new realm of money being spend on producing actual MMO games.)

Edit: Screw 3-6 months, BioWare is attempting to kill SW now! 80-500m can’t buy you a single glance at the history of ANY PvP MMO? I mean come on; this is 100% amateur hour on the grandest stage. It’s your 1.1 update and you DESTROY the game like this? And then to cap it off, your response is that you are “investigating the POTENTIAL issues”? We all knew this was BioWare’s first MMO. Is this the first time anyone on that team has ever done ANYTHING, including playing for an EG-minute, related to an MMO?

Just shut it down already.

Actually no, keep it online for another month, I’m waiting for 1.2 with more anticipation than I have for anything not called DF2.0.

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

You should return those glasses to their rightful owner

January 17, 2012

Syp over at Biobreak has a post talking about the pre-2003 MMO market and todays, and how you can’t pay him enough to go back to that time.

First I find this odd, as looking at his About page, I’m not seeing pre-2003 MMOs on his list of games he has played extensively, but maybe that’s just an omission on his part? Maybe he is a pre-2003 MMO vet? Is he just hiding the fact that he was Dreadlord Syp?

Anyway, here is his list of reasons why the genre is better today:

The quest system, dynamic events, full voice-overs, customizable appearances, public grouping, hybrid gameplay (such as STO’s ground/space combat), genre blending, business models

The quest system of 2012 is Cataclysm and SW:TOR. I’ll leave it at that.

‘Dynamic Events’ are a buzzword today for games like Rift, which are painfully static. Dynamic events in games like UO or EQ, which were player-driven, were actually dynamic. And actual events. The killing of Lord British anyone?

Voice-overs – Yup.

Customizable Appearances – In UO you had more options for this than you do today in WoW. With more impact as well. The game also had customizable housing on a scale most games today can only dream about (or declare technically impossible, depending on how little the devs think of their player-base).

Public Grouping – UO had this feature. Only it was called “Talk to that played, see what they are doing, and do stuff together”. When this happened regularly, it was called a guild. And since people actually lived in those worlds, rather than just ‘progressed’ through one hub to the next, knowing the locals meant something. I’d be dying to hear how someone who has experience with that prefers the random dungeon finder instead, as relates to group quality and the overall enjoyment of grouping.

Hybrid gameplay – The genre is better now that we have a poor man’s version of Starfox that we have to pay $15 a month to play? Odd, I was under the impression that when I loaded up an MMO, it was because I wanted to play an MMO, and when I loaded up Starfox, it was because I wanted to play Starfox. That said, UO had chess, although it required two players, so I understand why it would not work today.

Genre blending – We sure are.

Business Models – I love Pay-2-Win enhanced games like Atlantica. That game would suck as a pure sub game. I also love an immersive experience like LotRO turn into a slot-machine. Finally how can you not love what accounts being free does to server communities (lulz what is that?). In all fairness this can work sometimes. LoL being F2P is cool. EVE having PLEX is nice. Games like DDO/EQ2/LotRO/AoC not shutting down but instead milking a few dummies is cool, I guess.

And finally on to his real argument as to why those who enjoyed the genre pre-2003 love it today.

Oh wait he’s done? I see. Fine, let’s move on to the horrors of pre-2003 games, shall we?

You think the quest grind is bad today? Try simply grinding mobs endlessly for no reason other than a lack of other options. Or the horrible death penalties. The lack of real support for solo players. The incredibly obtuse nature of game mechanics and stats. The lack of free-to-play resulting in fewer gaming options on any given day

What game was Syp playing where he was grinding mobs endlessly because he had no other options and that was it? Doesn’t sound like UO to me. Nor AC. Nor DAoC. EQ1 players? The original carebears? Is it you?

Death penalties – The funny thing about WoW-only players is they just don’t know better. Tell them that if they die they lose all their stuff, and their heads explode. Now Syp, I guess being a pre-2003 vet, (right?) knows better. So he knows why the death penalty in UO was awesome. Just how much gameplay came out of the penalty in AC (Darktide, the only version of the game that mattered). And how many of you original carebears have epic corpse-run stories? I don’t think I need to talk about dying in DaoC, do I?

Solo players – What a horrible crime, that in a genre called massive MULTIPLAYER, we don’t cater to solo players. One can only imagine how horrible server communities and guilds were back when the only people playing were those who wanted to be social, who wanted to play something with others, who cared for group progression over personal. The horror! What would I do without little solo-Billy never talking and always being in his personal instance? Do you know how much worse my MMO experience would be without people like him… not around?

Game stats – I’m so glad the genre moved away from needing a website like EJ to play ‘the real game’, where groups are no longer formed based on gearscore, and that we no longer suffer with FOTM builds in games like Rift. That finally, we did away with obtuse things like being stuck playing a character in DAoC and making the best of it, rather than just re-spec’ing. That finally, rather than having to work towards a new build like we did in UO, you can just instantly hop from one solo-build to another. Amazing progress has indeed been made, and it’s clearly reflected in not just the games, but their communities as well.

Lack of free-to-play – Ah yes, the land of infinite quality, where only the best and brightest games dwell, and where only the finest of citizen reside.

I think I get where Syp is going with this. Now that I think about it, the 1997-2003 years were indeed horrible. Dealing with server communities, playing with tight-knit groups that stuck around longer than a month, building a server reputation, being judged not by my epics but by my personality. Just terrible, nightmarish days.

And remember all those awful days of Relic keep raids? Of invading Darkness Falls? Or all that time spent ‘grinding’ away in Minoc? Just talking to other players around your house because, damnit, you had no other options? Remember how painful it was to go into a dungeon in AC-DT, only for it to escalating into a server-wide brawl? Do any of you know how much time I ‘wasted’ fighting over a city in that game? How many people I knew by reputation, how deep the connections were? It was just awful man, awful. Not a single solo instance around, no ‘epic’ gear handed to me, absolutely no way to instantly teleport to a dungeon with some bots to go on an ‘epic’ quest to kill a god (for the 400th time).

Syp didn’t mention these things, but I will. You know what’s awesome about 2012? That thanks to $300m budgets, the games of today are bug-free (just don’t /dance), that they get prompt content updates (delayed until next week), look amazing (SW retro 2004 vibe is great), run great (just don’t turn on those now-gone high textures), have awesome server hardware (up to 10 people in one area) and they offer such a wide variety of things to do compared to games of old.

I mean look, when I’m tired of listening to those B-rate voices on my main solo-quest, I can go and do this side-quest. Solo. While listening to B-rate voices. In only one zone (sorry, planet) See? It’s awesome. So much better than being ‘forced’ to grind the same mob camp (one out of about a few thousand, if we’re talking UO) all day. Assuming I’m not a crafter. Or a shopkeeper. Or a PK. Or an anti. Or exploring. Or sailing. Or acting like an orc. Grinding mobs all day, yo!

Man I’m glad it’s 2012!

(Apologies for it not being Friday)

82 Comments | Asheron's Call, Atlantica Online, EQ2, Housing, MMO design, Random, Rant, Rift, RMT, SW:TOR, Ultima Online, World of Warcraft | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

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