Mmorpg Graveyard

#1 I use to play Horizons, it had so much potential as a game, but the developers just didnt listen to the community at all, shame when games get cancelled before they are even finished.

#2 Josh - Have you played Guild Wars from Arena.net? That was pretty good game, and if it does well, it might be a way to look at MMORPGs without having to justify the monthly cost. I know that for me, that is the biggest obstacle for me in getting those games (on the count that I'm broke, and too busy working onmy own thing to get distracted...again).

I tend to wonder if MMO type games will have to change their development structure in order to survive in the future.

#3

Quote:
I tend to wonder if MMO type games will have to change their development structure in order to survive in the future.

They absolutely will. MMO games have a rough future ahead.

Contrary to all the coverage that networked gaming gets within the gaming press, the vast majority of people prefer to play single player games rather than multiplayer games. Even games like UT and Quake3 that are designed around the idea of multiplayer have a customer base that is mostly interested in singleplayer bot-play, not multiplayer online.

The reasons for people not wanting to play online are a lot more complex than most developers seem to think. Most developers seem to think that the primary obstacle to online gaming is broadband availability. I disgaree. I think that even if every house in the world had a broadband connection, multiplayer gaming would still be a much smaller market than developers/publishers/analysts anticipate.

Simply put, an awful lot of people just don't want to deal with the headaches of playing online -- dealing with the immature jackasses that cheat or teamkill or just act like jerks in the console text windows or whatever. They don't want to be made to feel bad because they are being killed every 2 seconds by little 12 year olds who play the game 10 hours a day. Even ignoring PvP stuff... they don't want to be made to feel that they are making no progress in the game because all of the game systems are designed with the power-gamer who spends 50 hours a week in-game in mind (and this is what most MMORPGs do because the power-gamer is such a VOCAL minority).

So all in all the customer base for these types of games is a pretty small percentage of the total pool of potential gamers to begin with. Now consider that these games are all designed to take up a lot of your time, which means that unlike most games, someone who plays one MMO game is VERY UNLIKELY to play more than one. So you've got all these companies fighting for a pretty small player base with not much overlap, and not only are they competing with the other MMOs in development, but they are also (and even more importantly) competing with every MMO that has already come out because there is huge inertia involved in moving from one MMO experience to another. Why be a n00b on MMO-of-the-Month when you can remain a God on Everquest? Not to mention, all of your social contacts are on EQ and moving them all over to the new MMO is not going to happen overnight, if ever.

This is why EQ is still such a dominant force despite the fact that it is very "obsolete".

This isn't to say any new MMO is bound to fail... Dark Ages of Camelot and City of Heroes both show that you can succeed, but these are exceptions to the rule.

The MMO market is a small one, and there are huge barriers to entry even beyond the obvious technical ones.

#4 .....

#5 The problem with MMORPG's today is of their own doing. They are slowly moving to cater to the lowest common denominator, the "leet d00ds". Because of that they are for the most part a static sized market, the bulk of the players jumping from game to game when the "next best thing" comes down the pike.

Unfortunately I don't think that's where MMORPG's originally were headed. Back then, us old farts that were brought up on MUD's and MUSHes always discussed how awesome it would be to create a graphics component to the games we were having so much fun in. Some of the early games, Meridian 59 for example, were exactly that.

Unfortunately someone found out that when you threw in "uber lewt" and rewarded people for experience farming a new type of player hit the scene, the "Diablo generation". (Don't get me wrong, Diablo was a great game...but it was a loot/hack-fest). Role-playing went out the window.

Us old farts that enjoy the adventure and role-play more than just leveling for bragging rights are just too small of a market to generate the interest in the game dev world. The funny thing is, the game devs haven't seem to noticed that us old farts are the ones with the most disposable cash. I'd happily pay $20-$30+ a month for a good online Roleplaying game that didn't have to really be massive...

#6 Let me just say that I would tend to completely disagree with you guys on the fact that MMORPGs are going the way of the dinosaur.

I would however agree that catering to a few elite gamers, and moving to a gear game, is and was a bad idea.

A good game, should not have level limits or restrictions, gear should be of little value, and advancement should be more about the storyline, than about the ability to kill Uber Mob #999.

Games should be about immersion, content and interaction, rather than doing battle with a giant spider, so that you can get the shield she happens to be carrying, so you can go up against the next bigger more advanced mob.

Tradeskills, should be critical, and the normal stats of STA,STR etc, should be scraped in favor of a more complex advancement system. Gaining skill from using skills is the proper way to do a game, but not in such a way that it can be macroed.

There are a group of people who enjoyed playing EverQuest so much so that they decided to tear it apart and figure out what made it work. This lead to tools, to improve the game and eventually a community called MacroQuest was born. Eventually it became tiresome to hack EQ, and a few of them got together to create an entirely new game, based in the same fantasy MMORPG type setting as EQ.

In the past 60 days this game has gone from general concept to solid idea, to alpha state, with more content being added daily.

Since we sponsor this project, we will not advertise it here, it would be inappropriate. However here is something to consider.
In the past 30 days since we moved to a CMS (PostNuke) we have recieved 30 developer signups, and over 13,000 unique page views, the majority of which are to the forums section of the site.

We already have a fansite going up, and our alpha server was so clogged on the first day of alpha testing it appears to have fried some of the hardware.

I think the real trick is to allow each and every person the chance to participate in the development in some form or another, it appears that most people are interested in the content development. Scripting stories, creating quests, that sort of thing.

Anyways, our grand experiment appears to be working, we did something right, and assuming all goes well, we will have a launch on Sept 1st of 2004.

If you would like to know more please feel free to email me...
stevenm@sweetwaterhsa.com

#7 .....

#8 Well, once again, I think the biggest problem with MMORPG's is that the market size is static. Everyone is fighting over the same few hundred thousand subscribers, 90 percent of which jump from game to game. You can produce a crappy game, throw it out and as long as you get a nice chunk of the market for a few months + a $50 box fee you get a nice profit.

The market isn't asking for a great game, it's asking for the "next best thing." Until that changes commercial MMORPG's are going to continue to suck.

That's where we come in :) I think there's a niche market out there of ten, maybe twenty thousand folks that just want to play a good game. If we can start pushing out some indie titles and capture a small piece of the market we all win.

#9 It's a great model --- Sony / Verant has been making money hand over fist. The City of Heroes guys sound like they hit with a bang (*I* was the one telling everyone about this back when nobody knew of it... and now that it's out I don't have time to play it but everyone else is... *whine*). Blizzard may rock the world with WoW. We'll see.

The problem is that the market shares are pretty jealous. Conventional games... sure... I'll buy a new game every month or two, maybe two in a good month. I can play several games a night (if I have that much spare time). MMORPGs are *WAY* more demanding of your time. A hardcore gamer can maybe devote themselves to two different games. But EverQuest seems to demand that you LIVE there rather than just play there to get ahead. The others are much the same. They reward extended gameplay.

So the only way to make it in that market is:
1) Kick everyone's butt and be one of the top three or four MMORPGs
2) Dominate a smaller niche (and live with the smaller player base)

Right now most companies are going after #1, and most are failing.

#10 I think this thread is very good information for anyone attempting to build an MMORPG :) There are some very true spoken words in here.

I too think it's too bad most developers head for the Nr1 path =/
And that they build obsolete games and count on the players to "betatest" while the game is released and THEN fix the flaws.

#11 I love mmogs, and I tend to disagree with most of you. What do you mean by catered to power-gamers? Theres nothing in a mmog(besides the select few; Lineage 2) that puts average gamers in direct competition with powergamers. The beauty of MMOG's is that anyone can come in and take whatever experience they want out of it, while stil being able to interact with many people. If power-gamers want to be the biggest baddest player, killing the bigest baddest things, then so be it. But being an Everquest player who stayed at lvl 16 for 1 1/2 months doing nothing but playing the market and exploring, I can tell you from an average gamers standpoint that I had a heck of alot of fun. I interacted with alot of people, I made friends, and best of all, I didnt have to spend that much time doing it. It seems as though many of you are taking a stance as if you are acting off what a few others are saying. "John doesnt like the idea that EQ rewards powergamers, therefore I do not like EQ"." And while it does reward the powergamer, it doesnt stop anyone from taking fun out of it as well. I have never played an MMOG that was the same, and throwing MMOG's into a do-not-touch steryotype is as bad as any other, becuase dismissing some great gems just becuase you see a few that you dont like, is dismissing the work of many hard-working developers trying to find somthing you do like.

#12 I love mmogs, and I tend to disagree with most of you. What do you mean by catered to power-gamers? Theres nothing in a mmog(besides the select few; Lineage 2) that puts average gamers in direct competition with powergamers. The beauty of MMOG's is that anyone can come in and take whatever experience they want out of it, while stil being able to interact with many people. If power-gamers want to be the biggest baddest player, killing the bigest baddest things, then so be it. But being an Everquest player who stayed at lvl 16 for 1 1/2 months doing nothing but playing the market and exploring, I can tell you from an average gamers standpoint that I had a heck of alot of fun. I interacted with alot of people, I made friends, and best of all, I didnt have to spend that much time doing it. It seems as though many of you are taking a stance as if you are acting off what a few others are saying. "John doesnt like the idea that EQ rewards powergamers, therefore I do not like EQ"." And while it does reward the powergamer, it doesnt stop anyone from taking fun out of it as well. I have never played an MMOG that was the same, and throwing MMOG's into a do-not-touch steryotype is as bad as any other, becuase dismissing some great gems just becuase you see a few that you dont like, is dismissing the work of many hard-working developers trying to find somthing you do like.

#13

Quote:What do you mean by catered to power-gamers? Theres nothing in a mmog(besides the select few; Lineage 2) that puts average gamers in direct competition with powergamers.

I disagree with your disagreement :) Seriously though...just about every major MMORPG out on the market is geared towards the XP/Level model. Yeah, some of them do offer other avenues to explore like cratfting, entertaining, etc, but in the end it's all about experience. They do reward power gamers with the best loot, better skills. While some of us can step away from the normal XP treadmill and still enjoy the game, most are more concerned with making their next level than making another friend.

Take City of Heroes for example. There is _nothing_ and I mean nothing to do in the game but XP farm. Whether you do it through missions or just random mob killing the only fun thing you do in the game is get your next level. That's where the big boy games are heading. Why? Because they are successful. 90% of the gamer population is perfectly happy to run around killing monsters for three days for their next level/skillset.

While there are a few games out there that break the mold, ala "A tale in the Desert", they have a much smaller market base. Not that that's a bad thing. I'd much rather play a game with a 100 like minded gamers than 10000 "L33t D00dS". I think the biggest obstacle in an MMOG nowadays is a reward system. Noone will play a game that isn't rewarding in some way and XP/Levels is the easiest to implement.

If someone could figure out a way to set up a system that rewarded RolePlaying (and wasn't prone to abuse by malicious player types) they'd find a nice chunk of the market tripping over themselves to play their game.

#14

Quote:If someone could figure out a way to set up a system that rewarded RolePlaying (and wasn't prone to abuse by malicious player types) they'd find a nice chunk of the market tripping over themselves to play their game.

Man, I've been trying to solve EXACTLY that problem for years, now.

Nice to hear confirmation of other people recognizing the problem.

#15

Quote:What do you mean by catered to power-gamers? Theres nothing in a mmog(besides the select few; Lineage 2) that puts average gamers in direct competition with powergamers.

I disagree with your disagreement :) Seriously though...just about every major MMORPG out on the market is geared towards the XP/Level model. Yeah, some of them do offer other avenues to explore like cratfting, entertaining, etc, but in the end it's all about experience. They do reward power gamers with the best loot, better skills. While some of us can step away from the normal XP treadmill and still enjoy the game, most are more concerned with making their next level than making another friend.

Take City of Heroes for example. There is _nothing_ and I mean nothing to do in the game but XP farm. Whether you do it through missions or just random mob killing the only fun thing you do in the game is get your next level. That's where the big boy games are heading. Why? Because they are successful. 90% of the gamer population is perfectly happy to run around killing monsters for three days for their next level/skillset.

While there are a few games out there that break the mold, ala "A tale in the Desert", they have a much smaller market base. Not that that's a bad thing. I'd much rather play a game with a 100 like minded gamers than 10000 "L33t D00dS". I think the biggest obstacle in an MMOG nowadays is a reward system. Noone will play a game that isn't rewarding in some way and XP/Levels is the easiest to implement.

If someone could figure out a way to set up a system that rewarded RolePlaying (and wasn't prone to abuse by malicious player types) they'd find a nice chunk of the market tripping over themselves to play their game.

#16 We've reached a sort of logical paradox here. You have to have a reward system. It has to correspond to effort, more effort must equal more reward. But the "leet dewdz" are always going to have more time to put effort into the game and thus will always get more reward.

The rewards-either through levels, skills, or loot- basically offer 3 things:
-More power (more life, stronger attacks, higher defense)
-New abilities (New kinds of attacks and movements)
-Glory/bragging rights (stuff that makes your character look cooler, dye, etc)

I cannot see how to doll out these rewards automatically in a way that does not reward power gaming. The only solution I can fathom is to play with people that share your mindset.

#17 George McB, ever heard of a place called Korea? :) Take a look at how multiplayer gaming CAN become ubiquitous.

We might not get the same gaming culture in the west, but thats NOT to say it couldnt happen. When things are just naturally connected, then it becomes more natural to want to interconnect gameplay too.

#18 One thing crippling the MMORPG genre is technology itself. The technology is there to create a rich vibrant almost realistic world.. but the content demands such an environemnt produces exceeds the ability of the companies to provide.

Go look at some of the many MUD's that have been in operation for at least as long, if not longer then any one of the major MMORPG games. The depth of the content many of those games has far exceeds anything any current modern MMORPG has. The newer the game the less actual content it provides.

The focus has shifted from co-operative gameplay with friends, to Player vs Player combat, much like that found in your average game of Quake or Half-Life.

Many games even leave out things that are not "essential" to the gameplay, not seeing that players can and do find the greatest amusement, much like a child, playing with a cardboard box (so to say).

#19 It is my personal opinion (and my business development projection, to be honest) that the primary issue behind MMOG markets right now is fundamentally related to the quality/direction that MMOG's have taken.

The current market is most definitely dissapointed in existing MMOG's. Other than EQ (which has been around enough to "absorb" market share simply by being there), there have been, IMO, no serious advancements in the concept of persistent environments. As a general rule, players have only been shown "character persistence" (you log back in tomorrow, your character has "saved" what you've accomplished to this point), but have not yet been exposed to successful implementation of "world persistence", where what is "done" within a game is not only persistent from the player's perspective, but from any/all other player's perspective as well.

There have been some attempts--Shadowbane allows players to build cities, and demonstrate "world persistence" because of those cities, but it is struggling due to a variety of reasons, one of the most fundamental being coming too early to market--they just weren't ready to expose their visions to the market with the technology they put together.

Horizons aimed at a persistent world as well--they had buildings that others could observe, but again, IMO, they didn't carry things far enough, and with this particular game, it just wasn't enough "fun" to keep, and attract more, players.

City of Heros, while from all reports an outstanding game, was actually a step back in the concept of "persistence". As was described elsewhere,it still isn't much more than a (very) glorified chat room where people can get together and "do stuff"--namely, increase individual character's power through killing things and advancing (again, character persistence instead of world persistence).

Our project is based on some projections that the market really is ready for "world persistence" in a complete manner--yes, it is important for characters to be persistent, but we feel the next step(s) are to make sure that the world is persistent as well. We feel strongly that if you provide an environment that allows for multiple play styles, and more importantly, dynamic and persistent interaction with the environment, that the market will recognize (and hopefully, reward) these types of advancements in MMOG technology.

#20 .....