My Theory on current MMO developers.

DragenSoul

I was pondering why so many quest based games are the majority. I have pondered and here is my theory.

Most developers these days are yound 25-35 age males, Who in my observation have slight geeky personality, I believe that most of them were 15-25 DnD player's when games the first grafical MMO's came out. They went to play them and wanted more of a DnD quest/Loot/Class based type feeling but they held there tongue for years want and wanting with them getting older and older and some of them went into gave deleopment. Right now they are living out there dream of DnD type games, I believe change wont happen until a few years when the current 15-25's get endlessly bored of these type of games and make there own sandbox game's. Then they would be majority. I cant think of what would happen after that.

 

 

Just a theory.

 

But disscuss about it.

Torak

I don't believe there is any correlation between age and creativity.

What I do think is an issue is as you pointed out, the same people are simply making improved versions of the same game for about a decade now. People like Garrotte, Brad, and Ralph have been driving these crazy trains off the tracks for far to long.

Also, MMOs are the poorest market researchers on the planet. There is about ZERO market research done before a game enters concept, none done while in development, none done at launch, and none done over the life of the game.About the only time you see anything is when you unsubscribe, maybe you get a survey and thats a day late and a dollar short. Finding out you made a bad design choice after everyone leaves your game is useless information.

The hows and whys of initial designs apparently are made on a whim of whoever is in charge and thats about it. What would an MMO look like if some research was actually done before hand? I don't think we will know for awhile. While most games have forums, they are a passive method and easily ignored, confused, manipulated and it does not necessarily reach the overall demographic.

Zippy

Quite simply what happened was WoW.  WoW's core design was revolutionary in that game was was quest driven, target towards casual gamers and catered to solo gameplay.  Because it has been so successful other game companies have copied it.  EQ2 completely changed its design to copy WoW.  LOTR copied WoW.  Vanguard changed its design in early 2006 to become quest driven although at release the game did not have enough quests especially past level 30 to be considered quest driven but now it is.  Until someone creates a game that deviates from the quest driven WoW mold expect all big budget MMO's to be quest driven and targeted towards casuals.

Umbrood

Originally posted by Torak
Also, MMOs are the poorest market researchers on the planet. There is about ZERO market research done before a game enters concept, none done while in development, none done at launch, and none done over the life of the game.About the only time you see anything is when you unsubscribe, maybe you get a survey and thats a day late and a dollar short. Finding out you made a bad design choice after everyone leaves your game is useless information.

No way to tell if that is true or not, they migth be awesome at it, just that no one has ever tried, heh.

I assume their reasoning is that as long as they fall within the standrad MMO "concepts" there is no need for market research. seeing as the genre and its demographic is well known.

I would still like to se an professional market study of this, so that we, and publishers, can learn what people really want.

I am starting to think that we all play these elves and dorfs because we have vey little choice.

I dare bet that had Blizz made world of starcraft instead it would have been just as successful but the market today would have looked a lot different, less elves more robots, so to speak.

Pretty sure I am going to play TR for a while for all its flaws, about now I can take any form of abuse as long as it saves me from the damn sword and sorcery crap.

 

Death1942

being a person who wants to get into game design, mostly MMO's, i have spoken with many developers.  i was quite amazed at the huge variety in the developers personalities and backgrounds.

Torak

Originally posted by Umbrood


 
Originally posted by Torak
Also, MMOs are the poorest market researchers on the planet. There is about ZERO market research done before a game enters concept, none done while in development, none done at launch, and none done over the life of the game.About the only time you see anything is when you unsubscribe, maybe you get a survey and thats a day late and a dollar short. Finding out you made a bad design choice after everyone leaves your game is useless information.

No way to tell if that is true or not, they migth be awesome at it, just that no one has ever tried, heh.

 

I assume their reasoning is that as long as they fall within the standrad MMO "concepts" there is no need for market research. seeing as the genre and its demographic is well known.

I would still like to se an professional market study of this, so that we, and publishers, can learn what people really want.

I am starting to think that we all play these elves and dorfs because we have vey little choice.

I dare bet that had Blizz made world of starcraft instead it would have been just as successful but the market today would have looked a lot different, less elves more robots, so to speak.

Pretty sure I am going to play TR for a while for all its flaws, about now I can take any form of abuse as long as it saves me from the damn sword and sorcery crap.

 

Ah but there is a way to tell if its true or not, look at the current state of MMO's. Derivative, repetitive copies of each other. Forced "visions" of developers who basically started the genre and haven't moved it forward an inch in 10 years. They are trying to fit square pegs in round holes as the market has evolved but they haven't.  They assume that players want more versions of WoW because WoW is successful but that is clearly not the case. We already played WoW and EQ and are looking for something new, not a re-run of last year with a new skin.

 

EggFtegg

Originally posted by DragenSoul


I was pondering why so many quest based games are the majority. I have pondered and here is my theory.
Most developers these days are yound 25-35 age males, Who in my observation have slight geeky personality, I believe that most of them were 15-25 DnD player's when games the first grafical MMO's came out. They went to play them and wanted more of a DnD quest/Loot/Class based type feeling but they held there tongue for years want and wanting with them getting older and older and some of them went into gave deleopment. Right now they are living out there dream of DnD type games, I believe change wont happen until a few years when the current 15-25's get endlessly bored of these type of games and make there own sandbox game's. Then they would be majority. I cant think of what would happen after that.
Just a theory.

D&D dates back to the 70s and many of the earlier players are well into their 40s now.

The early graphic MMOs and the MUDs before them were often not nearly as quest driven as the standard modern MMORPG. In fact such games generally had way more complicated game-play and were often far more sandboxy. I would imagine that in most cases, the developers of those games came from a role-play, tabletop games background, at least to some extent, probably even more so than today's younger developers who grew up with computer RPGs.

As has been mentioned already in the thread (not to mention 1000s of times on these forums) the success of WoW and other more simple, quest driven games is the reason why other developers follow the same model. It's a formula that has proven to work. If it had been say Ryzom that had had WoW's success, I'd expect we'd be discussing about why all games seemed to be skill based sandboxes and class/quest games would be hard to find. I'm sure we could argue all day as to why WoW had that success in the first place, but I'm sure that simplicity is a large part of the reason.

If you've ever tried MUDs, probably the most striking difference between them and WoW type games, is the learning curve. I'd guess that it's the patience, intelligence and imagination needed to be a successful character in MUDs and early MMORPGs that was responsible for their limited appeal.

Umbrood

Originally posted by Torak


 
Ah but there is a way to tell if its true or not, look at the current state of MMO's. Derivative, repetitive copies of each other. Forced "visions" of developers who basically started the genre and haven't moved it forward an inch in 10 years. They are trying to fit square pegs in round holes as the market has evolved but they haven't.  They assume that players want more versions of WoW because WoW is successful but that is clearly not the case. We already played WoW and EQ and are looking for something new, not a re-run of last year with a new skin.
 
 

Not really what I meant though, my point was that it is hard to know if MMO companies are good or bad at market research as it seems none of them have ever done it.

Now that is bad of course, but still does not say wether or not they would do it well if they tried..

Scriar

Originally posted by DragenSoul


I was pondering why so many quest based games are the majority. I have pondered and here is my theory.
Most developers these days are yound 25-35 age males, Who in my observation have slight geeky personality, I believe that most of them were 15-25 DnD player's when games the first grafical MMO's came out. They went to play them and wanted more of a DnD quest/Loot/Class based type feeling but they held there tongue for years want and wanting with them getting older and older and some of them went into gave deleopment. Right now they are living out there dream of DnD type games, I believe change wont happen until a few years when the current 15-25's get endlessly bored of these type of games and make there own sandbox game's. Then they would be majority. I cant think of what would happen after that.
 
 
Just a theory.
 
But disscuss about it.

The reason theres so many quest based mmos is because its considered what the majority of gamers want. Like it or not the people that inhabit these forums are the vast minority of gamers who developers rarely target anymore.

EggFtegg

Originally posted by Umbrood


 
Originally posted by Torak


 
Ah but there is a way to tell if its true or not, look at the current state of MMO's. Derivative, repetitive copies of each other. Forced "visions" of developers who basically started the genre and haven't moved it forward an inch in 10 years. They are trying to fit square pegs in round holes as the market has evolved but they haven't.  They assume that players want more versions of WoW because WoW is successful but that is clearly not the case. We already played WoW and EQ and are looking for something new, not a re-run of last year with a new skin.
 
 

 

Not really what I meant though, my point was that it is hard to know if MMO companies are good or bad at market research as it seems none of them have ever done it.

Now that is bad of course, but still does not say wether or not they would do it well if they tried..

Aside from looking at the number of subscribers for certain types of game, I'm not sure how effective market research would be in developing a decent mmorpg.

Without a mostly completed game for people to try, I don't know how useful any feedback would be.

You could create surveys to ask if people would like certain elements in their game, but creating a game based essentially on democratic votes would probably make the biggest suckfest imaginable.

arctarus

Sometimes a game company can have many great ideas, but its the implementations that is the problem. i like the silk road idea, the fellowship idea etc in vanguard but... Also if you want sandbox, sometimes its quite goalless, with too many opportunity or potential or too many things to do in a game may not be a very good idea. Players may get lost and find no purpose in the world.

 

Quest base have its good and bad, but i think its the "END GAME" that need to be revolutionize. Most company have no problem to take players on a fantasy journey, but most of us is getting bored of what to do when we hit the cap at the end of it....

VengeSunsoar

The problem is not with the age of MMO developers.  The problem is the developers themselves.  Writing code (it seems anyway, I'm not a programmer but some friends are) is a strict, extremely logically oriented task.  There are rules to follow that cannot be broken if you expect the code to do what it is supposed to do.

So the problem is you have people who are schooled and grounded in logic oriented tasks trying to be... creative.  The exact opposite of what they are trained to do?   Stick with your strengths, and hire someone do tackle your weakness.

A few can do both probably but most will tend to lean one way or the other.  Logic and be code at code, or creative and suck at logic and so suck at code.

Venge Sunsoar

 

SioBabble

The developers aren't to blame for the sameness of MMOs nowadays.

The suits who finance these things want ROI, and they see WoW and they pant.

So the direction from the moneymen to the developers they employ is "be like WoW".

Until an enlightened suit steps up and asks his designers and developers to take another path.

For now, there are no enlightened suits.  There are only Ferengi.

Antarious

There has been a lot of discussion on this topic at the developer level.  One of the last articles I read was a interview with Brian Fargo.  That name goes back a ways.. Interplay... -> Bard's Tale.. -> Wasteland etc

Anyway they were asking him about the current state of gaming.

The basic response was everyone knows they are doing the same things that were done 25 years ago.  The basic crap you see in MMO's was a design that was in an RPG long ago etc etc

Once upon a time you did have a lot of variation in games.  Hell at one point you have 20 "good" games coming out a month.. now you are lucky to get 1 a year. (never realized how good the C64 days were as we dreamed of better graphics..)

Anyway.. as he said.. most companies either do sequels or license.. because that's what they know will sell.  WoW wasn't really anything new but obviously it sold...

Its not a lack of creative ability.  Its about the cost to get a product to market.. in a basic all or nothing market.  If your game flops you go bankrupt and the "game" is over.  So companies and investors want something they know will sell (thus the same cloned crap over and over because it sells).

Taking risks with todays development costs... That's why you see the move to try to have smaller dev teams.  Lower cost etc

So the short answer is cost... which oddly is a game mechanic... aka risk versus reward.

Personally I believe that to an extent.. but I also believe its now that companies have seen what WoW did... they don't even just want to make money.. they want a slice of that "huge" pie.

aka I loved pre-cu swg.. but nobody wants the 200,000 to 300,000 sub game anymore.  You can obviously make money there.. but everyone wants to have a million... because anything less and you failed.  Which to me just means... you'll see even more clones.. less diversity. blah blah

Of course I probably feel that way.. as I see lists of upcoming MMO's and just see nothing I'd pay for (which doesn't mean they won't do well.. basicly leaching off existing games player bases rather than really expanding the market).

 

SioBabble

Originally posted by Antarious


aka I loved pre-cu swg.. but nobody wants the 200,000 to 300,000 sub game anymore.  You can obviously make money there.. but everyone wants to have a million... because anything less and you failed.  Which to me just means... you'll see even more clones.. less diversity. blah blah

This is key.

In modern corporate America, making a profit...making some money...is not enough.

You need to make scads of money.  Just not losing money, or turning a small profit, is totally insufficient for the investor community these days.

Just being profitable is not nearly enough.  Divisions of corporations get shut down for not being profitable enough.

Greed rules, totally, to the exclusion of any other consideration at all.

dalevi1

Originally posted by Torak

I don't believe there is any correlation between age and creativity.
What I do think is an issue is as you pointed out, the same people are simply making improved versions of the same game for about a decade now. People like Garrotte, Brad, and Ralph have been driving these crazy trains off the tracks for far to long.
Also, MMOs are the poorest market researchers on the planet. There is about ZERO market research done before a game enters concept, none done while in development, none done at launch, and none done over the life of the game.About the only time you see anything is when you unsubscribe, maybe you get a survey and thats a day late and a dollar short. Finding out you made a bad design choice after everyone leaves your game is useless information.
The hows and whys of initial designs apparently are made on a whim of whoever is in charge and thats about it. What would an MMO look like if some research was actually done before hand? I don't think we will know for awhile. While most games have forums, they are a passive method and easily ignored, confused, manipulated and it does not necessarily reach the overall demographic.

I agree with your post on many levels. Market research in this genre is completely mute. It seems most developers (the companies themselves) do not really grasp the appeal of their product until they are face to face with a small fan base in a forum. Sometimes they act, overreact, or ignore the fan base just to continue making something no one wants.

My one disagreement with you here is Ralph. I wholeheartedly agree with you on Garriote and Brad, although I honestly believe RG means well. Ralph has never really deviated from his vision, he has stuck to his ideals and is currently creating something that follows what he has been all about since the beginning, which is freedom of choice, and a sandbox environment. I honestly respect the guy. He hasn't screwed anyone over, and he has been consistent. This also points along to counter the OP's post, which was that we need to wait a generation for the sandbox. This is untrue. You have people out there like Ralph doing what they do, and meanwhile you have games like EvE and Ryzom (both highly ranked here) which are pure sandboxes for your imagination (not so much your visual creativity). There is also SL if you are one of the brave souls who isn't souless. The sandbox is out there, it is simply ignored because people haven't chosen that type of game to this point. This has nothing to do with generation, and I can say this clearly because I feel that games like wow and gw are a generation behind me in popularity. I do hope they age and come around to something else (like real life!!), but this generation has done well to create some things that are choice driven.

and why must apple make me tag this up myself in safari!

dalevi1

Originally posted by Antarious

There has been a lot of discussion on this topic at the developer level.  One of the last articles I read was a interview with Brian Fargo.  That name goes back a ways.. Interplay... -> Bard's Tale.. -> Wasteland etc

Thank you so damn much!! I was thinking about Wasteland just a few days ago. I couldn't get enough of that. Can't even remember how many damn times I ran that game! Talk about post-apoc Ultima, god that was a blast in the RGB days!