"I'm going to go out on a limb here, and assert that setting a realistic scope is one of the most difficult challenges an MMO producer will face."
Couldn't agree more. I'd add that *maintaining* scope is the second hardest challenge. All too often as a project moves forward, people have new ideas. They play other games, see what competitors are doing, and then people want all of that cool stuff in their game. And that pressure often comes from outside the development team from executive management too. It's important to be flexible and react to changes in the market, but at the same time, one can't do it without understanding the consequences.
It's often referred to as feature creep - the key word being "creep" because it literally does creep up on you slowly. What seems like a small feature here and a small change there adds up before you know it.
Lack of setting and maintaining scope is probably responsible more than any other factor for most of the cancelled mmogs and most of the ones that performed poorly.
You hit the nail on the head with it's all about the fun. The wheels come off on these games in testing. I have done a lot of betas, and what should happen is that when you do a quest or any other game content, there ought be an in game window where you are asked was this fun? How could it be improved? Etc. But most of the time there isn't. It doesn't take much of an extra effort to make a quest that has some memorable feature to it then one that is the same old slop. Take a standard delivery quest - take x to y. What if on the way you get attacked and some npc steals the item and runs off. Now you have to track them down to get it back. Or maybe the item you are delivering transforms along the way, and that adds a new complexity. Or maybe the person you take it to is an imposter who has killed the intended recipient, and you have to figure that out from some clues. Maybe the item has a spirit trapped inside who offers you incentives not to deliver it, and you have to choose. I could spitball ideas all day, as could most players, but for some reason the people who make these games slip into a comfort zone where merely take x to y is fine by them. How about when they interview people. ask them in the interview, tell me 10 ways a delivery quest could be something fun and different? Then hire whoever actually has an imagination.
Your idea about a fun report at the end of quests and other content is a good one but the rest of your post illustrates the exact scope issues Scott was talking about. All the examples you gave would increase the scope of that simple delivery mission. Some more, some less. So if scope increases then so does money and or time, multiply that times the 10000 other places where you could add stuff and you have the typical run away train project, or you have to cutr something somewhere else. Is one good mission worth two so so missions? Is it worth 10? I've spent my dev carreer working on sand box games which bar MMOs are arguably the most challenging games to develop. The tghing that people don't realize is that they suck content like a sponge. You put tons of stuff in and inevitably you get feedback about how empty the world feels. MMOs take it to yet another level and I have nothing but sympathy for my MMO cousins.
"This is something that is obvious to MMO players, but becomes a strange foreign concept the further you get in the game publishing hierarchy. Most game publishers are used to the development cycle of single player computer games. You hire a huge team, you work them into the ground for two years, you ship the game, you fire the huge team, and then you make lots of money and fund the development of three more games. Do this for 10 years and you become EA!"
QFT
I ask for his article to be stickied, as this is one of the most true, well written and true articles I've read in ages. Thank you Stradden!
I strongly believe that where we are today as a genre is because of two phenomenons, pre-orders and open beta.
Pre-orders as I've mentioned before are like telling a AAA publisher "We don't care about state of game or how it will turn out, we just want it." So in their eyes we don't care about finished product, we just want it. So they crack the whips at the devs. to hurry the hell up. Then instead of actually "beta testing" they let people play "open betas" to further the hype engine. The game play feels half finished... but the zealots scream "IT'S BETA!!!!" so it's supposed to be acceptable.
Open beta leads us up to the F2P model. Hell, that Battlefield Heroes made by EA I see on the left side of my screen had a working, functional cash shop in beta. People bought the stuff... while in beta. This further enforces the rationale that people will pay for half-finished games... so why not make that the new standard?
More often than not, MMO's tend to be released with lots of issues which can embed in a gamers mind "This is going to be the state of game for all eternity" and first impressions are always the most important. So if a game is in a limbo state of feeling like a "forever beta/F2P" I guess there's no standard there... because it's beta or because it's "free".
Personally I haven't played a new MMO since Tabula Rasa/Hellgate: London. They were supposed to be the next best and new thing since sliced bread but still felt like they were half-assed, and apparently I wasn't the only one since both vanished like a stale fart best left forgotten just a little over ONE year later.
A happy medium would be nice. Personally I no longer want to make a long-term investment in MMO's in their current states. I can't justify buying a $50+ game just to beta test it while the Joes who join in months later have a more pleasant, polished experience thanks to me footing the bill for them early on. As for F2P, I mess around with them, best one so far being DDO for me as content can be unlocked by grinding if you want or purchased... but haven't come across a "WOW" factor that has made me jump head first into one without question.
TL;DR version, we brought it upon ourselves and they're feeding us what they think we want. If you want to break the trend, stop buying it and they'll stop making it. Numbers and $ speak louder than words.
"There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."
And what about failor of letting on wide scale people exploit/macro/hack it can also be couse of failor OP.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
"This is something that is obvious to MMO players, but becomes a strange foreign concept the further you get in the game publishing hierarchy. Most game publishers are used to the development cycle of single player computer games. You hire a huge team, you work them into the ground for two years, you ship the game, you fire the huge team, and then you make lots of money and fund the development of three more games. Do this for 10 years and you become EA!" QFT I ask for his article to be stickied, as this is one of the most true, well written and true articles I've read in ages. Thank you Stradden! @garrett I strongly believe that where we are today as a genre is because of two phenomenons, pre-orders and open beta. Pre-orders as I've mentioned before are like telling a AAA publisher "We don't care about state of game or how it will turn out, we just want it." So in their eyes we don't care about finished product, we just want it. So they crack the whips at the devs. to hurry the hell up. Then instead of actually "beta testing" they let people play "open betas" to further the hype engine. The game play feels half finished... but the zealots scream "IT'S BETA!!!!" so it's supposed to be acceptable. Open beta leads us up to the F2P model. Hell, that Battlefield Heroes made by EA I see on the left side of my screen had a working, functional cash shop in beta. People bought the stuff... while in beta. This further enforces the rationale that people will pay for half-finished games... so why not make that the new standard? More often than not, MMO's tend to be released with lots of issues which can embed in a gamers mind "This is going to be the state of game for all eternity" and first impressions are always the most important. So if a game is in a limbo state of feeling like a "forever beta/F2P" I guess there's no standard there... because it's beta or because it's "free". Personally I haven't played a new MMO since Tabula Rasa/Hellgate: London. They were supposed to be the next best and new thing since sliced bread but still felt like they were half-assed, and apparently I wasn't the only one since both vanished like a stale fart best left forgotten just a little over ONE year later. A happy medium would be nice. Personally I no longer want to make a long-term investment in MMO's in their current states. I can't justify buying a $50+ game just to beta test it while the Joes who join in months later have a more pleasant, polished experience thanks to me footing the bill for them early on. As for F2P, I mess around with them, best one so far being DDO for me as content can be unlocked by grinding if you want or purchased... but haven't come across a "WOW" factor that has made me jump head first into one without question. TL;DR version, we brought it upon ourselves and they're feeding us what they think we want. If you want to break the trend, stop buying it and they'll stop making it. Numbers and $ speak louder than words.
Very good reply sir.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
I don't care what anyone says about his background, this is an excellent post, and should be required reading for anyone who wants to get into making games.
I don't care what anyone says about his background, this is an excellent post, and should be required reading for anyone who wants to get into making games.
I agree. I also think that anyone that wants to PLAY games should be required to read it.
Yea it is sad when the dev's dont even play their own games. See this time and again, and they wonder why folks flame them when they give us something totaly useless.
I got to agree with that part.
However I find it funny when the show up after that and then try to convince all of us that were having a great time and actually get into heated arugments with the player base not only on their own forums but other web sites.
The problem we face now is that big huge AAA - MMO catastrophes have led us to Cheap F2P models with grinding leveling and completely repeated content.... where is the fun in that?
So the industry went one way....failed...and now has done a complete 180 to make money off cheap badly designed games.
Is there no middle ground??
There is middle ground of decent F2P titles. There is also middle ground of GW.
The way P2P works you cannot compete with WoW. They are both better and cheaper and on top established.
There is one interesting perk of F2Ps - they have miserable customer support to cut down costs so the game has to be relatively stable and bug free. This simple perk alone helps elimitnating some failures mentioned in the article.
Also smaller MMOs with short lifespan have the advantage of offering relatively fresh experience even if they are not much more than reskin of older game. Some of them are sold as P2P though, to the dissapointment of readers of this site that demand oldchool years long experience flled with raids.
BTW, making fun game is not always conductive to business. MMOs are doomed to be time taxing repetitive affairs it seems. (Edit: See also first paragraph of the article.)
Your idea about a fun report at the end of quests and other content is a good one but the rest of your post illustrates the exact scope issues Scott was talking about. All the examples you gave would increase the scope of that simple delivery mission. Some more, some less. So if scope increases then so does money and or time, multiply that times the 10000 other places where you could add stuff and you have the typical run away train project, or you have to cutr something somewhere else. Is one good mission worth two so so missions? Is it worth 10? I've spent my dev carreer working on sand box games which bar MMOs are arguably the most challenging games to develop. The tghing that people don't realize is that they suck content like a sponge. You put tons of stuff in and inevitably you get feedback about how empty the world feels. MMOs take it to yet another level and I have nothing but sympathy for my MMO cousins.
I can accept that designing a straight delivery quest is less time consuming than making one with a plot twist. How much more time consuming I can't say because I am not a game designer.
As a player, I would like to see less "filler" so that the quests which are offered are more meaningful, are better written, or at least have a purpose. With all of these new mmos on the market, I think a lot of us end up feeling we are playing the same game over and over when we are asked to kill 3 rats for no particular reason or just deliver a letter. Surely designers can be more imaginitive than that?
My focus is on the fun side. If you are going to put a quest in the game, it should at least be a little bit fun, no? If not, why is it there? I don't think being able to put on the retail box "thousands of quests" will pay off long term if almost all of them are crap.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
What surprises me is how much people harp on Customer Service for MMOs.
I've been playing MMOs for 13 years, always playing at least one and sometimes playing more then one. I've used CS 3 times in that entire span of 13 years.
They were fairly trivial issues really. First was in Asheron's Call you can inscribe items, someone had inscribed an item I bought with some pretty foul things. In the beginning of AC there was no way to get rid of an inscription, so I asked CS if they could do anything and a guy showed up 2 minutes later and erased it for me. I could of played forever with that being there and been fine.
Second was when I wanted to go back to UO and couldn't figure out what I used for a username and password back then, if they hadn't responded or been able to figure it out for me then I would of just made a new guy (I made a new guy anyways) on a new account. But they were able to find it for me and I played again for a couple months.
Lastly was in WoW when they got rid of a quest in a patch (but left in the guy who started you on the quest, nice). This quest was for rogues and you had to pick a chest, in that chest was supposed to be an item that you used to finish the quest. So I picked the chest a couple times before going to Thottbot to see if I was doing something wrong and found out the quest was removed. Problem being was you got a negative spell on you when you picked the chest that lasted an insane amount of time, the main way of removing this spell was to finish the quest, which you couldn't do. Dying didn't remove it either. So I asked CS and a couple hours later the spell magically disappeared.
Basically I just don't see what all these people need CS for, I could of been fine if none of those issues were resolved by CS. What is it people are doing that they are all up in arms about needing more CS? A bugged quest? Ok do something else until they fix it. A lost item? Get a new one. Someone bothering you in chat? Squelch them. There are really only a couple issues CS really needs to be there for, like having a character stuck in the world and no auto tool to get you out of it. As time goes on programmers have worked in more and more little tools for players to help themselves.
I also think there is a tough line to balance between making parts of the game more fun for the customers, and keeping the game balanced and true to the original design. We've had enough examples of companies who have changed the game from the initial design which in turn made them lose a ton of players. Those who are enjoying the game tend to not speak up or post on forums. Also all players have different ideas of fun. And to top it all off, what could be really fun for players could also cause them to get bored with the game much faster which then results in a lot of lost money. It certainly isn't as simple as just making the game fun.
Start a company, hire a moderately large staff that you have to pay, etc. etc..
Create a product that is going to be used/played by thousands, if not 10s of thousands... if not 100s of thousands... if not millions of people.
Skimp on your customer service because you can't see "what the big deal is" and don't think it'll be as necessary as everyone seems to think it is based on your own personal experiences.
Come back and tell us if you're still that dismissive and glib about it within 6 months after your product's release.
That said... *excellent* article, yet again. Very informative. Very well-written. Very interesting read. Well done!
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I don't care what anyone says about his background, this is an excellent post, and should be required reading for anyone who wants to get into making games.
I agree. I also think that anyone that wants to PLAY games should be required to read it.
basically this is what happened scott jennings was known as "lum the mad" and had a rant site alot of game developers went there to discuss topics about mmorpg's and game in general it was popular at the time and people where making decisions on purchasing games based on reviews and the topics about games.
well mark jacobs from mythic entertainment started hanging around the site and after awhile offered scott a job ....he took the offer and left the site.
the site was then named slow news day and then after awhile wrote an article on dark ages of camelot it wasn't a bad article it gave and honest view of things where missing content wise.. scott jennings caught wind of it and went into the site and screwed up the pages and basically shut the site down by screwing with the code.
hence why people call him a sell out ...after daoc scott went to work with ncsoft to develope a mmo and the plug got pulled i guess thats why he's writing here now.
also sanya weathers wrote on lums site back in the day .
The scope portion is the part I hope every mmo developer reads and rereads. It's so bloody obvious that every one of these games suffers from massive scope-creep. Some handle it better than others while some (I'm looking at you Mortal) seem like they didn't even bother to hire a project manager and instead just flung a bunch of ideas at the wall to see what stuck.
It seems, from the outside looking in, that there are very few competent PMs in the mmo industry. Yes I know development is hard, but so was going to the moon, and they somehow managed to pull it off using slide rules.
Dreamers and developers with huge imaginations will only get you so far. Having these guys serve as your PM is a recipe for disaster (McQuaid and Vanguard comes to mind). You've got to have some hardline anal-retentive detail guys in charge to bring the whole project in for a smooth landing.
Fantastic article Mr. Jennings. It makes me hope that some course of events puts you at the helm of the next big MMO project. Maybe then we would see the product we've been yearning for.
I tend to see scope as a combination of depth and breadth - each zone needs to have enough depth that it's a fun minigame entirely on its own, but then you want it to be easy to assemble new zones out of the existing mechanics so that they they feel different but are easily assembled from existing components. (zones in this case are an abstraction - they can be different dungeons, skills, levels ). If you can't easily assemble a new zone, you're in trouble. If you don't have a fun zone, you're in trouble.
I'm surprised that there hasn't been a convergence between MMO-design and Magic: the Gathering card-game design. They strike me as very similar design/development/expansion challenges.
On the difficulty issue, I can't help but think that some of the failed games out there must have had reasonably good back ends. In the endgame of these smaller companies, I can't help but think there should be some engines out there that could be packaged up (what happens to the industry if someone takes a solid back-end from a failed game and releases it under a BSD license?) There are also people who have been able to successfully create pirate servers as a hobby, so the idea that professionals should have a hard time of it just doesn't wash for me.
The best customer service is service that never needs to be used (it always annoyed me reading about people on boards trying to use CS as if it was a 1-900 number "I'd like a rep to come entertain me"). However bugs do happen - and the most important part of dealing with them is detecting that they happen. I hate it when developers seem unaware that a bug exists - a layer of bug detection should be an essential part of the quality assurance of a subscription software of any sort.
Yeah.. Sell-out... I mean, he could have been working for EA, which is EVERY MMO developer's dream, considering their long and illustrious track record with MMO's.
You say Sell-out, I say one of the few people at Mythic with a brain.
Matt Frior was another one - He left to work for Zennimax (Possibly Elder Scrolls MMO), then there's Walter "Copper" Yarbrough (Turbine). Can you imagine if Sanya Weathers had to be the community rep for WAR, towing the EA party line?
Get real. EA is where MMO's (and their developers) go to die. More like Mark Jacobs sold out Mythic for Warhammer.. Might have made sense at the time, but look how it ended.. Even Mark got fired.
One of the smartest things Scott ever did was leave. How you can see it as otherwise is baffling.
This!
Bioware was a good company 10 years ago now is just another cash cow for EA. Unfortunatly they are lots of xbox and pc weak minded players that they are praising them like the next mesia, so overall they dont give a frack. They release a lot of games with chessy graphics and presentation and with a weak gameplay, and they sell milions. What a surprise these days? People are dumb, uninformed, patetic, and that hurts all of us. Since if they get away it the first time, you can bet your ass they will do it the 10th time and they are doing it. They are not the only one but it hurts to see them sell out like that. Oh well
I am sorry that we all cannot be as sophisticated as you and the other god like beings that hate EA. I am also sorry that by me liking Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect 2 is dooming the gaming industry that you love so much. After all I am just a weak minded mortal, from now I will ask you and the other God like beings that hate EA what I should like and play before I spend money. sarcasm off
Dude get over yourself, I like Dragon Age as much as I liked Ice winddale and Baldur’s Gate 2, as you said Bioware from 10 years ago. Just because you hate something does not mean everyone is going to see it the same as you. So saying that your opinion of Bioware and EA is a fact and we all are hurting the gaming industry is pretty low. To me it is the people that is blinded by their opinions and will not even consider anything else, that are hurting and destroying this industry; both the haters and the fanboys are to blame for this. But that is still just my opinion not fact!
I tried to get assistance in two games in recent years City of Heroes and LOTRO and got crap for customer service. Hell they didn't even bother to answer one question and the last one took them 3 weeks to get back to me only to tell me to submit a ticket to another department. I leave MMOs the minute I loose interest in the game... I have no loyalty to the companies whatsoever which includes their future games.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
It's not just about playing your own game. You should be playing other people's games.
You should be watching movies, reading books, absolutely immersing yourself in the genre of the game you are developing.
You should be camping the community boards of all the other games which do something similar to yours.
Because how the hell else are you going to know what works, what's popular, what sucks and what is going to kill your game?
Far too many developers seem to approach the development of their product (Sigil, I'm looking at you here!) as though it has to be created in some kind of vacuum. When people study Business, they look at case studies which show how companies thrive or fail. MMO developers must absolutely look at the same things, or we're just going to get iterations of idiocy because everyone will point blank refuse to learn from the mistakes made by themselves and others.
I'm not saying that you have to adopt every popular idea from every other game and shoehorn it into your own project. Blizzard said when reviewing player housing that it was a great idea, but they'd have to consider how it worked within WoW - just implementing it because it was 'cool' was not enough.
But conversely, they've adapted their product over and over in response to competition and to player demands. And frankly a lot of player demands come about because we see what other companies have done, and we want that too! With a side order of fries. Because that other company makes great fries and crap burgers. And you make great burgers and don't sell fries. So could you please start making fries like those guys over there? Not fries that you developed from scratch and which are made from reconstituted cardboard that you think we'd like - we already told you what we'd like.
Customer service goes beyond ticket submission for game issues.
You need accurate, prompt and helpful support for payment issues and problems with cd keys and technical issues. You need to have an appropriate avenue of appeal if you believe you have been mistreated by a representative of the company. You need a way to provide feedback about bugs and improvements, and a way for that feedback to be acknowledged. You need a way to raise concerns about policy violations, and to report anti social behaviour.
Bioware was a good company 10 years ago now is just another cash cow for EA. Unfortunatly they are lots of xbox and pc weak minded players that they are praising them like the next mesia, so overall they dont give a frack. They release a lot of games with chessy graphics and presentation and with a weak gameplay, and they sell milions. What a surprise these days? People are dumb, uninformed, patetic, and that hurts all of us. Since if they get away it the first time, you can bet your ass they will do it the 10th time and they are doing it. They are not the only one but it hurts to see them sell out like that. Oh well
I am sorry that we all cannot be as sophisticated as you and the other god like beings that hate EA. I am also sorry that by me liking Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect 2 is dooming the gaming industry that you love so much. After all I am just a weak minded mortal, from now I will ask you and the other God like beings that hate EA what I should like and play before I spend money. sarcasm off
Dude get over yourself, I like Dragon Age as much as I liked Ice winddale and Baldur’s Gate 2, as you said Bioware from 10 years ago. Just because you hate something does not mean everyone is going to see it the same as you. So saying that your opinion of Bioware and EA is a fact and we all are hurting the gaming industry is pretty low. To me it is the people that is blinded by their opinions and will not even consider anything else, that are hurting and destroying this industry; both the haters and the fanboys are to blame for this. But that is still just my opinion not fact!
Let's actually compare the two articles and see if they match up.
1. Ultima Online. Reason for failure - release of better games.
Cause A. Scope creep? No
Cause B. Technology? No, unless you count no 3D as technology
Cause C. Service? No, though it wasn't good
Cause D. Design? Personally, yes, but since there are thousands of people clamoring for the same design, that's a no.
So 0 for 1.
2. Everquest. Reason for failure - too much questing
Cause A. Scope creep? No
Cause B. Technology? No
Cause C. Service? No, in fact, changing the quest is customer service
Cause D. Design? Well, the game gained 500K subscribers after the quest was implemented, no.
0 for 2
I am not going to go on. The articles don't match up. Saying that these games failed is like saying Baldurs Gate failed, because no one is playing it anymore.
I am sorry that we all cannot be as sophisticated as you and the other god like beings that hate EA. I am also sorry that by me liking Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect 2 is dooming the gaming industry that you love so much. After all I am just a weak minded mortal, from now I will ask you and the other God like beings that hate EA what I should like and play before I spend money. sarcasm off Dude get over yourself, I like Dragon Age as much as I liked Ice winddale and Baldur’s Gate 2, as you said Bioware from 10 years ago. Just because you hate something does not mean everyone is going to see it the same as you. So saying that your opinion of Bioware and EA is a fact and we all are hurting the gaming industry is pretty low. To me it is the people that is blinded by their opinions and will not even consider anything else, that are hurting and destroying this industry; both the haters and the fanboys are to blame for this. But that is still just my opinion not fact!
Well,
I'm just a player who's been gaming online since Legend of Mir 2 (Wait.. that was 9-10 years ago! :S ) and I kind of agree completely with your points.
As a RPG fan I love Bioware games (and I put my trust in them, believing SW:TOR will be the next Great Game) and as a MMO gamer I loved the article.
I don't know why that much hate towards EA, seriously, is not like SOE (game it touches game it kills, take PoxNora as a good example or SWG and Vanguard... still hurting here); but I wanted to add something else to the discussion.
The Endgame: Games are supposed to be fun, not a job (things like "damn! I didn't do the daily quests" or "oops! i'm gonna be late to the event that occurs every 12h and gives coins-tokens to get the omfgiwanna items").
I still have to play a game where the endgame is as fun as leveling and that imho is as important as every other aspect of the game.
Why play when I know that, in the end, i'm gonna need a bunch of people swollen with good items in order to get better items? I still hope to see a game where player skill is much important than equip but i'm going offtopic here ^_^
Imho, developers not only should have fun and take everything wrote in the article in consideration but should sit on a table and ask themselves "after months or years of playing, when they reach the cap level/end-game, what would they want to do? how are we going to motivate them to keep on playing without being forced to create a new char in order to enjoy the game again?"
Here is where every single MMO i've played fails (again, that's my oppinion as a casual-hardcore player) but that's ok if they wanna do like Blizzard - play, be bored, we don't care cause you will leave but lots gonna come in, and we don't care about anything at all as long as there is people coming and paying - or like SOE - play and pay, we're going to screw you and change the whole game after 2 years and everything you did will be meaningless.
Argh, i ended whining >< sorry, but hope you get my point
Comments
"I'm going to go out on a limb here, and assert that setting a realistic scope is one of the most difficult challenges an MMO producer will face."
Couldn't agree more. I'd add that *maintaining* scope is the second hardest challenge. All too often as a project moves forward, people have new ideas. They play other games, see what competitors are doing, and then people want all of that cool stuff in their game. And that pressure often comes from outside the development team from executive management too. It's important to be flexible and react to changes in the market, but at the same time, one can't do it without understanding the consequences.
It's often referred to as feature creep - the key word being "creep" because it literally does creep up on you slowly. What seems like a small feature here and a small change there adds up before you know it.
Lack of setting and maintaining scope is probably responsible more than any other factor for most of the cancelled mmogs and most of the ones that performed poorly.
-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
"This is something that is obvious to MMO players, but becomes a strange foreign concept the further you get in the game publishing hierarchy. Most game publishers are used to the development cycle of single player computer games. You hire a huge team, you work them into the ground for two years, you ship the game, you fire the huge team, and then you make lots of money and fund the development of three more games. Do this for 10 years and you become EA!"
QFT
I ask for his article to be stickied, as this is one of the most true, well written and true articles I've read in ages. Thank you Stradden!
@garrett
I strongly believe that where we are today as a genre is because of two phenomenons, pre-orders and open beta.
Pre-orders as I've mentioned before are like telling a AAA publisher "We don't care about state of game or how it will turn out, we just want it." So in their eyes we don't care about finished product, we just want it. So they crack the whips at the devs. to hurry the hell up. Then instead of actually "beta testing" they let people play "open betas" to further the hype engine. The game play feels half finished... but the zealots scream "IT'S BETA!!!!" so it's supposed to be acceptable.
Open beta leads us up to the F2P model. Hell, that Battlefield Heroes made by EA I see on the left side of my screen had a working, functional cash shop in beta. People bought the stuff... while in beta. This further enforces the rationale that people will pay for half-finished games... so why not make that the new standard?
More often than not, MMO's tend to be released with lots of issues which can embed in a gamers mind "This is going to be the state of game for all eternity" and first impressions are always the most important. So if a game is in a limbo state of feeling like a "forever beta/F2P" I guess there's no standard there... because it's beta or because it's "free".
Personally I haven't played a new MMO since Tabula Rasa/Hellgate: London. They were supposed to be the next best and new thing since sliced bread but still felt like they were half-assed, and apparently I wasn't the only one since both vanished like a stale fart best left forgotten just a little over ONE year later.
A happy medium would be nice. Personally I no longer want to make a long-term investment in MMO's in their current states. I can't justify buying a $50+ game just to beta test it while the Joes who join in months later have a more pleasant, polished experience thanks to me footing the bill for them early on. As for F2P, I mess around with them, best one so far being DDO for me as content can be unlocked by grinding if you want or purchased... but haven't come across a "WOW" factor that has made me jump head first into one without question.
TL;DR version, we brought it upon ourselves and they're feeding us what they think we want. If you want to break the trend, stop buying it and they'll stop making it. Numbers and $ speak louder than words.
"There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."
And what about failor of letting on wide scale people exploit/macro/hack it can also be couse of failor OP.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
Very good reply sir.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
I don't care what anyone says about his background, this is an excellent post, and should be required reading for anyone who wants to get into making games.
I agree. I also think that anyone that wants to PLAY games should be required to read it.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Another great article. It ties in nicely with part 1. Thank you!
SWG: Astromechs & Friday Features and Guides from SWG O-forums (2003-2005) (Read last post first for clarity)
Yea it is sad when the dev's dont even play their own games. See this time and again, and they wonder why folks flame them when they give us something totaly useless.
I got to agree with that part.
However I find it funny when the show up after that and then try to convince all of us that were having a great time and actually get into heated arugments with the player base not only on their own forums but other web sites.
There is middle ground of decent F2P titles. There is also middle ground of GW.
The way P2P works you cannot compete with WoW. They are both better and cheaper and on top established.
There is one interesting perk of F2Ps - they have miserable customer support to cut down costs so the game has to be relatively stable and bug free. This simple perk alone helps elimitnating some failures mentioned in the article.
Also smaller MMOs with short lifespan have the advantage of offering relatively fresh experience even if they are not much more than reskin of older game. Some of them are sold as P2P though, to the dissapointment of readers of this site that demand oldchool years long experience flled with raids.
BTW, making fun game is not always conductive to business. MMOs are doomed to be time taxing repetitive affairs it seems. (Edit: See also first paragraph of the article.)
I can accept that designing a straight delivery quest is less time consuming than making one with a plot twist. How much more time consuming I can't say because I am not a game designer.
As a player, I would like to see less "filler" so that the quests which are offered are more meaningful, are better written, or at least have a purpose. With all of these new mmos on the market, I think a lot of us end up feeling we are playing the same game over and over when we are asked to kill 3 rats for no particular reason or just deliver a letter. Surely designers can be more imaginitive than that?
My focus is on the fun side. If you are going to put a quest in the game, it should at least be a little bit fun, no? If not, why is it there? I don't think being able to put on the retail box "thousands of quests" will pay off long term if almost all of them are crap.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Start a company, hire a moderately large staff that you have to pay, etc. etc..
Create a product that is going to be used/played by thousands, if not 10s of thousands... if not 100s of thousands... if not millions of people.
Skimp on your customer service because you can't see "what the big deal is" and don't think it'll be as necessary as everyone seems to think it is based on your own personal experiences.
Come back and tell us if you're still that dismissive and glib about it within 6 months after your product's release.
That said... *excellent* article, yet again. Very informative. Very well-written. Very interesting read. Well done!
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I agree. I also think that anyone that wants to PLAY games should be required to read it.
basically this is what happened scott jennings was known as "lum the mad" and had a rant site alot of game developers went there to discuss topics about mmorpg's and game in general it was popular at the time and people where making decisions on purchasing games based on reviews and the topics about games.
well mark jacobs from mythic entertainment started hanging around the site and after awhile offered scott a job ....he took the offer and left the site.
the site was then named slow news day and then after awhile wrote an article on dark ages of camelot it wasn't a bad article it gave and honest view of things where missing content wise.. scott jennings caught wind of it and went into the site and screwed up the pages and basically shut the site down by screwing with the code.
hence why people call him a sell out ...after daoc scott went to work with ncsoft to develope a mmo and the plug got pulled i guess thats why he's writing here now.
also sanya weathers wrote on lums site back in the day .
but for what it's worth lum knows his stuff.
Excellent article -- one of those rare ones where part 2 is actually better than part 1. Thanks so much!
Great article.
The scope portion is the part I hope every mmo developer reads and rereads. It's so bloody obvious that every one of these games suffers from massive scope-creep. Some handle it better than others while some (I'm looking at you Mortal) seem like they didn't even bother to hire a project manager and instead just flung a bunch of ideas at the wall to see what stuck.
It seems, from the outside looking in, that there are very few competent PMs in the mmo industry. Yes I know development is hard, but so was going to the moon, and they somehow managed to pull it off using slide rules.
Dreamers and developers with huge imaginations will only get you so far. Having these guys serve as your PM is a recipe for disaster (McQuaid and Vanguard comes to mind). You've got to have some hardline anal-retentive detail guys in charge to bring the whole project in for a smooth landing.
...
Fantastic article Mr. Jennings. It makes me hope that some course of events puts you at the helm of the next big MMO project. Maybe then we would see the product we've been yearning for.
I tend to see scope as a combination of depth and breadth - each zone needs to have enough depth that it's a fun minigame entirely on its own, but then you want it to be easy to assemble new zones out of the existing mechanics so that they they feel different but are easily assembled from existing components. (zones in this case are an abstraction - they can be different dungeons, skills, levels ). If you can't easily assemble a new zone, you're in trouble. If you don't have a fun zone, you're in trouble.
I'm surprised that there hasn't been a convergence between MMO-design and Magic: the Gathering card-game design. They strike me as very similar design/development/expansion challenges.
On the difficulty issue, I can't help but think that some of the failed games out there must have had reasonably good back ends. In the endgame of these smaller companies, I can't help but think there should be some engines out there that could be packaged up (what happens to the industry if someone takes a solid back-end from a failed game and releases it under a BSD license?) There are also people who have been able to successfully create pirate servers as a hobby, so the idea that professionals should have a hard time of it just doesn't wash for me.
The best customer service is service that never needs to be used (it always annoyed me reading about people on boards trying to use CS as if it was a 1-900 number "I'd like a rep to come entertain me"). However bugs do happen - and the most important part of dealing with them is detecting that they happen. I hate it when developers seem unaware that a bug exists - a layer of bug detection should be an essential part of the quality assurance of a subscription software of any sort.
Yeah.. Sell-out... I mean, he could have been working for EA, which is EVERY MMO developer's dream, considering their long and illustrious track record with MMO's.
You say Sell-out, I say one of the few people at Mythic with a brain.
Matt Frior was another one - He left to work for Zennimax (Possibly Elder Scrolls MMO), then there's Walter "Copper" Yarbrough (Turbine). Can you imagine if Sanya Weathers had to be the community rep for WAR, towing the EA party line?
Get real. EA is where MMO's (and their developers) go to die. More like Mark Jacobs sold out Mythic for Warhammer.. Might have made sense at the time, but look how it ended.. Even Mark got fired.
One of the smartest things Scott ever did was leave. How you can see it as otherwise is baffling.
This!
Bioware was a good company 10 years ago now is just another cash cow for EA. Unfortunatly they are lots of xbox and pc weak minded players that they are praising them like the next mesia, so overall they dont give a frack. They release a lot of games with chessy graphics and presentation and with a weak gameplay, and they sell milions. What a surprise these days? People are dumb, uninformed, patetic, and that hurts all of us. Since if they get away it the first time, you can bet your ass they will do it the 10th time and they are doing it. They are not the only one but it hurts to see them sell out like that. Oh well
I am sorry that we all cannot be as sophisticated as you and the other god like beings that hate EA. I am also sorry that by me liking Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect 2 is dooming the gaming industry that you love so much. After all I am just a weak minded mortal, from now I will ask you and the other God like beings that hate EA what I should like and play before I spend money. sarcasm off
Dude get over yourself, I like Dragon Age as much as I liked Ice winddale and Baldur’s Gate 2, as you said Bioware from 10 years ago. Just because you hate something does not mean everyone is going to see it the same as you. So saying that your opinion of Bioware and EA is a fact and we all are hurting the gaming industry is pretty low. To me it is the people that is blinded by their opinions and will not even consider anything else, that are hurting and destroying this industry; both the haters and the fanboys are to blame for this. But that is still just my opinion not fact!
I tried to get assistance in two games in recent years City of Heroes and LOTRO and got crap for customer service. Hell they didn't even bother to answer one question and the last one took them 3 weeks to get back to me only to tell me to submit a ticket to another department. I leave MMOs the minute I loose interest in the game... I have no loyalty to the companies whatsoever which includes their future games.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
Eeeeeeeeeeexcellent article! Great read! Bravo! Very true! Truthfuly Awesomesauce.
-------------------------------------
Before: developers loved games and made money.
Now: developers love money and make games.
It's not just about playing your own game. You should be playing other people's games.
You should be watching movies, reading books, absolutely immersing yourself in the genre of the game you are developing.
You should be camping the community boards of all the other games which do something similar to yours.
Because how the hell else are you going to know what works, what's popular, what sucks and what is going to kill your game?
Far too many developers seem to approach the development of their product (Sigil, I'm looking at you here!) as though it has to be created in some kind of vacuum. When people study Business, they look at case studies which show how companies thrive or fail. MMO developers must absolutely look at the same things, or we're just going to get iterations of idiocy because everyone will point blank refuse to learn from the mistakes made by themselves and others.
I'm not saying that you have to adopt every popular idea from every other game and shoehorn it into your own project. Blizzard said when reviewing player housing that it was a great idea, but they'd have to consider how it worked within WoW - just implementing it because it was 'cool' was not enough.
But conversely, they've adapted their product over and over in response to competition and to player demands. And frankly a lot of player demands come about because we see what other companies have done, and we want that too! With a side order of fries. Because that other company makes great fries and crap burgers. And you make great burgers and don't sell fries. So could you please start making fries like those guys over there? Not fries that you developed from scratch and which are made from reconstituted cardboard that you think we'd like - we already told you what we'd like.
Customer service goes beyond ticket submission for game issues.
You need accurate, prompt and helpful support for payment issues and problems with cd keys and technical issues. You need to have an appropriate avenue of appeal if you believe you have been mistreated by a representative of the company. You need a way to provide feedback about bugs and improvements, and a way for that feedback to be acknowledged. You need a way to raise concerns about policy violations, and to report anti social behaviour.
That's all customer support.
Yeah.. Sell-out...
BLAH BLAH BLAH
....clipped....
This!
Bioware was a good company 10 years ago now is just another cash cow for EA. Unfortunatly they are lots of xbox and pc weak minded players that they are praising them like the next mesia, so overall they dont give a frack. They release a lot of games with chessy graphics and presentation and with a weak gameplay, and they sell milions. What a surprise these days? People are dumb, uninformed, patetic, and that hurts all of us. Since if they get away it the first time, you can bet your ass they will do it the 10th time and they are doing it. They are not the only one but it hurts to see them sell out like that. Oh well
I am sorry that we all cannot be as sophisticated as you and the other god like beings that hate EA. I am also sorry that by me liking Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect 2 is dooming the gaming industry that you love so much. After all I am just a weak minded mortal, from now I will ask you and the other God like beings that hate EA what I should like and play before I spend money. sarcasm off
Dude get over yourself, I like Dragon Age as much as I liked Ice winddale and Baldur’s Gate 2, as you said Bioware from 10 years ago. Just because you hate something does not mean everyone is going to see it the same as you. So saying that your opinion of Bioware and EA is a fact and we all are hurting the gaming industry is pretty low. To me it is the people that is blinded by their opinions and will not even consider anything else, that are hurting and destroying this industry; both the haters and the fanboys are to blame for this. But that is still just my opinion not fact!
Highlighted in orange = heh....whatever
Highlighted in gold = brilliant and insightful
Of course....that's only my opinion.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Let's actually compare the two articles and see if they match up.
1. Ultima Online. Reason for failure - release of better games.
Cause A. Scope creep? No
Cause B. Technology? No, unless you count no 3D as technology
Cause C. Service? No, though it wasn't good
Cause D. Design? Personally, yes, but since there are thousands of people clamoring for the same design, that's a no.
So 0 for 1.
2. Everquest. Reason for failure - too much questing
Cause A. Scope creep? No
Cause B. Technology? No
Cause C. Service? No, in fact, changing the quest is customer service
Cause D. Design? Well, the game gained 500K subscribers after the quest was implemented, no.
0 for 2
I am not going to go on. The articles don't match up. Saying that these games failed is like saying Baldurs Gate failed, because no one is playing it anymore.
Well,
I'm just a player who's been gaming online since Legend of Mir 2 (Wait.. that was 9-10 years ago! :S ) and I kind of agree completely with your points.
As a RPG fan I love Bioware games (and I put my trust in them, believing SW:TOR will be the next Great Game) and as a MMO gamer I loved the article.
I don't know why that much hate towards EA, seriously, is not like SOE (game it touches game it kills, take PoxNora as a good example or SWG and Vanguard... still hurting here); but I wanted to add something else to the discussion.
The Endgame: Games are supposed to be fun, not a job (things like "damn! I didn't do the daily quests" or "oops! i'm gonna be late to the event that occurs every 12h and gives coins-tokens to get the omfgiwanna items").
I still have to play a game where the endgame is as fun as leveling and that imho is as important as every other aspect of the game.
Why play when I know that, in the end, i'm gonna need a bunch of people swollen with good items in order to get better items? I still hope to see a game where player skill is much important than equip but i'm going offtopic here ^_^
Imho, developers not only should have fun and take everything wrote in the article in consideration but should sit on a table and ask themselves "after months or years of playing, when they reach the cap level/end-game, what would they want to do? how are we going to motivate them to keep on playing without being forced to create a new char in order to enjoy the game again?"
Here is where every single MMO i've played fails (again, that's my oppinion as a casual-hardcore player) but that's ok if they wanna do like Blizzard - play, be bored, we don't care cause you will leave but lots gonna come in, and we don't care about anything at all as long as there is people coming and paying - or like SOE - play and pay, we're going to screw you and change the whole game after 2 years and everything you did will be meaningless.
Argh, i ended whining >< sorry, but hope you get my point