Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Looking back: The story-arc of the MMO genre
CrazedBeaver
Member Posts: 73
Look, I don't want to be the guy saying "the genre is dead"... but the signs are hard to miss. Lets look at how it all played out.
Early Era;
I'll admit, I'm not the best person to talk about these, because I was kind of late to the party. But it seems clear that once the idea of character building in a persistent world caught on, the genre was officially born and there was a lot of excitement in the gaming world.
Middle Era;
Innovations flourished. There weren't a lot of games, so each had the opportunity have a substantially large audience. Which makes for good social gaming. The willingness of players to pay subscription fees was appetizing to financiers, and gamers enjoyed what was to many a new gaming experience.
Late Era;
Gamers had been so busy leveling up, that they didn't realize the subscription fees they were paying amounted to buying the same game many times over. This was such an obvious cash cow for developers, that every two-bit computer science major was now making a MMO. The market was flooded with chinese clones that brought nothing new to the table. Soon the competition was too much and "free to play" became the only way to get a substantial audience in any one game.
Final Era (?);
After the torrent of unoriginal FTP MMO games, players were unwilling to download 5 gigs of trash to find out what they already knew; these games are getting stale. A string of failed games followed, unable to maintain attention for more than a month or two. Developers and financiers saw the end was near and stopped investing. Gamers demanded ever better graphics, which translated to ever bigger budgets. This fragmented the market into two halves: The big budget MMO, and the 2 guys in a basement MMO. Innovation halted, interest waned. And thats where we are now.
So... am I full of s%#t? What do you think about the MMO gerne, past present and future?
Comments
Sounds about right, but the flood of imports was initially from Korea, not China.
Something to note though, Korea went through what you call the final era a few years ago, they came out the other side with games like C9, Mabinogi Heroes, Dragon Nest and soon Blade & Soul and TERA, along with a slew of first person shooters, platform games and racing games.
Basically, after your final era, there should be a second innovation phase. We will see if anyone in the west has the balls to attempt to really innovate, especially given the recent failure of APB.
Nope...
FIrst, there was MMORPG, then came World of Warcraft... which is a MMO.. and themepark... now everything is a themepark..
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
Well, I'll do one that I think is more accurate.
Very Early era: Started with some games that were not full scale MMORPGs They did a little, but the genre didn't really take off. They were precursors. But then UO came on the scene as a full scale MMORPG, very worldly. Started the whole ball rolling. Unfortunately, rampant PKing was killing it, but it still moved along.
Early era: EQ came along, advanced to full 3D, went to D+D DIKU style. Lots of problems in design, such as waiting and "camping" for needed items. Lots of good things too in the old "worldly" and "Sandbox" ways.
Lineage also came along, actually shortly before EQ. Also full 3D but a PvP centered game. Did very well in the East.
Followed quickly by games like AC (Asheron's Call). Full 3D also, a mix of the DIKU style and "worldly", perhaps the most "different" game in general since UO.
Middle era: DAoC came along. Fixed a lot of problems learned from EQ. Same basic sort of game as EQ. Lacked some of EQ's depth in "worldly" ways.
Some other games also came along, same story basically as DAoC.
SWG came along and tried to get back to some of the old Worldly and Sandbox style. Failed to attract huge numbers because it also incorporated some of the "level grind" style of game play, disguised as "skills" under a tree. Sort of stuck in the middle, and some great ideas went wasted when they decided to make it more like EQ and others, and almost burried themselves in the process.
Late era: WoW came along. Same sort of game as EQ, called "another EQ clone". But fixed all perceived problems, made the game easier, quicker to play. Also added lots and lots of cool things. Very polished, a dream! At least to newer gamers to the genre. Completely threw out the idea of "Worldly" and "Sandbox" in game play but at the same time kept the image of a "world".
Almost all new games made like WoW. Some deviations, but the game play was the same, the core principles were the same. "WoW clone" replaced "EQ clone". All of these newer games had far less than WoW in all aspects. WoW still rules the numbers.
Players start saying "with every new game, they give us less and less", refering to "sandbox" and "worldly".
Some new games come out and completely miss on making a "world". DDO for example, as well as other games take the "lessons learned" from WoW's success way too far. Instancing used heavily.
Failures litter the landscape.
New, cheap games come out under the FtP system, trying to get players in, then capitalize. Some early successes from the East. Games in failure decide that they have no other options left and go FtP also, trying to get people in, then monitize them.
A notable exception in this era is Eve Online. The only game to actually do something different, going back to "Sandbox" and "worldly" principles, if not actually making a world to walk on.
The future: New games on the horizons are either more "WoW clones", or completely different and not really MMOs at all. But the whole industry is in flux. Failures of recent "WoW clones" have everyone nervous. The new games in production in this mold won't even talk about that part, instead focusing on minor differences as if they are "revolutionary". Failure is walking in the shadows like the Grim Reaper. "Social Gaming" and strategy games are getting looks as the only place left to turn. Many top game's brass are buying burial plots. Companies are boarding up their windows so their brass can't jump, but only for insurance reasons.
Once upon a time....
Post apocalyptic era: MMOs went back to being played by those who were actually interested in the persistent world, character building aspect. Many of the companies who developed the original products, being bought out by large conglomerates, ceased to be names after the commercial crash of the MMO market sector. Origin, SOE, and Turbine ceased to exist as their doors were shut by corporate keymasters who held all their contracts. However studios like Aventurine, CCP, MindArk, and others who had remained independent at this point suddenly found their relevance to the genre increased. Instead of trying to capture the wandering player these games could focus more and more on the quality of content they delivered. MOB and combat intuitive abilities were deepened and explored. Virtual worlds started taking on a life of their own. Without the pressure on them to conform to the norm, these studios were finally free to fully explore their own ideas.
Laudanum - Romance. Revenge. Revolution.
Crappy, petty people breed and raise crappy, petty kids.
Good point. But I still feel it was the apparently government funded Chinese tidal wave of absolute trash that did the most damage.
Well, even now 9 out of 10 free to play MMOs are Korean not Chinese. Admitedly the likes of Perfect World has highlighted that part of the market, but on volumne of games, there remain many more from Korea than China.
Touche
this next wave of mmos are 90% combat and flashy animations. arcade style gameplay, small group content, simple crafting, quick level grind, exploring is on rails.
its gonna be at minimum 5 years before we see another EvE caliber sandbox.
Yes, its going to be awhile before sandbox comes back around, but one step at a time.
In Korea, first they diversified the types of games, you get big open seamless worlds right down to small lobby based 2D games. Then they innovated on combat, going from turn based tactical combat at one end to real time hack n slash arcade combat at the other. The latest is the move create great new worlds to play in, you have lots of casual pick up and play games but you're also seeing now some really indepth worlds, with the possible pinnicle of that being ArcheAge, a true sandbox.
We'll get there eventually