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General: Grinds My Gears: IP MMOs
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
MMOs based around some of culture's most enduring properties are less-rare than they used to be. Whether it's Lord of the Rings Online or LEGO Universe, MMOs based on our favorite iconic TV shows, comics, cartoons and movies are flourishing. But is this trend a good thing? Have those MMOs flourished? In today's Grinds My Gears, MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood takes a look at just that. Read on!
But in the end, it’s more than that and really doesn’t have anything to do with Transformers at all. Instead, it’s about IP MMOs in general. They just aren’t cutting it for me anymore. By and large, they just don’t work with audiences and with a few glaring exceptions tend to end up a hollow shell of the original source material, or worse, they don’t make it at all.
Read more of Jon Wood's Grinds My Gears: IP MMOs.
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This is a major beef of mine with the genre. Why is everyone trying to spin off garbage MMOs based on a movie. The Mummy MMO? Really?! I would love to meet the dope who not only thought this was a good idea, but is actually investing the cash to make this a reality.
These IP MMOs have a record of being disasters. The Mummy wasn't even a good movie, why would you make a game based off of that? Good movies have spawned bad games, a bad movie will spawn....I don't even know....
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Even worse than that, some of the IP's get picked up by developers that have no business trying to make MMO's, eg like Perpetual and the nobodies that picked up the Wheel of Time IP. Even Cryptic did a less than stellar job on Star Trek. The only decent IP in the market is Lord of the Rings and Turbine has only implemented a small portion of that world. Conan was another poor implementation. SWG was a decent implementation until it was made into a theme park.
What is not mentioned is that it is even harder to find sucess with an original IP MMO. If you are looking for investor interest and instant name recogintion and general attention, you still only get that with an outside IP.
AOC and Warhammer had great box sales and that is largely due to the IP. These games did not live up to expectations, not because they did not live up to the preconceptions of fans of the IP, but because they made mistakes and or overpromised and essentially were not great games.
I want to see a similar list of original IP and you will also see even more failures. Ex. Auto-assualt, Tabula Rasa, and APB. And these were just a few that were shut down. There are plenty more that are very low performers. Vanguard anyone.
Is this article really pointing a finger at the IPs themselves and not the atrocious "interpretation" into video game form of the game companies and developers? That's like blaming the Final Fantasy IP for that horrible movie based on it, Spirits Within. The problem isn't the IP or use of it, it's the shortsighted and limited adaptation into an alternate media form. In other words the problem is in the design of these games. Either stay true to the IP and deliver what people want or leave it alone.
For example, with Star Trek. They took a MASSIVE universe of characters and history and crunched into this shallow, instance based, barely a world, "game" that seems more at home in a local arcade then on home PCs claiming to be a persistent online "world".
Same problem with AoC. I'm going to say it again and again, every time these games fail it is due to a huge lack of "world" building/development and lack of passion and attention to details in all areas of the game.
This is easily seen in a game like Warhammer Online. So much potential yet it just seems thrown together and the PVE and PVP didn't really gel together correctly so that now the game is mostly about it's PVP and the PVE is a side note.
Lotro is the other way around, great focus on PVE but the PVP is a side note and leaves many players wanting.
Anyway, my opinion on this is more "world" and less worry about the IP.
The problem is that IP Games come with expectation and some of those expectaions are unrealistic.
As examples;
- a Harry potter MMO was discussed - but how is it possible to do some of the things from the movies within an MMO? As one example - time travel - how can some players be allowed to travel in time?
- In games like WH40K:DMO there is a huge amount of lore - probably too much
Also IP Games limit imagination - suppose you were to design a Star Wars MMO and come up with a really cool idea for space combat - but it doesn't exactly match the Star Wars space combat model... what to you you do?
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
With the wealth of really good writing out there, old sci-fi, fantasy, why would you bother with the IP of some movie? Hell, the lore would write itself in the new game, "Foundation" as based off the works of Isaac Asimov.
I agree, sometimes the IP choices that they choose to turn into games baffles me. Like Transformers. Is there really enough there to warrant an MMORPG? I don't think there is. That IP is better suited for action games on consoles.
Someone above mentioned the Wheel of Time. I personally think its the perfect IP to adapt into an MMORPG. Everything they need to build the world is there in extreme detail and it's massive enough that they could build on it for years.
Maybe developers should hire some of the Literature Majors who are looking for jobs!
Yes. Most emphatically, yes. Everything has to be written first anyway. Everything you watch or play is written down first. I hereby volunteer to be the first Lit. Major to help design MMORPGs.
Very easily actually. The entire Rift game is based around players that have travelled back in time.
Time travel actually makes a very plausible explanation for why different people are able to replay the same content (i.e. killing same boss) over and over again. In "reality" only one person can kill a dragon, but with time travel, everyone can go back in time and be the person to kill the dragon. This can help explain a whole lot of things.
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That aside, the main problem with IP games is that IPs are usually popular due not to the world, but to a few very specific characters within that world. An MMO needs to be based on a popular WORLD, not popular characters or a popular event.
SWG was a good game while it focused on the world of star wars. Once it was changed to making you Han Solo's best buddy it got worse and worse. At the same time, popularity among the unwashed masses was vice versa. When it launched people felt it just wasn't "star wars enough" because you couldn't become Darth Vader.
Star Wars is an amazing world to set an MMO in. The difficulty is taking all the characters out of it and still making the world appealing.
I think the best untapped IPs are ones where there is no high attachment to main characters or storylines. Dune and Battletech come to mind - there are vast and popular world's, but people don't really need to go over the same stuff as the main characters. Star Trek is another good one because with so many different crews and ships, those can be made to exist elsewhere.
STO failed to understand the basic premise of the series. Star Trek is about 1000 people on a ship, not about 1000 people each with a ship.
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Imo of all upcoming mmos based on a popular ip only SWTOR hasa chance and a big part of that chance is not coming from the ip.
I would love a good planned/produced mechwarrior mmo, this world is tailormade for a mmorpg !!!
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Some IPs aren't meant to be MMOs. But the Stargate MMO... is stuck in limbo somewhere
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Honestly if a person wants to develop an MMO based on an IP they should watch every single episode of the show and in some way be a fan. My favorite part of Star Trek was when they'd be stuck with some sort of riddle of ethical dillema and the crew was forced to try and come up with a solution to it. The only part of any Star Trek that STO was able to adapt was the opening dog fights between space ships in almost any Star Trek movies.
Developing IPs is a great idea and should continue to happen. However, the developers have to realize they're making these games for fans of the genre. If you are developing a game called Star Wars: The Old Republic you shouldn't be targetting exclusively to WoW players.
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They actually do that sometimes. ArcheAge's main story is being written by a popular Korean fiction writer, for example.
LOTRO is a good example of how to do it right or as right as it can be. Even then though they have constant 'lore' issues. What I find interesting is someone else's comment that what they did was not implement the whole thing. Maybe that's the secret - implement enough to get the flavor but don't try to tell the whole story in the game at launch.
Basically for me it's just like the differences between reading a book/watching the movie. In most cases if I read the book first the movie disappoints, if I watched the movie first the book disappoints. Throw another medium into the mix and it can be too many interpretations of the experience to fully enjoy.
Though SWG is also an example of how to do it right in its own way - what I loved about episodes 4, 5, and 6 was the world. What SWG gives us is the world - never mind that the game elements fluxuated too much for players to handle. That said while the world shined the representation of movie characters was a major disappointment - I remember the first time I met Hans Solo in game - I was like wow he's so tiny - too me he'd always been bigger than life (probably because on the screen he is much bigger than me, saw Episode 4 on big screen in the 70s).
Always appeared to me that devs should focus on game play because in the end that's what keeps players coming back for more. Yes IP can hook a bunch of folks, but hooking them is only one part of gathering a player base, then you've got to keep em.
The difficulty of Age of Conan to find constant subscribers has nothing to do with the IP or expectations of Conan fans, ratehr it has to do with the release of an unfinished game and poor customer service. This is true for several IP conversions. Age of Conan since launch has had a stigma about it for its unfinished and buggy gameplay. In fact, it was not until a year after launch and a new focus the game became 'more' stable. Despite these bugs the gameplay in the origianl game was actually very nice and true to the IP and was very refreshing.
This is one example where it was not the IP that brought it down, it was a problem that plagues many MMOs, irrelevant of their IP. If you got lots of bugs and a bad customer service then you will have difficulty, even with an awesome IP.
Well, I own a few hundred Conan comics and would have to say that they are very accurate to the source material. I've been playing since launch and I love running into the many characters that I have found from the comics and books.
The problem with AoC was never the material, but the state of the game at launch. I have gone back to AoC after a brief stint in the boooring Rift and am still loving it.
Your love of the halfling leaf has clearly slowed your mind...
There are a couple of table-top RPG and/or wargame titles that would make good MMOs. That is, if they were made not with the intent to beat WoW subs and they weren't themeparked up. For instance, a Shadowrun game done sandbox style that allowed players to join together to form corporations (and not only in name; the corporations actually produced products), and could hold territory and build compunds, and that let corporations put out contracts for "X job" against other corporation (where the job actually had some negative impact).
I just think the problem with most of those established IP, especially DDO, was that you had people desiginng the game that had no idea of what it took to capture what made that IP popular in the first place. If DDO had of used the Forgottem realms setting (plenty of content to pull from there, where developers always complain about not being able to keep up, here would have been a non issue) Turbine had of brought to life the entirety of Faerun, including the Underdark, and had done so with the 3.5 ruleset, that game would certainly be the second higest grossing Western MMO to date.
But, they veered away from the experience that the overwhelming majority of the IP's established customer base expected and well, we all know the rest of the story.
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I can't speak to this too much simply because... I don't want to, but what I can say is the following:
IP games in general kind of suck, overall. Most especially those done AFTER a great film success, like the spiderman movies, or anything where they try to capitalize on the success of an IP simply due to its newfound widespread success. Transformers is just one of those titles. It isn't just MMOs... its usually the entire genre. The IP sells the games, so its okay for them to skimp on the gameplay... they've been doing that for decades.
Second. SWTOR is a very big MMO that many people are waiting for... but its based not just around the IP but around two of the most popular RPGs in the last 10 years. That being said, it wouldn't be MUCH different than had they made a Mass Effect MMO instead.... however, its unlikely they'll use ME as an MMO anytime soon as it most likely would compete directly with SWTOR.
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I get the feeling that getting the rights to make an IP MMO is not small change; and the IP has to be paid for; as a result cost are cut and so is the quality of the game
OR
The company buying the IP is going to make a low budget MMO (because they can or because thats all they can do) and making the Game on said IP actually boost their sales more that if the attempted something original
I agree, but also think about this, I develop a game for "X" number of dollors and it sales for "Y" of dollars
I get an IP and it cost less than "X" number of dollars (Because I use a smaller Dev team thus a crappy release and game, buggy ect...) and it sales for the same level of "Y" of dollars; I made my money "in house" by cutting cost and let the IP make up for the cost; course makes the IP look bad, but its business right.....lmao
The single biggest detriment to licensed IP games, not just MMOs, is that 99 out of 100 times the developers try to figure out how to make the IP conform to their game systems, instead of developing their game systems to conform to the IP.
I think in truth we have no way of knowing exactly how a game is doing financially. I understand that ppl look at AoC and WAR and think that they arent succesful games, but you dont need WoW numbers to make money for the developer. There is no doubt at all in my mind that these two games have made money both having box sales of 1mil+ afaik.
Actually WAR is one of my favorite games (for as long as I was playing=P) and what made it bad wasnt the IP but design desicions (like funnel players into smaller and smaller areas as the campaign progresses and eventually crashing the server at fort every god damn time). I cant tell for all the other games, most I havent played. But do ppl honestly believe that a game costing more money then it has brought in would still be going year after year? Makes little sense.
I have played a lot if mmo's and some of those where IP mmo's.
The warhammer game had a big flaw from the start. 2 factions i mean how can you hope to make every player that plays his race happy with "your a faction now".
And that is not even looking at the s**t out of luck player who's race didnt fit (skaven, undead to name a pair).
But back to the point.
The big problem most devs have when getting a IP to work is 2 things :
1. The IP is a world ! ( even if it is only 1 city or 1 ship its a universe in it self and not a dang themepark )
Yes you can help people find stuff tell a story but stop pushing people from 1 point to the other most story's are that, a story it has a begining, middel and a end, not a end and the bit that gets you there !
2. misunderstanding the IP.
This is a biggy, not only do you need to know how the game you want to make fits in the IP but also how do you place all the players of the game in the IP.
I think that that will be the big problem that Marvel Online will have if its going to be a true MMO, how does the IP handel 100 magneto's or any other char.
Same goes for LOTRO its a nice game but they misted the point that not everybody is one of the fellowship yet they do try and the players dont help.
Look at the number of legolasses or any other spelling that is used for any of the main characters.
So in closing my tips for a IP using firm would be :
1. First understand the IP.
Not only the book/movie but how will the ip handel 1000's of players all trying to be one of the char in the movie /book.
And more inportant can the IP handel that (if no then step away from a mmo) many people ? take battlestar galactica how many players are there that play a human hmm more than there are survivors in the series heck both series togethere.
2. Understand the IP. ( hmm whas that not point 1 ? )
Yes however this is a different aspact of the IP namely the game it self does the IP support the port to a game, in other words can the game support all the things that happen in the IP.
To get back to battlestar galactica yes flying is space ships can be done in a game, but where is the politics where are the personal relationships and drama these cant be put in the game as is.
3. Understand the char path.
To make a game all about the endgame is not going to work if LOTR (the book) was done as a mmo it would have been 2 pages about the journey and the rest about the epic fight in mount doom.
The game should be a story that is expirienced by the player through the use of a avatar in place of looking at a movie or reading a book.
So the story has to have a beginning a middel and a end . (but mmo's dont end?)
Correct the mmo has no real end that is why the avatar goes on a new journey and finds more adventure's
(Also the end of the story does not have to mean the end of leveling nor the beginning char creation).
Not have to do the same dungeon a zijloun times, in the story of jason and the argonauts i cant seem to remember the part where they ended up having to grind the last dungeon to get the golden fleece.
thus if you cant work the game without having to repeat stuff then step back and look at it again !
I could go on for a while like this but i think if devs would look before leaping the IP MMO's could be a lot more succesfull.
And finishing the game to a level that is at least playable and not a buggy heap of **** will also work.
P.S. English is not my native language, so please look over the typos
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