Where MMOs have to go to become good once again?

Axehilt

Antiquated said:

:shrug: It would be more of a correlation than a new theory, anyway.

Veteran Gamers, the players most familiar with mmorpg systems, would tend to (as a group) average the least enjoyment from them. (paraphrased: been there, done that)

After twenty years, mmorpg gamers (again as a group) tend to have a high percentage of veterans. (Surly Old Pharts)

It would certainly go far toward explaining this website.

"Familiarity" is basically mastery, implying a high level of knowledge on a subject (an ability to predict its patterns.)

• Think about an early MMORPG you spent a lot of time in.  How familiar are you with that game?
• Now think about some recent MMORPG. How familiar are you with that game?
  

Answers will of course be "very" and "not very" (respectively).  That's why players play modern MMORPGs if they're fans of the genre.

With the old game you've mastered its patterns and you're very familiar with it, and as a result you're probably not playing that game currently (it was fun for its time but it's "old" now. It's too familiar.)  With the new game you haven't mastered all of the new patterns it introduced -- while it shares some basic similarities with that older game, nearly every detail is different:

• The combat is unfamiliar.
• The monsters are unfamiliar.
• The world is unfamiliar.
• The players are unfamiliar.
• The crafting is unfamiliar.
• The lore is unfamiliar.

So you can see how even though the broadest strokes -- the biggest patterns -- of a game are similar, the rest of the game isn't and there are many patterns left to learn, which is why games in the same genre can be enjoyable for fans of that genre.

Occasionally there are games which are genuine clone with very few differences, and in those cases players will abandon the game rapidly after trying it (unless they hadn't mastered the original game's patterns yet, which is possible in particularly deep games.)

VengeSunsoar

Actually most of those things are the same. Combat, crafting monsters, world are all very very similar, not identical but certainly not requiring a new schema (the pattern of neural connections needed for processing information and muscle recruitment), in many (most?) mmorpg games anyway.

edit -while we disagree on many of the games (I have seen the video's of the warlock in WoW and no that doesnt' seem more complex than anything else). I do agree with the general premise of pattern mastery.

Axehilt

VengeSunsoar said:

Actually most of those things are the same. Combat, crafting monsters, world are all very very similar, not identical but certainly not requiring a new schema (the pattern of neural connections needed for processing information and muscle recruitment), in many (most?) mmorpg games anyway.

edit -while we disagree on many of the games (I have seen the video's of the warlock in WoW and no that doesnt' seem more complex than anything else). I do agree with the general premise of pattern mastery.

If they were actually the same, the MMORPG genre actually would have died.

Instead, significant differences exist.  In Game A, you eventually learned the best weapon to craft was Weapon A.  In Game B the exact same type of crafting (have ingredients -> press button) existed, but Weapon A was nowhere to be found -- so you had to eventually discover Weapon B was the best and required its own distinct set of ingredients.

And that's just one of thousands of differences in Game B that cause it to be a significantly different game.

It's a spectrum of course: the more similarities exist, the less patterns there are left to master (since you'll have mastered them from previous games), and the less duration the new game will remain interesting.

An extreme end of the spectrum therefore exists where almost everything is different, but at that point we have to point out the other major factor: players prefer a certain amount of familiarity.

In fact Koster's book specifically points out that the patterns that produce the most fun are the ones where things are setup so that you're on the verge of discovery.  This implies both that the pattern is something new (you can't discover it if you've discovered it before) and something somewhat familiar (you can't discover the theory of relativity unless you're familiar with many surrounding concepts.)

A Theory of Fun doesn't explicitly mention that spectrum and its middle ground, however it does mention how the best gameplay patterns are basically pre-packaged patterns ready for the player's discovery and that implies patterns familiar enough for the player to actually make the discovery, yet unfamiliar enough that they haven't already been mastered.

Any experienced gamer is going to recognize that's how the best games are set up.

When you play Portal you don't start on the final level where a high level of several portal-related skills is required.  You start on level 1.  At first the only skill required is moving.   Then you discover you can stand on a button to open a door.  Then you discover you can place blocks onto buttons to hold them down for you. And gradually things become more elaborate, stair-stepping you from skill to skill, with new levels always being a combination of familiar and unfamiliar: patterns ready-made to be discovered.