20+ years on... NA, Europe, Russia, Mid/South Asia, Japan... who is winning the MMORPG wars?

TwistedSister77

Sorry, couldn't fit every location into my title.

Basically, MMORPGs have different themes and rule sets developed from the regional cultures they were established in.  

This is predominantly a US site, so we constantly say things like "Asian Grinder" when a Korean game or something like it is ported from the far east.  Our gamers over the seas can love it, but we might despise it.  Likewise with games we fully enjoy.

So quickly, innovation.  I think the innovation of true mainstream MMORPGS squarely goes to the US back at the end of the 1990's (UO, Everquest). 

I don't want to give too many opinions right now, but the Europeans, Russians, Asians all had pretty big strides that made their mark on MMORPGs.  

A few questions:

What regional studio surprised you? (Company/Title)

Do you think the MMORPG players worldwide are just different in what they want / how they play?  If so, why?

Kyleran

Clearly the answer has to be mobile gaming, right?

Sovrath

TwistedSister77 said:

Do you think the MMORPG players worldwide are just different in what they want / how they play?  If so, why?

Probably.

Many years ago, when I was playing lineage 2, there were a few stories about how the koreans played as opposed to western players.

One was that they would line their characters up in rows so that they could systematically all get buffs. Unlike the western players who all mob the buffers screaming "buffs, buffs please."

Another was that, in the western game, some players lured a large boss into one of our towns and the boss decimated the sellers (players) in the town. This did happen on my server, could have happened on some others.

There was another story that said some players who owned a castle lured some castle boss to the nearest town to do the same thing.

when it was asked what korean developers have done to stop this on the korean servers it was said "korean players don't do this, they just play the game."

So if that's true take that for what it's worse.

I'll say that, also in lineage 2, I was leveling in an area when a player threw a party invite. "sure" I said because it's easier leveling in a group. We then ran across a smaller group of farmers who also wanted to group with us. It was then I realized that the person I was grouping wiht was a farmer. Suddenly the chat exploded in chinese/english words and I realized they were haggling or setting the terms of who got what and how much. After that went back and forth they were set to grind.

It was one of the fastest and most organized grind groups I was ever in. The buffers/healers were always right there for buffs or heals or giving mana and we managed to grind for quite a long time.

This was a bit before farmers used a lot of bots so it was an interesting group. I think because I was a westerner they tried to speak or at least practice their english when we rested.

iixviiiix

The left win and games get ban .

cameltosis

Define "winning"

If "winning" means most money earned, then probably Asia (it's a big place!)

If "winning" means largest number of MMORPGs developed, probably Asia again (though, I would question how many are actually massively multiplayer)

If "winning" means quality, innovation or some other ephemeral measurement, well, thats impossible to separate from personal preference.

Also, I really don't know where a lot of MMOs are developed! In my mind, there's broadly 3 categories:

1) Western

2) Eastern

3) Other random crap that probably sucks

Finally, it doesn't really bother me who might be technically winning, for my personal preferences, they all suck balls and I haven't had anything worth investing my time in for years. Action combat gets boring after a few hours, and F2P lowers the quality of the community too much. But just about everything is action combat and/or F2P.

Iselin

I'm a Western mythology chauvinist for my RPGs. Elves, dwarves, fairies, trolls, orcs, dragons... Norse, Roman, Greek, Egyptian mythology... I grew up with those things and can easily relate to them.

I have a harder time relating to Eastern mythology and themes especially when I'm forced to fight sentient cabbage and ride around on oversized chickens.

So for me there really is no race I'm interested in.

It's pretty clear though that the prolonged death rattle of MMORPGs hasn't happened in Korea to the same (any?) extent as in the West. So, looking at the global market and continued production of costly MMORPGs there is no question that Korea wins that race.

Wizardry

FFXi is diverse,it uses mythology from ALL cultures.Also the first game and likely still is the only game with an auto translator.So English and Japanese players could communicate with a decent sized library of words.
I feel too many people drink the cool aid propaganda NA media,marketing are supplying them with.

Japan for example has been making rpg's for over 50 years,longer than likely 75% of this websites users.Innovation imo also came mostly from Asia.The problem is they predominantly aim for the flashy arcade style game designs,similar to ARPG type gameplay.

That however does not mean it is 100% that way because Square Enix is JPN and they don't make ARPG's and instead have always made slower more grindy games design.

One of my biggest peeves for mmorpg designs has been how stagnant they have become since Wow.ECO systems are the one idea that SHOULD be in every mmorpg but still does not exist today outside of one game>>ATLAS.

Ultima Online tried to incorporate an eco system and that would have truly been innovative for that time but they failed and scrapped the idea.If this Koster dude was so brilliant he could have designed it to work but nope he is just another overrated NA developer.

Theocritus

Kyleran said:

Clearly the answer has to be mobile gaming, right?

"You all have phones right?"

Po_gg

Interesting thread idea, Twisted!

Imo nobody won it, since the genre is dying.

On its heydays I believe it was an even "battle" in all three categories of @camel (profit, numbers and quality), each region represented itself well.

TwistedSister77 said:

Do you think the MMORPG players worldwide are just different in what they want / how they play?  If so, why?

As Sovrath said, they really are different, and that difference is mirrored in the games as well. "Asian grinder", JRPG, etc. the style/game design differences are noticeable due to that.

For the why, my guess is on cultural differences, but honestly have no reference nor research on it, so it's only a hunch.

TwistedSister77 said:

What regional studio surprised you? (Company/Title)

Sticking to the "local" (Europe), I'd say Funcom.

AO was pretty good (though with a rough launch), then AoC was even better (with a bumpy launch too), and TSW was one of the best MMORPGs I've had the luck to play (RIP...). Unfortunately they went on a freefall recently, with a loud scream, appearing in their new logo as well

Honorary mention, Ankama.

Dofus was flying under my radar, but Wakfu is pretty darn fun, with interesting mechanics.

cheyane

In the early days games like Everquest and FFXI were great games that were both deep and had very good class systems with grouping content. FFXI being Japanese is an excellent example of a game from Asia that was comparable to Everquest (my gold standard).

Later on games like Lineage came from Korea but I am not in a position to comment on their gameplay because I eschewed it due to its PvP nature.

The game that surprised me was City of Heroes by Cryptic Studios because of the intense fun you could have in large groups and they had a very diverse and highly adaptable group structure that did not require the holy trinity to work. Masterminds are the single best class ever created in my opinion.

Funcom created Anarchy Online and that was a good game too mainly because of its sci fi nature and its skill system. The classes were also very unique and their mission system was groundbreaking.

I do believe Asians mainly Koreans do approach games a little differently because they don't seem to mind the grind as much as North American and European players. They also like PvP and most of their games are PvP oriented. 

Right now I feel that more MMORPGs are being developed in Asia than the US or Europe. The games we have in North America seem to be older games like WoW, LotRO and ESO that are still chugging along. I am not really sure any North American AAA game studio is looking to build a game like Everquest. So perhaps our hopes lie in Asia but the PvP nature of their games will turn me away from them.

maskedweasel

The winner, hands down, Asia and Mobile. They can literally chain-release games that play themselves, with the same features, limited class customization options, and in the end, they not only survive, they thrive. People aren't even playing the games, they're essentially watching them play themselves, and all they do is enter a credit card. 

Western MMORPGs are kind of at a stand still, though even in that case, you see mobile slowly becoming the dominant platform. 

Can't argue too much, I've been playing Warhammer Odyssey, and it's an honest to goodness MMORPG. It has its problems, but as an old school MMO purist, it's probably the closest representation of an MMORPG I've seen in the last 5 years. 

Real auction houses. You're required to group. Items are actually rare. I'm actually a little worried. 

If you remember, when MMORPG's started pushing to consoles, everyone worried that MMO's would get "dumbed down" for consoles. I kind of anticipate developers trying to push cross platform MMORPG's. It might work, but, in the process of figuring it out, I think we'll see a ton of horrible games hit the market.

Mendel

TwistedSister77 said:

<snip>

Do you think the MMORPG players worldwide are just different in what they want / how they play?  If so, why?

That's probably a very astute observation.  If I were feeling a bit better, I'd probably even offer that gaming preferences are shaped by out local cultural predispositions and exposures.  That creates a series of expectations for both players and developers that neither side really understands fully, or appreciates.

All I know for certain is that games produced by studios in Antarctica leave me a bit chilly.

AlBQuirky

I have little experience with "other market MMOs", so I really don't know. I know that the one Japanese player in my guild in EQ had a different playstyle (goals?) than us Americans, neither better nor worse, just different.

My one excursion in a Korean MMO was Mu Online long, long ago. It never caught my attention for long.

Haven't many "Eastern" MMOs ben brought over? It seems like Arch Age was one such. Weren't there others that have been "Westernized?"

I'm sure the many different cultures approach gaming in general in different ways

PS: As to who has "won..." I couldn't say