MMORPG Thesis Conclusion: Focused on enhancing future MMOs (Thanks go to many mmorpg.com users)

A few years ago I conducted an MMORPG survey, with a link from these very forums. Most of my respondents were also from these forums, even though the link to the survey was posted on many websites. So I would like to start off by once again thanking the participants who helped with the data for my thesis.



Recently the paper I wrote has been published in ACM: Computers in Entertainment's online journal: Volume 5, Issue 4, Article no. 9 (Published March 2008). The URL for this publication is at http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1324198.1324207 . You can view the abstract here and also download the full text in PDF format. Now, if you are a student you should have access through your University to obtain the PDF.



For everyone else, as it is a copyrighted material (I cannot provide direct links to the paper), I would like to show you the final conclusions of the paper:

CONCLUSION



The survey clearly shows that the majority of the respondents preferred to play MMORPGs set in fantasy and medieval worlds or in futuristic settings. As outlined in Section 4, the most successful or influential MMORPGs belong to one or both of these categories. The trend of setting MMORPGs in fantasy or futuristic worlds continued throughout both the first and second generations. Developers would do well to continue this trend for the next generation of MMORPGs, keeping in mind the many features that the respondents would like improved or added.



It is interesting to note that more than half of the respondents enjoyed playing games belonging to other genres, like first-person shooter, action, and adventure games, but especially strategy games. MMORPG developers should consider incorporating some aspects from these genres, especially the style of combat in first-person shooter games.



The respondents made many comments regarding the combat in MMORPGs and how more player skill could be incorporated to alter the mechanics of combat. There were also comments on placing more emphasis on the strategies that ought to be necessary to defeat enemies instead of merely repeating the same patterns.



The level grind was also a major concern for many respondents. They were outspoken in their criticism of having to repeatedly kill the same enemies over and over by utilizing the same strategy just to gain an experience level and access to new capabilities. They felt that the mechanics used to increase a player’s level needs further refinement. Respondents were also disappointed that developers used quests as a way to force players to grind. Some of the respondents thought that quests should be reserved for story-driven content that immerses a player into the game world and its lore, instead of quests that require players to kill X amount of Y creatures.



The survey identified the top five features of interest as “Lots of Class/Skill Options,” “Graphics and Effects,” “Large World to Explore,” “Player vs Player” combat, and “Socialization”.



The feature called “Lots of Class/Skill Options” attracted the most response, both as the number one feature among the top five for many respondents and in general as the option most commonly picked to be among the top five. But it failed to attract many comments for its improvement, other than from a few respondents who asked that developers consider a skill-point character development system over a class-based one, and make sure that any system used is balanced so players have an equal chance to defeat each other.



Balance was a key factor for respondents commenting on “Player versus Player” battles: specifically that “rock, paper, scissors” scenarios should be avoided. The respondents disliked the fact that, in many MMORPGs, some classes or sets of skills can easily defeat other classes or skills with no competition. Player versus player type comments garnered the largest number of comments and suggestions made by respondent on all topics in the survey. The more detailed responses were on the topics of balanced systems, mentioned above, or the purpose of player versus player combat. Developers need to concentrate on providing more motivation for this style of combat (e.g., a large-scale siege of a castle or a conquest for territory between warring factions). Such large-scale battles would serve as a good versus evil scenario with players on both sides.



The topic of “Graphics and Effects” was very important to almost all respondents. They expect that as the genre matures so will the graphics, both technically and artistically. On the technical side, respondents are looking for improvements like those in single-player games; with real-world  physics, collision-detection, and dynamic environments. On the artistic side, respondents want to see more variation in their characters, in both personal appearance and in the armor they wear, so that each character has a unique visual appearance.



The “Large World to Explore” and “Lots of Content” topics were important to most respondents. They were not only concerned with the size of the world but its content as well. Some respondents wished that players had the capability to create their own content, thus reducing the workload for the developers and extending the worlds. They also wanted to give players a little more control over the games in which they had invested so much time. Others simply wanted more involving content that fit the lore of the world, with more interaction from NPCs and the environment; “Running Out of Content” also rated highly as an issue for MMORPGs.



The final feature that players enjoyed (it was one of their top five) was “Socialization”. It is a large part of an MMORPG. Even those who generally preferred to play solo were affected by the communities in MMORPG, especially in the form of player economy and crafting systems. Some respondents want to see the items that can be crafted increase in value to the players, so as to compensate for the time spent in-game to learn the craft. A large percentage of respondents agreed with the statement that MMORPGs need more options for socializing, but they did not offer further opinions.



It is apparent that although many of the respondents are content with the progress MMORPGs have made over the last decade, it is definitely time for developers to start creating the next generation. This time developers will need to take a new approach, as the method of using first generation MMORPGs, or even the successful second generation, as a blueprint is lacking in innovation. Respondents want to see both new concepts and features and improved existing concepts and features incorporated into this growing genre. The fact that 18% of the respondents were not even playing an MMORPG at the time of the survey, but took the time to complete it indicates that there is unmet demand within the player community. It is hoped that this study will help to inform developers of the next generation of MMORPGs.

This conclusion is really only a very brief outline of the results obtained. The actual paper goes further into concepts such as player aging and death, real player impact into the world, the questing and combat systems and so forth, as experienced by the survey respondents, many of whom participated from the mmorpg.com forums.

Thanks for reading if you were patient enough to go through the wall of text above!!