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The present and the future of mmorpgs... why is it looking bad ?
Inyar
Member Posts: 157
This was posted on Ryzom's board :
first lets look at its name . mmorpg. what does it mean. well it stands for
Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game
so we are looking at games wich are online where lots of people join to a server to role play.
this statment is so silly but so true ..
a mmorpg must have a large player count where players join the game to role play with other players.
this statment was once very true. i know its not the first mmorpg but its at the start of it all. Ultima online.
im sure some of you have played it. now when this game came out there was no levels, sure you could raise some skills etc but it was more that you were role playing.
an emaple when i first played UO i logged in and somebody just outside of the town was attacking a goat , he then ran past me shouting "help! the goat is angry. please kill it or it will kill me"
that one moment had me hooked on mmopgs, it wasnt the fact you can kill goats, more the fact that it was another world. There i stood in a town never before playing a online game and a man runs past me asking for my help. i replyed and he spoke back. it was more like the game had magic npcs which you could chat to and not select pre-set ansers. i played that game for 1 year never leveling much just enjoying roleplaying.
i then moved to asherons call had the same joy. also again in anarchy online.
now the magic is gone. and this is why..
you had to pay a small monthy fee just to keep the servers up and the dev team in a job. now in many mmorpgs that money never goes fully back into the game. servers are cheap and easy to run now.
there is about 50 mmorpgs now all fighting over the same 10,000 players give or take a few, and i have noticed that most of these are buy companys who dont love role playing but who love the idea of getting 1000's of $$$ every month without having to launch a new game.
but that shoudnt be a problem if they kept new content going. most dont bother they will make a game dump it on the market before its finished and then wait for the big influx of people get rich quick and spend the cash on the dev of a new game (of corse i dont mean this to be directed at ryzom)
there is only 2 games where i have seen a dev team which wants the game to have new content and a good roleplay aspect. they are AO and EQ. if you hate or love them thats not the point (myself i hate eq) the fact is they push new places/content etc evey 4 or 5 months.
all that said people look too hard into the bussness side of mmorpgs today.
look at pen and paper D&D if you played that.. did you spend your time sitting about saying " the paper for the book isnt very good i bet they are spending our money on a new book and not better paper" of corse that made no sense but what most of "us" mmorpg players complain about dosnt make sense ever. the dev team V the players.. where did all that start?
so the truth behind the mmorpg..
they are all going down hill fast. there is two reasons for this.
the first is the dev teams in 99% of mmorpgs have lost there way. they focus on numbers they balance they tweak they change and patch and bug fix ..
they forget that day when they all sat around the meeting table and all got excited about a game what could be and the storys it would tell. the devs forgot the dream .
the second is the players me included. we have lost our way as well we have forgot the deam. we buy a mmorpg and we grind we lvl we watch the numbers and the damage bar we become zombies...
we dont make background storys to our chrs anymore we dont role play we dont do anything which doesnt get us xp. we find a bug and we focus on it we find an exploit and use it. we dont follow the story or even ask for one anymore we just want easy leveling and fast killing. we spend 20 mins making a chr and giving it a good name but never speek in character.
there is only one way of putting the magic into playing mmorpgs again.
the DEV team needs to stop looking at the payer population , the money each month , the numbers, the power of monster etc they need to forget all that and start to tell a story. and they need to keep it fast constanty changing, evey day something new has happend in the mmorpg world they are a dev for. players will come money will come if you live your dreams you once had about your game.
and the players need to soak up the story and role play. forget about levels forget about being a high level because in a mmorpg there is no end game you wont win . you need to sit back and become part of the story.
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Comments
Heres another really good post on the same subject.
There was an essay written by Richard Bartle (one of the inventors of MUD/MUSE code, game developer, creator of the famed "Bartle Test") on this subject that was posted on the UK forum here (SoR) that was absolutely fascinating.
__________________________________________________ ____________
Introduction
Virtual worlds are being designed by know-nothing newbies, and there's not a damned thing anyone can do about it. I don't mean newbie designers, I mean newbie players - first timers. They're dictating design through a twisted "survival of the not-quite-fittest" form of natural selection that will lead to a long-term decay in quality, guaranteed. If you think some of today's offerings are garbage, just you wait
Yeah, yeah, you want some justification for this assertion. Even though I'm in Soapbox mode, I can see that, so I will explain - only not just yet. First, I'm going to make four general points that I can string together to build my case. Bear with me on this
The Newbie Stream
Here's a quote from Victorian author Charles Dickens:
Annual income £20/-/-, annual expenditure £19/19/6, result happiness.
Annual income £20/-/-, annual expenditure £20/-/6, result misery.
Annual income £0, annual expenditure £20,000,000, result There.com.
OK, so maybe he didn't actually write that last line.
What Dickens was actually saying is that, so long as you don't lose more than you gain, things are good. In our particular case, we're not talking olde English money, we're talking newbies, although ultimately, the two amount to one and the same thing.
Now I'm sorry to be the bringer of bad news, people, but here goes anyway: even for the most compelling of virtual worlds, players will eventually leave. Don't blame me, I didn't invent reality.
If oldbies leave, newbies are needed to replace them. The newbies must arrive at the same rate (or better) than the oldbies leave; otherwise, the population of the virtual world will decline until eventually no-one will be left to play it.
Point #1: Virtual worlds live or die by their ability to attract newbies
Newbie Preconceptions
Another quote, this time from the 1989 movie Field of Dreams:
If we build it, they will come.
Well, maybe if you're an Iowa corn farmer who hears voices inside your head telling you to construct a baseball stadium, but otherwise
A virtual world can be fully functioning and free of bugs, but still be pretty well devoid of players. There are plenty of non-gameplay reasons why this could happen, but I'm going to focus on the most basic: lack of appeal. Some virtual worlds just aren't attractive to newbies. There are some wonderfully original, joyous virtual worlds out there. They're exquisitely balanced, rich in depth, abundant in breadth, alive with subtleties, and full of wise, interesting, fun people who engender an atmosphere of mystique and marvel without compare. Newbies would love these virtual worlds, but they're not going to play them.
Why not? Because they're all text. Newbies don't do text.
Newbies come to virtual worlds with a set of preconceptions acquired from other virtual worlds; or, failing that, from other computer games; or, failing that, from gut instinct. They will not consider virtual worlds that confront these expectations if there are others around that don't.
Put another way, if a virtual world has a feature that offends newbies, the developers will have to remove that feature or they won't get any newbies. This is irrespective of what the oldbies think: they may adore a feature, but if newbies don't like it then (under point #1) eventually there won't be anyone left to adore it.
Point #2: Newbies won't play a virtual world that has a major feature they don't like.
Not-So-Newbies
Here's another quote (kind of), from a private study of 1,100 players by the Themis Group. Themis's researchers asked veterans of 3 or more virtual worlds how many months they'd spent in their first one and how many months they'd spent in their second one. Dividing the second figure by the first, we get these averages for time spent in the second virtual world compared to the first:
EverQuest 80%
Ultima Online 70%
Asheron's Call 70%
Dark Age of Camelot 55%
Anarchy Online 55%
Players spend considerably less time in their second virtual world than they do in their first. Why is this?
Well, the first virtual world that someone gets into is very special to them. It's a magical, enchanting, never-to-be-repeated experience. You thought it was only you who looked back wistfully on your early days like that? Nah, it's everyone.
This has consequences. There used to be a virtual world called NeverWinter Nights, unrelated to the BioWare RPG, on AOL. When it was closed down, its refugees descended on Meridian 59. They immediately wanted M59 to incorporate every piece of NWN functionality that they could remember.
In general, players view all their subsequent virtual worlds in the light cast from their first one. They will demand that features from their first world be added to their current world, even if those very features were partly responsible for why they left the first world. They'll say they hate treadmills, but if their first experience was in a virtual world with treadmills, then they'll gravitate towards other virtual worlds with treadmills, all the while still hating them.
There's a long explanation for this, to do with the search for identity, which I won't delve into here because you only need to know that players do behave this way, not why (that's a different rant). Read my book (Designing Virtual Worlds) if you want the full story.
Point #3: Players judge all virtual worlds as a reflection of the one they first got into.
Short-Termism
No quote this time.
When a virtual world changes (as it must), all but its most experienced players will consider the change on its short-term merits only. They look at how the change affects them, personally, right now. They will only make mention of possible long-term effects to help buttress a short-termist argument. They don't care that things will be majorly better for them later if things are minorly worse for them today - it's only the now that matters.
Why is this? I've no idea. Well, I do have an idea, but not one I can back up, so I'll keep quiet about it. The fact is, players do behave like this all the time, and it would only take a cursory scan of any forum after patch day for you to convince yourself, if you don't believe me.
This short-termist attitude has two outcomes. Firstly, something short-term good but long-term bad is hard for developers to remove, because players are mainly in favor of it. Secondly, something short-term bad but long-term good is hard to keep because players are mainly not in favor of it.
Design that is short-term good but long-term bad I call "poor". Virtual worlds are primarily a mixture of good and poor design, because the other two possibilities (outright bad and short-term bad, long-term good) either aren't implemented or are swiftly removed. Good design keeps players; poor design drives them away (when the short term becomes the long term and the game becomes unfun).
Point #4: Many players will think some poor design choices are good.
Summary
OK, so we now have the four points I need to launch into my tirade. These are:
Point #1: Virtual worlds live or die by their ability to attract newbies
Point #2: Newbies won't play a virtual world that has a major feature they don't like.
Point #3: Players judge all virtual worlds as a reflection of the one they first got into.
Point #4: Many players will think some poor design choices are good.
I can now construct a line of reasoning that supports my initial assertion.
The Newbie Induction
Under point #4, players will eventually quit a virtual world that has poor features. Under point #3, however, they won't necessarily recognize that a feature which caused them to leave was indeed poor. Under point #2, they won't play those virtual worlds that lack this feature. Under point #1, those virtual worlds that do lack the feature - that is, those with the better design - will die through dearth of newbies. Any absolute newbies, for whom this is their first virtual world, will be educated to believe that this is how things are meant to be, thus starting the whole cycle again. Q.E.D.
The normal rules of evolution by which computer games operate propagate good design genes from one to the next. Each generation of game takes the best mutations from the previous generation and adds to them.
Virtual worlds also propagate good genes, but they propagate poor ones more readily. The best virtual worlds don't pass their design genes around much because of their high retention rate: "Why would I quit when what I want is right here?". Poor design genes cause players to leave sooner, so it's these features that wind up being must-haves for the next generation of products. This leads to a bizarre situation: for a new virtual world to succeed, it has to have the same features that caused its antecedents to fail..!
You're not convinced, huh? OK, here are two of examples of the theory in action, one old and one new.
Example 1 (Old): Permanent Death
If characters that died stayed dead, it would open up all kinds of very convenient doors for virtual world design:
It prevents early-adopter players from gaining an iron grip on positions of power.
It re-uses content effectively, because players view same-level encounters from different angles using different characters.
It's the default fiction for real life.
It promotes role-play, because players aren't stuck with the same, tired old character the whole time.
It validates players' sense of achievement, because a high-level character means a high-level player is behind it.
Many designers and experienced players would love to see a form of PD in their virtual world, but it's not going to happen. Newbies wouldn't play such a game (under points #2, #3 and #4), therefore eventually neither would anyone else (point #1).
PD is short-term bad, long-term good: rejected.
Example 2 (new): Instancing
Instancing looks very appealing on the face of it: groups of friends can play together without interference in relative tranquillity. What's not to love?
The thing is, this is not what virtual worlds are about. How can you have any impact on a world if you're only using it as a portal to a first-person shooter? How do you interact with people if they're battened down in an inaccessible pocket universe? Where's the sense of achievement, of making a difference, of being someone?
Most players don't see it that way, though.
Newbies see it as familiar - "fantasy Counterstrike, cool!" (point #2). They don't know what it means for their long-term enjoyment (point #4). Of course, they eventually will learn what it means - boredom and disenchantment - but even so, they probably won't connect the effect with the cause. They'll just go looking for another virtual world that features instancing (point #3). Older-era players will perhaps initially avoid anything with instancing because their first love didn't have it (point #3), but they'll probably try it eventually because (point #4) hey, maybe it's that missing piece that will give them the sense of closure they crave?
Thus, instancing will get locked into the paradigm. New virtual worlds that don't have it will get fewer players than those that do have it, even though they have the better design.
Instancing is short-term good, long-term bad: accepted.
Analysis
It's not just permanent death, it's not just instancing: it's teleportation, it's banks, it's non-drop objects - it's everything that makes sense in some contexts but not in all (or even most) contexts.
Player: You don't have teleporting! How can I rejoin my group if I miss a session?
Designer: Well gee, maybe by omitting teleportation I'm kinda dropping a hint that you can have a meaningful gaming experience, without always having to group with the same people of the same level and run a treadmill the whole time?
Player: Are you NUTS? I want to play with my friends, and I want to play with them RIGHT NOW!
Designer: But how are you ever going to make new friends? How -
Player: Are you listening? RIGHT NOW!
Designer: (Sigh)
Virtual worlds are becoming diluted by poor design decisions that can't be undone. We're getting de-evolution - our future is in effect being drawn up by newbies who (being newbies) are clueless. Regular computer games don't have this problem.
The market for regular computer games is driven by the hardcore. The hardcore finishes product faster than newbies, and therefore buys new product faster than newbies. The hardcore understands design implications better than newbies. They won't buy a game with features they can see are poor; they select games with good design genes. Because of this, games which are good are rewarded by higher sales than games which are bad.
In virtual worlds, the hardcore either wanders from one to the next, trying to recapture the experience of their first experience or they never left in the first place. Furthermore, in today's flat-fee universe, the hardcore spends the same amount of money as everyone else: developers aren't rewarded for appealing to the cognoscenti, except maybe through word of mouth that always comes with caveats (because of point #3).
Possible solutions
I'm not completely pessimistic here; there are ways the cycle can be broken, mainly by attacking points #2 and #3 (that is, by overcoming prejudices concerning what "should" be in a virtual world). Here are half a dozen hopes for the future:
Innovation. If evolution doesn't work, maybe revolution will? A virtual world different enough that it doesn't map onto players' existing experiences may attract newbies and oldbies alike. Of course, there's no guarantee that the new paradigm won't itself be short-term good, long-term bad
Marketing. People can sometimes be persuaded to overcome their preconceptions. Even a text-based virtual world could become a monster hit if it had the right licence and was advertised to the right group of people. Unfortunately, marketing costs money.
Cross-fertilization. If no poor features are ever added, point #4 becomes redundant. How do you know that a proposed feature is genuinely good, though? Simple - there are two traditions of virtual worlds (West and East) so you cherry-pick the best ideas from the other one. You speak Korean, right?
Works of art. Virtual world design involves much craft, but at root it's art. A designer makes decisions based on how they feel things ought to be. Players will eventually pick up on the differences and play a new virtual world just because they like the designer's previous work: Raph Koster, Brad McQuaid and Richard Garriott already have more creative freedom than first-time designers. Point #3 evaporates! If only designing a virtual world didn't take so long
Time may heal. If you wait long enough that people forget why they ever objected to something, that something can come back. Fashions change, and who knows what the newbies of 2024 will think? Good ideas will always get a second chance to enter the paradigm, it's just that "wait a quarter of your life for it to happen" thing that's a little depressing.
Growing maturity. Perhaps the best hope for the future is the growing maturity of the player base. First-time newbies will always assert the supremacy of their first virtual world, but oldbies who have been through the mill enough will realise that some of the features they've been taking for granted are actually counter-productive. If they're around in sufficient numbers, we may see virtual worlds appearing that do everything right and very little wrong, removing point #4 and leading us into a golden age. I can dream
Conclusion
Virtual worlds are under evolutionary pressure to promote design features that, while not exactly bad, are nevertheless poor. Each succeeding generation absorbs these into the virtual world paradigm, and introduces new poor features for the next generation to take on board. The result is that virtual world design follows a downward path of not-quite-good-enough, leading ultimately to an erosion of what virtual worlds are.
Fortunately, there are a number of processes at work that have the potential to arrest this descent. Thus, although the future of virtual worlds may look disappointing, it's not completely bleak.
Besides, for the purist there will always be text MUDs.
[Author's second note: A non-Soapbox version of this hypothesis will be presented at the Other Players conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, later this year. Academics should refer to that, not to this.] -Richard Bartle
Phenomenal post probly the only large post ive actually read since it wasnt just a whole lot of rant and other BS
"It's the darkness that brings us power"
SOF site come join
"It's the darkness that brings us power"
Very nicely stated;
i summed it up, the second, third morpg, will never have the "majic" your first love with mmorpgs have
2nd as newer ones come to the market without our favorite features from travel, to portal gates, or polish we fuss because we expect certain things to be included in the game
3d we do not stay where there is bugs,poor,design and have little commitment if we do not see change
4th use to be arguments were pay the monthly fee for content and new content, nt just fees,server,fees ,mployee payouts
5th folks want to see a more finished game without having to spend high montly fees and continual paid for expansions
i think you're right to as more and more unpolished buggy games are released less folks likely to spend time there till they get it right ( horizons)
with to many mmorpgs coming out , the player base willing to pay a montly fee to sustain them all the newbes need to replace the the veterns and if that doesn't happen the game can and will fail
Awsome post, its nice to see such a good analisys of the games we love and why many of us (long time mmorpg players) are feeling that its going really bad in the world of mmorpg, with no real place left for innovation anymore, only a Devs / players war and player requesting all the features of their previous mmorpg.
About the future of this post :
From what ive seen the community at mmorpg.com act on hype and seems to have a low age average, i guess the best posts ive read in a while will die quickly because no one will read them.
Too bad cause this is the kind of opinion and analysis that need to spread trough the players, it would only have a positive effect.
Looks like i was right, the topic went down to the second page of the forum and is still going down.
We might have another source for the problem :
Players dont care about the future of the genre, they care about what game is the best and why every other mmorpg player in the world arnt playing game X instead of game Y.
Please prove im wrong... cause if im right then MMORPG are actually going down fast and the way people act wont change the situation.
Just a little word. Cookie-Cutter.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------"The greatest trick the devil played on humanity in the 20th century was convincing them that he didnt exist." (Paraphrasing) C.S. Lewis
"If a mother can kill her own child, what is left before I kill you and you kill me?" -Mother Teresa when talking about abortion after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979
"The greatest trick the devil played on humanity in the 20th century was convincing them that he didn't exist." (Paraphrasing) C.S. Lewis
"If a mother can kill her own child, what is left before I kill you and you kill me?" -Mother Teresa when talking about abortion after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979
The more I see of people, the more I appreciate my dogs
The more I see of people, the more I appreciate my dogs
Yup thats pretty much the problem right there. I dont care if you think EQ2 or WoW are great, or any other number of similar games, where has all the innovation gone? Its like EQ2 and WoW took the best of current MMORPGs and then they called it a new generation of MMORPGs... give me a break. In my mind they are still 1st generation MMORPGs, they focus on leveling and class based gameplay, with racial stats and crap that make one race the best for a certain class. UO was so great because you could mix and match almost any skills you wanted and still end up with a useful character. There was no "wrong" class in UO, unlike EQ where if you were a troll wizard or some other class that doesnt fit them then you were soncsidered useless. Recent MMORPGs think they can get away by doing the same thing older ones have aleady done, they are just beating a dead horse, and people are paying for this crap. Stop letting devs tell us what we want, and tell them what we want, and its a little word called innovation. The first MMORPG is so appealing because its sometihng youve never done before, if you want that feeling again dont settle for the same game in a new a box.
Yup thats pretty much the problem right there. I dont care if you think EQ2 or WoW are great, or any other number of similar games, where has all the innovation gone? Its like EQ2 and WoW took the best of current MMORPGs and then they called it a new generation of MMORPGs... give me a break. In my mind they are still 1st generation MMORPGs, they focus on leveling and class based gameplay, with racial stats and crap that make one race the best for a certain class. UO was so great because you could mix and match almost any skills you wanted and still end up with a useful character. There was no "wrong" class in UO, unlike EQ where if you were a troll wizard or some other class that doesnt fit them then you were soncsidered useless. Recent MMORPGs think they can get away by doing the same thing older ones have aleady done, they are just beating a dead horse, and people are paying for this crap. Stop letting devs tell us what we want, and tell them what we want, and its a little word called innovation. The first MMORPG is so appealing because its sometihng youve never done before, if you want that feeling again dont settle for the same game in a new a box.
the biggest joke is....GW..almost 0 grind
and evreybody cray isnt real mmorpg)
if i ask again what is real mmorpg..or role playing
mods close that thread again
coz nobody knews what real mmorpg is ...or just subjective...only bitching
The more I see of people, the more I appreciate my dogs
The more I see of people, the more I appreciate my dogs
i disagree with the emphasis you put on 'roleplaying' as part of the failure of mmorpg's. I think many hardcore roleplayers have a poor idea of what gamers want, and they tend to think their extreme tastes in wanting to truly act the character they play and expect others to act that way is really their flaw. Roleplayers makeup a small percentage of gamers, while most gamers are just looking for a fun game. I dont think roleplaying has much to do with the success or failures of mmorpg's in general, in fact most hardcore roleplayers will probably tell you mmorpg's are the worst games to play for roleplay if your really into that.
You cant use the acronymn of 'MMORPG' to act like its meant for roleplayers. Those are simply used as a classification for games that allow you to develop and customize your character. The latest trend in sports console games seems to be having 'rpg elements', which basically means you can buildup your player or do other things with him like furnish his home, buy stuff, etc. Trust me, nobody is trying to roleplay a NBA player in NBA 2k5 in the sense hardcore roleplayers look at roleplaying or how it was defined in this thread, and yet thats how 'rpg' is described.
Whether mmorpg's are getting better or worse is a matter of opinion obviously. I think the mmorpg audience is growing so i'm not sure its necessarily dying. I just think a good game is a good game. It has nothing to do with roleplaying for most people imo, it has more to do with quality of gameplay, content, stability, and it just being fun/enjoyable to play. Roleplaying is a niche that doesnt represent the masses that are into mmorpg's.
So basically, an MMORPG is like LSD.
The first time you take your high as hell...then it all goes down hill from there, until it never works again..
LSD was fun for a week..then I stopped...
Saddly, I keep buying new mmorpgs.
[12:38am] <+steve> don't speak of tampons in a channel like this
[12:38am] <+steve> don't speak of tampons in a channel like this
The more I see of people, the more I appreciate my dogs
The more I see of people, the more I appreciate my dogs
One really major flaw in the proposed solutions.
Devs will never be able to make an evolving game story line "fast".
A truly social online game must let the players make their own storylines against a slowly changing dev backstory that takes into account what the players have done with the game. This means the game must be competitive to some degree where player interactions determine the course of the game instead of not even being relevant to the development of the dev storyline.
I dont think its a flaw, your right that a game should evolve according to the action of the community. However I think its possible to make it evolving "fast" while respecting your statement. It would only need a Devs team that is in constant communication with the GM team. I dont think its impossible.
What is up with this forum where everytime i click to reply or post, it just hangs trying to load it and 90% of the time never does? I mean i dont have that problem with any other forum. I dont even have that problem with the main mmorpg.com page, but for some reason this forum always does that to me. Granted, this is my work computer thats outdated and on dialup, but still, i have no problems loading up VN's forums as well as most websites.
Anyhow, what you just posted is a case in point of the problem i have with alot of roleplayers. Why must everyone that doesnt roleplay to an extreme be some 'leet dood' that talks like that? Why cant people be normal, talk normally, and be in the middle of the extremes and play it just because the game is fun? Why do people have to either be a fanatic like a Trekkie or someone that goes to Star Wars movies dressed up like Chewbacca, or a super slang speaking little kid that uses leet speak and curse words? Why do you pretend that people have to be one of those extremes and nobody is normal?
I kinda held back my rant or how i feel about hardcore roleplayers in mmorpg's, but let me touch on it now. I hate the stigma placed on people who play 'rpg's' by those that dont. I hate the fact that we all tend to be judged like the super hardcore roleplayer fanatics that want to live an alternate life as their character and expect everyone else to. Its embarressing that whenever you say 'i enjoy fantasy rpg's', people tend to automatically assume your some dorky hardcore roleplayer that wants to go into the woods and yell "Lightning bolt, Lightning Bolt" while acting like your casting on your friend in RL. Its very similar to the stigma people get when they say they enjoy Star Trek or Star Wars, where people will judge them as those fanatics that do the 'trekkie sign' when they meet other trekkies. I think there are alot more people who enjoy rpg's that arent 'fanatics' or hardcore roleplayers than are, and its a shame we all get negatively stigmatized as 'geeks' from the ones that take it to an extreme
Anyhow, my main point is hardcore roleplayers and their preferences are not majority opinion. They are a vocal niche minority within the mmorpg audience, some games accomodate them with roleplay servers, but i've noticed that trend in itself seems to be dying. MAybe its for a good reason, since i just dont think many people want to take their games as seriouslly as some do, i know i dont. Nor do i talk in alternating caps or curse words, i pretty much act myself which i think most gamers i run into do.
I agree role-playing is nice. But it is impossible to have 100% role-playing. That is the nature of online games. Also if MMORPGs want to expand, and not keep on cannibalizing the same old 500,000 MMORPG players, they will have to attract NEW players. New players who are not hardcore role-players. Or find some way to introduce them into role-playing. RPGs, and MMORPGs, used to be a nitch market. It is rapidly becoming a mainstream market.
As for levels, and the grind, that is a purely game feature, game mechanic, issue. And not necessarily the reason for a MMORPG being bad.
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Two more unmentioned reasons why MMORPGs are not doing so well right now:
1. Horrible advertising. I still cringe at the 2 page ads for Asheron's Call 2. One can tell the ad agency who made them had no idea what a MMORPG is. MMORPG companies need to fire their ad agencies, and heck... ask their own players how to best layout an ad for their game! (EQ, and EQ2, and AO, did ok jobs on their ads.) EQ2 went as far as to release a mini-movie which played before Spider-Man 2 and other movies at every major movie theatre. Other MMORPGs need to take out ads in OTHER magazines as well. Go where the newbies are! Want more female gamers? Place ads in women's magazines! Etc... etc.... Take out ads on TV, in major newspapers, on and on.
The majority of people, AND gamers, still have no idea what a MMORPG is! (I was talking to people on line for Halo 2. Very few were there to buy EQ2. Everyone else had no idea what EQ2 was, or what a MMORPG was.)
2. Computer Internet access for the masses. Korea leads the world in Internet access for the masses. (The true, real, main, reason Lineage is such a success.) Anyone age 1 to 80 can play any online game, for a few cents. Anytime of the day or weekend. They do not need to have a computer, or in many cases, even buy the game! An 8 yr old can play his favorite MMORPG for $1 to $2 per hour. Just like how most kids would/use to visit arcades for a few mins, or hours, before/after school and play their favorite arcade game. These buildings are called "PC Bangs". (When translated from Korean into English.)
Europe is next. America is almost dead last in the world. Even if one has a million dollars in America, it depends on where they live, not how much they can afford to pay. The goverment in Korea made it a priority to instal T-1 or better lines thorugh out areas where people live. Europen goverments are also doing the same. The American goverment... is... not.
There are roughly 300 milion people living in America. Roughly 76 million of them are between age 8 and 38 (primary age of gamers. From newbies to vets who remember back to Pong.
) How many play MMORPGs? How many even heard of MMORPGs? How many of them have easy internet access? In America, many Arcades have been killed off - by politicians. (I won't get into that.) There are millions of kids with extra change and money in their pockets. At the major cities that still have arcades left, the arcades are doing extreemly well! Now imagine if America had tons of PC Bangs like Korea does? Like Europe is in the process of doing? MMORPG populations would explode!!!
-Personal Website (A Work in progress):
http://www.geocities.com/xplororor/index.html
-AC, AC2, AO, EQ, SWG:
http://community.webshots.com/user/xplororor
-More SWG:
http://community.webshots.com/user/captain_sica_xol
-EverQuest II:
http://community.webshots.com/user/xplororor_eq2archives01
-EQ, Dungeon Siege, Diablo II, *UXO*:
http://community.webshots.com/user/xplororor_archives01
-EVE Online !!!
http://community.webshots.com/user/sica_xol_archives01
To put it simply, it's escapism. People who are seemingly embarrassed by acting out a role, or playing mmo-rpg's at all for that matter should not be playing in a fantasy world to begin with.
Why would you want to play as an undead mage if you are just going to turn 'round and say "Hey, see the latest family guy episode ?" or " Anyone see the play-off's the other night ?" Why play as a fantasy char if you are just going to act exactly the same ? It takes all the magic out of the game and turns it into a grind fest.
Lets get one thing straight, MMO-RPG's are for Geeks, they always have been and always will be. If you play mmo-rpg's you ARE a geek, there is no avoiding it. It's the people who can't accept that simple fact and the people who are ashamed to role-play who take all the fun out of fantasy mmo's.
For example, when I first started EQ it was brilliant. I RPed nearly all the time, but as you get on in Lvls nobody RPed at all. The only thing they cared about was making thier char more powerful. I mean wtf is the point ?
I miss the days when people would create back storys for their char's and RP (Note: Roleplaying doesn't mean you have to speak in old english, it just means that you act out the role of your char) What's even more sad is that you are right, over 90% of people don't want to role play a char at all, even when doing quests. What do they think while doing the quest ? I honestly don't see how anyone can find mmo's fun without at least roleplaying a little.
Now I'm angry
The more I see of people, the more I appreciate my dogs
The more I see of people, the more I appreciate my dogs
A fact about role player :
If it wasnt for us (roleplayer), mmorpg wouldnt exist. The ancestor of mmorpg's are MUDs or text based online roleplaying. They were played by a community of roleplayer (most of us started with D&D). Then, with the growth of the gaming industry, game makers became interested in building graphical version of MUDs, and mmorpg's where born.
I dont want to sound like an elitist roleplayer (im sure some of you will think i am) but roleplaying does make the game a lot more fun, and its what the game was made for. I respect your right not to roleplay, but in a game weres theres no RP server, its very sad (for RPer) to see all the kiddies on the main chat chanel. There were no kiddies back in the old days... and those are the type of players who are hurting the genre. People now whine about grind, etc... and forget that the grind is present in all roleplaying games. It becomes a grind only if your main goal is to lvl as fast as possible.
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Every one with me (if your here, you are one, dont be ashamed):
Im a geek and im proud of it !