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Wolfshead Online - Why the MMO Industry Needs a Real Cataclysm
just1opinion
Member UncommonPosts: 4,641
This article found its way to my inbox today. I have often found interesting articles on this site/blog/commentary about MMORPG design, but this particular one is a real "hits the nail on the head" proclamation:
Why the MMO Industry Needs a Real Cataclysm
Also added for the purpose of discussion by suggestion (and a good one)....
Why Virtual Worlds are Designed by Newbies - No, Really!
I think it goes a long way toward explaining some of the perceived (and some real) "WoW hate," but it doesn't leave the responsibility solely there.
I don't want to do a full review of the article. I'm not a very good reviewer, first of all, and secondly....it speaks well for itself. The author is very articulate and interesting to read. I just thought perhaps a discussion ABOUT it...might prove interesting.
Seriously...between those two articles...I feel sort of overwhelmed now.....
Edited: Moved second article link UP in post since most people seem to be skipping it altogether and focusing entirely on the first one, when there is a lot of great stuff in the second one, which does not even mention Blizzard/WoW and was written before it was released.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Comments
Makes me wonder how many of the lemmings would quit after the wipe and how many would just start killing level 1 boars. Of course the CS would offer your old toon back for a nominal fee.
I really do wonder what would happen if WoW and EQ2, especially those two, but maybe add in like LotRO, and idk...whatever else....did exactly what he said? You know...if only altering the MMO genre cataclysmically for the better, would have a guaranteed financial boon for the developers of these games...they'd probably do it. But you know they probably have financial advisors that have never played an MMO in their lives...advising them financially. I'm not sure that's very good for innovation.
But what do I know? I'm not a financial advisor.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Deffinately an interesting read. I agree with a lot of what he say's.
I think the biggest issue has to do with games like wow being masked as the type of virtual world mmorpg we remember from the past. A majority of the newer mmorpg's are just action adventure online games, they are clearly different from the virtual world mmorpg's.
Virtual world mmorpg's are dead and have been for years and however niche they may be I will forever miss them. I don't think we'll see a real virtual world mmorpg for many years to come, if ever.
Well having not read all of the article, because it seemed like every other word was WoW this and WoW that - WoW is the evil child, blah blah..
Truth of the matter is that it's not the MMO Developers that are at fault here. The MMO industry is about making money, heck any industry is about making money. They are going to continue to make and refine games around the formula that works. I mean really if you put down say 50 million to create a game, your not going to risk that kind of cash on something that by all standards is not proven to work. No your going to pick something that is going to, at the very least, make your money back.
I like how the article goes on to make the Cata expansion out to be something it was never ment to be. Blizzard from the VERY start said that the expansion is geared toward revisiting the old lands and bringing them upto the standards in both art and gameplay that was done in WoTLK. They have never said that its going to push WoW into a new era or that its going to change WoW as we know it into a whole new game. It's always been about revisiting and improving the new player introduction into the game and to make the beginning areas fun again for new people coming into the game.
I'm by no means a WoW fanboy but at the same time noone can argue that whatever Blizzard did and continues to do with WoW is making them money and keeping ALOT of people playing the game.
Some of us MMO players do not like the direction that MMO's are going. Well to be honest tough on us, since from every statistic out there shows that the majority of the MMO player base enjoys WoW / EQ model games. I'm not one that cares much for that model myself. But I know I am just a small minority of the MMO player base and that its very doubtful that its ever going to change anytime soon.
With that said Richard Garriet was on the Massivly podcast this week / last week and said that he was interested and was planning that his next MMO game will be a fantasy game with the social / sandbox elements of Ultima Online. I myself cue this as a win for us that wants change. A developer, that for all intensive purposes brought us the graphical sandbox mmorpg, is looking to recreate that once again. If theres anyone that could pull that off I would bet money he could. Yes, I am well aware of the whole Tabula Rasa fail and all of that. But then ageain Tabula Rasa was one of them MMORPG's that attempted to do something new that wasn't WoW, and yet it failed. Maybe that just goes to show we, that want change in the MMO genre, are becoming out of touch with the MMO genre or that we do not know what we want in a MMO.
I don't think the MMO industry needs change as much as that it needs more diversity in its player base. As it stands now it seems the majority of the MMO player base is looking for casual type MMO's where they can hop in and feel like that made headway even if they only played 30 mins.
That could be.. But I do not ever recall Blizzard saying that WoW was a virtual world mmorpg. I mean it is a virtual world and players do live out there characters lifes within that world. I think it more has to do with that the term and industry has expanded beyond what it was when it first started.
Virtual World's as in Ultima Online, Eve Online, Second Life, ect. just do not have the player base to support large companies developing for them. There have been loads of failed / partily failed attempts at recreating just that. Darkfall, Mortal Online, ect. Some have failed more then others. But if your backing a billion dollar company your not about to risk the time or money to try and create / fill such a small niche market. And lets just face it we are a small niche market in the grand scheme of things, or otherwise we would have more Virtual World / Sandbox style MMO's out there. We are maybe 1/20th of the MMO Player base at best.
@ Girlgeek: You should really also add this article, to which your article refers:
Why Virtual Worlds are Designed by Newbies - no, really!
Interesting, especially considering that it was written in 2004. Almost prophetic
Some quotes from it:
" 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."
"Players judge all virtual worlds as a reflection of the one they first got into."
" Where's the sense of achievement, of making a difference, of being someone?
Most players don't see it that way, though...
... They don't know what it means for their long-term enjoyment . 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."
" 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) "
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Ugh.
And some people wonder why players that have been playing MMOs a very long time....may feel a bit of resentment toward the more recent "joiners" to the genre.
I think most people probably get a bit miffed when something they truly truly enjoy....begins to be essentially demolished, for WHATEVER reason. And no....I'm not wishing back corpse runs or xp debt or no fast travel, etc....necessarily....I'm just wishing there was some way to BALANCE things so that...idk...maybe you could set a game, similar to single plalyer games, on easy, medium, or hard mode....so you could determine your own level of experienced challenge, whether solo or in a group. Yeah...it's probably a total pipe dream.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Two nice articles in this thread, and I appreciate the links to both. Should really be standard reading for anyone on these forums (particularly the second one). Definitely helps to explain why the latest crop of releases really suck ass, but why some endear them.
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."
George Bernard Shaw
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Oscar Wilde
That is something a 12 yr old would say.
And any company that caters to 12 yr olds, deserves to fail.
Because....
12 yr olds have no money.
I'd settle for less instant-gratification and micro-gratifications, and more sense of virtual world and achievement.
As that article also very well pointed out is that many players (or broader, people in general) will only look at a short-term effect and ignore a long-term benefit even it'd be better to seek out that long-term gain.
Or as the author says:
" 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.
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. "
I think the only way to break that circle is to find an innovative solution where players can clearly see the long-term gain and accept the change, even if it'd mean a discomfort on the short term.
That's why I find it interesting to find out how some of the new upcoming batch of MMO's will tackle a number of these age old problems, like GW2 and TSW among others.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
The last truly original game I played was SWG at launch. Innovation died with the NGE. SWG had it all-- a calm, cool, collected mature community; a proper skill based progression system where levels were non existent; a great character customization system; proper player housing; an incredible economy. SWG was the epitome of non-linear. If you wanted, you could master classes, make millions of credits, play the economy, become a dancer, become a fashion designer(ie. image designer), etc. all without ever once picking up a weapon. MMO's really need to look at the success of SWG in its early life. SWG has the recipe for a successful MMORPG in its pre-cu coding.
I'm dope that was cut from the ki
This "newbies are halting/ ruining MMO evolution" trend is just the same in the rest of the gaming world. No company dares make innovative titles, as the buyers (teens) want the same old gameplay the older crowd have gone oh so tired of. I feel sometimes that, when playing newer games, it's doom 2 all over, just flashier and prettier.
It is preferable not to travel with a dead man.
Good read and so true. Many truisms that more mmorpg enthusasts post about here, and those in which the same arcade-game enthusasts flood-in with opposing points.
"As each year passes MMOs have become more infantile and simplistic in order to pander to the lowest common denominator."
Such as: Instant Travel. Single-Player game-play emphasis. Community demeaning. Ignorance of player-centric influential atmosphere. 'x' marks the spot quest running. Heavily instanced worlds. Raid gear importance as opposed to player crafted. Heroism amounts to hitting masses of npc mobs and the same mob boss over and over. The list goes on.
The 12-yr old would be whoever wrote that dialog. It shows a lack of understnading that most MMO gamers aren't playing to make new friends - that's something they do in real life. They have the friends they made and they want to spend their game time playing with them, not travelling to hopefully be able to play with them. It honestly is not an unreasonable request. The author of that dialog seems to feel that his way to play an MMO is the right way. More power to him, I guess.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Pot, meet kettle.
<sarcasm>
I know that every friend I have in life loves playing video games, and we all enjoy our MMOs together.
</sarcasm>
Regardless of how you make your friends, I could agree that people wanting to get into the action immediately isn't exactly an unreasonable request. However, there's always the WoW way of using the LFD tool. At the other end of the spectrum, the action isn't the only or single most important thing to everyone, all the time. It's the in between "crap" that some people enjoy as much as the action, and it's that time that gets used to really share/enjoy the experience with the folks around you with whom you clearly share an interest given that you're playing (and hopefully enjoying) the same game. That's not too hard to understand, now is it?
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."
George Bernard Shaw
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Oscar Wilde
If you are tired of WoW clones stop playing them. There is choice out there. There are other types of games out there but aside from EVE most of them are ignored.
I agree with the OP firstly.
Secondly, a mmo-wide cataclysm would be amazing. Wiping all toons to L1 would not only be hilarious, it would be inspiring I think and beneficial to the mmo industry in the long run. Communities would be forced to work together again and *gasp* communicate with eachother. The funniest part would be all the gold farmers and 1337-boi elitists losing all their precious gear and achievements, reducing them to either quiting(which 98% of them would) or start over.
It would not be fair to say 'new MMO players' are ruining the genre because that would be like saying 'everyone born more than 5 years after me are nothing more than spoiled little snot-nosed kids'. The writer clearly has an issue with Blizzard and takes numerous shots at them. Blizzard might not be helping the cause but no matter how big they become they will never be the entire MMO industry.
There are options out there and that are upcoming if peole are willing to look around. MMO gamers seem to just be upset that, "the one", just didn't turn out to actually be that one game. I started MMO's around the time WoW was released and played it after launched and loved it. The days when that guy in t2? Yeah you wanted to be him. The ranked Warlord on your realm? Yes everyone knew his name. WoW, imo, had a great start but quickly became bitter and so I left. MMO's unlike other games will be forever changing. MMO gamers then should also get used to the fact that these changes might not be what they desire and if they disagree enough, then it's time to move on.
I'm currently not sub to any MMO and bouncing around f2p games with a friend of mine. You really can enjoy any MMO with the right company. These are social games (or at least they were intended to be) after all.
It always amuses me how surprised and offended the virtual world fans are when they discover that there are a lot more gamers who want to play games (inlcuding massively multiplayer games), than there are virtual worlders who want to hang out in a virtual world.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad that there are least a few smaller developers catering to the virtual world market, because it's an interesting one. But video games are enormous business these days and of course the developers who want to make games are the ones that are going to get the millions of subscribers and billions in revenue.
One day you might mature enough to learn that actually your tastes are not more mature than the gamers' tastes - they're just different.
And sometimes a smoke is just less healthy than an apple
I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not making any judgements here.
Or as the article also said:
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.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I agree with many of the statements of both articles even if the first one was a tad heavy on the "WoW Rant".
Funny how everyone blames MMO developers and Twelve year olds for the current state of MMO genre. One finger pointing at Farmville and all of Zynga's other 'games'(use the term loosely). If people didnt buy,subscribe, RMT in these games they wouldn't be cloned again and again. Yes the current trend is tragic but BOTH sides are to blame, both the devs and the customer base.
I also bet dollars to donuts that the majority of people playing farmville are 21+. Infact here is a survey done by PopCap
http://gigaom.com/2010/02/17/average-social-gamer-is-a-43-year-old-woman/
Which syncs with my experince with what I have witness in the town I live in. And in the various guilds across WoW,Aion and even AO that I have been in have always seemed to be of a higher age bracket then this "Omg tweens" that everyone seems to blame for every idiot in MMOs.
We have very little recourse in such matter. The only one being voting with our money and being vocal about it. But we are in the minority. Either we weather the storm and hope for that Lighthouse that we may catch the next safe port. Or simply leave the sea and do other things.
I'm not quite sure what this is supposed to mean? To what MMO are you referring? Since you stated millions of sub that narrows your idea of a 'true game' to a select few MMO.
EVE online is not a game?
WAR is not a game?
or any f2p game like RoM, Flyff, Maplestory, Rappelz, Atlantica, and many others... are not games?
Ah two points.
Yes, I saw that in WoW, community destroyed. Status quo for sure.
And, coming from MUD’s originally, I don’t feel hooked to my first graphical MUD’s (mmorpg’s) quite the way the second blog put it. I played a number of mmo’s, because they were so different form one another. Ok maybe I saw them more like MUD’s, social games where you could develop a game character and interact with others, but isn’t that what has become lost in the newbie-driven massively-instanced-CRPG games? And what did exist has become so diluted that many have no clue what I’m saying.
Conclusion. Well I’m not quitting, but I do spend a lot less money now on mmo’s, and more money on development apps. MUD’s went that way some may know (worked on those too way back when), with some still p2p and fun to play. Current tools are 10x faster than when EQ1 was being developed, just like MUD editing tools helped to open doors for more developers not stuck in some status quo.
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
Actually by "millions of gamers", I meant millions of gamers across the games. Not millions of gamers subscribed to any one game.
WoW + WAR + RoM + Flyff + etc. + etc. = many millions of gamers
All the virtual world MMOs put together = not millions of gamers
That's my point.
p.s. no, I wouldn't number EVE amongst the games made by developers who want to make games. It's clearly intended to be a virtual world, not a game. And good on them for it, they've achieved more success than any other virtual world, imho.
p.s.s. Your logic is flawed. Just because you dont call rigatoni a pasta, doesnt mean its so. EvE is probably the most richly developed 'game' on the market. Those that might not have the patience or maturity for it, well, there's your themepark arcades, which are also 'games'.