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The Old Guard vs. The New MMORPG
thengeance
Member Posts: 6
I'm bored and nostalgic, so here's a quick thought on why people from "old/classic" mmo's are so salty about the genre derived from my own recent attempts to recapture "the magic".
Back when we played mmo's, video games were still coming into their own as a business. Most games were not very profitable, and development teams, particularly in this genre, were happy just to deliver a product. Games like EQ, DAoC, UO, TR, and vanilla WoW were all games that were built to exist and hopefully get enough attention to keep them afloat. This required developers to put in a great deal of effort to try and capture our attention with innovative content without giving much thought to how they would make the most money.
Now, it's 2013. Video games as a whole have absolutely exploded into a profitable segment of the entertainment industry. When a lion takes down a gazelle, hyenas and buzzards close in to try and get a piece of the kill; that is my elegant analogy to signify the entrance of profit-obsessed companies into the MMORPG fray. Before I break out the sickle and hammer, let me say that I do not object to profit in this industry; what I do object to is minimzing effort while maximizing profit and some of the half-baked experiences we get as a result.
The conflict errupts between the old crowd and the new because companies only operate this way because players tolerate these practices. Cash shops, microtransactions, RMAH... these entities exist because the new mmo player tolerates and willingly uses these services. This has changed the average MMO model from the aforementioned "old/classic" model into a new beast that seeks to deliver what I would consider game/genre-breaking features for the sake of making the game more profitable.
TL;DR: Old people, like myself, are vastly outnumbered in the new market, and hate that the collective money of new MMO players is dictating the trends and evolution in the genre.
The only thing I take solace in is that the market is now so saturated that individual games are more likely to appeal to niche interests (crafting, raiding, and reputation plox). I know that this huge increase in attention will lead to bigger and better things in the long run for the genre, but right now, things are just a little hard to stomach.
Comments
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
MMORPGs always existed to make money. I don't disagree that some of the older MMORPGs were made by developers who were especially passionate and had more creative control over their games than today. However, games like WoW were built for profits. In fact, Blizzard in particular has been a giant company far before it created WoW. They probably made a lot of design decisions based not on what they wanted to see in a new game (creativity) but instead off of market research.
Microtransactions are hardly what bothers players of EQ, DAoC, and UO. I am pretty sure by 'the old guard' you are simply referring to players of vanilla WoW.
Let me tell you about EQ, DAoC, and UO. About what the REAL old guard is. We do not care about microtransactions; in fact we welcome them if it means our game is going to get more money thus able to stay alive longer and get updates. We don't want our games to die, we live them like second lives and want them to last forever. We love our communities, the characters we have poured so much love into, and our game. Our games are immersive and we spend a lot of time on them when we are able to. The content is difficult because that makes it more rewarding. We don't need hand holding because exploration is part of the process and the fun of the game. We value friendship, teamwork, and inguinuity. We sometimes role-play; and for real. When we PvP there is something at stake; maybe what is at stake is in-grained in the game via item or xp loss or maybe it is because our community is so tight knit and our honor is so important. We play because we like the community, not simply the game.
That is a small part of what separates EQ DAoC and UO from World of Warcraft.
I like kickstarter but AAA mmorpgs would not be funded by kickstarter because they cost too much. Also, there is a lot of vaporware in MMORPGs and vaporware in kickstarter... Combine the two and what do you get?
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
This is coming relatively soon (they're ramping up to closed beta by what I heard so we should have an open beta by year's end-early next year if things go well)
http://albiononline.com
further down the line
http://www.embersofcaerus.com
someday soon (hopefuly)
http://trialsofascension.com
There is hope as there are still passionate people trying to make MMOs and it is a good thing some of these people are young, they're former old guard or Hell even twilight guard like me (I got a good internet connection at the end of the golden era when World of Warcraft came out).
True there are a lot of vaporwares but atleast someone is trying to make a difference and if I lose my 20 or 50 invested so be it, I lose it anyway at the pub.
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
Even though kickstarter won't raise enough for a MMO by itself, what it does is prove that a demand exist which in turn helps the game get the extra funding.
Good point. I am skeptical but I still may help fund a game on kickstarter if I see something I really like.
I want to use kickstarter someday to fund my projects... I have a cool invention me and friends are working on now that would be well suited for it and someday maybe kickstart an indie mmorpg.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
My gaming blog
The difference between games of the past and present has little to do with the passion of the games developers. Its just in the beginning that the people with the game idea were directly involved in the decison making process and didn't have to filter all their ideas through several levels of bureaucracy. Now days everything is designed by committe which unfortunatly can turn even the best ideas into a thin slurry of shit.
And in the beginning like minded people got together to create a game idea, then worked to get that idea crafted into a marketable game. Today it seems these companies start with the idea of how to make a bunch of money, and then just try to adapt any old shit into an MMO, with the results usually being quite shallow and terrible. It helps quite a lot to have a vision to build on rather than just trying to copy and paste what everyone else has already done.
So as someone already said, Thank God for Kickstater. Maybe through it we can hand the torch back to the people who really want to make good games and remove the revolting "human centipede" of corporate meddling.
If you dont do stupid things while youre young, youll have nothing to smile about when youre old.
It was put on the back burner due to Eve, RMT and the monocles spectacle and that they still believe Dust will be some sort of amazing success. Hopefully soon, Dust will fail and they can go back to making MMOs.
My gaming blog
A problem with your Lion/Hyena metaphor: Scientific studies have shown that in African parks about 60% of lions' food comes from kills stolen from hyenas. The hyenas hunt at night, and what actually happened was the lions would come out in the morning and steal the carcasses from the hyenas. The humans wandered in later and looking at the scene would comment on the mighty 'King of Beasts' and the cowardly hyena pack. The same sort of broad misconceptions as the Victorian cult of veneration for pure white marble classic Greek statuary; unaware that the Greeks painted them up, sometimes in quite gawdy fashion, and that the paint had just worn off with time.
Perhaps the application of this to gaming trends might be a similar mismapping?
I know that I looked at the games available in the 'Good Ol' Days', and thought they sucked. There's a lot more choice nowadays. Though sadly, not quite so many for the Old School proponents. Though Old Schoolers like to talk a lot. As an example, I've reccomended Vanguard for some folks who want a more classic experiance, and frequantly get complaints about graphics, animation, pvp, low population, etc. Apparantly, only the 'Perfect' game is acceptable.
The perfect game of Nostalgia is not available. And probably never will be.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
i am really curious about how much SWTOR cost to make excluding ads.
where did all that money go?
why couldnt something like kickstarter fund a game like that?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
The servers are up in these games still, but as I said, more money from microtransactions can translate into game-updates. Good updates make players happy and prevent the game from entering a downward spiral (of less players/less money/less updates) leading to the servers being taken down.
Players who have seen generations of MMOs pass recognize the importance of their favorite company creating a game that is not only fun but sustainable and makes enough profit to continue the IP via updates, expansions, or sequels. If microtransactions are a good business choice then they also benefit players who want to see the game be sustainable.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
I embrace change in the genre. Infact the only reason I play new MMOs is because I don't like the old. If I want I can play the SWGemu and I can play on classic UO servers and so can others but even though I think they are better than alot of the newer games out today they still don't satisfy me.
It's on Valve time due to the Incarna debacle.
I truly hope Yamota is kidding because if Dust 514 fails World of Darkness might be in danger of cancellation because a pretty big chunk of change is stuck into Dust 514 not to mention its integration into EVE-Online which would also impact it, the principal source of revenue for CCP.
Just FYI: If something does not fit into the traditional RPG model established by D&D that doesn't mean it isn't an RPG, because it only has to follow the simple rule: It tells a (or allows you to create a) story wherein you are either the protagonist or someone involved in a story, IE them playing a role within it. Though this broader definition means that most games out there today are RPGs in the non-D&D way which is fine with me ^^ ( I always found it a bit odd that you're playing the role of max payne, for example, within a game, you shoot things, you go through a story yet the game itself isn't classed as a RPG).
Or CCP figures out that they are a one-trick pony, and gives up on making new MMOs.
The more you sink into the game, the more you have to figure in the marketing money, as the cost of the game, as "build it and they will come" only works in movies.
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
Loving the responses so far, especially those that highlight how the landscape started evolving even before vanilla WoW. I promise that I have no illusions about the profit-inspired roots of game-making; however, those early days held a certain inefficiency or inability to truly capitalize on these properties. Now, the full potential of game production has been realized, and we are left with an industry that will provide only as much content as market value dictates.
The transition to microtransactions can be considered a move towards more content, but I believe it to be a move towards the illusion of more content. Console games in the FPS genre have been doing this for years with "map packs", which as we all know are simply re-skinned layouts that are sold to the consumer for the low price of 25% of the game's box price at release. Additionally, the fighting genre has seen games released like Street Fighter x Tekken which contained on-disc DLC that had to be unlocked by the consumer for an additional $15.
I've had this discussion several times before. I'm sure I sound like any number of the "woe is me, the genre is fading" people that have come before, but I have serious reservations about these new business practices. I only hope that things will continue to fluctuate and head towards a balance where we can purchase premium content at a fair price.
PS- The lion analogy critique was awesome. Clearly, I need to do some research before jumping to socially-held beliefs as a medium for argument.