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The Real Reason the MMO "Industry" is the way it is now.
BearKnight
Member CommonPosts: 461
This also pertains to the unfortunate reality that unless a major studio finally decides to take a risk we'll most likely only see future innovations from unknown smaller companies, or even simply Indie startups to save the MMORPG industry as a whole.
So, why is the MMORPG genre the way it is now? Well, part of the truth is in the very title of this thread. The genre of MMORPG's has become an "Industry" in and of itself.
Back in 1998 when I first logged into Ultima Online I was amazed at how many people were playing in the same game as me (I was ~11 at the time). The sheer fact that I could go out and meet people all across the world that I didn't know was an awe inspiring thought to me.
But wait! Nostalgia aside, the original company that created Ultima Online was not some huge mega corporation! It was a relatively small startup from a group of dudes who loved gaming, and wanted something "more" than just MUDs. (google a mud if you're too young to know what they are)
Yea, that's right, Electronic Arts used to be a tiny company! You could at one point call them an Indie company!
It was SMALL companies "back in the day" that created the MMORPG genre of online gaming, not huge mega corporations like SOE (whom also used to be a smaller company in the past when they actually made good products).
So what happened? Where did everything go wrong?
Success is what happened, and ironically is what went wrong with our beloved MMORPG's. Everquest was so successful, for its day, that it inspired Blizzard to take all the "best mainstream qualities of current MMORPGs" and WoW was born from that inspiration.
Over time, small indie companies became bigger and bigger, then other companies merged together to become even larger studios. These studios then became huge corporations whom then started devouring (buying up) small studios to become the Mega Corporations we see today.
Mega Corporations have one fault, they MUST make money with whatever they do. This means it is almost impossible for them to be willing to take risks due to too many people relying on said Mega Corporation to produce. So what we see are calculated anti-risk decisions that are gauranteed, in their spreadsheet, pie chart, and super organized presentations, to make their respective company money.
This is also what has spawned self proclaimed "experts" whom are driving the industry on its current path of cookie-cutter clones of previous MMOs gone-by. They aren't actually MMO players, but are "analysts" whom only look at numbers and proclaim popularity by majority.
This is where RIFT, WAR, SWTOR, Allods, and the like came from. Analysts whom don't actually play the products they're analysing whom don't understand that WoW themepark gameplay is NOT what an MMO is as a "core concept". However, it's not their fault. Afterall they're just trying to guarantee a profit for their respective corporation so they don't force people to lose their jobs over underperformance.
So, what do we do? Where do we go from here?
From a personal perspective from all my years of gaming online all I can say is that mayhaps it is time for a collapse of the "industry" in order to return it to its roots that made it so great. I'm not saying let's embrace the 20hr camps in EQ again. However, what I am saying is that unless these Mega Corporations stop chasing money and start chasing their customer's respect as well as their "fun" we won't see the genre change.
Perhaps, Indie companies are the only source of quality "fun" or "challenge" anymore? I hope not, but it may be our only choice.
That's my 15year experience of MMORPG's talking anyways.....cheers 
!
-Bear
Comments
I disagree with pretty much every single point you made.
The industry right now is in a great spot and looking better. There are great games right now and some very good looking ones coming out next year.
EA was not small in 1997 when UO released.
Sony had a hand in EQ right from the start, SOE is a division of Sony. Sony was not a small company in 1999.
Nothing went wrong, it just went in a direction you don’t prefer. Many others do.
The WoW themepark gameplay is definitely what an MMO as a core concept can be, and many feel it should be.
The mega corporations know that the best way to get money is to make a product people will like.
Indie’s have always been the source of many changes which are usually refined by a bigger corporation.
"fun" and "challenge" are subjective.
See responses in orange^
Ah yes, another "I truly understand what is wrong with this genre because I am smarter and better looking than the thousands of people who make successful video games every day" thread.
MMO genre is fine. Doing great actually.
I'd rather have the games/choices I have now than go back in time and play UO pre-Trammel again.
That's the great thing about "fun" and "challenge" though. They have a target fanbase that produce said subjectivities. When you take a product that said fanbase considers fun and move it towards a different fanbase simply because the new one is bigger is called "chasing the money" instead of "chasing the customer".
What normally ends up happening is they're not "in tune" with the newer, larger, customer's wants/needs/desires and end up bastardizing the product entirely. (See EQ2)
Overall though your comment was rather neutral towards a conversation. It's like pointing out that the sky is blue when talking about cloud formations
-No where did I say i'm smarter, I said this is what my experience has shown me.
-No where did I say i'm better looking, i've been told the opposite compared to a road-sign.
-MMO genre is "fine" is your opinion. Doing great is a far cry away from what I perceive as fact. My opinion too obviously.
-I never once said we should go "back in time", and nor did I reference the return of said past. I entirely spoke about a different direction that was a rehersal of the old.
re-read my OP please.
Well I currently flit between WoW, EQ, Istaria, VG and DCUO - these are all games available on the market right now, and are all very different from each other, Age of Wushu, while not my cup of tea definately has an active following and has it's own unique flavor. For games in the future, Arche Age, EQ next and ESO all have things that make them different.
No EA was not pretty small. It was about the 3rd biggest computer game company by that point.
Verant was a division of Sony right from the start when EQ was firstthought up, then went on their own, then was brought back into sony. So Sony had a hand in EQ from day one.
Going in a different direction than some of the people wanted, the fact that WoW was made with former EQ players prove that some wanted a different directions. This is only a wrong direction if you don't like the direction, thats it, by definition.
Your opinion as well. But in reality an MMO is about having the possibility to engage in a number of gameplay styles in which interacting with others towards a common goal is just one of the gameplay styles. All the MMO's before WoW let you solo very well (some more than others). WoW lets people engage in a number of styles and does a great job of encouraging interativity (your definition) with the AH, battlegrounds, dungeons, raids and arena. Because it encourages interaction it is, by your defintion an MMO at it's core concept.
With the indie part yes, but that is not any different from the past.
agree - take a look at wiki info on Origin and EA involvement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_Systems
EQ2 fan sites
It should also be pointed out that, UO did not make the genre. It wasn't the first graphical MMO (it was the 2nd or third) and it did not inspire World of Warcraft. It was Everquest that made the genre a success, that earned the name "EverCracK", that was discussed in Time magazine and economics journals.. It was obvious then and obvious today that if you make non-consensual PVP games you're going to limit your target market. If not for Everquest, the hundreds of millions of dollars that were required to make all of these games would have never been spent.
You have first-person perspective bias.
You wrote the OP, so you can't see how incredibly biased the OP is and how much you project your perceived shortcomings of this genre. You imply with nearly every sentence that the genre sucks now and is not as good as it once was.
An opinion you are certainly entitled to, but don't pretend this is a discussion. No one can argue against the OP. Thread is designed from the get go for failure as a discussion topic.
I could say "well I think the genre has really moved forward and we have much better games and world now than we ever had back in the days when everything was so simplistic and there wasn't any content... etc. etc."
And then you'd retort, "well I don't agree and here is why..."
And the whole thread is pointless...
Although i've been told completely different about Verant vs SOE's role in EQ that, I suppose, is an excorcise in contraversial discussion.
That aside, I did solo quite a bit in my EQ early days, but enjoyed being able to do harder content by grouping and engaging with people i'd never met before, learning new ways of playing, and learning more about the game itself.
WoW, at its core, was an attempt to make you feel like you were zoomed in REALLY close to a Warcraft III unit on a massive scale. The rest of the game was designed with familiar elements from MMOs already released at the time. The idea along with the familiarities coupled with accessibility of being horribly graphically insufficient made the game a bombshell success for newer people to the genre. All i hear nowadays from x-WoW "vets" is how terrible the game has been for the past 5years. So, /shrug.
As for future titles, some larger companies are getting the "hint" but are still trying to stay close to the mainstream line that is seeping out of WoW at the moment, EQ:N is a huge example. It won't be too different from GW2 other than having mainstreamed graphics coupled with core-sandbox mechanics that have been asked for since SWG lol.
Arch Age is starting to look like a disappointment, or so Korea will have us believe, and the Elder Scrolls Online has yet to prove it can be a succesful product. The ESO team has a done a complete 180 from their previously shown incarnations due to backlash they got so hopefully it'll be half-decent. The Elder Scrolls franchise is definitely NOT one that does well with SWTOR based core mechanics like they were going with previously.
I'm hoping we see a larger shift away from WoW's core gameplay that has shown to put newer releases into their early graves of "F2P". It is disappointing to see so many people i know lose their jobs due to misdirection.
But....i said it was EQ that inspired WoW, not UO?
Why do you even come to a forum if you're going to be like this?
Forums are about open discussion, and not "You're wrong because I say you are now shut up" .
I view these type of threads in the same vein I viewed my grandfather when he talked about "the good old days". Age always has a habit of warping our perspective on the past and believing all was well back then and somewhere along the line it all become warped.
In my view MMOs are doing amazing. With so many people playing now, there is obviously so many different games around offering us so many different choices. A number of games are coming out next year that will only reinforce the truth of this statement. I am glad to be playing MMOs at this point in time.
Whether it is the economy or politics or whatever, the gloom and doom school always seems to gain a certain amount of traction.
This is only true for Vanilla and parts of TBC WoW. Wow in its current state is a far cry from its released version. Just like many games even EQ at this current spot if a far cry from what is was because it has tried to adopt features from new games that make the game essentially better. However better is in the eye of the beholder. But as the original poster stated I agree that we will not see a game like EQ ever again because it was a time sink. It was challenging the players bases was more of and adult crowd because computers were not in every house like they are now. The player age group now for mmo's is far younger by and large then it was back then. Its completely impossible to say for sure but it would have been interesting to see EQ released now into a market at its original state and see how many people would play it or not. By released now I mean the core game obviously but with todays standards of graphics and such.
True, which is why I generally try fairly hard to remove rose tinted glasses marked "the good old days"
!
I've just been playing MMORPG's so long that when I experience the EXACT same thing from 10years ago it gets old/frustrating/annoying. I'm not saying I should be able to build my own mountains etc in any game I play, but i'd at least like to do away with 99% of the game being instanced with solo-only story to hold my hands through everything. That, and mistakes from the past 20 or so MMOs that are repeated constantly get old fast too.
NeverWinter: Online, for me, was another adventure down horribly clunky poorly designed mechanics like was done in Champions Online. Highly talked about, but the managers of the developement staff didn't care
.
by Brads own words,
Smed and Brad co-founded Verant, Smed was the President of Verant
http://www.silkyvenom.com/pages/devtracker/index.php?go=posts&get=thread&fromsite=1&id=51141
Smed has always been SONY
http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,13629/
related 2002 news story how Smed had the idea for EQ (fixed link)
http://otherworlds31279.yuku.com/topic/1208/Business-20-magazine-history-of-EverQuest#.UieLTE2d4dU
2012 interview w Brad
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/9/feature/5971/Building-EQ-The-Brad-McQuaid-Interview.html
EQ2 fan sites
Yeah, popularity by majority . . . who would have thought. If a lot of people like it, it's popular. How dare they jump to that conclusion. Don't they know that if a lot of people like something it's totally NOT popular?
What people like and what people find fun varies from person to person. I don't understand the incessant need to say, "everyone else is wrong, I'm right, orange is the best color!"
Then you want game companies to stop chasing money and start chasing respect. News flash, even when those companies were small (even indie) they were still about the money. If they weren't, they'd be closed because that's how business works. No amount of respect pays the bills.
Added some green.
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
Hey Bear, I think you make some good points that I agree with. Got to have a thick skin and not debate every inflamatory rebuttal, though. Otherwise a thread lock is almost certainly forthcoming.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Most of what people deem "too easy", "WOW-clones", "hand holding", etc. will always be a part of what AAA game development studios deem necessary to include in any given MMO. I mean put it this way, it took 12 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) fucking years for people to say that they are sick and tired of people remaking the same MMO over and over again.
Whenever I see a feature in an upcoming MMO that deviates from the standard MMO setup I am actually shocked, even though the opposite should be true.
The only way that you'll find people making games the way they think they should be made as opposed to according to a business formula developed in order to saturate the maximum percentage of any possible audience is going to be in an Indie development house.
The above is my personal opinion. Anyone displaying a view contrary to my opinion is obviously WRONG and should STHU. (neener neener)
-The MMO Forum Community
I entered the video game industry in the late 90's due in part to these larger companies being formed, so to me personally it is a good thing. Another good thing about bigger companies is that a lot of talented people come together an work on great projects. Is there drama involved and internal politics, sure, but there are also some great ideas and concepts being produced. Working in the industry can sometimes feel like playing a MMO, but quite often a wipe on a raid boss can mean start a new alt at a different company.
It's funny that you mention spreadsheets, pie charts, and presentations .... because a video game company is still a business and it is still work. The pitch guy for the project will need all those things to even get the project green lit, because in the end the question will always be is the value worth the price to build it. Data is a funny thing, because it is not subjective nor is it driven by any ideology that "A" is better than "B". When producers and Executive look at reports they can see (or predict) what the majority of their player base wants, or is willing to spend $ on in a game. Another big change is that a lot more player data is being tracked in games today than in the past. With the additions of cash shops, AHs, and RMT there is a boatload of information to pick and choose from. Basically gamers will scream that they want "A", but when given the choice choose "B" 75% of the time. So asking why a lot of games feel the same can be answered; the studio is trying to build a game that will result in the greatest number of players playing it.
There is no conspiracy against a certain segment of gamers or a blacklisting of certain "core" game mechanics. Themeparks whether they be traditional or MMO have been around for a long time and if you honestly look at the data you could see no real reason that they wont stick around for a long time. Are they better? maybe/maybe not, but they are comfortable for a large number of gamers. The state of the industry feels about right when you look at the player data, i.e. there are 1000+ casual players to every 1 "hardcore" pvp permadeath player.
TLDR - Studios do not make a game that any one person feels is ideal, they make games that will bring in the greatest number of potential gamers. The game industry is no different than any other industry, but unlike the auto industry they can't really jack the prices up for a niche game (gamers will not pay a whole lot more for a niche game, but expect similar quality).
You can't REALLY discuss a subjective opinion. You either agree with said opinion, or you don't. That's not a discussion. It's just an OP looking for validation through the agreement of others.
There is no room for fact nor logic in this thread.
Only "here is why I think you are right" or "here is why I think you are wrong." It always leads to flaming, trolling, and all the worst parts of this often-toxic community.
There is enough of that on these boards. We don't need another of these threads. Let's talk about GAMES.
"Facts are only open to discussion when logical reasoning is abandoned."
Of course you can. You can state it and why. May be that does not applies to others, but certainly you can discuss them.
Here is an example.
I don't play MMORPGs to socialize. I like solo content in MMORPGs. I like LFD and LFR.
See ... and i am not looking for validation. I just like to express myself, and response to others who comment on my expression.