MMOs, a thread on design

[Gan The Grey]

Disclaimer: I'm afraid this might come across a bit disjointed, as I have a vague idea of what I'm getting at here, but the thoughts are not quite yet fully formed.

I, like many millions of Americans, once spent large amounts of my free time running around a World of Warcraft server. I played around with PVP, dungeon-crawling, and (very briefly) raiding. Eventually, I moved on from WoW to what I thought were greener pastures. Most of the other titles turned out to be WoW knock-offs to one degree or another, so it didn't take long for me to give up on them. I promised myself I would get into the newest Final Fantasy MMO when it came out, but after reading about and seeing a few gameplay videos, I decided it would just be more of the same and opted out.

As I played each one, I continually asked myself, "What am I looking for in an MMO?" "Are my expectations reasonable?" I still don't exactly know the answers to those questions, but a few things are itching at my brain and I feel the need to get them out there and hear some thoughts. Oh, and just for simplicity, I'm not getting into PvP content right now.

Rarity and Uniqueness

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The more I played WoW, the more I advanced up the various tiers of armor and weaponry, which, in turn, allowed me to delve deeper into more difficult dungeons and get even better armor and weaponry which, in turn....Yeah, you get the picture. Anyone who's played an MMO pretty much knows the drill.

I understand the design behind this. At its heart, the level and loot system is designed to give players a regular feeling of accomplishment in order to keep subscribers addicted to the game. And WoW does this quite well. Once the level cap is reached, rare and unique items become one of, if not the main way to show how advanced and 'leet' your character is. Greens slowly become replaced with named blues and purples, and, if you're really hardcore, even with legendary yellows.

I think WoW's item grind lost its appeal for me when I ran into three different guys wielding Illidan's(spelling) double-bladed sword. Here was a weapon so rare and powerful that only one being in existence held it, a being designed as the capstone battle to an entire expansion of this game, and I was starting to see them everywhere. Rare was beginning to become synonymous with commonplace.

I wanted a game where unique meant unique. I wanted someone in the world to be known as the bearer of Ravensong, the black bow of the north. I wanted to know that, unless that bearer lost it, Ravensong would never be found in the hands of another. And, unless it was designed for a very specific reason, acquiring it wasn't done simply to move deeper into some well-traveled dungeon and take down a regularly dispatched boss monster. Where the item becomes less of a stepping stone toward its replacement, and more a part of who your character is.

A Story-Driven Environment

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Again, I'll use WoW as my basis for comparison, but my argument applies to many, if not most, MMOs. Your character is one of a limited number of parameters, a combination of race and class and build that is more unique as you level towards the cap than it is at the end when your guild and the forums teach you the ways of proper min/maxing. In fact, the only truly unique thing about your character is his name, and that can be subverted by adding various symbols and numbers and, god forbid, bookending it with X's.

So, yeah, your character? Not really all that interesting. Enter the quest line. Sure, it's possible to level all the way to cap without ever touching a quest giver, but dear god, this isn't Everquest. Let's not do that to ourselves. The quest line both expedites the leveling process and keeps the player on their toes, keeps them interested in the journey, not just the end result.

In WoW, every area has its own fully developed story. Nearly every NPC, aside from merchants, has their own place in the world. But you? What difference would it make in the world if you hadn't come along? What difference does it make in the world if you do this quest, or don't? When you complete a quest line, you aren't known as the great savior of the so-and-so people, because, honestly, you're just character #1723 to come along and do the exact same thing. And it's not like it was really difficult, because you couldn't even GET the quest until you were reasonably expected to be able to complete it. Well, maybe with a little help.

But I digress, and I'm totally going to admit that I'm not exactly sure where I'm going with this. I want to say something about how all characters are the same, that people will remember the world, but not the guy they just ran Blackrock Depths with. Sure, the really truly hardcore elite players get remembered, but the characters? Just a shell. Just the vehicle.

I wanted a game where, while the world is important and interesting, its the truly unique characters that populate it that makes the game special, memorable. I wanted a game where your actions are meaningful and lasting. You aren't doing quests to gain levels. You are doing quests because you want to be heroic (or villanic?) and you are trying to accomplish some in-world goal. And I'm not just talking about RP here, either. RP makes up reasons to cover up what the game is telling you you have to do.

I always hear people talk about wanting MMOs sent in their favorite author's world, or even another videogame. I don't want that. I want a world I know nothing about, that isn't well established so that the creators don't try to make the world more important than its population.

Progressing Along the Railroad

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I spoke in the last section of a story-driven environment with quest lines and fleshed-out NPCs and monsters. WoW starts you off in a designated noob area and gives you quests that serve to both teach you the game and your character, and to slowly introduce you to the area. The quests gradually increase the size and meaning of the world at a pace of the designer's choosing. Sure, you may not see everything surrounding Orgimmar, as only priests get to quest in certain areas, or rogues over in another, but for the most part, you become thoroughly familiar with the zone by the time you've exhausted all your quests. Now that you're at the proper level range, they send you out into the Barrens! (queue Chuck Norris jokes)

The whole of the game goes like this, branching out in the middle as you can choose to ignore some zones in favor of others, but in the end, it all leads up to the Black Temple (you've probably figured out when I stopped playing). This is one of my issues with a story-driven environment. It all always leads up to some specific ultimate throw-down. You beat the Black Temple? You've beaten the game (pending later expansions)!

I wanted a game with fluid, player-driven goals. And they don't even have to be BIG goals. Maybe you just want to take a town that is vulnerable to orc raids and provide them with some modicum of safety. Build some walls, beef up the local militia, craft weapons and armor for the peasants, or even drive the angry orc tribe from the area (until complacency sets back in). There is no ultimate big bad, or, if there is, finally beating it changes the dynamics of the setting for good.

At the same time, I don't want the game designers to introduce me to the world in their way. I want to discover it on my own terms, at my own pace, for my own reasons. I don't want some farmer to say, "Well, thanks for picking all that corn. Don't think I need much else from you, but can you take a shipment over to the neighboring village? They've been having a rough time of late, what will that kobold infestation. They sure could use a strapping lad like yourself." Okay, maybe that would be okay, but I think that hearing rumors and reading books and talking to other PCs would make discovering this information more interesting.

Alright, I know that was alot, and pretty vague to boot. I've got more I'd like to talk about, like the limited scope and monotony of crafting systems, but I think I'll hold of on that for a bit. I have some ideas how to implement some of my desires into a game, but I can see there would be problems if not handled correctly.

What are your opinions? What did/do you want to see in an MMO? What are your thoughts on my thoughts? How would you solve some of these problems? Do I talk too much?

[tensai_oni]

@Rarity:
Bad idea. Few better ways to drive off the playerbase than to make drops limited. Why do you think some players should be punished by not having a chance to acquire an item just because others were at the same boss/encounter earlier? This will only promote "first, lol!!1!" mentality and drama.

One solution is to make ALL drops randomized - so they are all unique. But that just means some players will be "blessed" by the RNG while others feel cheated when the drop they worked hard for turns out to be a piece of crap.

@Story-drive environment:
Play SWTOR. The player character in that game has actual character. Well, to some extent. After all, the PC in MMOs is supposed to be a standin for whatever personality you want. How do you think about the story forcing you to roleplay a particular personality? That doesn't sound very fun.

Also if you think players forget other players, you are wrong. MMOs are a very social environment.

@Progress:
I don't get you. Nobody forces you to go to a select location. It's just that areas outside of your level are not places you generally want to be in - too low offers no challenge (but you can still stay around and do quests if you want to. Nobody forces you to leave!), and too high means death by mobs. MMOs usually have daily quests and stuff, where you can work for your favorite faction/village/whatever, so I am not sure what you are getting at.

[Zen Master]

Hm - game design.

You mention addiction. No offense to you, but I dislike the term in this context. The media will tell you about WoW addiction, but no one really hears about facebook addiction or television addiction, despite entirely ordinary users of both spending hours and hours on end on those things.

WoW is a time sink like any other. Better in many ways for being a highly social one. But never mind that.

In my experience, there are two types of MMO's. Well - actually only one, but there were two. I'm going to term them solid and fluid. And see if I can explain why.

When I say there is only one type of MMO, it's because today (to my knowledge) they are all WoW clones. That's a solid MMO, with a very set progression, a class system that lets you work from level 1 to level whatever with a number of specific skills.

The other type that used to be is Ultima Online (I know of no other game like it). The game had any number of skills, of which you could chose to train and max seven. There were player-made cities, player made items (from weapons and armor over furniture to ... well, everything). You were very free to design your character as you pleased, and play it as you pleased. You need not ever enter combat.

Both are excellent games - in their way - and why no one today has made a more or less complete rip-off of Ultima Online is a great mystery to me. It can and will be done, eventually. And it would be able to compete with WoW (in some meaningful manner) because it would actually be different from WoW in a meaningful manner.

And that's the problem for pretty much all the other MMO's - they are not different in a way that really means anything. Not even moving your fantasy into space really makes a difference. Tho admittedly I haven't played SWTOR.

[Toastkart]

As I played each one, I continually asked myself, "What am I looking for in an MMO?" "Are my expectations reasonable?" I still don't exactly know the answers to those questions, but a few things are itching at my brain and I feel the need to get them out there and hear some thoughts. Oh, and just for simplicity, I'm not getting into PvP content right now.

Have you checked out Guild Wars 2? It's certainly not a perfect mmo, and I have some issues with it, but it certainly seems like a step in the right direction.

Rarity and Uniqueness

GW2 does away with the grind treadmill in a number of ways. The leveling curve is fairly flat, that is, early levels go by quickly and mid/high levels take roughly the same amount of time/effort to reach.

Gear has stats, but those stats reach a plateau at high levels. You don't need x gear to get into y dungeon so you can get y gear to get into z dungeon ad infinitum.

What really matters is your skill. You can go into a high level dungeon with 5 of the same class, and while that may be harder than a balanced group, if you know how to play your class well you will succeed.

A Story-Driven Environment

Character creation in GW2 includes many questions related to your character's personal story. You can make choices that affect the outcome of your personal story. Although, there is still the issue, as you point out, that all of the personal stories end up in the same place--fighting the elder dragon Zhaitan.

There are no quests in the sense of the go here and kill a hundred zombies until they drop ten finger bones type. No, instead, if you enter an area a farmer might run up to you and say that there are zombies gathering in the swamp, and if you don't do something they'll invade.

Those zombies don't just stand in the swamp waiting to be killed, if you don't do something they'll invade. If you try to stop them, but can't kill enough of them before time runs out, they'll invade. If they invade, they'll start killing shopkeepers and taking over waypoints, and to get those things back you'll have to drive them back into the swamp, where the whole cycle starts again.

Progressing Along the Railroad

In GW2, after a short tutorial, you are pretty much free to explore the world the way you want to. As I mentioned before, leveling is on a flat curve, but to make it even less important, if you go into a higher/lower level area, you are automatically sidekicked to a more appropriate level. Not only will you be able to contribute to higher level areas, higher level characters won't be able to go back to lower level areas and totally destroy things for those playing there.

There are also a large number of ways to contribute. Say that a group of centaurs are attacking a village and burning the buildings. You can fight the centaurs, or you can grab a bucket and start dousing flames. Both contribute, both get rewarded. It's not quite as freeform as you probably want, though. You couldn't build a stone wall around the village to prevent it from ever happening again, but you could do nothing but sit around and wait for that dynamic event to cycle around again and again. I think that would get boring really fast, though, considering how much there is to do in the world.


As for my own thoughts, as you can imagine, Guild Wars 2 is pretty much the next mmo that I will be buying. It has a lot of things that I want out of an mmo. Fluid roles, interesting classes, dynamic events, personal storyline, heavy customization.

There are a few things that I'm concerned about, namely variety. See, your weapon sets determine your first five skills. That means if you stick to the same weapon sets you're going to be stuck with the same skills for the whole game. Now, traits are supposed to modify skills to make them unique, but the trait system is currently undergoing a revamp and they haven't revealed the new iteration yet.

What also irks me somewhat is, because skills are tied to weapon, each weapon set leans toward a particular role. If I wanted to use a mace and be a high damage warrior, well I'm kind of out of luck, as mace is a more defensive/control weapon than a damaging one. If I wanted more damage/control I'd have to go hammer.

It's a fairly minor complaint, though. I just see where they could have allowed for more build customization and chose a limited one for balance/no bad build reasons.

And that's the problem for pretty much all the other MMO's - they are not different in a way that really means anything. Not even moving your fantasy into space really makes a difference. Tho admittedly I haven't played SWTOR.

Heh, considering that SWTOR devs have said that if an mmo isn't ripping off WoW, then you're doing it wrong, well, that pretty much says everything I need to know about the game. I wasn't that interested in it before they said that, and I definitely wasn't interested in it after.

[Daremonai]

It's not entirely on-topic, but the upcoming Pathfinder MMO is apparently going to use a skills system akin to UO and/or EVE.

[MickJay]

Few of my reflections and observations on MMOs, might be a bit incoherent since I'm in a rush:

There are a few games like EVE online, which are definitely MMOs and can't be called WoW clones by any means. There existed, and was shut down, a MMO version of the Sims game. Some MMOs released before WoW, like Anarchy Online (and its later clone/remake Neocron 2), feature both different gameplay and somewhat different leveling system. Guild Wars has a completely different skills system. APB features both different leveling up and gameplay; it was closed down and became free to play. WoW ended up sharing many similarities with, released a year before, Lineage 2, which (in my opinion) has a superior PvP system, but used to require much more grind, and was less forgiving, before eventually becoming 'F2P', in anticipation of release of L3.

And then there are independent MMOs, like Planeshift (in continuous development for some 10 years if not more; high on role-playing; leveling up system based on using various skills, near-unique advancement system) or WURM online (probably the closest to what Acromos is after, in that it shares similarities with UO).

What do they have in common? All proved to be less popular than WoW. WoW clones tend to fail, because they try to be WoW, and WoW tends to be best at it. Games featuring considerably different types of gameplay, leveling etc. simply tend to exist in their small, low- or no-profit niche, or die out. They don't seem to attract enough attention in the first place, or don't entice players for long enough. In that, WoW proved to be by far the most successful, and I would put it down to the combination of gameplay model, amount of invested money, already high popularity of the Warcraft universe and entering the market sufficiently early to grab its considerable share.

Professional producers of MMOs tend to be risk averse and try to follow the tested model of WoW, and fail, because there's no good reason to play a WoW-like game when you can play WoW. Putting anywhere between $5m-25m into an untested game model (or an existing model that has not proved to be profitable) is simply too much of a risk for game making companies. Which leaves the amateur/fan made mmos - sometimes offering unique gameplay, but lacking broadly understood capital to make it big.

[Zen Master]

Heh, considering that SWTOR devs have said that if an mmo isn't ripping off WoW, then you're doing it wrong, well, that pretty much says everything I need to know about the game. I wasn't that interested in it before they said that, and I definitely wasn't interested in it after.

Well ... in many ways it's nothing but the truth: It makes perfect sense to see what's out there, what's popular, and go with that.

The only problem with that reasoning is that WoW is doing it's thing so well that you really can't compete - furthermore, WoW (and all MMO's I guess) are very much social ... rooms (?!) ... and you can't move one player from one to another - he'll want all his guild mates to come along. He or she.

So ... to my mind at least, when you have a player as dominant as WoW, you need to do the opposite: Diverge from the proven path.

Then again - companies aren't lining up asking me to do their thinking for them =)

[Toastkart]

Well ... in many ways it's nothing but the truth: It makes perfect sense to see what's out there, what's popular, and go with that.

The only problem with that reasoning is that WoW is doing it's thing so well that you really can't compete - furthermore, WoW (and all MMO's I guess) are very much social ... rooms (?!) ... and you can't move one player from one to another - he'll want all his guild mates to come along. He or she.

So ... to my mind at least, when you have a player as dominant as WoW, you need to do the opposite: Diverge from the proven path.

Then again - companies aren't lining up asking me to do their thinking for them =)

I agree, but what that quote was saying to me was that they weren't willing to diverge. And from everything I hear about the game, they haven't much except where story is concerned. The ironic thing about that is that I hear the space bar is the most used button in the game, because that's the button that skips cut scenes.

WoW, and WoW-like mmos are competitive mmos. You're competing with other players in pvp. You're fighting other players in open world pvp based on opposing factions. You're competing with other players for dungeon spots. You're competing with other players for loot drops, experience, gold, quests, quest mobs, etc.

Guild Wars 2 diverges from that by being a cooperative mmo. Yes, there's pvp, both structured and world vs. world vs. world, but those are separate areas of the game. There's no open world pvp, which means no ganking or camping bodies. In pve, you will never regret having another player nearby, because he can't steal your kills or your loot. You are rewarded for your contribution and no one can take that away from you but you. You aren't competing for dungeon spots because all classes can fluidly fill all combat roles. No more waiting for healers or tanks, because there are no healers or tanks, not really.

Heck, there are no ally targeting skills. That alone makes combat more dynamic than watching red bars go up/down. Your position matters. You don't get better at the game by grinding up more levels or better gear or spending more time, you get better when you get better at playing the game.

These things alone show how far GW2 diverges from the WoW types. No, I don't expect (or care) GW2 to kill WoW, or even makes a significant dent in WoW subscriptions. What I hope for is that it will be successful enough to push the envelope so that future games can push it even further.

[Zen Master]

WoW, and WoW-like mmos are competitive mmos. You're competing with other players in pvp.

I generaly agree with you - but from my experience in WoW, the pvp community is a fairly tiny fraction of the total player base.

That may be entirely off the mark. I played on a pve realm, and consider WoW pvp to be atrocious, griefing and poorly conceived. I know others somehow see the charm in ganking noobs 20 levels lower in the barrens, but I just don't get it.

For me, pvp er concensus only. I like LoL, BF2, WoT and so on. But being jumped by higher-level dorks while questing for raptor hides defeats my sense of enjoyment.

Hm ... that was a fairly superflous rant about ganking. Hrm. My point was that ... is pvp so defining in WoW?

[tyckspoon]

Hm ... that was a fairly superflous rant about ganking. Hrm. My point was that ... is pvp so defining in WoW?

He wasn't just talking about direct player character-attacking-player character action, I'm pretty sure. WoW is structured throughout the entire game so that there are players who are winning and players who are losing. Beat a boss in a raid? 2-4 players might get an item, the other 20-odd players who came along get nothing for their same time and effort. Crafting orbs from dungeon bosses that are potentially valuable to the entire group, either for their own use or resale value? Only one drops for a five-man group to argue about. Cosmetic mounts/pets/costume pieces? Yup, same there. Even something as simple as gathering craft materials: WoW gathering nodes are single use, single user. If there is somebody else gathering in the same area, you are in direct competition with that other player to locate and loot the gathers first (and Elders forbid there be three people actively gathering, because one of them is gonna get shut out.) Doing a 'Kill X monsters' quest at the same time as somebody else? Yeah, you're competing for those mob spawns too.

Blizzard has been trying to reduce this kind of thing, but yes, I think it's fair to say that a very large part of WoW is built on the premise of you getting ahead by beating other players at something, even if that something doesn't involve zeroing out their life bar.

[Gan The Grey]

@Rarity:
Bad idea. Few better ways to drive off the playerbase than to make drops limited. Why do you think some players should be punished by not having a chance to acquire an item just because others were at the same boss/encounter earlier? This will only promote "first, lol!!1!" mentality and drama.

One solution is to make ALL drops randomized - so they are all unique. But that just means some players will be "blessed" by the RNG while others feel cheated when the drop they worked hard for turns out to be a piece of crap.

You are assuming here that there are static dungeons designed with static boss monsters that you have to fight to get the good drops. Sure, in that scenario, if only the first person to kill it gets the drops, then everyone else gets screwed. But then, why is the boss monster still around after he's been killed? What's to say he didn't get away and set up shop somewhere else for a new encounter with different drops? What's to say the game doesn't generate dynamic encounters? I don't know that I would know how to implement this, but that's not to say it can't be done.

Players, btw, are already being punished. Punished for not playing 100 hours a week. Punished for not being in the best, most hardcore guilds. Punished for not being RNG lucky when you finally do get to run that instance 10 times and the axe you want never drops. Players get punished all the time.

@Story-drive environment:
Play SWTOR. The player character in that game has actual character. Well, to some extent. After all, the PC in MMOs is supposed to be a standin for whatever personality you want. How do you think about the story forcing you to roleplay a particular personality? That doesn't sound very fun.

Also if you think players forget other players, you are wrong. MMOs are a very social environment.

That's not exactly what I was getting at. Yes, you remember your friends and guildmates. What I was saying was, there are certain elite players that the entire server talks about because they are the best at what they do, or the absolute best geared for their class, or because they have Molten Core on farm status. Basically, they are legends within the community. My problem is, that legend is built within the game designer's parameters.

I can't get out what I want to say here for some reason. Maybe someone else will figure out what I mean and say it for me.

@Progress:
I don't get you. Nobody forces you to go to a select location. It's just that areas outside of your level are not places you generally want to be in - too low offers no challenge (but you can still stay around and do quests if you want to. Nobody forces you to leave!), and too high means death by mobs. MMOs usually have daily quests and stuff, where you can work for your favorite faction/village/whatever, so I am not sure what you are getting at.

I don't have a problem with the low level/high level zones and such. There should be some of that in an MMO. But if you think the game doesn't force you to go to a certain location, you're wrong. You are forced into progressively higher level zones, because once you hit a certain level in an area, there is nothing left for you to do in that area. That's because the entire game is built around level and loot. There are no other accomplishments worthy of playing for. Nothing you do has any impact on anything other than level and loot. Why would I stay in the Barrens and fight gazelles? They won't drop anything useful anymore. And it isn't like I'm protecting the Crossroads from anything either.

What I'm saying is that the game forces its goals on you, and forces you to accomplish them in a very limited number of ways. And once accomplished, large areas of the game become completely meaningless to you. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. It works for WoW. I just would like to see something more.

@Acromos Sorry, I meant addiction in the absolute lightest sense. Hooked, drawn to, enticed by, ect.

@Evrine Isn't GW2 the game that has been waiting to come out for like 8 years now? I played the first, it wasn't bad, but it was more railroady than WoW in many aspects. I'll read up on the second sometime.

@Tyckspoon I don't necessarily have a problem with competition like that in a game. The problem lies in the lack of enough diversified roles in the world. If it gets too hard to find iron, a smart person would move on to a trade that doesn't require it, preferably one that is underrepresented on the server. But since you can max out crafting and still somehow find the time to save the world from Illidan, it is almost impossible to 'corner the market' on anything in WoW. Sure, some people might have the rarer recipes from dungeon runs, but that's about it.

The game doesn't have nearly enough roles to fill. I think you should be allowed to be a merchant, or town militia, or adventurer, or nobility, or craftsman, or farmer. But not all of them. And I think the game should be robust enough to provide a challenge to each role, and have enough content to keep them interesting. Why not model each role off of real life, so that when you leave the game, you've actually learned something? That would be freakin awesome.

[Zen Master]

@Acromos Sorry, I meant addiction in the absolute lightest sense. Hooked, drawn to, enticed by, ect.

Heh - no worries. I just feel the media overdramatizes something that is hardly any real problem. Or ... to a very unlucky few it might be. But generally speaking, social phenomenon like ... say facebook or WoW ... are good things.

At least I believe so =)

[Toastkart]

awesomely worded stuff

Thanks Tyckspoon. That was the kind of thing I was talking about, and you brought up several examples that I didn't think of at the time.

Evrine Isn't GW2 the game that has been waiting to come out for like 8 years now? I played the first, it wasn't bad, but it was more railroady than WoW in many aspects. I'll read up on the second sometime.

GW2 has only been in development since mid to late 2007, meaning it's coming up on five years, and will hopefully be released before the end of the year.

Also, by railroady do you mean the fact that it had an actual story unlike many mmos, or the mission structure of that story?

I don't necessarily have a problem with competition like that in a game. The problem lies in the lack of enough diversified roles in the world.

The game doesn't have nearly enough roles to fill. I think you should be allowed to be a merchant, or town militia, or adventurer, or nobility, or craftsman, or farmer. But not all of them. And I think the game should be robust enough to provide a challenge to each role, and have enough content to keep them interesting. Why not model each role off of real life, so that when you leave the game, you've actually learned something? That would be freakin awesome.

So you're looking for something more like Eve?

Unfortunately, I think there is a spectrum of things an mmo can do well and successfully. The more open and robust roles like you describe, the less story based the game can be. As far as enough content, at some point it just becomes a matter of how much it would cost.

SWTOR cost an estimated $150-$200 million, but for all that money does it have significantly more content than your average mmo? I don't know since I haven't played, but nobody seems to be saying anything that would indicate this is the case. I do hear people say that there is a lot of story content, and that each class has its own story, but they're not comparing it to the amount of story content in other games so it's difficult to say whether it is significant or not.

[kyoryu]

In my experience, there are two types of MMO's. Well - actually only one, but there were two. I'm going to term them solid and fluid. And see if I can explain why.

I'd call it the difference between designer-content driven games, and player-content driven games.

Both are excellent games - in their way - and why no one today has made a more or less complete rip-off of Ultima Online is a great mystery to me. It can and will be done, eventually. And it would be able to compete with WoW (in some meaningful manner) because it would actually be different from WoW in a meaningful manner.

Because there's absolutely no evidence that the sandbox/player-content driven games have a largen enough audience to be worth the investment required of a AAA MMO. SWG tried it, heck, they even had Raph Koster leading it.

And that's the problem for pretty much all the other MMO's - they are not different in a way that really means anything. Not even moving your fantasy into space really makes a difference. Tho admittedly I haven't played SWTOR.

In much the same way that single player RPGs aren't different in a way that means anything. Most players are interested in the content provided for them, whether it's single player or multiplayer. Yes, Minecraft, I know.

What do they have in common? All proved to be less popular than WoW. WoW clones tend to fail, because they try to be WoW, and WoW tends to be best at it. Games featuring considerably different types of gameplay, leveling etc. simply tend to exist in their small, low- or no-profit niche, or die out. They don't seem to attract enough attention in the first place, or don't entice players for long enough. In that, WoW proved to be by far the most successful, and I would put it down to the combination of gameplay model, amount of invested money, already high popularity of the Warcraft universe and entering the market sufficiently early to grab its considerable share.

It's also the fact that WoW, and EQ before it, basically have cribbed off of years of design from various MUDs, and iterated on it within a graphical environment. And MUDs cribbed from D&D. Those games *work* because they're based upon years of research and experience.

Professional producers of MMOs tend to be risk averse and try to follow the tested model of WoW, and fail, because there's no good reason to play a WoW-like game when you can play WoW. Putting anywhere between $5m-25m into an untested game model (or an existing model that has not proved to be profitable) is simply too much of a risk for game making companies. Which leaves the amateur/fan made mmos - sometimes offering unique gameplay, but lacking broadly understood capital to make it big.

Try $100m+ for a AAA MMO. When that much money is involved, people get a little sketchy on ROI. Probably the best way to combat this is to find a way to lower the cost of "indie" MMO development. It's been done effectively - A Tale In the Desert, EVE, etc.

Blizzard has been trying to reduce this kind of thing, but yes, I think it's fair to say that a very large part of WoW is built on the premise of you getting ahead by beating other players at something, even if that something doesn't involve zeroing out their life bar.

Not so much. The majority of play in WoW has very little if any impact from other players. World spawns are fast enough that they don't interfere with leveling, dungeons are private affairs.

The competition is only true if you care about competing in that way.

You are assuming here that there are static dungeons designed with static boss monsters that you have to fight to get the good drops. Sure, in that scenario, if only the first person to kill it gets the drops, then everyone else gets screwed. But then, why is the boss monster still around after he's been killed? What's to say he didn't get away and set up shop somewhere else for a new encounter with different drops? What's to say the game doesn't generate dynamic encounters? I don't know that I would know how to implement this, but that's not to say it can't be done.

I've never seen a game that has really done dynamic content creation well. Professional content is always better. The best that I've seen with dynamic content creation is something like Nethack or Diablo 2, where a combination of static (designed) content for setpieces with random content for "filler" is used.

Arguably, a better solution is to just not have filler. But that's certainly not the case in any MMO that I know of!

Players, btw, are already being punished. Punished for not playing 100 hours a week. Punished for not being in the best, most hardcore guilds. Punished for not being RNG lucky when you finally do get to run that instance 10 times and the axe you want never drops. Players get punished all the time.

I'd hardly consider those things "punishment." Slower advancement, sure. But not punishment in the UO way of "oh, you just got ganked" or "someone just looted your house and you have nothing."

That's not exactly what I was getting at. Yes, you remember your friends and guildmates. What I was saying was, there are certain elite players that the entire server talks about because they are the best at what they do, or the absolute best geared for their class, or because they have Molten Core on farm status. Basically, they are legends within the community. My problem is, that legend is built within the game designer's parameters.

So? How does that impact your play, except for wanting to be known as "the best"? It's true that MMOs favor time played as a currency of advancement, but there's a currency of advancement in every game, and even if it's not time (directly) it's almost always tied *to* time in some way or form. Skill is generally a function of time spent playing the game, even if it's not a 1:1 correlation.

[Triaxx]

The thing is that all MMO's have to account for one piece of design that's sufficiently fickle that it's toppled giants and given rise to niches within niches.

Players.

Seriously, the objective is to please as many players as possible, and frankly, when the competition is as stiff as it is, there's not much you can do. I mean, look at Age of Conan. It was an awesome game that just fizzled. I mean, when your game is so good that gratuitous boobs can't sway players, you've got a winner.

[Sith_Happens]

SWTOR cost an estimated $150-$200 million, but for all that money does it have significantly more content than your average mmo? I don't know since I haven't played, but nobody seems to be saying anything that would indicate this is the case. I do hear people say that there is a lot of story content, and that each class has its own story, but they're not comparing it to the amount of story content in other games so it's difficult to say whether it is significant or not.

Yes, yes it does. In fact, if you take a few minutes looking you'll find people complaining that it has too much content. Well, for leveling anyways. Endgame is, as always, a work in progress.

Anyways, to the OP:

Your first critera ("Uniqueness") seems a bit sketchy/tricky to actually implement in a good way, and I'm pretty sure there aren't any games that do anything of the sort. Well, unless you count some ships in EVE that, while in no way unique, require so many resources to actually build that it takes an exceptionally large Corp working together to do so.

For the "Story" (a.k.a.- "my character feels important") critera, SW:TOR. Accept no substitutes. I'm playing that right now and can testify that the "Player #1876" feeling is largely gone. Am I aware that other Inquisitor players have done the same quests and had largely the same story as me? Sure. Do I still feel like I'm the one who

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killed Darth Skotia, took over the Cult of the Screaming Blade on Nar Shaddaa, etc.?

You know it.

Guild Wars 2 is probably going to be where it's at when it comes to not putting you on a set, linear story path. Yes, the story events are still game-driven rather than player driven, but they're dynamically generated and aspects of the world can actually change depending on whether someone comes along to complete them. Word is the story aspect of GW2 is also going to be quite strong in and of itself, so it's probably the game you want for most criteria filled (2 out of 3).

[Karen Lynn]

Have you considered, for lack of better options, Ragnarok Online? It has legit free to play servers available.

[Gan The Grey]

I'm actually pretty interested in knowing what the playground would like to see in an MMO.

[kyoryu]

I'm actually pretty interested in knowing what the playground would like to see in an MMO.

Oh, the usual I'm sure. Everything. That's what everyone always wants in an MMO

[Karen Lynn]

I'm actually pretty interested in knowing what the playground would like to see in an MMO.

Oh, the usual I'm sure. Everything. That's what everyone always wants in an MMO

And because I don't read names, just glance at avatars, I thought you were talking to yourself.

[Gan The Grey]

And because I don't read names, just glance at avatars, I thought you were talking to yourself.

Sometimes I think the same thing.



Wait, were you talking to me?

[Acanous]

The largest reason, to me, that SW:TOR makes you feel unique is the letters people from your quests send you.

At the end of a quest chain, did you free the slaves, or leave them to die?
Free? Well one of them was from a well-off family that had been looking for him, and would like to thank and reward you for your efforts. You get a nice bonus of credits, and a warm fuzzy feeling.

They died? Well, the local general would like to inform you that one of those slaves was actually an enemy agent, they found his transmitter and other gear in his effects after searching the mine. You get a commendation for killing him.
This isn't even the point of the quest, you were going in to that mine to retrieve some info and kill one forman. It's extra stuff you get to choose, and it comes back with different end results, reminding you that your decisions have consequence in this universe.

I love it, myself.

[Sith_Happens]

The largest reason, to me, that SW:TOR makes you feel unique is the letters people from your quests send you.

At the end of a quest chain, did you free the slaves, or leave them to die?
Free? Well one of them was from a well-off family that had been looking for him, and would like to thank and reward you for your efforts. You get a nice bonus of credits, and a warm fuzzy feeling.

They died? Well, the local general would like to inform you that one of those slaves was actually an enemy agent, they found his transmitter and other gear in his effects after searching the mine. You get a commendation for killing him.
This isn't even the point of the quest, you were going in to that mine to retrieve some info and kill one forman. It's extra stuff you get to choose, and it comes back with different end results, reminding you that your decisions have consequence in this universe.

I love it, myself.

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During the November 11-13 beta weekend I played an Inquisitor. That was before they implemented the NPC letters, but it is relevant to what happened during the Thanksgiving weekend beta.

That weekend I played an Agent. I didn't feel the slightest bit guilty about killing that kid's father right in front of him during the first sidequest on Hutta... until five levels later when I got a letter saying that the kid is one of Overseer Harkun's students now.

[Brother Oni]

Your first critera ("Uniqueness") seems a bit sketchy/tricky to actually implement in a good way, and I'm pretty sure there aren't any games that do anything of the sort. Well, unless you count some ships in EVE that, while in no way unique, require so many resources to actually build that it takes an exceptionally large Corp working together to do so.

While Titans and Super capitals require significant co-operation to build, there are a number of very rare ships in Eve, like the Guardian Vexor, the various Imperial/State/Republic/Federation faction versions of ships and the Golden Magnate.

The fact that if one even dares to undocks, they'd have hordes of rapid pvp-ers trying to suicide gank it (even I'd be tempted to join in), only highlights the rarity in my opinion.

I mean, look at Age of Conan. It was an awesome game that just fizzled. I mean, when your game is so good that gratuitous boobs can't sway players, you've got a winner.

I prefer to think of it as 'better able to pander to the lowest common denominator' than 'good'.

[Sith_Happens]

I prefer to think of it as 'better able to pander to the lowest common denominator' than 'good'.

Wouldn't that be describing the game with gratuitous boobs?

[SlyGuyMcFly]

I prefer to think of it as 'better able to pander to the lowest common denominator' than 'good'.

You must at least admit that the level to which they are able to pander to every single MMO demographic out there is quite extraordinary.

[Brother Oni]

Wouldn't that be describing the game with gratuitous boobs?

They're both appealing to the lowest common demoninator, just that one of them is better at it.

You must at least admit that the level to which they are able to pander to every single MMO demographic out there is quite extraordinary.

Oh I do. Just because I find the game intensely boring, doesn't mean I can't admire the successful game design decisions behind it.

[Zen Master]

I'd call it the difference between designer-content driven games, and player-content driven games.

Yea, that does seem to be the accepted term, only I consider it wildly inaccurate. Player-driven content in UO was all but none existant. There was basically only certain items.

No - that's not it. Not at all.

The thing in UO was that you could be a fisherman, or a lumberjack, or a miner - or a fencer, or a mage, or ... whatever. And if you decided that 'holy ducks, mining has become so much last week!' you could pick up any other skill and train that instead.

There was no path laid out for you, no specific way you must spend your time in-game.

Because there's absolutely no evidence that the sandbox/player-content driven games have a largen enough audience to be worth the investment required of a AAA MMO. SWG tried it, heck, they even had Raph Koster leading it.

To my mind, you can succeed in this market in one of two ways. You can either appeal to a huge existing fanbase - WoW or SWTOR are examples of this.

Or you can start small. If you launched a new Ultima Online tomorrow, with a somewhat updated graphics engine (but I'm still thinking isometric 3d), I bet you'd have 100k users by next week.

And from there you can build.

What you cannot do is take a good - or even a great - idea, with no existing fanbase, and make an MMO. It will fail because of the social network already established in existing major titles.

Personally, btw, I considered AoC to be rather bland, and WAR to be exceptionally well-made and fun. Maybe that was just me =)

In much the same way that single player RPGs aren't different in a way that means anything. Most players are interested in the content provided for them, whether it's single player or multiplayer. Yes, Minecraft, I know.

Minecraft, yea. League of Legends. Hell, even Angry Birds. Word Feud. And so on.

See, that's what I want. To create an idea that's valid, and build. Rather than buy the IP of a major movie (or similar) and an enormous marketing campaign.

[MickJay]

The thing in UO was that you could be a fisherman, or a lumberjack, or a miner - or a fencer, or a mage, or ... whatever. And if you decided that 'holy ducks, mining has become so much last week!' you could pick up any other skill and train that instead.

There was no path laid out for you, no specific way you must spend your time in-game.

See, that's what I want. To create an idea that's valid, and build. Rather than buy the IP of a major movie (or similar) and an enormous marketing campaign.

As I mentioned before, WURM online and Planeshift both deserve some attention here.

[Zen Master]

As I mentioned before, WURM online and Planeshift both deserve some attention here.

Um, well, certainly .. but I've neither played nor even heard of either of them.

EDIT: Ok - now I've heard of both, and watched the videos. I understand and appreciate the ambition, but I really wish people would go for isometric 3d rather than a full 1st or 3rd person 3d engine - when they don't have the resources to do it well.

I hope isometric is the word ... maybe it isn't. Like ... BG and those games.