MMORPGs--For Game Dorks Like Me!

Cafe Society
1

Just kind of a general observation/question…

Is it just me, or are game companies expecting way, way too much out of MMORPGs? There are about 8 billion under development right now and, frankly, I don’t think there are enough customers to support more than 4 or 5 major ones and a handful of niche ones. Is this just cause it’s the Next Big Thing and all that EverQuest revenue is making them googly-eyed? There can’t be a huge, unmet audience of people that didn’t know they wanted to sit in front of their computer for hours on end, can there?

Discussion, thoughts, flames, etc.

2

The problem is: not everyone can be the hero of a consistently real world. Some people have to be the dweebs who can’t get all the limited amounts of cool items and positions. And with game makers looking to saturate the market, I think this type of game is going to hit some rough times for a bit until some clear winners emerge with some new ideas.

I mean, there’s nothing more stupid than people queing up at the end of a dungeon, waiting for their turn to go in and fight the constantly ressurectted boss-monster. What sort of consistent world and story is that?

3

Those people, from what I’ve noticed, don’t tend to care that they’re saving the Widget of Greater Doom from the Evil Dragon Smaug. They want teh phat l3wtz.

4

Another thing to keep in mind is that, graphically, people’s expectations for MMORPG’s is much lower. Compare the upcoming Planetside to games like Half-Life 2 (drooool) and Doom 3. What’s most important in an MMORPG is that it runs smoothly and let’s lotsa people be on the screen at the same time… bump-mapping or per-pixel shading or super-accurate real-world physics (again, HL2… drooool) isn’t necessary.

Hell, you can practically use the Quake 1 engine for a MMORPG, and as long as it runs well and lets people do lotsa crazy shit, they’ll go for it.

By the way, I hate MMORPG’s.

5

There was a massive burst of MMORPGS about 2 years ago but many of them have already fallen-by-the-wayside and more will follow them I’m sure.

Certainly the market doesn’t really seem to have room for more than 3-4 major titles and a few lesser ones - but this is mainly because of their current PC-centric nature (PC gaming is a specialist market and mainly based in the US and some Far-East countries only).

Lineage is an interesting example of the non-US market tho - in Singapore and other Far-Eastern countries it has MILLIONS of subscribers - FAR outnumbering Everquest - and it’s that market a lot of the companies are ‘eyeing up’ as well as the US.

The ‘daddy’ of MMORPGs is coming soon tho - Star Wars Galaxies. It’s release is going to suck the market DRY - if it can bear the weight of subscribers and lives up to a fraction of the expectations, it’s going to put a lot of other companies out of business.

Given that’s it’s being run by the same people who run Everquest - that gives them a lot of the market too (they have Planetside as well)!!!

There are still some interesting games coming tho - and hopefully the companies have a model whereby the game will survive (and be playable) with much smaller communities.

In particular, games like “A Tale in the Desert” deserve serious attention - as it’s a game which has no combat and allows the players to set the rules and laws! Real online civilisation building is a major thing in itself!!

It’s a fascinating thing and the enabling on console-based MMOGs will open up the market further (abeit with simpler games - but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing!)

I think the market will grow to support a bit-more diversity - esp. non-‘swords and sorvery’ titles - but it will take time and it will need to be non-PC based to ‘go mainstream’.

TTFN

JP

p.s. I find that MMOGs tend to attract people who are sick of the ‘getting nowhere’ gameplay of offline (and some online) games.

Counterstrike is fun - but it’s the same game EVERY time, you don’t learn skills or ‘get anywhere’ so it gets tiring…

The idea of building a ‘real’ character - adding to their skills each time you visit - meeting people and getting into the community - is VERY special. No-one should knock it until they’ve tried a MMOG which suits them - it’s a special (and often life-eating) experience :slight_smile:

I’m hoping for a wide range of new experiences in the next few years - from Wookiee to Superhero :slight_smile:

6

There is some good stuff coming out, but my point was a lot of companies seem to be betting the farm (or a good chunk of their development budget) on their MMO offering when, really, the market isn’t what they seem to think it is. SWG will have a lot of people playing it, even if it sucks, just because of the license. But, really, I don’t think they’re going to drag the casual gamer in like they think they’re going to. Not everyone wants to spend 10 hours getting to level 5 so they can actually do something. I think you’ll have SWG , EverQuest 2 (the screenshots on it look amazing, I felt the ol’ tug), Another Fantasy contender, One MMOShooter, One SF/Cyberpunk title, then some niche ones like ATitD (which I enjoyed a LOT) and so on.

Personally speaking, I prefer multiplayer games to single player, and it matters a lot to me. Doom 3, I’ve heard, won’t have much (if any) multiplayer, which means I’m not going to buy it. I get sick of single player. I don’t like jumping puzzles. I don’t like keycard/switch/lever “puzzles”. I don’t like idiot AI sidekicks. The best AI enemies, even when they seem a bit inspired, can’t compete with real people. A lot of single player isn’t even a test of skill or reflexes, it’s a test of whether you can figure out what the designer wanted you to do in that situation. You usually have to do only a few things you can do (Vice City was a notable exception) with no other options.

Graphics don’t matter to me. I’ll enjoy em if they’re nice, but so many companies develop their engine and then plop in a hack story. One of the best games I’ve ever played (Avernum) has late-80s graphics, but is an amazing RPG. YMMV.

I’m actually downloading the 1.5 Gig trial for Neocron now, heh.

7

Just to provide a cynical counter-point here:

Yes, there’s nothing more fun than repetitively performing an action over and over so that a little bar somewhere increases another notch.

The skills you “get” in games like Counter-strike are skills at what you’re doing: being a terrorist, being an agent, learning to work as a team, learning how to think tactically. The skills you “get” in most MMOGs consists of mashing the mouse button over and over and them being reflected in some stat somewhere. You don’t actually get better at anything: the game just gives you characteristics you’ve earned by jumping through fairly arbitrary hoops that often have little, really, to do with learning whatever skill you’re supposedly learning.

8

The solution to this is use-based experience. I can’t believe none of the big titles have picked up on it, but some of the MUDs I played used to use it, and it worked great. If you wanted to use, say, swords, you equipped a sword and went out and fought with a sword. There would be trainers around that could up your skill a little bit, but mostly it took practice to get good.

9

SWG has use-based exp. Crafters get exp when other chars use the items they made.

Also, SWG is skills based, not classed based. So you can be a scout/marksman/medic, or an artisan/entertainer/brawler. Altho there are “levels” in the skills (basic rifle, intermediate rifle, etc), it is not a “level” system.

Brian
SWG beta tester (but everything in this post is publicly avaialable)

10

I currently work for a small company with its own MMORGP (what a mouthful- we tend to just say MOG)- This is the website.

The main reason there are so many MOGs in development is that it appears to be the only financially stable game model out there. The general rule for the traditional game companies is “work hard, do great work, meet all your milestones, ship the game on time, and then go out of business.” For every AAA title out there (Command and Conquer, Doom, etc.), there are hundreds of other, great games, whose developers immediately went out of business right after shipping.

I should know- I’ve lost two jobs this way.

MOGs work differently. Most games, you only get money while you’re developing the product. Of course, while you’re making that game, you’ve got to be looking to get ANOTHER contract- for the next game. It’s hard for most companies to maintain more than one or two groups at once- and if one group finishes, it needs to immediately have more work. Most small companies can’t do this.

With a MOG, the lean times are while the game’s in development. Once the game ships, that’s when the money starts coming in. Theoretically, anyway- we’re still struggling, but that’s mainly because we haven’t had any advertising. And, of course, once you start getting the money from that first game, it’s easier to develop the second one.

11

The problem with online gaming is that it attracts the worst scum of the universe.

For every friendly, decent gamer just looking to blow off some steam, there are two dickhead, adolescents who are looking to cause trouble.

I am, at best, a casual gamer. The hardcore gamers make it difficult for guys like me to enjoy ourselves in these games.

Such bad personalities.

That said, I will have to try SW:G. It looks excellent.

I also like the look of a game called City of Heroes (superheroes). I worry it will never be made though.

12

To avoid the ‘moron brigade’ in online games - don’t play the game until it’s ‘matured a bit’ and they’ve lost interest and headed off to the ‘next big thing’.

I proudly “wear on the sleeve” the fact that I survived Anarchy Online from Day 2 for almost a year - but boy did I meet some total ‘tools’ along the way (never mind the other problems)…

Another way to keep out of the ‘general populous of morons’ is to join an established guild - esp. those which span multiple games. That way you’re assured of some community support without having to ‘take your chances’ with whoever is around at the time…

It’s cool starting a new game and meeting people you knew ‘in another life’ :slight_smile:

TTFN

JP

13

Fascinating perspective from someone actually at a game company.

And TRJP is right, I played AO for a couple months and the morons have moved on to bigger and better things.

I saw the movie for Galaxies up on FilePlanet and I gotta tell ya, it didn’t stir my blood. Worlds of Warcraft looks like it’s gonna be pretty cool though.

14

I find “millions” impossibly hard to believe, and i’d ask yah to site a source to back that claim.

As far as SWG goes, I’m in the beta… and I think its only attraction is to the star wars fans, as the game itself isn’t anything special. It sure isn’t anybody’s daddy :wink:

15

Now with a much larger staff, that wasn’t going to be a possibility, so we began looking for financial partners. NCsoft, at that same time, had already launched Lineage three years ago in Asia (and Korea in particular), grew to a million subscribers in Korea quite rapidly and then began to expand in Taiwan and Hong Kong and most recently Japan and are now up to about three million subscribers, all in Asia. Two-thirds of those people are playing in game rooms versus direct subscribers.
From an interview with Richard Garriot, circa 2001, before they even started moving into North America

And from Gamespy as of March 2003:
Lineage has over seven million Korean users and three million Taiwanese users – ten million people paying subscribers fees!
http://www.gamespy.com/gdc2003/zona/

16

I think SWG is going to not meet expectations. It may be a good game, but the fanboys are planning to customize their own X-Wing and lead an assault on the Death Star, when they won’t be doing any such thing fdor a while.