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General: The List: Five MMO Wishes
Dana
Member Posts: 2,415
Managing Editor Jon Wood moves his weekly Tuesday list into a full on column. He kicks off things with Five MMO Wishes he'd like granted. Pretend you were in charge and could change anything at all about the MMO industry, what would it be? Read his, then discuss.
Every year, I have a tradition. Its a bit sadistic, but for some reason, I keep doing it. I go out and buy the newest version of THQs Smackdown vs. RAW annual wrestling game. I dont do it because theyre stellar games. In fact, I believe theyve allowed both gameplay and story quality to steadily decline each year. I dont do it because Im a huge wrestling fan, Im not. While I do watch casually, Im just not that into it, fact is that the only piece of WWE merchandise I own are these damned games. I dont do it because I have a secret crush on the girl who works at GameStop, Im happily married and my wife says I cant do that anymore. So, why do I drop $60 every year?
The answer is simple: I can make myself. If I have the time and the inclination, I can sit in front of that character creator for hours and create a very reasonable Jon, all 56 of densely concentrated awesome, kicking ass and taking names. Plus, Ive always wanted my own theme music.
Jon's column will appear each Tuesday. Check out the full article here.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Comments
Wish #1 granted. Aion took extremely long to get the job done, and from my impressions in both beta events I think Aion will be one of the first to launch 99% bug free
Speaking of it... There's an EU Act coming soon that prohibits bugged games on release (both MMOs and console / single player - do those still exsit..?)
A $7 dollar a month paid beta seems like a pretty damned good idea!
how are you qualified to say this:
" See, the initial instinct is to blame the developers, but the truth is that there is an intricate dance happening behind the scenes of an IP MMO between the IP holder and the developers and most of the time, it’s the IP holder that’s doing the leading if you catch my drift.
Generally speaking, the IP holder gets final say on pretty much everything about their MMO, sometimes that’s a good thing, sometimes it’s a very bad thing"
are you knowledgeable about this or are you guessing or using hearsay as you basis?
regardless, i agree with most of your post other than the bit about no more IP MMO. i think they provide alot of lore that mmo's need. people can jump into the game and if they are knowledgeable about the background, they feel more connection to it. while world of warcraft does have alot of lore behind, similar to warhammer, i've never read any of it, and from the solo play aspect of those games (questing), they are indistinguishable. now, a game like SWG, a player can get into and try to become his own version of han solo.
i do want to know if you actually know much about the interactions between developers and IP holders, or were you guessing? what did the intellectual property owners of conan do that influenced the game?
Nice article. I don't have the distaste you seem to for IP-based MMOs though. If a new MMO is coming out called "Death Unlimited", I have no clue what it's about. Is it fantasy, sci-fi, FPS, etc? If a game comes out called Star Trek Online, you'd have to be pretty out of touch to not have an idea what the game is gonna be like.
Also, I agree with what the other poster said about known lore already setting the scene for you from the moment you log in.
The IP holders do get a lot of say in the creation of a game based on their world, and they can nix any concept they don't want to exist in that world. He's not making anything up and it has come out as information in many different instances before. The truth is an IP is nice because it can bring in a sizeable audience based on name alone, but at the same time it is limiting because basic staples, like PvP, can be forced out at the IP holder discretion.
I am a veteran modder myself.
My experience is that is irritating hard and ridiculous to stop newbies from stealing from hollywood. It seems whatever Hollywood make is really interesting for some people, and exciting, so have to repeat whatever is in the movie, in a game. Rarely this end well for modders. Somethimes with lawyers letters...
And is a waste of creative efforts. If you are a creative game dev... CREATE!.. don't reuse other people assets. At the end of the day, if you build your stuff on other guy stuff, *all the stuff* (the one you created, and his stuff) is *his stuff*. You could have created something totally new, *your stuff forever*.
I can understand why studios choose to buy a IP. Is a very efficient trick, buying a "Name" mean you buy instant recognition, and you buy a existing "fan" base. Probably half of the popularity of LOTR is because of teh movies. So It make sense, at short term and medium term, to steal from hollywood. Still is a lame thing to do in the long term. But he!.. on the long term we all wil be dead or deaf or stuff :-)
Heh, you have encompassed my desire for MMO's pretty much in a nut shell. I see some of the reasons that MMO developers don't do some of the things on the list but it strikes me that often times they don't do those things because of money. I could go into detail about what I mean by that but I don't want to write a wall of boring text. lol I would love to add to your list even though you didn't ask for them.
#6. Community Relations and Customer Service actually worked as if every customer could make or break the bank. I've always heard it said that you can gain 1 customer by being a good salesman and then lose 100 by being a bad salesman. I wish that these folks realized that they have as much to do with "selling" the game each time we the players interact with them. Unfortunately a lot of MMO players don't complain with their teeth, which is the money they are spending each month on the game. Sadly we complain on the forums and keep forking over the cash even if the game is not great. (See Darkfail forums)
I can't completely agree with this. If you say "Let's use the exact same crafting system as X", then yes. I think, however, that MMOs are like music in that you're hard-pressed to come up with even one truly original idea. Is your combat going to use random rolls at all? Did you steal that from D&D? You get the idea. Never mind coming up with an entire game that's original.
I'm with you on the no more IP based mmo's.
Aside from the battle over control between the dev and the IP holder there are bigger considerations from the point of view of the player.
They're just too restrictive. An MMO based on a pre-existing IP is always going to be limited in scope in ways that an MMO that has created its own lore is not. If the devs of EvE wanted to put in space dragons you could breed and fly, they could. (Ok yes, if they did it would be the end of the game, but the point is if they wanted to they could.) Look at LoTRO. Great game, spectacular game. Because of the IP though, it couldn't hold my interest for more than 2 months. I've no interest in being shoehorned into a story I'm already very familiar with. With a non-ip game, when you play there is a sense that you never know where the game will take you. With an IP game, chances are you already know.
Plus there is always the hype/disappointment issue. Devs, I think, go the route of an IP because it comes with a built in fan base. Problem is that built in fan base is the hardest group of people to please because they're fans, and they'll be the most vocal if you don't hit the mark eaxctly as they think you should.
I also think that a game where the dev has created their own lore is going to be a game with a much more passionate set of devs.
Am I the only one that noticed you have part of the Comedy MMO article copy/pasted to the end of this article?
Beyond that I mostly agree with you.
Indy games don't have to suck because they are low budget.
Problem with Indy MMOs versus Indy games in general is that Indy MMOs try to hard to emulate the big boys and do too much because the people who play the big MMOs "expect it."
Where as Indy games, normally, are smaller and more targetted and the really successful ones are based off of simple ideas and good old fashion fun.
You don't see Indy studios trying to create the next RPG epic or mega-FPS Halo game. No they are creating games like Braid.
MMO games are way too big for Indy studios to make well unless they try to make a stylized, "different" kind of game that is smaller and more focused.
Kind of like EVE, how'd they get away with it? No content or a "world" just space and ships. They are the Blaire Witch Project of Indy MMOs.
As for IP based MMOs, you have to use an IP that gives you a LOT of room. Like Final Fantasy. Some basic ideas, but everything can be different (and is different) from one game to another and no one cares. Or like Bioware is doing with ToR, set it thousands of years before in their own established IP not the movie one = win
Well, my qualifications were pretty well spelled out for you in the sidebar of the article, but... I've been running this website for the last two uyears, and working here for four. I have worked as a developer on MMOs, and in my position, I learn about the industry and how it functions. That's my qualification.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
I was talking about LORE.
Blizzard did it well.. Starcraft was originally a Warhammer 40.000 game, but failed to take the permissions to use the IP or something got wrong.
So Blizzard started created a lore for his game. And on this day, all the lore of Starcraft is really rich, something to be proud of. And a good base to create new games.
If the Warhammer 40.000 IP where used, I am sure that any Starcraft thing sould have been more limited, and new games where forced to pay to games whorshop, so les profit for Blizzard.
Obviusly, the same thing applies to Warcraft and Warhammer Fantasy.
It has been much better for Blizzard to create his own ip, than to take permissions from Games Workshop to use his IP.
The IP of GW is *amazingly* popular. There are shops that just sells GW stuff. Think Apple Shops. But anyway has been better for Blizzard to create his own thing, with his own rules and ideas. On the long term has been much more interesting.
On the other part...
I like Warhammer Online, is fun to read some of the lore bits of it. But much of the fun of the Warhammer Fantasy world is somewhat lost in traslation. For instance... The game is a fight of "Good guys vs Bad guys". And Warhammer Fantasy is not about that. The empire in Warhammer are not the good guys, there are not good guys in Warhammer.
Really there are nice areas in Warhammer Online, and PQ are used to show how the factions operate. The empire area is interesting, and the gobos area fun.
Too bad the whole game whas disfunctional... But I digress...
#6 Better combat style. I've been playing MMO's for many years and I just got board of them. I tried Aion and thought it was pretty but still its not much more than Lineage 2 with flying. The turn based combat in todays mmo's has gotten really boring to me. I want more, I want to be able to hit someone where I want to him him/her, I want to be able to aim my spells and arrows. I don't want to run and have a mob running after me hitting me from 10 feet away. I want more and I'm superised more people don't expect more.
I've played a few betas and haven't really been wowed. I'm hoping games like APB and The Agency and Huxley will show me different. But to also say I've also been getting boared of regular multi-player games where people tend to play stupid and run and gun instead of using real world tactics. I also blame that on the developers for not making games that you can't just run out there and jump like a retard firing your gun hitting with accuracy. You try that in the real world and you'd not only be really inaccurate but you'd also be very dead. Its the devs fault for not making games that are smarter but also the players fault for not demanding smart games. If people stopped playing dumbed down MMO's the devs would get a clue and develop smarter ones, but I guess maybe I'm one of the few that wants to play a smart MMO.
Apologies! Clearly you know what column I used as an HTML template!
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
I was sick of IP based MMOs years ago. They always end up being ass. Conan, Warhammer, D&D, The matrix.... stop the madness! The well of original ideas seems to be dry for too many people. Everyone likes to think they can stamp the name of some IP you like on a box and you will buy it, and sadly it works on so many people.
TwitchTV Partnered Streamer
MMORPG.com Spotlight Blog Writer
Co-Leader of Inquisition
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Personally, as someone who's been online a good long while and was around when the internet was niche and the general public was not connected, I think it's mainly the community that needs changing.
Comprehension, intelligence, and patience are all very rare on the net now since more of the general population are online. Game creators have to package their games and serve them like McDonalds Happy Meals.
Lots of great games get squished mainly due to this phenomenon.
I just don't have the stomach for most of what the general community has to say any longer.
Good article with good points in every wish...
I definitely can't disagree with the thought that most of the recent IP MMOs have failed to deliver, but I think you'd be hard pressed to define the reasons for these failures onto a specific reason (simply them being IP MMOs for example) or even a reasonably small group of reasons shared between all of them. That being said I dun have a problem with IP MMOs based simply on the fact that they are based on a preexisting IP. It's the quality of the game thats gonna make me play. Tho I guess to be honest IPs are a double edge sword... For example.. Hello Kitty Online could be the best MMO ever created but I'll never know, heh.
Wish #1 on my list would be to see the MMOS across the board drop there Prices inline with the Economy. 9.95 a month. I know this is kicking the prices back to late 2000.
Wish #4 is such a coincidence for me. The MMOs that have hooked me for more than six months of basically "ininterrupt" gameplay (I can spend all my free time on that game and still not get tired of it, and I simply can't try any other game either) are - Ultima Online, RF Online and Guild Wars. All fresh IPs.
Now, the new game that has hyped me is Aion and again falls into #4, and damn, that game also offers wish #5, I can spend a day on their 50 sliders to make almost me there. It also touches #2, but that's because I didn't read or listen to anything about Aion until I got to play it in the first beta event, exactly so I couldn't get disappointed (this made a good combo with the fact it was not a known IP in the "you can't be disappointed with what you weren't expecting" aspect).
Yet I understand its potential flaws, such as the usual breach for hacks, bots, RMT and abusing mechanics, but hey, I'll play it while it is fun for me.
Anyway, sorry for my Aion offtopic, very nice article and shows as pretty much true. Known IPs usually have us already with knowledge around the "endgame", we've seen and read it on the major characters eyes, they can't really go and make us play it as a level one noob that will never get to change the world as happens in the IP, you have nowhere near that kind of control over the game, trying to recreate a IP will make failure out of expectations.
Good article.
While it would take an extremely cold day in a very hot place in order for me to create an avatar that even remotely resembles my physical appearance (not that I'm some hideously deformed creature that lives on ho-hos, twinkies, and McDonalds - all of which I despise - but because I just have this "thing" about publishing my name, my face, or anything else about me anywhere on the internet), the point about creating MMOs that are not IP-based is exactly how I feel. I would be positively ecstatic if a game studio - Indie or "big name" - finally produced a playable MMO with a decent story and a decent UI that was not based on <insert major money-making intellectual property here>.
As for the more obvious distinction between Indie and "big name" MMOs, my thought is that if I enjoy playing a particular game, I could care less who made it (and therefore who is getting my money). I enjoy the game for what it is - bugs and all. I do wish, however, that everyone would stop comparing <insert game here> with WoW. Even Blizzard has stated that WoW is not a typical MMO; it's more like a freak of nature. 11 million subscribers (no matter how you come by the statistic) is huge! To my knowledge, no other game has matched that, though FFXI, from what I understand, comes close. But again, these are extreme examples: these two games (out of how many?) are not the norm, and it really irks me when people assume that they are and that a game, in order to be successful, must match these numbers. For the majority of MMOs, the 300k to one million active subs mark is pretty great performance for a title. It would be a wonderful thing, in my opinion, if the majority of gamers and the gaming press kept this in mind.
Great point on managing expectations. I wish that more marketing folks with sit down and talk with (and especially, listen to!) their respective games' development teams. Then they would know that, no, Snuffy can't dual-wield the BFG in a massive PvP ground battle while flying the magic unicorn mount - or whatever it is they're promoting this week.
And I wholeheartedly agree on the point about the time between beta and launch. In the betas I've been involved in, there was maybe 4 to 6 weeks of closed beta, followed by a month of open beta before the game launched - with almost as many bugs as working quests/items/NPCs/you name it. As a gamer, I would much, much rather see companies take the time to get the game right before launching. From my own point of view, if the company tells me that they're pushing the launch back three to six months in order to "polish" the game and eliminate as many bugs and issues as possible, I would be so thrilled I wouldn't know what to do with myself (except maybe take the time to recover from the shock-induced heart attack such an announcement - that a company was putting a quality product over a few more bucks at launch - would cause).
Firebrand Art
"You are obviously confusing a mature rating with actual maturity." -Asherman
Maybe MMO is not your genre, go play Modern Warfare...or something you can be all twitchy...and rank up all night. This is seriously getting tired. -Ranyr
I agree with wishes 4,3,2 and 1. Not so much with 5 as I wouldn't want to cause such mental/emotional trauma on others, lol!
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
Excellent article, I agree with the main points. I've been in alphas/betas since alpha of Meridian59 "back-in-the-day" gotten pretty tired of the games, just not seeing what I want. Where's the evolution... Same-ol, same-ol... Point about IP's seems to go right along with Hollywood in the sense that they are desperately afraid of taking any chances, so many "re-makes", "re-boots", "re-whatever s". It's not like there aren't literally vaults filled with worthy scripts, it's fear, and lust of the money that keeps things the same. They all are hungry to be WoW. Which frankly aint gunna happen (thank any and all gods for that, one is fine, but no need for another, it's a ok game but just isin't anything so wildly special... Not the holy grail of MMO's just isin't...)
I definitely must also agree with those who mentioned "support", customer support in these games is definitely lacking.
I strongly believe a main point a developer should have in mind in making a MMO is -NOT- to try and create a game, but to create a "world". Plan, and create accordingly. People want immersion in a believable world where they can loose themselves in it.
Oh, and yes specifically dump the level/class garbage, enough already! Skills! Skill based!
You're certainly entitled to your opinion regarding IP based MMOs. However, I believe the solution is not to lower our expectations.
My biggest MMO wish and the reason I think so many MMOs fail is actually a change in the player base from the time of MMO inception. Namely, when MMOs first arrived ( Muds then EQ1 ), the players drawn to these games were table top roleplayers ( D&D, Shadowrun, etc etc ). These folks knew that what made the games fun was character development and roleplaying--not levels, skills, linear quests but an open game world where the creative player could create his own world. As time has moved on, it seems to me that today's players don't understand or aren't interested in the true "roleplaying" aspect of online games anymore. This is unfortunate, because it takes games to a higher level. The MMO makers have adapted to this lead em by the nose mentality and dumbed down the games. All that being said, my wish is for a new level of gaming awareness of the players. SWG was the last great MMO--genuine player communities, lives within a game made it great.
you know #1 is sorta in play with the IP LoTRO, it released witha "founder" rate of 9.99 and that persists as long as you subscribe but un sub for one month and...whoosh 14.99
Wish #5 was granted by Star Wars Galaxies. You could even mod your avatar at any time by visiting an Image Designer. Gosh, I miss that game aspect. No one else has come even close to that level of character detail as far as I know. Too bad the game sucks now.