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Universal Elements for Success in Future MMOs
WhiskeyZulu
Member UncommonPosts: 16
One thing I believe is worth looking deeply at--and at least attempting to intelligently dicuss--is the question of universal truths or elements as they apply to MMOs in the future. In other words, as we get droves of new MMOs coming out and trying to "break the mold" they are almost all trash outings who are breaking from things that shouldn't be broken from.
And that begs the question: what are those things? What are the elements you absolutely need to have in order to succeed as an MMO? What are the things, as technology inevitably ushers us into VR and even more immersion down the road, that are still going to be crucial for success?
Before I start, I realize I don't have all the answers. I think I have some of them, but this isn't just about what I want here. It's trying to look past just my own preferences to get down to the most important elements that--if you don't have them--your MMO is going to fail. This also means I'm looking forward to what other gamers feel are important, and I hope we can get some good discussion on this. So let's see if we can do this and who knows maybe some future developer might read these things and take them to heart and benefit...
1. Unique classes. I realize many will be vocal in disagreement with this, which is why I'm starting with it. But I'm also starting with it because this is the single biggest thing that these new games who are releasing and failing have in common. They all seem to think that having skill based character development is the answer. And you know what? Skill based development IS very cool. But it can still coexist with unique classes. The two are not mutually exclusive.
But why are unique classes so important? Because at the most basic level players want to feel unique in the immersive worlds you create. If a million gamers enter a game with a skill based system, there's going to be natural branching into "trends" where the player base datamines and believes are the best ways to play a certain way. Then the dev will see this and go in and try to buff and nerf branches and the FOTM stuff begins. But if that same number enter the game and there are say 12 classes, there is an immediate and hard division that serves as a small step towards the unique feel for the player. A good example IMO would be my first character in EQ, which was a dark elf necromancer. Holy cow was that a different and unique experience vs someone rolling a barbarian shaman. That difference is depth of gameplay in many different ways as well.
But there is also another reason for unique classes: replayability. Done right, playing the game will feel completely different when you reroll another class, from the "how" you complete objectives to the "role" you play in groups.
Lastly even with a unique class there has to be multiple paths of play style in order to conform with the above concepts. Ideally all should be viable and the use of patches and the nerf/buff cycle should be central to achieving that.
2. Levels. Following the theme above I'm going with another element which goes hand in hand with it. Levelling is important for a couple reasons, the first of which is to provide a time sink. Now people hear that term and many hate it. But it's part of the design of games and there is going to be a time sink because if they give you everything you want right out the gate you'd actually dislike the game. Overcoming adversity is the nature of growth and is the basic foundation of games, where a rule set is utilized where adversity can be overcome in a fictitious manner without harm to your entitled person. And when it comes to adversity needing to overcome the level disparity of where you are when you begin a game is valuable.
Levelling also allows for learning your unique class, and figuring out which way you want to play it. This is valuable, and if done correctly your skills and different pathing options should be unveiled gradually to allow for a smooth transition to class mastery.
Levels also affect perception of the world around you. In the old MMOs being low level is rather terrifying. The world is hostile and outside of the starting areas for the inexperienced hero there are threats of a quick death. There is nothing wrong with this. In fact I think the current trend of games homogenizing the world to adjust for the hero's level is a mistake. ESO for example changed the game to where you can quest in every zone and your level doesn't matter, which opens up options and gives the player flexibility. But they also did not adjust the quests so that they come to you over time, so you get crushed by an entire storyline all at once right out the gate which feels wrong. Point here is that I see nothing wrong with the world looking hostile and scary from low level, and in fact think it works better and contributes to the value of having levels to overcome.
3. Races and Diversity of Appearance. This one is probably something most agree with. This ties in to the unique feel for a player when they log in which is central to what you want in an MMO. The more the player identifies with and feels unique as their created character the better. Having racial abilities deepens this, as does allowing for the world to react differently to you as a given race. One of EQ's strengths was this element, playing an Ogre isn't going to allow for free run through all the major cities as people aren't gonna like you and that's ok. This runs counter to what we do in real life btw, where we want to be inclusive of diversity, and hearkens back to the basic element of overcoming adversity and how it can deepen and create more fun game play and immersion.
Diversity of appearance goes with race I think. Allowing for enough armor sets and their availability for players to control how they look is important. How you provide that can be done a lot of different ways, but I feel that having a lot of options in armor even for low level characters is a nice thing, not to mention some mechanism for them to change their look of their features or armor which can also serve as a gold sink.
And that begs the question: what are those things? What are the elements you absolutely need to have in order to succeed as an MMO? What are the things, as technology inevitably ushers us into VR and even more immersion down the road, that are still going to be crucial for success?
Before I start, I realize I don't have all the answers. I think I have some of them, but this isn't just about what I want here. It's trying to look past just my own preferences to get down to the most important elements that--if you don't have them--your MMO is going to fail. This also means I'm looking forward to what other gamers feel are important, and I hope we can get some good discussion on this. So let's see if we can do this and who knows maybe some future developer might read these things and take them to heart and benefit...
1. Unique classes. I realize many will be vocal in disagreement with this, which is why I'm starting with it. But I'm also starting with it because this is the single biggest thing that these new games who are releasing and failing have in common. They all seem to think that having skill based character development is the answer. And you know what? Skill based development IS very cool. But it can still coexist with unique classes. The two are not mutually exclusive.
But why are unique classes so important? Because at the most basic level players want to feel unique in the immersive worlds you create. If a million gamers enter a game with a skill based system, there's going to be natural branching into "trends" where the player base datamines and believes are the best ways to play a certain way. Then the dev will see this and go in and try to buff and nerf branches and the FOTM stuff begins. But if that same number enter the game and there are say 12 classes, there is an immediate and hard division that serves as a small step towards the unique feel for the player. A good example IMO would be my first character in EQ, which was a dark elf necromancer. Holy cow was that a different and unique experience vs someone rolling a barbarian shaman. That difference is depth of gameplay in many different ways as well.
But there is also another reason for unique classes: replayability. Done right, playing the game will feel completely different when you reroll another class, from the "how" you complete objectives to the "role" you play in groups.
Lastly even with a unique class there has to be multiple paths of play style in order to conform with the above concepts. Ideally all should be viable and the use of patches and the nerf/buff cycle should be central to achieving that.
2. Levels. Following the theme above I'm going with another element which goes hand in hand with it. Levelling is important for a couple reasons, the first of which is to provide a time sink. Now people hear that term and many hate it. But it's part of the design of games and there is going to be a time sink because if they give you everything you want right out the gate you'd actually dislike the game. Overcoming adversity is the nature of growth and is the basic foundation of games, where a rule set is utilized where adversity can be overcome in a fictitious manner without harm to your entitled person. And when it comes to adversity needing to overcome the level disparity of where you are when you begin a game is valuable.
Levelling also allows for learning your unique class, and figuring out which way you want to play it. This is valuable, and if done correctly your skills and different pathing options should be unveiled gradually to allow for a smooth transition to class mastery.
Levels also affect perception of the world around you. In the old MMOs being low level is rather terrifying. The world is hostile and outside of the starting areas for the inexperienced hero there are threats of a quick death. There is nothing wrong with this. In fact I think the current trend of games homogenizing the world to adjust for the hero's level is a mistake. ESO for example changed the game to where you can quest in every zone and your level doesn't matter, which opens up options and gives the player flexibility. But they also did not adjust the quests so that they come to you over time, so you get crushed by an entire storyline all at once right out the gate which feels wrong. Point here is that I see nothing wrong with the world looking hostile and scary from low level, and in fact think it works better and contributes to the value of having levels to overcome.
3. Races and Diversity of Appearance. This one is probably something most agree with. This ties in to the unique feel for a player when they log in which is central to what you want in an MMO. The more the player identifies with and feels unique as their created character the better. Having racial abilities deepens this, as does allowing for the world to react differently to you as a given race. One of EQ's strengths was this element, playing an Ogre isn't going to allow for free run through all the major cities as people aren't gonna like you and that's ok. This runs counter to what we do in real life btw, where we want to be inclusive of diversity, and hearkens back to the basic element of overcoming adversity and how it can deepen and create more fun game play and immersion.
Diversity of appearance goes with race I think. Allowing for enough armor sets and their availability for players to control how they look is important. How you provide that can be done a lot of different ways, but I feel that having a lot of options in armor even for low level characters is a nice thing, not to mention some mechanism for them to change their look of their features or armor which can also serve as a gold sink.
Comments
Some suggestions I would make is to allow for diverse tagging of guilds in the in-game database. These tags would be set by guild leaders and should allow for anything from real life religious affiliation to in game elements that are important to players. Then provide an engine that allows players to search for best fit.
5. Rich and Storied World. I don't believe in player-driven city buildings and cities. I don't believe in players sitting on the throne. I think those things are gimmicks and copouts. Sure there are some who enjoy that sort of thing, but if you as a dev want to make money you need to pull in subscriptions and to do that you need to provide a rich world with a storyline the player can explore and become a part of. In this era people refer to this as "theme park MMOs" but down the road when MMOs dominate the entertainment industry and people are logging in and spending inordinate amounts of time in VR worlds this will prove to be a basic requirement for success.
Build the world. Rich characters, storyline, these things are needed. You're not going to make a ton of money (which is the name of the gaming business believe it or not) if you're trying to attract people who want to build the Eiffel Tower with bit blocks. There is a niche for that, but we're talking MMOs here.
You want to break from WoW, EQ, and ESO? Make the in-game NPCs more lifelike. Make them more interactable. Give them deeper storylines. Make them romance-able like you see with some of the modern games (this hasn't really made inroads to MMOs yet but it's coming). Add a finance depth to the game where players can "own" properties in the world. Have bigger cities and larger populations of NPCs who have the aforementioned traits.
Housing factors in here too. I'm not big on it but many are. These are the things that increases world immersion. There are problems, certainly, like with guild halls, where one could argue the guild leader benefits maybe too much. But even that could be addressed like with giving characters certain perks that stay with them even if they leave said guild, where their own housing would allow for a continuation of whatever mechanics they enjoyed in the guild hall.
Reputation really matters too. Some games start everyone out with favorable reps (WoW for example). But I prefer each race having its own rep levels to begin with, and maybe within the larger world it means the gameplay will be harder (some races should be considered evil by others even within their faction).
6. Crafting vs Loot. At their most basic level these games are about going into danger and overcoming it with friends. And being rewarded with loot. That is one of the biggest hooks in gaming. I believe the dropped loot should always be better than the crafted gear for this reasons. If you got it in a treasure chest deep in a dungeon heck yes it should be better than the sword some dude in the city made for you.
In some of the more modern games we're seeing a trend of drops from dungeons being crafting materials required for the best gear. This isn't a bad idea but it should never be the primary way of getting the best gear. The best gear should be drops. Why? Because only a small portion of the player base gets excited about crafting drops. For most players it's about downing that dragon and finding the gleaming sword in the treasure pile. And you can still have drops that are used by crafters, just don't make it the best gear.
7. Expedience of Travel. This is a deep concept actually. It ranges from starting a low level character with a friend (let's say one wants to play an ogre and the other an elf both of whom are in vastly different parts of the world) to wanting to join a dungeon group but not wanting to spend 15 minutes getting there. And there is a ton of different ways to solve these things, in fact I think many games have done a good job of this with different styles of solving the problem.
But it has to be solved if you want a good game, whether it's through player-driven summoning or portals or flight paths.
8. Distinct Factions. One of my favorite games was DAoC. The faction balance in that game sucked (everyone tended to roll Albion) but the distinct factions made it extremely fun and a completely different game depending on which you picked. Now the PvE was a bit weak compared to the PvP but overall I enjoyed my time in that game immensely (many years). Do you need to have different factions? Well maybe not. But I'm including this because I think the enrichment you get from them is worth the development time companies need to invest in.
Gonna stop there and add some more later. Curious what the rest of you think fit in this conversation and eagerly awaiting your ideas. Cheers!
First off you need to define the level of success you're going for. I don't think Project Gorgon ever set out to be the next World of Warcraft, so to say it's not a success is severely short sighted. So I would say divide this into at the very least 2 categories. AAA and Indie. For AAA you're going to be dumping millions into the project and the return of investment is by far the most important aspect of the project. It is no longer a game, it's strictly a business. Indies on the the other hand set out to build something they want. These are often passion projects and the design of the game is the most important aspect and making enough money to keep moving forward is perfectly acceptable.
The answers you gave, from my perspective, add up to another WoW clone seeking their fortune. This is the reason we've had WoW clones for the last decade. It is my strong opinion that it is the indie groups testing new and unique ideas that will trigger the "next big thing" even if they themselves are not.
You say unique classes are a requirement and that a skill base system will never work, yet Eve Online is a skill based system that has been a financial success for a very long time. You can be just as unique in a skill based system as you can a class based... in fact even MORE so.
So no, unique classes are not a requirement. Instead the requirement is for players to be able to create a unique character that can be self sufficient and desirable in a group.
Leveling is not important. Progression is important. Building your character is important. Neither of those are isolated to "levels".
During the level topic you mention ESO doing things wrong, yet it's a huge financial success, so I'm more confused than anything.
Races and diverse appearance. I believe this is a part of the "unique" requirement. I don't think, in fact I know from other games in existence, that different "races" are not necessarily a requirement, but being unique or having the ability to somewhat set yourself apart is a big bonus.
A guild finder is a requirement for success? I'm not even sure guilds are a "requirement" to be a financial success.
Rich and storied world. You do realize that even a player driven city building world can be rich and storied, right? You're simply throwing preferences around and not really discussing the "truths" about what makes a game great.
...
So I decided to stop there because I've come to the realization that you are not looking at anything objectively, like you wanted, and are simply making statements about things you like and why you think all MMOs should have them. I could go through each of them and pick apart why you are inaccurate, but that would take more time than I have.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
You are looking at 50-100 million to make an AAA mmorpg, and another 40+ million up keep every year.
So if you want to make a large budget MMORPG, you need to sell 1 million+ copies plus 300k + players.
As much as people trying to say how much their idea matters, I don't think it matters. It is simply not economical to make a large budget MMORPG, let unknown a large budget niche MMORPG. Which is probably why the mmorpg genre are at the state right now.
I don't think leveling is required or even necessarily beneficial. I'd argue it can actually be detrimental.
I don't think open worlds are required. In fact, I think that there are valid merits to a fully instanced approach that simply aren't a thing in an open world.
I don't think alternative races are required. If they were, we wouldn't see Runescape still succeed. Other customization can make up for that, but even that may well be optional.
PvP isn't required, as we see with plenty of MMOs.
PvE isn't required, as we saw with Planetside.
No idea is inherently outdated and everything can be beneficially modernized.
If there was then companies would be doing it.
And that goes for a lot of things, not just video games. Music, movies, you name it.
Sure, there are certain formulas that "hit" but then things start being made in their image and those things end up not being so good.
Suddenly someone creates something that "hits" and they are declared brilliant when all they did was create something they were passionate about AND had a bit of luck.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Where did the items in the chest that the final boss in the dungeon was guarding come from?
Did those items just magically appear? or were they crafted by someone that the boss killed and looted?
Crafted items and loot drops should be on par with each other.
That way, it gives everyone something to strive for, crafters have a reason to actually craft, and learn how to make the best items, either for personal use or to sell, and raiders have choice, they can either save up money to buy the best from a crafter, or wait and hope they get what they want from a boss.
The only real difference between crafted and dropped items should be visual, as in, crafters should be able to make different styles of armour and weapons, so players have a choice when it comes to how they look, and loot that comes from mob/boss drops should have their own styles, dependant on the type of mob/boss it is.
We had Empires run by Emperors, we had Kingdoms run by Kings, now we have Countries...
I don't think anyone, even on this website, has ever vocalized that unique classes were a bad thing.
There is no way to make a game that caters to everyone,impossible in fact.
So all that i want to see is CHOICE,don't keep slapping us with reskinned game designs,that is not choice ,that is boring.
How many mmorpg's do NOT put yellow markers over npc heads?Almost none,less than 1%?
How many designs do not stick raids inside of dungeons?
How many games don't even have raids?
How many designs are centered around the character and not the gear?
How many offer rpg players a home to live in?
How many are across the board FAIR,no cash shops?
How many have ideas that make sense or are simply ideas to say "there you have content"?
So we are seeing the exact same design over and over and over and all of them are LAZY,cheaper designs.Why make actual content when you can just stick a yellow marker over a npc head and tie in a quest/trigger...simple,easy.?
Point is i want a really well thought out,high quality mmorpg.I have already played all the crap,time to step it up instead of stepping the genre down like we have been seeing.
Can't make a HQ mmorpg,ok np just make a shallow Dark Souls game,or Monster Hunter or an ARPG ,less work,less cost,easy peasy.How many HQ mmorpg's in the pipeline right now?Then ask how many low budget piles of crap in the pipeline...THOUSANDS .
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Not classes or "lack of classes" but a system that is engaging for the game's core audience.
A game that knows its core audience and unapologetically develops toward that audience.
A game that is developed in a financially responsible way and can sustain itself on that audience.
A game that is done "well." And can be done "well" based taking into account its budget and continuing revenue.
Classes? No classes? Open world? Instances? Realistic Art design? Cartoon art design? All those things and more absolutely don't matter as a universal truth to making a game other than they have to be things the core audience wants.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I want to say you wrote a very good piece, that has a lot of insight. Many of your points while building from existing things, are better pieced in a abstract sense, as you can see, too many are willing to split hairs over pointless nonsense.
So hope you don't mind if I change a few points you made, as we agree on a Abstract sense.
1: Being Unique in What you Can Do.
This is a core aspect of any MMO, a way to divide things up, but more than that, this is way to balance things out with a basic idea of trade offs. IE: To do higher damage you need to be more fragile, to be able to Heal you need to do less DPS, etc, etc.
This is a basic idea of making players chose a course or path as it were, on how they play the game. For some games it's more flavor than function.
But if we look at the most successful MMO's there almost always is a sense of needing to pick a path, a way to go about playing the game.
The most common way is classes, mainly because that was what AD&D set things up as, but, in other games like EvE, it can be about the stats of your ship that will denote how you handle situations, but in the end, there is that sense of playing a role.
if you look at many of the AAA MMO's, they help players define their roles, even if they don't lock them down into being a one trick pony, they give them a sense of where they would fit into a group makeup, what place they would be on the team.
Anyone that witnessed the early rise of GW2, this need to have a "role" or a purpose, is paramount important to many gamers, in fact, these roles are so much ingrained into players, that they will look to see what denotes that role in that game.
Think of how many times players approach games with the mentality of "how do I make the best (Role) in this game?"
When games remove that sense of unique placement in the group, they will by default lose that whole demographic that identifies their game by their role. Again, look what happened with GW2, and people crying about needing roles. While GW2 did offer classes, and each class had their own "Unique" flavor, that was not enough for a lot of players that needed things defined into roles, not simply various flavors to the same end result. To be fair, the variation in GW2 classes really shined in PvP far more than they did in PvE, till HoT and the shoehorning of some classes into direct roles.
Now, some players LOVE that sense of being more diverse and games that give it to them can survive on that demographic, the question of course with this OP and this Topic, is not if an MMO can survive on whatever idea they put out, the question is what is something that most successful MMO's do.
In this case, they give players a sense of placement in their team/group/guild, and they do this by some kind of system that most games would call a "Class" no matter what the games technical term might be.
So I agree with you in the Abstract sense that if you look at the MMO's that have been the most successful, they have all given players a sense of having a role (Class) in their game.
What the genre needs is things that surprise us rather than a list of old things that used to work.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Spells which can change other player characters into pigs, goats, chickens, and mice.
Oh, cool. Yeah, being able to block or dodge is nice. That's something I liked about Neverwinter. (At first I thought you meant like a block/ignore button for other players.)
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.