Why men in tights work for MMO games

BioWare combat designer acknowledges that a lot of massively multiplayer online games look and feel the same, but adds there are some good reasons for it.

AUSTIN, Texas--With the third and final day of the 2006 Austin Game Conference winding down, BioWare lead combat designer Damion Schubert held a session to address the common criticism that massively multiplayer online games are becoming homogenously World of Warcraft-like. Schubert didn't say whether he thought the trend was good or bad, so much as he tried to give good reasons why so many games are the way they are, from the basic concept of experience points to the swords-and-sorcery settings he called "men in tights."

Or as he asked in lingo-laden terms, "Why do we keep making grind-tastic, class-based, combat-oriented, men-in-tights-themed game-y games?'"

Choosing to go beyond the curt answer of "because it sells," Schubert went on to give his take on why massively multiplayer online games are the way they are, and why that's not necessarily a bad thing.

"I think that we as an industry are very myopic about what people really want, what they're actually looking for in terms of the innovation side of the industry."

As an example, Schubert cited the mobile phone industry of recent years, where extra PDA, camera, and other functionality wasn't so much what people wanted. He said they just wanted a small phone with a long battery life and a clamshell design that kept people from accidentally dialing out when they sat down.

One problem with the MMO market today, according to Schubert, is that too many people are focused on replicating the success of the industry's 800-pound gorilla, World of Warcraft.

"WOW is Coke," Schubert said, referring to the soda and not the highly addictive narcotic. "They are stomping everybody... Unless you have Pepsi money, you aren't going to be able to go head to head. You have to be Red Bull. You have to be Snapple. Although Coke bought Snapple, so bad example."

But innovation for innovation's sake isn't likely to work, either. Schubert says the key is to innovate smartly, choosing a handful of specific areas to key in on. He singled out a pair of points World of Warcraft lead designer Rob Pardo made in his Austin Game Conference keynote address. Specifically, Schubert praised the game's polish, saying it was "the first game in our genre that didn't release in an absolutely shameful state as far as connectivity, replayability, et cetera." He also emphasized that it flew in the face of industry convention by letting people reach the highest levels even if they chose to play through it entirely on their own.

"WOW comes along and says, 'Hey you know what? The problem with MMOs is sometimes your friends aren't [online] and everyone else is an idiot,'" Schubert noted.

From there, Schubert moved on to talk about the industry clichés that haven't seen much innovation and gave his reasons as to why the status quo has worked thus far. First and foremost, he talked about the combat-heavy focus of most MMO games.

"Combat presents an active problem," Schubert said, "a problem that you are solving pretty much in real time. You're given information, and you have to do something with that."

That makes combat something that players can do again and again, Schubert said, making for a different problem with every encounter as the player must assess the situation and make decisions as to how to handle the fight. It's also scalable, giving players increasing levels of complexity as they add a number of skills and abilities to their characters. It also works well for cooperative play, a real strength for multiplayer games of any sort, especially massively multiplayer ones.

Next Schubert addressed the abundance of class-based games. While not necessary for a successful MMO game, he said classes make a lot of sense for the developer. First and foremost, a class-based system makes the job of balancing the game easier.

"Your players are obsessed with fairness," Schubert said. "They are obsessed with both the perception and reality of fairness."

It's difficult enough making sure that each set of unique class abilities aren't overly powerful when combined and mixed. With World of Warcraft's handful of classes, Schubert said it would be relatively easy to add another class and balance it against the existing character types. Schubert said if a developer were to add a new skill to a system without class limits, the problem would not be easily solved.

"You basically have to compare a billion possible combinations to a billion other possible combinations," Schubert said. "Classes help keep that under control."

With combat and classes out of the way, Schubert turned to experience points and the concept of character levels.

"They work great," Schubert said of experience points. "[They] let players know where they are in the pecking order, both in PVP and PVE. It's really important for players to look at a monster and know whether or not they can kill it. The alternative is to run in and die."

As a game mechanic, experience points reward devotion over skill, Schubert said. That's particularly fitting for MMO games, as the current subscription-based business model requires devotion to make money. And as he said, the problem with skill is that "not a lot of players have it."

Almost as ubiquitous as experience points in the MMO genre is the fantasy setting: orcs, dragons, swords, sorcery, and the rest of the Tolkien-esque staples. Schubert gave a number of reasons for this, prefaced with his own experience in the genre.

"At Ubisoft, when we were talking about what MMO to put out after Shadbowbane, we talked about eight possible settings, and we came back to men in tights. Management was actually asking us to be sure of that."

Schubert started justifying the fantasy setting with the very quality that critics have bashed it: its inherent familiarity.

"The thing about fantasy games is that people know what they are almost universally," Schubert said.

He pointed to two Sid Meier games, Alpha Centauri and Civilization IV, as being a pair of similar games with wildly different settings. He asked the audience how many people played the sci-fi Alpha Centauri for 15 minutes and then longed to be playing a historical Civilization game instead.

"It's pretty much the same game mechanic, but we know what the wheel is," Schubert said. "We understand what the railroad is. We get that intuitively, whereas Alpha Centauri was trying to teach us all these terms in this fiction that they created."

He also mentioned the idea of double-coated media, a property that appeals to two different audiences. He referred to Bugs Bunny and Animaniacs as double-coated, enduring properties because they give kids wacky antics to laugh at but also throw in references and jokes that only adults would understand.

"Compare that to trying to watch Blues Clues with your kids," Schubert said. "It's very successful, but watching that if you're a parent is really like killing yourself slowly."

Schubert said that fantasy, despite the role-playing nerd stereotype, is a double-coated setting. As evidence, he pointed to the massive mainstream success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the abundance of unicorns, wizards, and other fantasy staples seen in the aisles of arts-and-craft stores like Michaels.

Fantasy is also suited to MMO games because it's ideally suited to the player's sense of progression. It can start players out against giant rats and move along to orcs, dragons, demons, and other nastier creatures.

"If you take away anything from this talk," Schubert emphasized, "have a vision, and deliver the promise of that vision. That is the most important thing for choosing a genre. That is the most important thing for choosing a gameplay trope."

He then turned to the issue of MMO games based on licenses and how they don't always work. Schubert said that EA considered turning Harry Potter into an MMO game, but wandering around killing giant rats wasn't really in keeping with the character, who is more of a sleuth than a soldier.

"If you want to make Harry Potter, you really need to figure out how to deliver the essence of Harry Potter," Schubert said, turning to a list of licenses that would be problematic for MMO games.

Both the film Stargate and its TV adaptation, which are already being turned into an MMO game, feature an archeologist main character who can't do anything in combat and gets captured a lot. Schubert said one of the developers on the game confided to him that one of the team's biggest challenges was to deliver a Stargate experience that feels like Stargate without that character.

He also brought up Highlander, which he said had massive appeal with mass market awareness.

"The problem with Highlander is perma-death," Schubert noted to laughs from the crowd. "You're talking about a franchise where the only rule that cannot be broken is, 'There can be only one.'"

He also looked forward to the upcoming Star Trek MMO game, because he wanted to see how the team would address a number of problems related to the source material, which features space explorers who shy away from fighting.

"Combat is a last resort," Schubert said of Star Trek. "There's a real sense that your crew has failed if they go into combat. How do you slap a grinding experience onto that? ... How do you do that multiplayer experience where one guy's supposed to be the captain and the others are the crew?"

Finally, he addressed the issue of people making MMO games as open-ended virtual worlds like Second Life or Eve Online instead of mere games like World of Warcraft or EverQuest.

"I've noticed that the game-versus-world debate was set up by the world guys to make themselves feel important," Schubert said, again drawing laughs. "Let's face it: Games are small and trivial. Worlds? That's something we can all strive for."

Schubert said he was on the game side of that debate, but offered some advice for those making worlds. World developers need to make the game experience easy on the new player, with clear and simple directions to help them find their own fun. He also emphasized that it was crucial to make open-ended worlds fair and balanced for all players.

He also said the runaway success of World of Warcraft--and its subsequent copycats--has greatly exaggerated reports of the virtual-world subgenre's demise, noting that virtual worlds Second Life, RuneScape, and Eve Online have all found success, while games like The Matrix Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online have met with much more limited success, relatively speaking.

"I'm not saying don't innovate," Schubert emphasized. "I'm really not... but I really want you guys to be sure that you're not over-innovating, that you're not going out of bounds. Be sure that your innovations are things that players want."

88 Comments

  • Ch3ckUr6

    Posted Sep 21, 2006 5:49 am PT

    One major problem with alot of MMOs is movement. Ive trialed alot of mmos, if the movement feels wrong, ill litterally uninstall it after 2minutes.

    In my opinion movement should be like in a FPS, smooth, controlable, able to JUMP! Im a dragon slaying semi death god, but damn that 2" ledge has stopped me in my tracks. WoW gets movement right, its that simple. If the movement is frustrating is doesnt matter how good the rest of your game is.

    In my opinion Archlord, guildwars, RF get this wrong. WoW, EQ2 get this right. I dont want to see point and click i want WASD!

  • Ch3ckUr6

    Posted Sep 21, 2006 5:42 am PT

    ""The future of MMOs is clear, it's full fledged freedom of a player in a world to explore. The player individually, is not bound to other players in order to succeed. Here is thereby the sole controller of his progression."" -Quote Omegadg2000

    I totally agree, thats what id like to see anyway. But dont you find it commical that a "massively multiplayer" game focusing on single player is ironic.

  • SmallPower

    Posted Sep 11, 2006 6:41 pm PT

    I wonder if this guy's stint at Ubisoft during its golden "Shadowbane" era has anything to do with him sounding like an idiotic douchebag.

  • Omegadg2000

    Posted Sep 11, 2006 2:40 pm PT

    Zera:

    This is my last response to you and my last time checking this thread.

    You are not a creative person, you do not think outside the box if you think this is what the game should be about.

    I have seen players better geared than me that have IQs of crocodiles, seriously, if you play obsessively enough you can be the best geared.

    This is why WoW fails!

    My last post. Goodbye!

  • Xavier_Draven

    Posted Sep 11, 2006 11:50 am PT

    I don't care I need a new Console MMo. I got bored with Everquest for PS2 a year ago and I need something. And FF11 is not it.

  • noelveiga

    Posted Sep 11, 2006 4:25 am PT

    More stupidity in the article: it's good to reward devotion over skill because skill is scarce.

    But devotion is scarce, too. In fact, it's so scarce that it's what's limiting MMO market right now. The big, big problem in marketing a MMO is that you have a monthly fee and you have to play enough to

    a) keep your characther in the same level range of all your friends

    b) make the monthly fee worthwhile.

    So, basically, they've developed a market situation only hardcore gamers will accept. They keep trying to lure casuals, but not to keep them being casuals, but to turn them into hardcore gamers. Not gonna work. So what you need to make this a real genre is a way of getting enough money out of players without limiting your player base.

    Here's an idea: Create two billing formulas, one where you pay by the hour, one where you pay a monthly fee. If you play less than 20 hours a month, then you're good paying about 75 cents per hour played. Of course it has its own problems, but the Internet itself used to work like that, and it still became what we know today.

    After that is solved you can deal with the cheap: "the more you play the stronger you get" formula. That is stupid in that it supresses all challenge from the game. Wait, let me rephrase that. The difficulty is there, because there are a lot of players and NPC's that are basically unbeatable, but there's no challenge. There's no thing you must be able to do as a gamer other than keep doing the same basic two or three actions your character can do against the two or three enemies you can beat easily. For reference I'd look at battle card games for my MMO ideas. Those games are based on strategy, skill, luck and long-term acquired power. That's what you want to do. Allow me to beat a lv 50 guy if I'm good enough, but give him the advantage. CounterStrike did this pretty well, and it worked for them (that game depended too much on crazy skill, but you get my point).

  • Zeraquor

    Posted Sep 11, 2006 4:06 am PT

    I was trying hard not to insult you, but I cannot get away without calling you an utterly, complete moron for that statement.

    "The kind of person that feels great for receiving a virtual piece of material that has none significant numbers and gives you great pleasure needs to be considered for mental retardation.

    The benefit of playing longer is improving your character, but most people who have actual skill in MMOs dont play for items they play for achievement, items arent achievement they come with the game, as the game gets harder you need better items to be well equipped for the challanges.

    As far as challange is concerned you my friend are mentally challenged."

    Great so you basically says everyone is a retard since EVERYTHING is IN the game already. That is very clever, so there' can't be any achievement in any game by that statement. Do you enjoy any game at all? and you know what? if you whine so much about WoW, stop playing ffs, it's optional (if you can stop that's another story though )

    Btw most people that plays for items have skills!, a person without skill doesn't come far in wow or daoc(try atlantis) (me being one of them but I enjoy the game nonetheless!!)

  • wuzgar

    Posted Sep 11, 2006 3:21 am PT

    your players are obsessed with fairnes...

    pfff, only 15 year old losers are obsessed with fairnes. I'm still waiting for a mmorpg that isn't limited by class and more innovative players can really explore the possibilities.

  • Omegadg2000

    Posted Sep 11, 2006 1:32 am PT

    DMTTyndareus,

    Well done, well said, well being to ya.

    WoW's grind is 1-60 and 60 beyond, if your end game is a grind there is a problem. I've played it for two years, it's been a grind for two years nothings changed. I've conquered everything in the game, it stays the same.

    The problem with WoW is end game is a second job indeed, people have to give their spleens to achieve greatness in the game. You have to shun your friends and family and only eat, sleep,work and play. Why are they telling us how to play our game?

    The future of MMOs is clear, it's full fledged freedom of a player in a world to explore. The player individually, is not bound to other players in order to succeed. Here is thereby the sole controller of his progression.

    WoW tells you you need 39 other players to enjoy the game. That is, you cannot acquire the best items in the game which are in instances without other players. I feel if we are bound by such tight regulations then we are wasting our money.

    The PvP system is years away from perfection. Many MMOs coming out try to remedy the plague that WoW started. Honestly, any game where grinding sees the most championed is a game that should be passed up on.

    We should be able to have content in MMOs that play to the individual. Collecting items through PvP and Endgame only is very limited. All highest tier items should have multiple facets of attainment.

  • twtech

    Posted Sep 10, 2006 10:52 pm PT

    "WOW comes along and says, 'Hey you know what? The problem with MMOs is sometimes your friends aren't [online] and everyone else is an idiot,'" Schubert noted.

    If only that convention carried over to the endgame. MMORPG.com gave the endgame content in WoW a 7.9/10 and I think they were being very generous at that. WoW is one game from 1-59, and a totally different game after reaching level 60. It would be nice if they could find a way to replicate the experience of the first 59 levels over to the endgame content.

  • DMTyndareus

    Posted Sep 10, 2006 7:17 pm PT

    Personally, I don't think MMO's are developing in any kind of sustainable way. In the recent 'Designer Threads' chat with John Romero Greg Kasavin mentioned the sort of half-life of genres being around 4 or 5 years. Games like FPS's have evolved since Wolfenstein in order to stay relevant. MMO development seems to be on a build a better mousetrap kick that simply sees the game companies trying variations on the same old themes without any real vision beyond that.

    The big problem is the large development costs that these big MMO games incorporate. You need to be able to sustain a large audience to recoup those out of pocket costs and as time passes I think we'll see a drop off in how many players can stomach sticking with a game for more than six months if it's pretty much the same game they already played for two years.

    I would like to see MMO games make some significant changes. I've never been convinced that a 'grind' system is required in order to hold onto players. If you need players to stick with the game over a long period of time in order to get their subscription fees, why not make the game fun instead of just drawn-out? I think World of Warcraft simply does the best job of putting 'fun' into the gameplay genre and that's why people are hooked. The grind is hidden behind colourful artistic graphics and solid production values. Make no mistake though that the grind is definitely there.

    It's very strange when you think about what people are willing to pay the subscription fee for. If EA tried make Battlefield 2 a pay-to-play game, everyone would be angry and upset about it. Yet, for my money, Battlefield 2 offers ten to twenty times more enjoyment than any MMO has. I've played Battlefield 2 since it was released and I still play it regularly. I could only play World of Warcraft for two months before it wasn't fun and cancelled my account. Yet a MMO will come out charging $14.99 a month for a gameplay experience that in many respects is much like a second job. I have enough trouble managing my own finances, let alone my fictional characters'.

    In short I don't think over-innovating is a problem. I think that the consumer base is simply not adjusted to the idea that a pay-to-play game doesn't have to provide this certain specific set of features.

    I can remember back when the internet was just becoming a big frontier for gaming and game journalists were jittery with the prospects of games we would see in the coming years. There were so many varied and original ideas for games where the only key change was that instead of NPCs or AI controlled allies/enemies you had real people playing. Star Wars games, fantasy roleplaying games, racing games, no genre was without someone pushing the huge fun that could be had simply from bringing in real people to play with and against. Then we got Ultima Online and all of that talk died as if UO was simply the only way it could be done.

    Games like WoW aren't the way that MMOs will survive. Games like Neverwinter Nights with its emphasis on giving players the ability to design and run their OWN virtual worlds are the future of this game type. The biggest barrier right now isn't design ideas, it's the infrastructure and latency that is forcing large scale multiplayer games to focus on a select group of proven gameplay conceits.

    I can't wait until we can run Neverwinter Nights type games with 256 players, or Battlefield games with 200 people on each army. THAT'S where we should be going. If I have to pay a monthly fee for those sorts of games, so be it.

  • Omegadg2000

    Posted Sep 10, 2006 6:24 pm PT

    :
    So you would not feel great when you would get that sweet epic drop from that monster?


    I was trying hard not to insult you, but I cannot get away without calling you an utterly, complete moron for that statement.

    The kind of person that feels great for receiving a virtual piece of material that has none significant numbers and gives you great pleasure needs to be considered for mental retardation.

    The benefit of playing longer is improving your character, but most people who have actual skill in MMOs dont play for items they play for achievement, items arent achievement they come with the game, as the game gets harder you need better items to be well equipped for the challanges.

    As far as challange is concerned you my friend are mentally challenged.

  • nappan

    Posted Sep 10, 2006 5:27 pm PT

    "That's false. The technology is there, and has been there for over 10 years. Ultima Online, arguably the game that proved that the MMO genre could be very successful (and inspired SOE to jump onboard with EQ), was a persistant online world with zero quests. No levels, only completely customizable skill-based characters that could be maxed in a week or less."

    Completely misses my point about scale and quality. Ultima Online doesn't have the graphics, size, scope or depth. It was bigger, and more interesting sure, but it was nowhere near the size I was trying to describe. When people say "world" now, they mean "small city or town" for the most part. I'm talking about worlds, or countries, or citiies that live up to the scope and depth of their real world counterparts. By the way, arguably the Best thing about KOTOR, to catch up with the thread, were the parts that diverged from the scifi norm. The force, lightsabers, etc. These are fantasy elements frankly. There is something to be said for crossing genres though... everyone talks about vampire MMO's, or D&D MMO's or spacesim MMO's... why not a universe that has it all? Pen and Paper games have been doing this for decades... take Shadowrun. You have big guns side by side with shamanism and sorcery. Both work. That said, it's a vocal and minority that asks for new and innovative games, and then buys them. A lot of players really just want Doom 4, or Quake 8, or 9 or whatever it is now. You either get polished perfect games like Psychonauts that do poorly in the market (at first, thank god it got recognition later... VERY unusual, but phew) or games like Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines that was fun, but buggy and incomplete. Imagine if it had been Full scale? I don't know what leap of technology or development, or funding it will take to allow games to make the jump from high concept to working balenced game, but I know it isn't here yet. For now, we're stuck with the occasional innovation, a few real hits, and some fun chaff.

  • -KinGz-

    Posted Sep 10, 2006 4:51 pm PT

    couldnt have said it better xD

  • Neolucifer999

    Posted Sep 10, 2006 4:30 pm PT

    Kotor is hardly a perfect exemple , while an awesome game .Fantasy settings are often more compelling in mmo for simplistic yet quite true reasons : not everyone likes to play a rpg with guns . As stupid as it may sounds in game featuring bows and magic projectiles , wich are basically the same in principle , its not as compelling . Not every sci fi universe can even propose a good reason why in a futurist setting , anyone would be carrying sword , even a plasma or laser one .
    Star wars is one of the few that did so far . The franchise succeeded in keeping the epism of fantasy stories in a futurist setting . While Galaxy was crap , its quite ripe for a great sci fi mmo , anytime someone competent enough steps in ...

    However things like Star trek , or to sci fi oriented existing and new franchises , i dont think it could work except for Trekkies , and pure sci fi and fps fans .

  • sircyrus

    Posted Sep 10, 2006 2:38 pm PT

    The fantasy setting is overused, but I think the dependance on the fantasy setting is because of the core influences to the MMO genre currently. If you read interviews with many MMO developers you'll notice a trend - almost always they talk about times sitting around playing D&D with their buddies. Since Everquest, MMO's have looked heavily to D&D and MUDs for inspiration for their core design. Or to other MMO's which themselves drew from those references. I don't think it's a coincidence that the fantasy MMO's largely have a very similiar system of character development and world design. Then you look at the games which tried to break away from the fantasy setting. EVE Online, Star Wars Galaxies, etc. These games aren't just different settings, they feature totally different character development systems (SWG is getting closer to the norm now but it's far too late to attract new players and just serves to alienate their current playerbase). It's as if the developers, in an attempt to break away from the fantasy setting, think that the design needs to be 100% new in every single aspect of the game. I don't understand why this is. This is exactly what over-innovating is.

    Take KOTOR for example. No, it's not a MMO but it still serves as a good example. KOTOR is based off the d20 system (Third Edition D&D ruleset). NWN, a huge hit, was also based off this system, and came out only a year before KOTOR was released. The games shared similarities beyond that content-wise with certain quests (like the arena fights), the slow start (start in a closed in area before gaining freedom), etc. Now even with these similarities and relatively close release dates you very rarely hear them mentioned, and it's even more rare that you hear they ruined the game for the player. Games in seperate settings can share the same ruleset and still be huge successes, not taking away from eachother. That's something most developers don't seem to acknowledge.

    Anyways going off on a rant there. My point is that the fantasy setting is overused, but I don't think it's that way because of any particular popularity of the fantasy setting itself. I think it's that way because developers are looking at taking on a seperate setting as having to tackle the issue of completely redesigning their game's core ruleset from the ground up. The ones who go ahead and attempt to create that game anyways end up with something so different from what players are used to and comfortable with that the majority of gamers reject it. It's too much of a shift.

  • imrlybord7

    Posted Sep 10, 2006 12:41 pm PT

    for anyone sick of fantasy mmos ckeck out webzen's Huxley (mmofps) or APB (gta style mmo). And by the way, APB's lead designer was also a lead designer for gta (not sure which one)

  • MartyredShadow

    Posted Sep 10, 2006 11:49 am PT

    Fantasy settings are overused, and it's hard to make sci-fi settings work. I say we need zombies. A zombie-based MMO - something like Dead Rising without a day-by-day progression - would be excellent.

  • SpookyX

    Posted Sep 10, 2006 11:37 am PT

    I think MMOs can have a point. All the talk lately about episodic games should be directed towards MMOs where each episode is a story in itself that players of similar levels can play through. FFXI tried doing something like this I believe but you need to start living the story from the beginning and have those themes reinforced throughout your experience.

  • Mr_Saturn26

    Posted Sep 10, 2006 11:07 am PT

    I hate MMO games, like EverQuest, and WoW and the other games, im sorry but, i cant stand playing a game with no point, jest playing the game till ur level is max in every skill, but then what, their isnt any other thing to do, if u did everything, pointless, im jest gonna stick with my reguler RPGs, that have an ending, and a point.

  • Zeraquor

    Posted Sep 10, 2006 8:23 am PT

    LOL at omega, it is you that are wrong my friend, " you should feel achievements" omg? seriously have you even played the game, or any other game for that matter. Don't tell me you DON'T feel that you have acomplished an achievement when you reach the next pvp rank?

    I have just recenlty hit 60 and for me that was a GREAT achievement, and now trying to get exalted with frostwolf clan(so I can get unstoppable force).
    Also I'm aiming for high pvp ranks. If that isn't goals for you then I have no idea what you are talking about mr.

    "if you battle a monster with 40 people for 5 months over and over again, how is this achievement?" So you would not feel great when you would get that sweet epic drop from that monster? That wouldn't be a achievement?
    I think there's a alot of people who actually want to get that.

    I'm a blacksmith and there you have a goal as well, get to 300! I struggled to get there and was so happy when I finally hit that, and I'm also weaponsmith and aiming for swordsmith. It can't just be me that have all these goals right?

    "Riverwolf, you're extremely ignorant, proving you know squat about MMOs."
    wrong wrong and wrong. Riverwolf writes from a very interesting view, and what is he hasn't reached 60? that hasn't got anything at all to do with it. He's just merely speaking from his own experience and view, a man that can't play so much every week.
    And what does he say about the game? It works great.

    Pointless quests? Excuse me sir but have you even read the quests and not checked the dirs on alakhazam or thottbot ?
    I know the quests are a clever disguise for some grinding, but I find them very appealing. If you have played SWG you know that one lacked in that area

    "WoW is a dying breed, and it has so many faults its going to crumble internally. " and "People are tired of dwarves, elves and gnomes"
    Yeah because 6-7 million users like to be bored and also play a broken game. I rest my case.
    Sorry guys for the long whining wall o text, just felt the need
    //my 2 flaming coppar

  • Oni

    Posted Sep 10, 2006 7:00 am PT

    This guy thinks he knows everything that gamers want. Well we don't want anymore Fantasy MMOs.

    I bet a GTA MMO (done right) would be a big seller. If they could make an MMO like Sims 2 (with all it's expansions plus more) I think that would also sell pretty big. Like have a way so you can buy custom content created by people in the game! Now that would be stellar.

  • Omegadg2000

    Posted Sep 10, 2006 2:31 am PT

    Andron is right,

    More MMO's are trying to lean away from fantasy, more MMOs will by Sci-Fi, Sims, and RTS SCI-Fi.

    People are tired of dwarves, elves and gnomes, it's not just girls and sissy boys who play now.

    BTW, isn't it funny how WoW has the namesake yet provided no lore in the beginnings of the game? lawl.

  • Omegadg2000

    Posted Sep 10, 2006 2:30 am PT

    Riverwolf, you're extremely ignorant, proving you know squat about MMOs.

    WoW will soon end and the upcoming MMOs will take over.

    WoW is a dying breed, and it has so many faults its going to crumble internally. You know nothing about the game to even speak having not even reached level 60.

    The game before 60 is grinding xp, and endless, pointless quests that have no impact what-so-ever.

    Blind ignorance.

  • Andron666

    Posted Sep 10, 2006 1:02 am PT

    On the other hand, there are actually people out there who isn't all that interested in fantasy.

    I would never play a fantasy MMO because it doesn't interest me. I tried Star Wars Galaxies a little while, but got bored with the patches and endless running around.

  • catsimboy

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 10:46 pm PT

    People like fantasy more because most sci-fi MMORPGs suck. Just look at RF online. A Deus Ex MMORPG would freakin' rock! So there's a sci-fi MMORPG that would be awesome. And it would make up for the disappointment of Deus Ex: Invisible War. And it has feasible character classes because you can use stealth, fighting, and special (like a mage class) nano abilites. It would be a welcome break from orcs and dorks.

  • mattxavier

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 10:39 pm PT

    Wow is not the future of PC gaming.

  • Riverwolf007

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 8:59 pm PT

    Oh yea i almost forgot keep an eye on Huxley it looks promising as far as being innovative but i know that planetside was basically the same thing and nobody plays that so who knows.

  • Riverwolf007

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 8:51 pm PT

    Why would anyone expect any game be it mmo or not to be some life expanding experence? im prolly a pretty poor example but i've played wow for over a year and still havent hit the level cap because i play for around an hour or 2 every third or fourth day of the week when i get a little extra time to kill. My entire game mostly consists of killing the guys that raid horde citys and keeping my auctions filled up. Wow is a popular mmo, not because its some great entertainment experence but because you dont have to be a shut in that plays for 40 hours a week to advance your toon in the game.
    Its basically a beginner level mmo that rewards you for not being hardcore and thats why its so successful. I have not been out of bonus xp since i was lvl 15 and thats why when i do play i can grind out a level in a couple of hours. If more developers make games that appeal to noobs that want an easy mmo experence more devs will have million selling titles. Sad state of affairs for guys that are 1337roxxorleetsauce but there are way more people that cant bear the thought of putting in more that an few hours a week into mmo games than there are hardcore mmo fans and those are the people you need to have to sell alot of copies of your game.

  • Neolucifer999

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 7:51 pm PT

    There is a very good reason why beyond hardcore gamers , almost no one cares about ultima online , and it wasnt just graphics and designs . You can do everything except being entertained ... unless you're into that kind of repetitive giant world in kit , where players almost got to entertain themselves on their own ...
    Sure quest and grind based games are every bit as repetitive .. however most people will be happier with a few goals and pieces of storyline , than aimlessly mining , baking , chatting and killing etc etc

  • Omegadg2000

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 5:57 pm PT

    :
    'Hey you know what? The problem with MMOs is sometimes your friends aren't [online] and everyone else is an idiot,'"
    As a game mechanic, experience points reward devotion over skill, Schubert said. That's particularly fitting for MMO games, as the current subscription-based business model requires devotion to make money. And as he said, the problem with skill is that "not a lot of players have it." Almost as ubiquitous as experience points in the MMO genre is the fantasy setting: orcs, dragons, swords, sorcery, and the rest of the Tolkien-esque staples.


    Those are the highlights of why MMO don't work now. Only for people who don't have social lives, don't enjoy people and look for virtual friends and have their mother's credit card to spend.

    To add to the quote,

    MMO's offer a world that has no end, there is no goal of conquering the world, the only thing you conquer are patches, and for the people that enjoy playing for more numbers added to their attributes, it's really a pathetic existence in gaming. Games should have goals and you should feel achievments, if you battle a monster with 40 people for 5 months over and over again, how is this achievement? You should have to beat it once and it should take a while and everyone benefits from it.

    Kids listen up, money, money, money, you're being taken advantage of.

  • thepeter

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 5:55 pm PT

    WoW doesn't require skill.
    WoW isn't that exciting compared to RE4.
    WoW became allitle boring because of no-good friends.
    Thats why i don't play WoW anymore, even if i would come back it would consume my life.
    But kudos to everyone that can still handle it.

  • SP33doh

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 5:48 pm PT

    guild wars is a CORPG (competative/cooperative online RPG)

    it seems like the name's just marketing, but it's accurate.

  • DMWhiteDragon

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 4:43 pm PT

    I hate to say this but guild wars isn't mentioned in any of these MMO discussions because guild wars isn't a real MMO

    Its more a multiplayer game with a 3d lobby(towns) than a MMO, soon as you leave town its just you and your party...or you and hired NPCs the world feels barren and empty even when the town is so populated with players

    And this mecanic is exactly why guild wars has no monthly fee, simply because it doesn't have the costs associated with running a full real MMO world

    Dont get me wrong however, guild wars isn't a bad game! just not a real MMO in the typical sence... the massively multipler part means an enormous amount of people *acutally* playing together not a 3d lobby of players not playing together and a small normal muliplayer amount of players playing together

  • DarkSacoura

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 4:29 pm PT

    Good article, but long.

  • xelloss88

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 3:27 pm PT

    I don't like WoW, good game, just I don't care for it. I play FFXI, and can't wait for Stargate MMO to come out.

  • nytrospawn

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 3:22 pm PT

    This is about the same mentality that gets us games that play the same. Look at Warhammer and World of Warcraft. Gameplay videos show that the combat looks exactly the same in both games. Hell, both games look almost the same. MMORPG's are just games put out to make millions for nothing. They are the result of business people deciding what games to make.

  • rokkuman09

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 3:06 pm PT

    Alot of MMORPGs are trying to be like World of Warcraft as he said...and, I agree it's not really a bad thing! If there were a few MMORPGs that were similar to World of Warcraft and, just as good, or maybe even better...then would that really be bad thing?

  • HyperMetaDragon

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 3:06 pm PT

    I didn't know men wore tights.

  • YEPEE00

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 2:10 pm PT

    "quote" not-quote

  • prostar343

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 1:49 pm PT

    Not one word on Guild Wars which is innovative in its business strategy at the least.

  • jasonmacrillo

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 1:43 pm PT

    I would play a wheel of time mmorpg.. that would be sweet

  • Jokerjoe1011

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 12:46 pm PT

    um hello people. when they were talking about how everything is the same as WoW with the grinding and all of that they didnot even talk about GUILD WARS

  • Chaos_crying

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 11:52 am PT

    I can't believe he actually said what he said about "devotion". I knew MMO gamers were getting hosed. And when are they going to realize that grinding isn't fun? We need new ways to enjoy ourselves in MMOs, not killing the same damn things over and over.

  • Schillinger

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 11:35 am PT

    When MMOs dare to try something WoW hasn't done, they get slated review-wise, and get called a cheap WoW imitation. I guess the same could be said for platform games after Super Mario came out. So I guess we're going to be waiting 10 years for any kind of decent, varied yet equally playable MMO experiences.

  • Haganegiri

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 11:33 am PT

    Very insight commentary. I agree with a lot of his main points. I just wish the PC market could get more love in the way of other genre's. Lately, it seems the only thing PC's are good for are FPS's and MMO's. I wish we had more on the PC. Don't get me wrong, I play a lot of FPS's and I've played a few MMO's, I just want more .

  • Demon-Draco

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 11:28 am PT

    This article just makes me wonder about The Chronicle...

  • bornej

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 11:19 am PT

    Agreed with original poster here....UO got it right and every game since has just been differing levels of crap. If UO had better graphics and a first person view, it would set a new standard and everybody would be chasing it.

  • sircyrus

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 10:52 am PT

    "True persistant online worlds (the kind you'd need to make a Star Trek, or REAL Star Wars MMO) simply can't be developed using existing hardware and software. The technique may be evolving, as with the power, but right now crafting a world is still more of an expression than a reality."

    That's false. The technology is there, and has been there for over 10 years. Ultima Online, arguably the game that proved that the MMO genre could be very successful (and inspired SOE to jump onboard with EQ), was a persistant online world with zero quests. No levels, only completely customizable skill-based characters that could be maxed in a week or less.

    Prior to UO's shift and launch of expansions, it was exactly what MMO's should be. Online persistant worlds that don't focus on levels, character development, equipment, zones, level-based areas, etc. It was about being able to log in and feeling like your character belonged in that online world. The feel of EQ/WoW-clones is that your character is a visitor to a stagnant online world, and that ultimately your actions ingame are pointless as they have no effect whatsoever on the "game world."

  • abelmaestro

    Posted Sep 9, 2006 10:50 am PT

    he`s right

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