The MMORPG industry is a strange beast, isn’t it? I mean, can anyone really make any sense out of it? Everywhere I go on the Internet – forums, blogs, etc – I see discussions about the genre which typically feature the same kinds of comments, over and over again:
* People hate endless quest grinding to an arbitrary level cap which, in truth, could be 20 levels higher, or lower, and it seemingly wouldn’t make any difference.
* People hate the quests themselves, which still revolve around, “Kill 10 of this monster” or “Deliver this letter to someone a really long way away (so you’ll waste the next two hours of your life)”.
* People hate that “the best” content in games is usually reserved for the endgame, which not only takes time to level to, it’s often, weirdly, also the most under-developed in many ways.
So, tell me, besides the obvious question of why any of us bother with MMORPGs if there’s so much to hate in the way they’re designed in the first place, why aren’t these games being designed different? Designed smarter? Designed to be more fun? It’s crazy!
I’ve long held the belief that MMORPGs are increasingly heading in the wrong direction. They are trying to be single-player games with lots of people logged in at the same time. This is such an absurd way to design a MMO game world. Why? Because the nature of the world offers itself to being an environment where people can actually exist – Second Life, style – and should be able to do what they please.
This might mean opening a bar and crafting a dozen flavours of beer to sell to people, or it might mean venturing into a nearby forest and seeing what adventure can be found. MMORPGs should be real, breathing, living worlds where you can do what you please… not be placed on a conveyer belt that takes you from one quest to the next, until you are an arbitrary “level” that doesn’t really mean anything, when you stop to think about it, beyond the rather mindless, “I have played the game long enough to be this level”. Yawn-a-rama.
I think Star Wars Galaxies was honestly on the right track in its original incarnation. You could make a character be whatever you wanted to be. And by repeated actions, you “levelled up” your skills, rather than your character. So you could, conceivably, pick up a rifle and go and be a farmer on the frontier of some planet, processing materials and making money. Or you could opt to be some kind of super swordsman; a mercenary for hire. Or you could collect parts for a spaceship and fly up into space. Whatever you wanted to do… whatever you wanted to be… Star Wars Galaxies gave you a good shot at doing it. And doing it in the Star Wars universe, to boot!
Was it perfect? No, because no game can be. Ever. And, especially in the case of something new like Galaxies, it was always going to take refinement. Of course, let the record show that such “refinement”, when it finally came along, actually took the game in the opposite direction to where it was intended to go in the first place and it will go down in history as one of the most botched game revamps in history. But that’s maybe another rant for another time.
The original Star Wars Galaxies – and the passion with which “true” MMORPG gamers still show for it – is proof that an MMORPG game world can be so much more than a map with a conveyer belt of quests stuck on top of it. Game worlds can be alive and real and vital… the perfect recipe for repeat customers wanting to log in month after month to continue their “life” in the game. Right now, however, developers only seem to see “x” number of quests @ “x” length of time to complete = six months guaranteed revenue. The problem with that, however, is that people’s attention spans are rapidly decreasing with this method of MMORPG design.
A developer needs to get out there and take a stand by making a truly sandbox style of MMORPG, to show that it can be done, and that there is a market for it. Now, will such a game confuse the hell out of “the WoW kids” who will be bewildered by the lack of levels? Undoubtedly. Will those same kids be confused with the concept of characters being classless, hence it’s not as easy to plan a fight without the archetypes of tank, healer and DPS? Yep… and it thrills me to think of that, actually. You see, MMORPGS have been dumbed down to the max and someone, somewhere, needs to show that this need not be the case for people who want something more from their gaming than being pushed from quest to quest, zone to zone, doing EXACTLY the same thing everyone else is doing, ad infinitum.
[...] last seen in any serious way in the original implementation of Star Wars Galaxies. I’ve written up some thoughts and tossed them onto MMOCrunch for anyone who wants to hear more. « Are the patients [...]
August 6th, 2008 at 9:13 pmQuote
Thank god im not the only one who thinks like this. One of the best parts of UO was the classless system.
August 6th, 2008 at 10:09 pmQuote
Figure out how to get it funded and there’s a few people willing to stick their necks out on the line to try it. Count me as one of those people but in the past seven years I have not figured out how to get it funded. Perhaps I don’t know the right people but most of me thinks that the design for a world like you talk about is too risky when the path to money is so well lit up by the WoW clone.
I think we’re going to have to wait out this recession we’re in before there’s money adventurous enough to fund such a project. In all likelihood, a sandbox MMO will either happen because the investors were duped into thinking the designer was going to follow the WoW formula when he didn’t or it will come incrementally over time as the total sum of the features needed are individually tried on a WoW clone for viability. UO, Shadowbane and Eve Online gave us a glimpse of what could and can be done while simultaneously setting back the sandbox MMO ten years due to spotty implementations. It’s been too hard for most investors to ignore the bad press and bad stories coming out of these worlds. All they hear is open PvP limits the population of a game and not open PvP has limited most game’s population because open PvP has not yet been properly designed. They drop off the last part and cop out of the project all together. Your project is too risky they’ll tell you as the wish you good luck with other investors.
That’s about where my “I’ll show you!” forehead vein begins to bulge as my emotions skyrocket so I’ll leave the answer to your rant with my rant. Eventually, I need to put my entire experience with Ages of Athiria on my blog for the world to see and name names.
August 6th, 2008 at 10:10 pmQuote
Exactly what alot of players, myself included, have been saying for the last couple of years.
August 6th, 2008 at 10:35 pmQuote
SWG was my first MMO, and it was my “EverCrack” in every meaning of the phrase. However, I don’t think a 100% sandbox would ever succeed; it might carve out a small niche for itself at best.
Sure, SL has plenty of users, but they’re not gamers. SL isn’t a game, it’s just a sandbox with a content creation toolkit. There’s no “playing SL,” there’s only playing some user’s game he created within SL. A huge difference there. We MMOG-ers are looking for the virtual world with plenty of things to do, but we never forget the ‘G’ at the end: there needs to be a great Game.
Quests are fine; they give some direction when the player is confused, or just not in a damned mood to have to create something for himself to do out of thin air. For the people who just want to go out and kill shit, recent games like LOTRO reduced xp for mob kills and put extra xp into the quest turn-ins, which pissed off the grindy people.
Having some direction is a Good Thing, even SWG had quest terminals. I hear even EVE has some PvE-ish quest-ish content? Just plopping people into a game that never has any direction, never has anything to do but running around like a fool killing shit all day… there are thousands of Asian F2P games for that.
Personally, if I’m in a quest-centric game, I’d rather have plenty of choices of where to actually quest, or where to do whatever. That’s a sandbox element — giving choices. It’s when you have the games only give you one or two places or shove a single path of advancement down our throats that it starts feeling more and more linear.
Levels, on the other hand, need to go. It’s a broken mechanic that is easy to understand, easy to develop and balance, but comes with too many limitations and problems.
As far as the Holy Trinity, MMO’s haven’t been “dumbed down” with classes, they began their life that way. I’ll disregard UO since it was 2D, the last of its generation. So that leaves EQ, which is to blame for much of the garbage we deal with today. PnP games never had this Trinity crap. Irony of ironies, 4th Ed. D&D *will* have them. It’s only been a few games like SWG that had the courage to strike out on their own with a class-less and level-less design. I’m really hoping Earthrise can pull it off, although the “zomg FFA PvP with full loot” kids are really turning me off to the game. That’s fun in spurts but if the entire game is a gankfest with a crap community, I can play on Xbox Live and get treated that way for less money than an MMO costs per month.
August 6th, 2008 at 11:34 pmQuote
Scott, I wouldn’t just disregard UO because it’s 2D. Graphics and the type of mechanics we’re talking about don’t affect each other. In addition, UO took bits of things from other places but it was a pioneer in MMORPGs, not the last of it’s generation. In fact, I’d say some of EQ’s development was influenced by UO rather than in spite of UO.
August 7th, 2008 at 12:46 amQuote
Excellent article. I’d argue the revamp to Star Wars Galaxies (known as the NGE or New Game Enhancements to those unaware) is THE most botched game revamp in history. And the worst part about it is the sandbox that made SWG such an incredible experience is what’s considered the failure by game developers who didn’t follow it from day 1, when the real problem was they just never put any toys in the sandbox.
August 7th, 2008 at 2:05 amQuote
Hi Scott, in no way was I advocating that we need to have a 100% sandbox game. I simply used the SL example to try and convey to people who have no idea what I even mean by sandbox, what sandbox means. Even SL isn’t a very good example, but is better than nothing under the circumstances.
August 7th, 2008 at 2:36 amQuote
Nice Post. I agree. In my mind the perfect MMO is one where there are little to no NPCs. Everything is in the hands of the players. The developers for the MMO design tools that empower the players. That is, most game mechanics are for the sake of empowering players to be creative.
Like your example, don’t just have a tavern with an NPC bartender that gives out quests. Make it possible for players to build the tavern, to brew the beer, to sell the beer, and to give out their own quests (perhaps for other players to build furniture or gather ingredients for the beer). (If you’ll notice, each of these mechanics are already found existing in various games, not just in one single game…under the sandbox flag)
Games like SWG, Ryzom, SL and Eve are all examples of sandbox-like games. I think 1 generation games like EQ, AC and UO also had sandbox elements and people were very creative. SWG, even now, has some of the mechanics I mentioned, like their storyteller tools. I went back to Vanguard for a similar sand-box feel. Right now that is the most sandbox like fantasy MMO out there.
The biggest problem with sand-box games, which ultimately makes them no good for mass appeal, is people’s lack of creativity. People start the game and then wonder what to do. But there is definitely a segment of the players out there (like us) that would wholly embrace and flourish in such a game.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:39 amQuote
Just had to pop in once agian. Your post really got me thinking….
Regarding your last paragraph: I agree to such an extent that I would love to help someone or some company try to fulfill this desire/goal. Let me know if anyone is doing this. Viva Sandbox!
August 7th, 2008 at 8:48 amQuote
@Zentr: Earthrise, W.E.L.L. Online, and Darkfall off the top of my head are sandbox MMO’s in development. I’d also say Earthrise stands the best chance of the bunch of actually being released.
Note how all three are from independent European development studios? Until someone makes a sandboxy game that is actually popular (ie. not something like EVE which has a good chunk of players but is most definitely not for everyone) there’s no way one of the American AAA studios will attempt to finance one; especially after the SWG disaster.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:51 amQuote
Scott,
I saw this piece title on my blogroll, and had to stop in to tell you how well said it is.
As we get our blog (OLMMOD) going, we have been gradually realizing that much of our passion about MMOs (as well as our current dissatisfaction with them) stems almost directly from the formative experience of our time in SWG. It was broken yet brilliant, and there hasn’t been anything like it since. Nobody has even tried.
My initial cluster of pieces, especially this one and this one talk (more long-windedly) about that. You encapsulate the same thing above, and I’d imagine I’ll be bookmarking it.
As I look at upcoming releases, I unfortunately have to doubt that my demographic has much market influence. Hopefully that will change, because I know a lot of folks who want what we’re both talking about.
August 7th, 2008 at 12:31 pmQuote
“I think Star Wars Galaxies was honestly on the right track in its original incarnation.”
Yup. And I agree with the comments here that this was the most botched re-imagining ever, and that the people who created the NGE had no grasp of what made the original game unique. They cratered what was good about the game while failing to improve what was wrong with it.
August 7th, 2008 at 2:49 pmQuote
Until players can prove themselves capable of playing in a sandbox nicely with others, the industry isn’t going to see them as a viable business. This, of course, shows a few problems: One, investors and their allergies to risk. Two, the inherent stupidity of players that is exacerbated by the anonymity of the internet. Until both of those are overcome, a sandbox game will either be of small scope or polish (like the low level of “game” design in Second Life), or it will be a cesspool of anarchy due to player idiocy. Laws and constrained design are a natural response to the population that’s expected to play the game. If there’s an open door policy, there’s going to be a “shirt and shoes” policy as well.
August 8th, 2008 at 2:55 pmQuote
[...] MMO commentators are feeling the fatigue and burnout. Rob at MMOCrunch decries the current state of MMO design: I’ve long held the belief that MMORPGs are increasingly heading [...]
August 12th, 2008 at 3:13 amQuote
[...] see, in a recent thread on the Bioware forums, I pointed to an earlier – and extremely popular – MMOCrunch editorial I’d written which ran, in part: MMORPGS have been dumbed down to the max and someone, [...]
August 12th, 2008 at 11:32 pmQuote
Great Article, SWG was a great MMORPG in the sense it let you do just about anything you wanted. The problem it had was to much choice, and not enough content, not to mention the numerous bugs, that i see it still has. SOE just thought Star Wars Fans would make their own content. For a while at the beginning this was the case.
My ideal MMORPG would have a Skill system as opposed to a class system so I could take advantage of different skills and make my Master Jack of all trades if I want, or dedicate my skills to one or two profession types. But instead of having 33 professions like SWG had, maybe narrow it down some. In other words instead of having 5 or more tyypes of combat professions create a combat profession with skill trees for the diferent combat styles i.e. tank, long range, etc… Instead of 5 different crafting professions create one crafter with different skill trees for weapons, armor etc…
Content was a big issue too. Don’t release a game that was only half done. More time should be spent on creating quests with a storyline, and interaction with NPC’s. Harder quests give greater rewards. SWG had the capability of creating quests that spanned planets, and could encompass space flight, as well as dungeons. Make each quest like a mini star wars movie.
A huge problem that SWG had also was the Jedi System. Once people uncovered that unlocking different professions would eventually get you to Jedi that was a huge downfall for the game. People no longer were participating in PVP, or raids, now they were busyin grinding away at skills to become a master entertainer because it might unlock the uber Jedi profession.
For a sandbox game to work you need to allow diversity in game play, but you also have to limit the choices and balance things so that you don’t have one combination annihilating others in battle (i.e. Jedi). But you also have to have content so that people have other things to do besides PVP, and grinding.
August 20th, 2008 at 4:16 pmQuote
I started playing MMORPGs with Ultima Online. This game in my opinion had and still has the best character system out there. Even though EA tweaked it and made more cubby hole rules in the past years. The system was very organic and natural to say the least. I could cast spells and then switch to archer on a whim simply by using those relevant skills. It made the game deep and rewarding. There was no fixed character class.
I later played EverQuest with it’s more fixed Wizard, Warrior, Druid… Class system. You were a Wizard when you started, and a Wizard when you canceled your account. Unless you make an Alternate character, you were stuck. This was ok.
Star Wars Galaxies rescued me from Everquest, I and soon quite happily canceled my EQ account. Originaly SOE had banked on the fact that there were millions of Rabid Star Wars fans out there dying to live in the universe and take on adventures of their own. So they skimped on questing, and instead focused on making the game look really pretty. Their classes point based system worked out nice at first. I could be a master in 3 very different professions if I so desired. But could only really excell in one fixed one if I chose to go the elite profession path. THis added huge depth to the game.
The failing point with SWG was in fact it’s huge open worlds with nothing to do (and horrible city street designs). They had thought the fans and players would create their own content and run the show as they saw fit. But on launch people logged into the game, got confused and said “wow it looks pretty, what do I do now?”. SOE reacted by added player cities, vehicles and quests. To this day SWG still has the BEST crafting system in any MMORPG.
WoW came along with pretty graphics, cute characters and tons of quests. From the very start of the game you had your hand held from quest to quest. It was designed in such a way that you were almost never lost and confused, all the way to level 60. In fact the quests distracted you so much and in such a way, you could actually play them over and over with a multitude of Alt characters.
SWG’s initial allure was the blatant complexty in its skill and crafting systems. Later in their quests. WoW’s major allure was you have your hand held start to finish with more quests than you can dream of. Even with 5 alts and you could take a different route and only overlay a few quests to get to 60.
In my honest opinion, a sandbox game is a pipe dream. People are in general sheep in need of guidance. We’re trained to be followers from an early age. It is this very reason why WoW has 11 million subscribers and the games that allow you to do what you want and invent your own play style (SWG) has 150k players….
August 20th, 2008 at 4:25 pmQuote
Using SWG as your baseline is is a two-sided coin. Let’s talk about the good first.
SWG had some potential from the character development aspect. I fully agree that the divergence from the leveling of characters and no archetypes was a great system. One great way to develop a game is to try your best to immitate real life, and in real life, we are not tanks, dps’ers, and healers…we know how to do things…like use guns, write code, engage in dialogue, or spell (or in my case, not spell). SWG did this, it didn’t contrive an arbitrary system of archetypes that made for a balanced rule-set and put us in the middle of it, it gave us a rationalized skill set we could develop ourselves around which was balanced.
It had it’s flaws, of course, as the blogger pointed out. It allowed for builds that could become “kits” which provided maximum efficiency for combat builds, healing builds, etc. But that is the nature of a game and it is at that point where a game will reach it’s fulcrum point and the elegance of it’s design becomes evident. It is also at that point where careful patches need to be implemented so that fair play is ensured, and SWG strived to do that.
But for the concept of sandbox tools, I completely disagree that SWG ever provided us anything meaningful. I continuously lobbied whoever would listen to me for useful tools, and that usually meant I lobbied to my blank computer screen.
What does “sandbox” even mean? Perhaps it is meant to mean something slightly different to each of us, but for me it means an environment where we as players are allowed a certain amount of control over the game to provide our own content. SWG had nothing of the sort, and only during it’s death throes after the Combat Upgrade and New Game Enhancements did the developers try to give players tools.
If I, as a player, want to create a role-playing event, the real heart of a sandbox system, for my guild, I need the tools to do it. I need to be able to spawn NPC mobs, I need to be able to create the backdrops, settings, and props that facilitate my story and adventure. SWG was wonderfully designed from launch to do this! The system allowed x,y,z placement of assets, dialogue assignments, and more.
Yes, I realize that it required careful management so as to not allow for exploitation by inconsiderate or downright wicked players looking to ruin other people’s enjoyment. But those things would have been managable. Think about the ability of setting up a quest for your friends to gather resources and deliver them to an NPC you spawn in Coronet, and that NPC actually must be traded the resources. Or being able to spawn a group of Bynare Pirates on Talus that your friends must fight (and sandbox protection protocols prevent others from attacking them). Or being able to craft junk items and dropping them in spawned bunkers that must be found and recovered. Or setting up a conversation arc with an NPC you hide in the wilderness on Lok.
This is a sandbox toolset. This is player control. And it transcends the “kill 10 chunkers” or “deliver this holodisk to the contact in Nashel” missions that are so rudimentary in the game. It allows players to make content the developers never could; it allows players to make adventures they become personally vested in.
And all of that can happen in ANY MMO over and above the typical content that is put in to attract and keep the typical “grind to the level cap and raid” crowd.
August 28th, 2008 at 9:38 amQuote
[...] time for the social aspects that MMORPGs can offer. They are half the reason I think MMORPGs are heading in the wrong direction. But I digress, dear [...]
August 29th, 2008 at 5:37 pmQuote
In my opinion, WoW has destroyed any hope of an ‘intelligent” MMORPG, because it is all about the money. Every gaming company out there wants the ‘WoW’ scenario, a huge game, lots of subscriptions, equals lots of money. Sadly, these game makers are willing to dumb down every game to be just like WoW in hopes of making the cash that Blizzard did.
August 29th, 2008 at 8:18 pmI find it pathetic, that we always have to cater to the “kids” who simply MUST have the instant gratification of gaining a set level, raiding the same keep over and over for their ’1337 g33r’, and generally wanting everything handed to them on a plate instead of working for it and having fun.
SWG had its bad points in the beginning, but if I sit and look back at the system, the way things were laid out insofar as the level system, the economy, professions, etc.. I can honestly say, I felt it was innovative. All was well until WoW came out, and we see what happened to SWG, the NGE, which drove a lot of people away screaming in droves.
The best thing a company can do is step away from the WoW clones, and stick their vision. If SWG had done that, it would be a totally different ballgame.
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well lets hope darkfall delivers what it has been promising for years now. is should be out this year. some euro gaming sites are already taking pre-orders. it could be the greatest sandbox to date.
September 24th, 2008 at 3:14 pmQuote
Fable is more sandbox than most mmorpgs are, isn’t that fking sad?
January 12th, 2009 at 11:21 pmQuote
Hmm… I’m certainly glad I’m not the only person that feels this way… WoW is not a game i could play, because after 3 hours of grinding, I get like…. 4 levels… and you hardly notice a difference in skill between levels… I love the skill advancement that they use in Darkfall and Wurm(a terrible game)…. its just so much more realistic….What I did like about Wurm, was that you could just plop down where ever you like and build a house…. a mansion… a city…. a capital… a country even…. I loved that…. but they did a really bad job of implicating it…. I think DF needs to trash the bindstone thing and adopt Wurm’s method of player cities, and then we will have an awesome game…. I don’t know, just my thoughts on things….
March 1st, 2009 at 10:04 pmQuote
In my personal opinion after playing several different types of mmorpgs for several years I agree sandbox games are the best because its so much more player controlled than wow or other games. I have noticed some of the best sandbox games were space games because a person has a ship and wants to mine the best areas so he gets his buddies and takes over an area. In games like wow those areas are controlled by npc vendors so everyone has to share or theyll get killed, which is boring, games like EVE and battlestar gallactica nail this system which promotes brutal pvp as huge fleets fight over asteroid fields. Also it gives players more guild/clan/company/squad/group, pride because in wow there is thousands of guilds so people only really join for the guild bank and bonus perks, in eve and stuff, players join and they have to fight for that guild/clan/company/squad/group because in the end they will profit to. All you sandbox lovers should check out battlestar galactica and eve.
May 7th, 2011 at 9:57 pmQuote