How the MMORPG industry is shaping itself around World of Warcraft.

Yeah, that's the main problem of all MMORPGs. There needs to be a reason for people to keep on playing.

You see, the main problem of PVP is that it doesn't work together with an idea of a persistent world.

PVE is all about overcoming the increasing challenges, which allows you to have different groups of players players simultaneously overcoming different levels of that challenge. As such, you can toy with an idea of changing the persistent world forever depending on the players' actions: World Of Warcraft has pulled that off with War of the Shifting Sands and Shattered Sun Offensive; there's also that upcoming space MMO with a procedurally generated world that would change completely when players complete quests.

PVP is all about besting your enemy. As such, you can't change the world completely with your actions - that would be unfair to the losing side. Now, there are two ways to do PVP - gladiatorial combat (which doesn't belong in MMO at all) and large scale wars. Now there are games based on large scale wars, but they have huge issues, in particular with the playerbases. Since this is pvp, anything matters to "win" the game.

In Darkfall there are six playable races, but you will only ever see the Alfar. They are smaller (difficult to hit) and black (hard to see in the night). If you play anything else you are a noob.
If there're guilds competing, people join the largest guilds and win. \\ If there're factions competing, everyone concerned about winning will join one faction and win.

This is not something hypothetical that only some basement dwellers do scarcely. This is what actively kills games.

STEALTH!!!

I recall, before people starting calling MMO games "''WorldOfWarcraft''-clones", many were often called "Everquest-clones", including World Of Warcraft itself.

I'm personally not a big fan of how World Of Warcraft deals with combat; I'd prefer something that's more actiony or more turn-based. I find the in-between nature of World Of Warcraft to be simply stressful and not a whole lot of fun.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.

To answer the question about what can Objectively be "done right" I think that depends on what you want in a game. But, I think theres a few things that World Of Warcraft learned from earlier games that heavily led to its success.

1: Dont punish the player extensively for dying. Seriously, older games it was HELL if you ever died. Some players liked it, sure, but the vast majority of people did not like corpse runs, or losing levels for dying.

2: Make content for all sorts of people, whether casual, pvper, raider, roleplayer, etc,

3: albeit something it took them a few expacs to do, make sure that your character feels like he's powerful even at low end, give each specialization and class an obvious flavor to its play early so you know whether you wanna stick with something.

edited 5th Nov '11 9:31:09 PM by Midgetsnowman

^^Spiral Knights can be pretty action-y.

For turn-based combat, there's Iron Grip: Marauders, a turn-based strategy MMO.

"Hipsters: the most dangerous gang in the US." - Pacific Mackerel

Why? Why not have gladitorial combat?

Alright, so it doesn't mess with the persistent world (which, in my opinion, isn't all that much of a plus anyway). But it's a fun option to add to an MMO, and yet another way to keep your subscribers coming back for more.

And to be quite honest, even though the world can change based on the player's actions, almost no MMO actually does that. They keep the world quite persistent, with areas added on in expansion packs and the like.

edited 5th Nov '11 11:44:23 PM by Deathonabun

One of my few regrets about being born female is the inability to grow a handlebar mustache. -Landstander

I tried the first one. It was kinda laggy for me, so I didn't enjoy it too much. It also seemed rather simple and I didn't really like its F 2 P aspects. The latter looks cool from a glance of its page, wasn't quite looking for a strategy game, but the idea is novel for an MMO.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.

I meant to say that there is no point to make a MMO based entirely around gladiatorial combat.

STEALTH!!!

... actually, I think that could be interesting.

Swordsman Troper — Reclaiming The Blade — Watch

There are several MM Os (some are quite old, in fact) that are based entirely around PVP and combat against bots, with loot and cash obtained as battle rewards. A number of them seem to have grown overarching plots recently but most of them don't have a story at all beyond 'two sides kill each other repeatedly'.

Examples include Exteel, Get Amped 1 and 2, S4 League, Gunz and others. In fact, most MMOFPS games are purely PVP.

S4 and Gunz aren't really MM Os in the truest sense of the word though (the others I have zero experience with, so I couldn't share an opinion about them).

Better examples would probably be Planet Side and Huxley. Hell, maybe just Planet Side.

Still, I don't think you could get away with a truely Pv P-focused MMO. It'd have to be a multiplayer option in a single player game. Kinda like how White Knight Chronicles handles its initial character building, but with a much bigger focus on player-versus-player.

edited 6th Nov '11 1:59:47 AM by MrDolomite

They are not at all MMOs. The multiplayer is not massive.

It is regular multiplayer with a matchmaking system and unlockable meta perks.

STEALTH!!!

A MMO focused on gladiatorial combat would be almost the same. If gladiators can kill each other whenever and wherever (true MM PVP) then it wouldn't be gladiatorial combat but a World of Badass or Crapsack World.

Yeah, but that's just regular world pvp, not at all gladiatorial combat. Glad combat means you're even. World pvp means you're pretty much never even.

And what's the point in world pvp? What does that actually accomplish?

STEALTH!!!

It's a nice selling point to emphasize that your MMO isn't World Of Warcraft.

Until everyone wises up and your subscription base drops like a boulder in the Colorado river.

Might as well link this:

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

Looking at the OP's list of features, I want to isolate each feature since not all of them are troublesome.

When people use WoW as a derogatory term, I don't think they are complaining about what you think they are complaining about.

And what's wrong with turn-based games? Some people enjoy having a queue of skills that chain into each other and having a skill to use for different situations. Some people don't want to fuss themselves with learning enemy patterns and reacting to combat cues. Some people just want to use their skill combos to kill things.

Mana/energy/whatever has been used for a while because it acts as a resource shared between all your methods of attack and serves as a way of balancing skills between each other. Same thing for cooldowns. Remember that people who play MMORPG's tend to want to play the RPG part as well.

While I agree that race specific classes are dumb and ultimately restrict the player into making decisions they would much rather not make, multiple races are a huge plus in my book. Let's look at the best case scenario. In a PvE/roleplaying perspective, behind each race is a culture. A history. A set of norms entirely different from those one is used to. You have the possibility to experience a different world or maybe just experience the same world from an entirely different perspective because you are experiencing it through your race. You generally have a home area which you develop a bond with. On a less-flowery, more practical level, it also adds diversity, which, in this setting, is extremely important given how many people will be playing the game and the fact that picking out one person among a hundred needs to become easy. Even at its worst (Excuse Plot races, simple reskinned humans), races are a way of granting the diversity needed in a MMO game.

This is called grind, and this is what most people complain about when they claim something is a WoW clone. WoW runs on a subscription based form of payment. You pay a returning fee and the game has to present itself so that it justifies you paying the price of one small game every month for as long as possible. In order to do this, the game tries to stretch any activity out for as long as possible without the player getting bored. This ties into random drop quests. The drop rate has to be low enough so that you need to spend time killing things yet high enough so that you don't get disinterested and leave the game. These quests are also quite easy to code and guarantee the player will stay playing the game if the drop rates are well adjusted, hence their abundance. If games tend to move away from subscription based models *cough*GuildWars2*cough*, games will move away from this type of quests since it's generally just padding and forcing you to spend money until you get to the really good stuff.

Also, what do you have against clicking on the environment? WoW is a PC game. PC's have mice and cursors. It is extremely psychologically fulfilling to see something in the game world suddenly light up as your almighty God finger points to it. It is as if the object itself is suddenly aware of your presence and, in awe, gains supernatural powers to visually stand out to you, as if to prove that it is worthy of the weight of your index finger. When you do bestow upon it the honor of your click, it reacts as if knowing that it's actions are judged by the eyes of a truly divine figure. It is very satisfying.

So? That's just more content for you to explore. If the quests are completely out of the way of a storyline and you just want to do the main storyline, how does their presence effect you? At their best, side-quests can tell stories of their own, fleshing the world around the player. This allows the player a greater sense of immersion (surely there must be other things going on in the world besides the big main quest) and allows them to possibly explore new places, fight new enemies, maybe even use different skills. Sidequests also provide an option for the people who just want to stay in a certain area due to aesthetic reasons, giving them reasons for staying somewhere, or people want to do something else besides the main quest. This is basically the replacement of single player MMO minigames: they provide a nice touch of variety in the game. At worst, they are just carbon copy meaningless quests and if they are separate from the main storyline, then they are generally just ignored to no expense of the gamer (OCD cases aside).

Was this the episode you were looking for? I was under the impression that we were just talking about MMORPG's, not MMO games in general.

edited 6th Nov '11 4:04:46 AM by NiftyLostKite

...Let us in...

Kite, I think you're missing the point. This isn't about the failings of World Of Warcraft, which are few and far apart, but the lack of innovation and diversity in MMO game design as a result of World Of Warcraft imitation.

Swordsman Troper — Reclaiming The Blade — Watch

Yes, but I wanted to point out the features the OP brings up as stagnating factors aren't actually bad features at all. Races, sidequests, a source of energy, skill cooldowns: I don't think these are good examples to show that MMORPG's are copying from World Of Warcraft. Grind however, is a stagnating factor hence why I was more critical about it.

The intent of my post was not to point out the flaws in WoW specifically. I don't even think WoW is a flawed game and if my post came across as "anti-World Of Warcraft" then that's due me not making my point as clear as I'd want it. I believe that it is a very successful game that made the absolute most of its genre.

...Let us in...

I believe all those things are stagnating factors when always grouped together. At best, they work well. At worst, they come across as cheap copycatting. Remember that the important factor of those elements is what they accomplish, and they're only the most well-known and well-tested methods of said accomplishments.

Also, I interpreted your post as friendly towards World Of Warcraft, just for clarity's sake. I also believe it does what it sets out to do very well. I just wished some of those things stopped at World Of Warcraft and other games used different methods.

edited 6th Nov '11 4:42:16 AM by MadassAlex

Swordsman Troper — Reclaiming The Blade — Watch

The game development world has become highly risk-averse — understandably, given the cost of developing a game to modern standards. This actively works against innovation.

On the other hand, one can argue that there's no point in trying to do the same thing as World Of Warcraft. Given the choice between a new but similar and slightly improved game and World Of Warcraft, World Of Warcraft will win. Everyone's there. Everyone's friends are there. It has the critical mass to keep it interesting. It has the persistent player base to fund continued development.

That would argue that the only way to be other than an also-ran in the fantasy MMORPG market is to do something quite different from World Of Warcraft that's still easy to pick up and compelling. The problem is that I don't know what that would be.

A brighter future for a darker age.

I think the answer is reasonably simple. Make something that has small gameplay crossover with World Of Warcraft. Provide the opportunity for the same socialisation and same sense of reward, but with a different set of gameplay mechanics. Remember that gameplay mechanics can be a means to an end rather than an end to themselves, so one offers the same psychological reward while diversifying gameplay.

In theory, at least. In any case, it has to be better than competing directly with Blizzard, who do their own thing better than anyone else with more resources and more time.

Swordsman Troper — Reclaiming The Blade — Watch

Funny thing about World Of Warcraft: I've spent a good time on /v/ and quite a lot of elder MMO gamers have noted that the reason WOW got to where it is today is due to the fallout from Star Wars Galaxies. Most of the longtime players of SWG fled from its collapse and took up refuge in the then newest MMO: Warcraft.

@Madass Alex I guess what constitutes a stagnating factor is somewhat subjective. I personally have no problems with races and sidequests since the net lack of those two elements generally results in less content for the player to explore or generally poor alternatives. If all players had one race, it is throwing away a form of diversity that is very important in an MMO. If there were no sidequests, the entire game would also be quite boring due to lack of variety.

As far as energy and skill cooldowns are concerned, I think these have become defining mechanics of RPG's in general, so taking those out without a very good reason (i.e. implementing a replacement which fits the game's general feel and theme (also "to not be WoW is not good enough")) would make the game needlessly different. There is a fine line between stagnating factor and genre-standard and I believe the nature of skills to currently lie in the latter category.

My point is that the MMORPG industry standard is becoming too stagnate, but I don't believe the RPG/content aspects are what are stunting it. I don't have issues with these things. What I DO have issue with are these aspects:

• the games being relatively boring up until maximum level where the "real" fun start despite there being a very real possibility that the game guilt-trapped you into investing in it. Since you already spent money over a relatively long period of time building your character up, you continue because you may as well make the most of it, regardless of whether you truly enjoyed it yourself. The promise of a fun endgame is generally really offputting for me since it's an intangible and unreliable incentive. Games should be fun right off the bat, with the promise of the same fun but more pushing me to level up.
• having a variety of the classes that "COULD" be played in a certain style but in reality having a select few builds of that class which don't make the class redundant or subpar to another doing the same role but better. If a class won't be any good in doing X compared to another, why bother having that option? It'll only gimp you later on in the game when dealing with hard content or trying to group with others.
• players fighting each other for drops or monster kills when the game is supposed to be more fun with more players. This makes the MMO aspect a hindrance to the player instead of an incentive.
• having one skillbar as your standard "does everything" skillbar that you can just go a preset 1 -> 2 -> 1 -> 3 repeat order for all encounters, resulting in boring gameplay. I know I said that some people liked this style earlier, but I meant that in terms of how the skills are executed, not what they do. You can have your skill order for killing things, but a variety of skill orders that changes depending on the fight would be ideal. For instance, there should be some cases where long-range would be preferable to close-range, so you need to switch between those two skill chains. It may not sound like much variety, but it goes a long way in making the game fun. I would generally prefer position and adaptability taking a larger role instead of a "you do your thing and it'll work for everything" mentality.

These are the problems in MMO's I would like to see changed/fixed.

...Let us in...

Bullet point #4: That's what is known as a "hotkey MMO". That's probably what frustrates people the most.

One of my issues is having "standard MMO gameplay" in the first place. It's kind of like having a Standard Fantasy Setting; the situation is already so fantastic that there are loads of ways to abstract reality into game mechanics. Why are we always fighting in turns, using hotkeys, using the same class distinctions, looking for the best loot and using linear skill trees?

We could easily have real-time, immediate, skill-based gameplay with more feat-based character progression and customisable gear that's drawn from crafting and resource trade.

I mean, what if crafting gear allowed you to name it and choose its characteristics and presentations itself? Non-crafting characters could go to crafting NPCs for the same thing, while savvy crafting PCs could do the same for a lower price. And then such weapons could progress with the player, or the gear could remain consistent while the character build decided how well one could take advantage of it.

A game design team could turn this whole thing on its head and still offer all the positives of established MM Os with more unique choices and more immediate, thrilling and tangible gameplay.

Swordsman Troper — Reclaiming The Blade — Watch