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

Coming up with game ideas is easy.

Convincing investors and/or publishers to invest over 60 million dollars into that new game design idea by ensuring them that the idea will not only cut even with a cookie-cutter MMO but also make even MORE money than one is very hard. MMO's are huge investments, so it's no wonder that the moment a successful game was implemented, it became the standard. This is why MMO's are hard to innovate. The development team have to not only be creative individuals but also have to have proven that they can make this huge project and come out with a profit to investors.

I think this problem will actually get better with time. We've gotten to the point where the developers now know what works and dev's have had more opportunities to prove themselves, which means more people are making MMO's. This will lead to competition and the need for games to not just work, but be better than their competitors. I also think WoW is generally accepted as being at least slightly dated now, or at least past its prime, so no longer being a huge competitor will also benefit new MMO's and ideas.

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 NP Cs for the same thing, while savvy crafting P Cs 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.

The problem with this idea is that I've seen it evolve and fail. The very first MMO I ever played was Ragnarok Online, and I was there in the very first month of Open Beta. I saw how kind the people were; how people were happy to help one another. Merchants were always willing to buy items for other people and honest enough to keep that promise, using their discount skill to buy them cheap and ask for a small compensation in return (usually only 10%). Then open Beta ended.

After that the player base exploded. As people grew the need to be honest dwindled away. Prices exploded; slotted Boots used to go around 10k, now they went as high as 50k. Merchants began to clog the street; it became impossible to see the road as hundreds of Merchants opened their own shops.

What I'm trying to say: that idea sounds very nice and all. But those who still believe in a world like that are hopelessly naive.

Perhaps the fundamental problem in everyone's argument is that the term "MMO" brings to mind millions of players. Everybody's suggestions can be implemented, but on a smaller scale. You don't need millions of subscribers to be considered a "MMO"; Minecraft is technically a MMO as well. Realm Of The Mad God is a browser-based MMO, and Rune Scape has been chugging just fine along with its thousand strong player base.

That actually brings up a good point. I assumed we were talking about MMORPG's but there have been a bunch of MMO games recently.

Sorry for failing to make that distinction. Insofar I've only been talking about MMORPG's and not MMO's (although I am guilty of using the terms interchangeably) in general, which obviously take less inspiration from WoW. I don't think MMORPG's have plateau'd yet, though. I'm idealistic enough to believe that there is room for better refinement and changes of the mechanics we have so the genre isn't dead yet. Aging? Yes. Dying? Debatable. Dead? No.

edited 6th Nov '11 8:01:26 AM by NiftyLostKite

@Lost Kite: one problem with the Non-hotkey MMO. The way I've seen some MM Os not make you have an easy rotation like 123, is toi have so many attack abilities it practically requires macros. This isnt fun either. Take Rift for example. The highest dps mage is Stormcallers. However, their dps rotation is 27 abilities.

Those ideas were just examples, and it's true that anyone can have them. That just illustrates my point, though. There are thousands of ideas floating out there, games are designed along the same pattern. And as mentioned above, it's because investors and publishers consider it "safe" without seeing that it's doomed to failure.

The point isn't to use those ideas; I was illustrating how flexible things could be.

As for PC merchants against NPC merchants, I think it's a matter of balance more than anything. Trying to turn a good profit is business — certainly good roleplaying. If original merchants offered the same products at reasonable prices to begin with, then there's no way PC merchants would charge more. After all, why not just buy from NPC merchants?

Well that certainly is different. That's just the reverse problem from swinging too hard in the other direction. Props for trying something new at least.

The main problem really though is not how much skills are needed to do something, but having a routine to do that which does everything and never changing it except on very rare exceptions. I don't like having standard skill rotations. Having a brainless "kill-mode" skill rotation or "support-mode" skill rotation that sees very little need to change according to a situation is the issue. If what you do in a combat scenario can be simplified into an isolated skill flow chart independent of the enemy's actions (even if it's a very complex flow chart), then that's a problem.

I'm actually looking forward to the Guild Wars 2 solution to that problem. Long story short, it proposes 5 weapon-dependent fixed skill slots with certain weapons geared towards certain roles (close combat, aoe, etc.) and the ability to swap between two sets on the fly. Since you can't change the weapon sets, it forces you to choose the weapon that best does the current job and adapting more to the situation since your skills are preset and won't all be dedicated to just one task.

edited 6th Nov '11 12:26:51 PM by NiftyLostKite

The main reason for World Of Warcraft's initial popularity is that it is based on Warcraft which achieved cult status at the time.

edited 6th Nov '11 10:05:18 AM by thefran

True, but by the time SWG folded World Of Warcraft was the big title with the most similar playstyle and size of player base, so it's not so much that SWG's death boosted World Of Warcraft 's popularity but World Of Warcraft 's popularity gave SWG diehards a place to go after their game died. Big difference.

EDIT: I just remembered one of the downsides of a free crafting system. It actually promotes homogenization by leading to Follow the Leader among players. Inevitably some fellow will create a weapon that can one-shot the strongest monsters or post a critical hit ten times larger than anything ever seen before and that exact configuration will become mandatory in the metagame.

The same will also happen with customizable skills or a flexible skill system. Power gamers will eventually figure out the absolute best combination of whatever and lesser players in search of power will mirror them en masse unless stopped by mechanics restrictions. Even if 'best' means 'best for X encounter' or 'best for Y situation' it will still lead to same-ness as people will aim for the bests in each area of gameplay.

There's a reason why so many MMO forums are flooded with people asking for 'strongest build' before starting their first character.

edited 6th Nov '11 4:49:57 PM by Recon5

I'd skill rather have a system with more flexibility and potential creativity, even if it ultimately suffers from similar problems.

Of course, if the game's combat is true real-time, the best build is just an advantage; nothing will overcome the player with superior skills.

If the game's combat is true real time it tends to favor players with better input devices and lower ping. Even 'pseudo turn-based' games with insufficient abstraction are dominated by those whose inputs reach the server faster. Much of the simplification and 'disconnect' in the traditional systems is intended to overcome this problem- e.g. lag may make it impossible for your swing to hit someone standing 1 foot away because they can move away too fast, so the game makes your swing hit the nearest person (or everyone) in the general direction instead.

edited 6th Nov '11 8:15:38 PM by Recon5

Most of my issues with such counterarguments is that they boil down to "this presents challenges". That's certainly a point, but so does any element of game design and implementation. I'd rather face a challenge for something fun and engaging than take the safer but mediocre path. If game designers backed down from challenge, we'd still be playing pong, or more likely have abandoned video games as a medium altogether.

It's a technical limitation. Technical limitations can certainly spur creative design choices, but ultimately you have to work within them rather than around them.

There are games which tried to remove a lot of the abstraction but they've run into the brick walls I mentioned. I've played several of them and it's frustrating to learn that from the opponent's perspective I was standing and spacing out for five seconds when in truth I was mashing the dash button like a maniac.

That doesn't change the argument, which is essentially, "there are challenges". These can be overcome. More efficient netcode, simpler calculations, and heavier instancing could all contribute towards solutions. The most obvious one is a heavier emphasis on PvE, which would be the ideal kind of MMO to test this kind of thing out on.

> World of Warcraft 's popularity gave SWG diehards a place to go after their game died.

This is implying a lot of unnecessary things.

The obvious answer for World Of Warcraft being copycatted (just like Diablo, just like Modern Warfare, just like Gears of War...) is: it's made a ton of money. It doesn't take much money to basically copy what someone else is doing, repackage it, and sell it as a new product - that's exactly what RIFT has been doing, and while it's not making them enough money to be able to buy new yachts, it's certainly turning a profit for them.

Honestly, World Of Warcraft is the first (and only) MMO to really achieve this much mass success, so in a lot of ways Blizzard are the progenitors for the modern MMO. Yeah, World Of Warcraft clearly copied a lot of things from its predecessors, but at this point those predecessors aren't even relevant anymore. If the upcoming expansion is anything to go off of, Blizzard is continually experimenting with the known form-factor for an MMO and seeing what kinds of things do and don't work - so when they're finally ready to unveil Titan, it should be pretty impressive.

My personal opinion, and I feel the changes coming to the talent system in Mists of Pandaria reinforce this, is that the old-school system of talent trees/skill trees is on its way out in favor of the more customizable systems out in current games and in upcoming games, such as Global Agenda (which has a triple treed skill tree system, granted) and Guild Wars 2. To paraphrase what Blizzard have said recently, skills and talents like "+5% damage to Noodle Wave" are boring and don't really present customization options - if you use Noodle Wave at all often, that's not an optional choice, it's a required choice, so why even present it at all?

Since I name dropped it, and people may not be familiar with it, Global Agenda is an MMO-wannabe (it's TECHNICALLY an MMO but it's really more like a third-person shooter with 3D lobbies) made by Hi Rez Studios. While I don't play it (and haven't since about eight months after its initial release), I still consider it something to be watched, because it did a lot of things right. Case in point would be how it handles your class's equipment options.

Basically, before battle or during respawn, you pick what your dude's gonna carry into battle with him, using a limited number of slots with your options being defined by your class. Do you want a minigun for sustained damage, a grenade launcher for AOE damage, or a rocket launcher for burst damage? Do you take the EMP grenades to counter sentry turrets and drones, incendiary grenades to neutralize enemy stealth through Do T effects, or should you take a concussion grenade to physically blast people away from a control point (or your buddies)? You could technically take all three if you wanted (you have three slots for those sorts of things), but that would mean you could no longer take that damage shield that absorbs the bullets the enemy Assault is spewing, or a damage shield that will allow you to stay on the point when a Recon (rogue) drops a bomb on the point, instead of having to clear out.

Similarly, you see options for the Medic class - do I take a poison grenade to kill my enemies with, or a heal grenade to heal my buddies with? I could take both, but then I might not have a slot available for that other really useful thing - maybe a personal heal over time, since smart people are gonna be chasing my ass constantly, or maybe I know there's an enemy Medic that will be spamming Do T abilities, so I'll need to take that Neutralize Wave (big AOE that dispels negative effects on friendlies) to counter that. Or I could just take a Healing Wave ability and hope that AOE heal can outperform his ability to apply damage.

We'll be seeing this with Guild Wars 2 in how they're handling the weapon system - maybe you want that sword for a balance between speed and power, or maybe the slower but sturdier axe would be better for burst damage. Hell, maybe you should grab a hammer instead so you can handle lots of enemies at once. With skills tied to the weapon class itself, it presents interesting options.

Obviously, I don't see World Of Warcraft being able to implement a system like this without having to basically rewrite the game, but I do feel the upcoming expansion's reconstructed talent system is doing everything it can to get as close to this as possible.

What I'm interested in seeing is how Minecraft is going to affect the MMO industry. There are already dozens and dozens of "persistent world" Minecraft servers, complete with plugins that allow a server economy where players can trade materials and accrue an arbitrary currency, plugins that allow a somewhat bare-bones level/tradeskill system, and all kinds of things. Imagine if in a future-gen MMO, you could mine iron ore and then throw it up on the auction house and then have a blacksmith wanting it for weapons fighting with an interior designer wanting it for a tasteful staircase.

Player housing wouldn't just be arbitrarily made for you - the players would make it themselves, using resources collected from the world itself. You could have players known for being good at designing buildings or producing buildings sell their skills as architects and builders. Imagine an MMO where your buddies are screaming at you to come heal their raid, and you're hollering at them that you have an open house in ten minutes.

Most MMO players nowadays would rather go for the raid than for the open house, sadly enough. If Minecraft launches a new 'sub-genre' of MM Os it will be through attracting a wave of people who want the opposite, not through taking over the present MMO crowd.

Problem with this is that this already appeared in an older MMO: Ultima Online. Player housing became a problem in that game because everybody had a house, and the entire game world (from the countryside to the deep forests) had houses covering all the land. Luckily, letting players host their own servers seems to be the best solution to this problem.

Also, you're being too idealistic. Those dreams sound nice but will probably not even materialize due to players reducing the game to its lowest common denominator / to its basic form.

Honestly, I think the problem of "one true build" is never going to really go away in MM Os. A successful MMO has thousands of players, and with thousands of players playing, people will run across super effective techniques/builds fairly quickly. And since its a group environment, competition means those more effective techniques/builds will get copied and used disproportionately, even if its only a small advantage.

The only counter would be a perfectly balanced game where there are always numerous equally effective strategies ( functionally impossible ), or if the rules are changed often enough to shift around which techniques/builds are most effective ( which hurts retention ).

The importance of build optimization decreases significantly if you're not fighting in a raid (where fights are, in theory, tightly tuned for an anticipated set of abilities) or engaged in pvp (where even minor advantages become important to success). For small-scale pve, basically as long as it can get through the game's content without being excessively frustrating, it's viable. Making large amounts of character customization options viable in pvp or raid settings is, I think, a near-impossible goal - the best you can get is to give everyone a distinct role with no overlapping, and that has its own problems (like being blocked from content because you're missing a single player). Look at how many problems TF 2 has just with balancing relatively simple and limited weapon loadouts in a pvp-only environment.

So if you want high customization, go for small-scale pve games, because right now, that's the only place where designers have come close to perfecting a formula for it.

Player housing has always been and will continue to be popular and profitable, and I don't particularly see how they're antithetical to games with raid content except in the sense that it broadens the amount of content that the devs need to juggle. Yes, it's true that every single implementation of mmo housing has had its own problems - but then, the same could be said for raiding and pvp, and they're certainly not being phased out. All three are important features that appeal to players in different but not necessarily exclusive ways, and all three are still evolving.

The experience of World Of Warcraft says that people will absolutely obsess about discovering the theoretical most powerful set of options and then everyone will copycat it — and that people will obsess about options that only affect their performance in the game by fractions of a percentage point while ignoring developing their actual playing skills that might yield them a 25% improvement.

As to real-time-ness, even World Of Warcraft's largely turn/timeout-based way of working is still very influenced by connection lag, to the degree that players will repeatedly hammer a key when the timeout is about to expire in the hope that one of those packets will get to the server just as the server-side countdown expires. I really can't see a real-time-combat MMORPG working with current technology, both in terms of networking and in terms of servers.

>> people will absolutely obsess about discovering the theoretical most powerful set of options and then everyone will copycat it

See, this is the largest issue with free-choice multiplayer games.

You don't get a cookie for doing it right. Right choices are baseline options, you are only penalized for doing it wrong.

Of course I can fool around with pale master / rdd builds in single player all right, but in multiplayer I can't afford to pick something without trying to help my buddies best, as they depend on me, and if I for example reforge into crit on a healer, that would be fun and cool and everything, but the tank's job will become much harder immediately.

>> players will repeatedly hammer a key when the timeout is about to expire

That's something obsessive-compulsife really, smart people know how to queue.

edited 7th Nov '11 8:37:00 AM by thefran

I just set up my keyboard to auto-fire when I'm holding down the key.

@Shark: I think another inspiration for Blizz's newer skill Trees is Rift. Sure, its got a lot of the same 5% extra damage to Noodle wave, thing, but given the three soul system and the various ways you can shuffle points, Rift characters feel a lot less like in wow where you're essentially "x spec with a few utility talents from y" and more "I'm a hybrid of the classes I've chose"

edited 7th Nov '11 12:09:17 PM by Midgetsnowman

I'd like an intro noob-town Themepar, followed by more or less self-guided Sandbox.

I'd also like an MMO that played mostly like Fallout 3 and New Vegas - your stats and skills determine how well you do with skillchecks and your to-hit percentages with weapons, although the ability to manually aim at stuff should be included as well. To substitute for VATS, have hot-bar attacks that suck up Action Points when you fire them off, versus putting you into a paused targeting screen (not all simgle-player concepts would roll over to multiplayer). Fallout immersed me. I liked that immersion.