Nothing Is Real, Strawberry Fields

He might be right, at that. I don’t think the “massively” aspect of MMO’s is as vital as people think it is, now that the romance has worn off and people realize that there are serious downsides to relying on strangers to progress in a game.

TOR will be the bellweather of this trend I think.

FFXI for one you can do endgame with 18 people or less, and much is instanced. the most popular one overall takes 6 people. You don’t need massive endgame events, and they actually work against your players by creating artificially long queue lines and drama. Half the time you can’t even set it in open-world zones anyways due to the amount of players doing so.

I don’t think free realms has any real endgame play that I know of, and a lot of F2P ones don’t rely on it. Mabinogi has their storyline quests, which only need a lot of people for a couple of monsters, the parties cap at 8 with no alliance system, and many missions are 3 people if not soloed.

Nothing kills my questbuzz more than playing for days with many other characters running around, yet interacting solely with the NPCs. All games I have tried lately have forced this, sometimes inadvertently. Letting everyone play in the same game world yet not give a reason to interact is mind boggling. Solo-mmo’s gotta go.

Maybe the real problem with MMO’s is that we’re still paying attention to what someone like Paul Barnett says. Just that first line there: “When Paul Barnett speaks, people listen.” THAT is what is wrong with the games industry. I don’t care if he’s a captivating speaker (how many vacuum cleaner salesmen aren’t?), his track record is shaky at best. He’s had his chance with Warhammer, he flunked, and now he has the gall to say the problem is with the concept?

I’d be more than willing to accept his version if I could sense some shame on his part — if not shame, then some sort of regret. You know, the old “I screwed up and I’m sorry”? But no, unlike Jacobs, Barney still has his job, he still name-drops EA, and he seems as unapologetic as I’ve always read him to be. (Hint: When someone is mentioning how hard they work at learning their lessons and being humble, they usually aren’t — it’s called looking for pity, and nothing else.)

For the record, I think the concept behind MMO’s *is* flawed (though perhaps not entirely in the way he thinks). But Barnett complaining about this after the high-profile failure that Warhammer was would be like Rick Wagoner complaining that the real problem with the automobile industry is that consumers don’t know what they want. It’s never their fault — it’s ours.

Geldon if you actually were Paul, that would explain so much.

I think the internet itself has become a kind of MMO for people who want those kinds of massive interaction (or rather, there are easier ways to find that online than inside a game now).

I’d feel more comfortable commenting on the wisdom of Paul Barnett’s vision if I knew what that vision was.

You mean you can’t release a game based on a very marketable, well seasoned, title (Warhammer), forget to make the end game fun and it won’t be popular automatically?

He comes off more like someone that just watched someone else complete a double backflip, blind folded, and holding sparklers and saying “I could do that, but that is so last week”.

Microtransactions. What AAA MMORPGs do when they admit that they arent fun enough to be expending 15$ a month.Perhaps somebody finally grow-up and realized that, as geldon said, MMOG need to be fun, not just massive. I wouldnt bet on that, it seems like ass-covering.

And of course that Paul Barnett its covering his ass, people liked Jacobs more than him and he(Jacobs) got fired.

About MMOGs, personally I think that the games should encourage(read: not force) interactions with other players, becuase a)playing 15$ a month for a single player game with a chatbox its lame b)All MMOGs are right in that dark path until the endgame (hence, alt-holics).

Unfortunately, people that dont play MMOGs do desire single player games with a chatbox. I would like to see a market for people that do play MMOGs, but that they are sick of all of them. (People that got bored with WoW, for example). I bet that would be a game with more suscriptions than WoW.

Addendum:
It has always been my belief that the game should simply be our stage and our props. The players are the actors, and make the storyline progress. Thats what makes them “massive”. That’s what makes them fun. That’s what separates them from everything else. The players MAKE the game. The more our ability to interact with each other has been diminished, the less fun these games have become.

I’m all verklempt, talk amongst yourselves.

Quick question: What’s the difference between playing an MMO and playing a single player game in multi player, with ICQ running?

“Not much” is the correct answer.

Indeed. Many complains about the “end-game” and against raiders or PvPers its that simply, people want to keep developing their characters. Thats why player-development need to be player-driven instead of designer driven.

Giving a single player game with a chatbox its lame and already done to death. A game for people that are tired of that but with a proper PvP switch(people wont stand the “hardcore” PvPers) it can reach more numbers than WoW easily.

Microtransactions are fine for a game that its designed for them. Meaning a game where all that can be bought with real money its either a)Meaningless for gameplay(pets, clothes,mounts) or b)Can and will be destroyed for other players(EVE Online, where massive ISK in a ship just make the explosion bigger, oh and a ship in your hangar isnt exactly helping you).

Thats why EXP potions and the like are bad, because your game shouldnt need them in the first place(make leveling fun and/or short, idiot).

recursion:

That just devolves into players beating each other up, or if evil, griefing. You have to have some kind of mechanic for players to work together with, and even then, we have seen how that doesn’t work. Players just bitch about the noobs or slackers, and one person can ruin a party experience just by having to feed the baby or having a sick kid.

Players can mess up the experience a lot more than make it awesome, because usually MMOs are better at penalizing failure than encouraging it. As for actors, well, people vary so much in what they want out of a game that its hard for them to mesh.

In response to this:

“Quick question: What’s the difference between playing an MMO and playing a single player game in multi player, with ICQ running?

“Not much” is the correct answer.”

Try Kingdom of Loathing. It illustrates this point well, but instead of hiding behind the “multi-player” fallacy, it embraces it. The game is like NetHack with a community built in to brag about Yet-Another-Ascension.

Think about it. All mmorpgs are individual base driven online games. You gear your character only for him to reap the benefits alone with all the gems, enchantments and whatever in between. One of the biggest problems with mmos is the redundant of groups vs solo play. In Wow and War there was just too much you needed others for and not enough to do by yourself. In F2P games like Runes of Magic (a Wow clone no less) they over extend solo play. What we need is solo play to just be as epic as Raiding instances or group pvp. One way to do this is make the journey to end game just ask epic. I believe Bioware is on to something here.

What i would do just to get Paul Barnett, Jeff Kaplan and myself in a room for 9 months 12 hours a day 5 days a week to show them where they are going wrong when directing a mmorpg, online game or whatever you care to address it these days.

@Recursion: I could not agree more to what you said. We cannot even talk with the opposing faction nowadays. Which is set in stone from character creation onwards.

I think designers should take a look at Ultima Online again. There was much more possible in this world than just PKing other players or raiding. Heck, there was not even raiding and it still kept people occupied.

Because crafting and gathering was meaningful, gear could be lost, or just got repaired so often that its durability and overall strength became so bad that it had to be replaced.

My Swordsman used lances later on and even became a Bard at some point. A skill system determined what you could do and how good you could do it, but you were not limited to a certain set of skills unique to your class. There was housing, there were mounts, you could even be the captain of smaller and larger ships.

So many years later and we are still stuck with single player games with chat that suddenly tell people to band up with 10-25 others to raid for more and better gear.

Yeah, it is time to go back to the roots and re-evaluate the core concepts of MMO gaming and find some new ideas.

Interesting how Paul Barnett’s blabla spawns such interesting discussions…^^

*sigh* Since there are enough verbose diatribes in this thread already, I’ll keep it short:

If a game forces me to PVP, I won’t play it.
If a game forces me to group, I won’t play it either.

You fans of either can rant till the cows come home about how much happier we’d all be if only I embraced your way of having fun, but that won’t change the simple facts above. But if it makes you feel better, pine away for the good old days of UO/EQ1.

@Caya
The fact that you personally would not play such games does not mean that the game should not be developed at all, or that talking about developing such a game is pointless. If you aren’t part of the target market for a particular game, that’s fine – don’t play it.

But to dismiss people talking about how UO used to be as ‘pining away’ for a long dead system of multiplayer gaming, and that such people need to get with the times and get over it – in doing so, supporting game development YOU want, convenientely – is rather self-centred, don’t you think?

There is legitimate reason to look at what UO made successful and to rethink design from that perspective, since there seem to be a large number of ex-MMORPG players who have found nothing whatsoever interesting in the current crop of offerings.

This discussion in particular has been done before, you know:

http://brokentoys.org/2006/01/30/casual-friday/

The link its far more relevant that another diatribe of “hardcore” PvPers vs. everybody else.

I think Gx1080 put what I was rambling on about much better:

“Thats why player-development need to be player-driven instead of designer driven.”

I understand that is much easier said than done, but simply put, the only game that I ever really experienced this in, was UO (and perhaps in AC(DT, even though it was only a shadow of the game that UO was)). What I have seen since then is the constant dumbing down of this genre in an attempt to protect players from other players. *Shrug* -not trying to raise from the dead that age old argument, and if you actually read my post, you might get that… w/e maybe not.. my ability to convey my meaning has somewhat degenerated over the years.. lol
Happy day!

a completely challenging activity

Er, a completely non-challenging activity.

I think I’d refine Mr. Barnett’s statement in that MMOs aren’t unique anymore just because you can play with bunches of other people. I think part of the disconnect we’re seeing here is that some people are finally realizing that playing solo through a game you have to pay per month may not be better than just buying a traditional single-player game. (Of course, most of those “single player” games now come with multiplayer options, again making MMOs not unique.)

What we developers need to do is re-consider what makes MMOs worth playing. What makes it worth giving $15 (or more) per month, or paying the microtransactions, or whatever. The fast answer is “make it more fun”, but that answer hides a lot of complexity. Many people posting on MMO blogs four years ago swore up and down that WoW was the most fun you could possibly have in an MMO. Four years later, people seem restless with that concept, but no games seems to have filled that spot. Most games have focused on aping WoW’s features without really considering what makes MMOs compelling for people to play.

Recursion:

I think that’s really just a niche view though. Most players don’t like fighting other players, even if it may mean a more exiciting experience.Usually thats because they will see more of the bad than of the good. It’s still a good niche, but I’m wary of seeing it as a solution. All you have to do is actually watch someone being spawn camped by 5 people without being able to do much about it to see the appeal fade quickly.

Dave G:

I think it’s more would UO’s design appeal to people now, which tends to drive the “pining” idea. I don’t think it would beyond a niche. The pundit class really isn’t the same as the consumer class in regards to MMO,which I think Raph Koster will find out with metaplace pretty soon, and what they want and what the pundits want tend not to overlap.

Well Dblade, no one agrees. Except for all the gamers saying “I want something different. Give me WoW again, but different.”

The problem is that unless MMOs evolve to a massively social environment, they cannot change in form. Go ahead, anyone, think about what you think should be next. Then stop and think if it’s any different than another grind. Levels or items or building fleets, without the social element it’s all basically the same. And the reason it got old is because it’s meaningless. Take out the social elements of EVE and you have another grind, in all it’s meaningless glory.

The “next gen” is social, on a massive scale. But it’s actually old, done poorly in UO, and better in EVE, but no one has done it in completeness yet.

Everyone can easily think of problems, but few are thinking of answers. Maybe because most are convinced of the futility of it, and won’t even try. Brainwashing.

There are answers. You can both make a massive social arena meaningful, and insulate the individual to a large enough extent depending on their own desires and goals and actions. The answer lies in the middle ground, with free flowing factions and a massive world filled with social elements based on factions, freedom, and levels of involvement.

There is a restlessness covering MMOs now. Most are looking for a change, but don’t know what to look for. WoW is fighting to hold it’s ground. The rest are starting to flatline on “the long tail” that’s stretching farther and farther. Gamers are jumping from one to another and back again, looking, looking, but not finding. There is some room yet for “newness” in the form of new races to play, new techs, etc. But that’s just a grasp at smoke.

Unless MMOs go back to massive, and evolve the social in a meaningful way, the flatline will start to penetrate WoW and soon everything will start to beep in a long death knell.

All because Raph Koster screwed up in the first place. (joking)

What we developers need to do is re-consider what makes MMOs worth playing. What makes it worth giving $15 (or more) per month, or paying the microtransactions, or whatever. The fast answer is “make it more fun”, but that answer hides a lot of complexity.

Herein lay the forefront of the problem. Game developers, like any other artist, have to perpetually push the envelope in order to stay entertaining.