Slashdot Mirror
The Future of MMORPGs
Fargo writes: "How often do you get the creators of EverQuest, Asheron's Call, World of Warcraft, Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, Anarchy Online, and others in the same room together? It happened at the recent Game Developers Conference in San Jose. GameSpy pulled together notes from three days' worth of talks and drew some common conclusions that point toward where the genre is going in the future. A good read if you're interested in where Virtual Worlds are headed."
...into the firey pits of latency hell.... ;-)
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
And here it is:
Progress Quest
Its not too addictive and it doesn't use up too much time.
t
If you look at the picture of all those guys lined up beside eachother you could swear it was taken in the 1970's.
Maybe with more and more people playing MMOGs there will be a solid base of consumers to demand some sort of solution to the U.S.'s broadband dilemma.
Where text muds went 10 years ago. All the problems of grief players, player killing, user grouping, experience sharing, and dynamic landscape generation were solved in text based MUDS like this one years ago. Watching the graphical corporate players re-learn these painful lessons (with the added humor factor of corporate arrogance, pride, and a PR department) has had all the humor value of watching a blind baby learn to walk.
If you find that kind of thing funny.
Any old-timers who played Tradewars 2002 should take a mosey on down to tradewars.com and browse the screenshots and forums for the new game in development, named Tradewars: Dark Milennium. Hopefully, by this summer, we should have a AWESOME space game will be reborn into this new genre. I can't wait.
- Kengineer
Sure, people do "play for the spreadsheet, filling in points", etc, but the real draw of a good game is it's roleplaying value - at least for me.
I've been playing a Text MUD for quite a long time - Dragonrealms (http://www.play.net/dr) - and it's evolved into quite a large player base where anyone can make a mark on the community by roleplaying a character correctly.
Hundreds of addicts, or just hundreds of satisfied people? Not sure, but the Roleplaying Genre needs to focus more on roleplaying, least we end up instead with the "experience-game-in-which-players-gain-levels genre".
I've been playing UO on and off for about 5 years now. I tried EverQuest for a while, and although I could see how one could get into it, I still liked UO better.
...but that's just my 2 cents, and that's about all it's worth.
However, both companies still have an advantage over all the newcomers--they have a game engine that they have been tweaking for a long, long time. I think that when the new generation of these MMORPGs come out and drag players away from UO/Everquest, Origin and whoever makes Everquest (I forget) will wise up and start selling an engine to the next generation of MMORPG makers so that they can implement a (hopefully) more debugged game more rapidly. It just seems logical; when your itellectual property stops making money in one arena, move to another...
MMORPGs will move towards having a real economy, where people live out their lives totally online. When you can make more money hunting monsters in a cave than coding in a cube, ill jump in too!
The problem with MMORPGs right now is the players can't shape the world. It would be so much fun if players could build cities, destroy cities, take power over a nation, remove a person from power, eliminate an entire species of animal, etc. Sure at times you'll have things unbalanced, but as long as you have methods to rebalance it shouldn't be an issue (like destroying a boulder that stopped a river). Also it would be nice missions involved more than one person. For instance the game could give a high level character a mission that would take too long for him to finish by himself, but he could hire lower level people for a negotiated reward to help him along.
;)
But like all people on slashdot I only have ideas and no plans to actually implement the crap I think up.
I've always wondered why the 'supervillain' players aren't just allowed to be supervillains... Some gameplay addition that gives them a fatal flaw, or restricts them to certain 'evil lands' when they PK. The 'good guys' could then search dungeons (after finding out about the fatal flaw at the local tavern/wise man) for the 'special thing' needed to kill the evil PKer. (note: the dungeon would be off limits to the PKer, and probably anyone 'evil' and just contain monsters and the such)
It'd be just like the predictable, mediocre plotlines of soo many stories we all love and enjoy. The PKers are happy that they can PK people foolish enough to enter their wicked realms, and the good guys can go off and fight 'eeeevil' (for great rewards of course)
What seems to be lacking for me is a real sense of accomplishment. Leveling up is not fun in and of itself. The quests I do must actually matter to the game world. The game should change because of what I do. I should have other options besides fighting to earn credits. The classic game of Pirates! comes to mind. I want to be a trader sometimes, also a politician if I desire. Not just a patron, but I want government, and generals, military commands and so on. Neocron has some of these ideas.
Unfortunately what I want is like ten games in one. But that's exactly what every company must strive for. Releasing the hack and slash game, followed by the trading game, followed by the political game, followed by the military/bounty/mercenary/thief-type game. Last but not least, if the world has horses or cars, there needs to be a racing game, not just on tracks, but street races. All of this must be available together and integrated.
I know I ask the near-impossible, but if the game makers want me to devote my real life to their virtual world for years to come, shouldn't their world be at least as interesting as reality?
This article raises a number of interesting points. Not the least of which, is what are these things? Are they games, of other worlds of existence? A place for enjoyment, or a metaverse of sorts?
In my mind, they need to evolve beyond games and give users a reason to take part rather than stat building and killing progressively larger monsters. As a beta tester for Ultima Online, and short term user of several other systems I can tell you that gets boring real quick.
The problem, as I see it, is how to deal with that small percent of the population who want to just cause trouble for everyone else. Pkilling, newbie killing, etc will always be something people want to do. The key is to protect people from it while not breaking the suspension of disbelief that gets us so caught up in the world, and still allowing these sorts of things for those who want to take part.
Can you imagine how boring the metaverse would be if Hiro Protaganist just slashed through all the black and white avatars, simply because he could? That wouldn't go far to lure new users.
To continue the metaverse analogy, allowing users to carve out their own niche is a real bonus. MUDs, MUSHs, etc. have almost all had some capacity to allow the players to build the world. The metaverse allows people to create homes, buildings, hell even the Black Sun.. but in MMORPGs so far that feature has been poorly implemented. UO allows for building houses and hiring shopkeepers, but the former just cluttered the landscape, while the latter became pack animals for most players.
In short, this article asks some good questions. I can't think of any easy answers to any of them, but it's good to see people discussing this in an open forum.
Personally, I think DIY MMOGs are the way to go...basically you release a toolset that allows someone to make thier own world with a pre-existing framework of rules...then you can turn the players loose in them.
It's not massive, but it is multiplayer...and people can restrict access to thier worlds as they see fit...ending the days of l337 camper and catass man.
Oh yeah..that's Neverwinter Nights, and its coming out in June...
I think the MMOG 'industry' is about to get a nasty surprise.
when all is said and done, all a man has left are his blades and his honor.
Red Dwarf figured it all out years ago, watch "Better Than Life"
is competition good, or is duplication of effort bad?
...but sitting around the table with a pen and paper and a few dice is much more fun than staring at a Monitor for several hours...
Progress Quest IS the future of MMORPGs -- and it's here now.
Seriously, I've been playing this thing for weeks now. Every waking moment -- I'm at the point where I even feel like I play it in my sleep.
Maybe an MMORPG with some real meat to the ability to develop a world, i.e. Ultima Online 2k2 (and I mean a really new version, not just the updated client). Maybe one that has real, obvious, easy-to-get-involved with politics and stock marketing built in. Heck, maybe one like Freedom Force, where you can destroy everything, except with the addition of a building mode. Something to get out of the "Kill to get bigger to kill bigger things until you can sell your character on eBay" mindset.
This flies in the face of science.
Wow. Throw some heavy-duty padlocks on that door and you'll have just increased geek productivity by about 800%.
And if they start asking for food and water, just tell 'em to /petition it...
Two years ago, we saw several companies trying to impulse "a new way to surf the net" (cuecat, anyone?). It turned out that people were happy to type URLs and use search engines, thank you.
My point is, there are plateaus. There are points when you have to say "this is good enough, no need to spend a lot more time and money for less return". Some call it the 80-20 law.
I believe MMORPGs are very close to their plateaus now. There are only so many more changes that can be made without the need for mayor investent, both from enterprises and users, that I don't see happening anytime soon.
MMORPGs are almost as good as they're going to get, at least on fun factor.
I'm not trolling. I'm just sick of "the sky's the limit" mentality, when there's always a practical limit, and it's often closer than you want to believe.
Sorry about the rant. I'll shut up now and return to my rocking chair.
Online games will continue to be released in an incomplete state and their owners will fully expect the players to pay for finishing the game. That's the future of MMORPG's.
Check out Joystick101 for some more first-hand reports on the various talks and presentations that went on at GDC 2002. Particularly this one and this one.
I think that as we become more and more online, games will be the first to switch from a product like it is today to a totally service based system. You may goto a store and buy a cd that starts you off, but eventutally the game will be totatlly downloaded off the internet. It's already happening today in small amounts with EQ, UO, AC, and AO. Valve just realeased that technology that allows you to download a game completly from the internet.
If content providers hooked up with cable and DSL providers, and provided caching servers closer to the customer, there would be almost no wait for your games. That's something I can see people paying for.
Old school distribution is definatatly going to dissapear in the long run. Maybe not until the X-Box 3 or the PS5, but there will be a console released that you just plug into the internet, monitor/TV and wall. No CDROM/DVD drive, just games. The only thing that is stopping it today is bandwidth and the fact that Sony makes an amazing amount of money for those silver disks.
It really makes sense because right now they are almost doing it right now. Think about how many times you have had to buy the same game but slightly updated for the new system. Is Civ III really 50 dollars better then Civ II? Most sequels are just the same game, better graphics. The only difference is that you can NOT buy the new game, but if they charged a monthly fee then you have no choice, it's pay to play. Though I hope that they will charge less since they will be able to get much better market data from the consumer if the consumer has to download the game to play it.
I'll be interested in MMORPGs once they have 10, 12 and 20 sided dice which are Mac-compatible.
This article is excellent, and I particularly enjoyed the intelligent focus on copyright and intellectual property issues as MMOGs slide towards greater and greater online content. Admittedly, I haven't played an MMOG since the Tradewars days, but the idea still fascinates me. The most thrilling idea surrounding this topic as far as I am concerned however, is that of inter-game compatability. It seems only a short matter of time before, at first multiple games by the same company, but eventually games by competing companies, support the transfer of characters and wealth between game worlds.
From that point I can imagine very easily that the drive towards standards and cross-compatability would result in the creation of a standardized "meta-game" in which characters could interact devoid of any rules or constructions aside from user created content and the "laws of physics" of the virtual world. Some users, of course, would become massive creators of original content in effect turning their corners of the meta-game into games in their own right(whether free or requiring an admission fee). Of course the commercial games would still exist and could be easily entered at any time from the meta-game, but the meta-game itself would provide the perfect level for many types of interactions and for encouraging a seamless gaming experience.
There is only one small step left from there to envision this meta-game expanding to include near-infinite non-game content and eventually replacing what is now WWW-space with an avatar driven virtual world such as that envisioned in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.
Of course, everything i have just said is speculation and supposition, but my real point is that what is going on in the world of MMOGs may be something that warrants attention even from those who aren't gamers themselves. People may one day talk about EverQuest the way people to day talk about an old DoD project called ARPANet...
lysergically yours
the guy loves these types of games.
i think they're ridiculous.
the guy sits for 6 hours every night slashing make believe rodents and other artificial beings just to go up levels. he loves to play dark age of camelot and anarky online. i ask him why can't he fight others. "because then people will be sad they're character is dead."
these guys are for anti-social morons. weirdos...
Why do corporations think they can control user-created content as their own, in MMORPG's? We have enough of this problem in the real world, just with their damn license agreements.
What an MMORPG needs is a GPL-like license, that way, all changes are made availible in return for promoting the world's depth. It doesn't have to be programming, but anything created from the world's sense of creation.
People make worlds, to achieve their own goals, not give corps fatter pockets.
I agree w/ alot of the developers' comments except for one: "How do you make a player who spends five hours a month [playing] still feel relevant to the game world?"
The easy answer is: You Shouldn't.
The whole point of a MMORPG is to immerse yourself into a digital world. It's not like playing a quick starcraft game. 5 hrs a month isn't even enough to develop a good Diablo II charactar, and most people (me included) feel that D2 is too simple and should've been more in-depth. If someone is only willing to play 5 hrs a month then they're probably not willing to buy the game.
trying to cater to this "vaporous" crowd will only make the game suck
why do you bother coming back?
"as plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee" - Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz. (One man's humorous is another mans flamebait)
We need a Multiplayer Online Breakout. We could all log on and play as the blocks. We sit there till someone comes and smacks us with their ball.
Or even better we could design a extremely detailed world with citys and towns and everything and then play MISSILE COMMAND! This would require a Beowulf cluster to play. (panic takes alot of FLOPS)
I worked in online gaming from 1992 to 1998 and we built a MMORG that never got to see the light of day.
During it's development it suffered from many of the things mentioned in this article.
(1) was it a game? No one knew, it ended up being made into an interface for our other previously developed games (like Spades and Poker and Bass Lake Fishing). The RPG aspect and personal space customization were to be done later, after this was decided. So the answer was, no it wasn't a game.
(2) it's for adults more than kids, and at the time people still thought only kids played video games (ooops, kids grow up and... still play)
(3) we were hot enough to be bought by AT&T and then AOL... ug, death!
(4) finally, we were around before the (commercialized) net and had a you-have-to-build-it-yourself mentality. This is not a "not invented here" syndrome, when we started making network games in 1991, you really did have to build it yourself. Email, chat, everything. We didn't survive all the help we would get, and never leveraged the explosion of the net to our advantage... instead it was a sort of tsunami that swamped us.
(5) Violence: it sells, the 3d "revolution" in games is associated with it. Making a peaceful game hedging on community and social play, construction exploration and politics... why, it's a hard sell now, it was even harder then. Thank god for the Sims for opening this up a little, potentially.
BTW: I still remember how to make these things... our technology could support tens of thousands of people on the hosts where there was no limit to packing, but you saw only the closest couple hundred people. It sits unused, now owned, I think, by EA. The hosts are in use for non-mmorg use, oddly enough. Inside these hosts people playing mundane card games have existence in a 3D world because the message passing paradigm is great... but they don't move in the 3D space and essentially sit in a matrix keeping track of an unpresented 3D position in the world.
-pyrrho
When I first stepped into Everquest, it was magical. This was the first online game I had tried and it was simply amazing that there was an actual person on the other end of that halfling.
While the magic and novelty is largely gone, I can't help but think that these MMORPGs are destined for the business world. Five years ago all I heard about was the coming virtual reality - meetings in cyberspace... working from home with an avatar in a virtual meeting room.
Well, I've been playing in one of those for the last year or so. With some minor tweaks and feature enhancements, this technology is ripe for virtual/avatar-based meeting spaces. Instead of logging in to the goblin city, I'll enter a building. My conference is going to be in the third door on the left (the door will be pulsing softly and there will be arrows pointing the way from reception).
I'll enter the room and the people I'm going to meet with will be there also. I can look at the "screen" and see the presentation, whisper to the person next to me... or the person at the other end of the table for that matter, raise my hand, whatever. I might even be able to have my macro script take control and nod appropriately so I can nip off to the mall and do some shopping while it records the presentation for me.
Yes, this is years down the road, especially for it to become an accepted business practice... but it will start with someone convincing their boss that the next staff meeting should be held in the North Freeport tavern or the Inn of Rivervale. Once it does happen, it will do more to eliminate the need for employees to be in the same place as their employers...
And that will be pretty cool.
Slashdot comments... splitting hairs since 1997.
I used to play another text MUD - Utopia - but it got so addictive I had to stop.
Video Game cheats, hints a
It's someone elses.
What do you do when someone lovingly crafts and recreates someone elses copyrighted work inside YOUR game? By doing that, your game is now publishing someone elses copyrighted works. That's what they're terrified of, that some jackass is going to make a perfect replica of the Millenium Falcon in The Sims Online, and they're going to get their asses sued off by LucasFilm.
So let me get this straight, you pay $50 for the game, then $12.95 every month? And how long have you been playing now? *ching ching*
Never fight naked, unless you're in prison...
The current genre of the titles mentioned in the article is MMOLG, Massively Multiplayer Online Levelling Games. (I admit though, some like to call new titles in this genre "More Meaningless Online Running Past Groups").
In a society that believes in nothing, fear becomes the only agenda ~ Bill Durodié
you sir can not understand the situation any further either
I actually prefer StatBuilder. It's got a lot more stats!
- signed, a lvl 154 statbuilder character -- you cannot comprehend how high my tree-climbing stat is!
Where's the submit button??
The central focus of all MMORPGs is the economy, and so far all of them have weak or artificial economies. The rewards of playing stem from the game economy and in order to be truly compelling the economy has to be robust and realistic. Take EQ for example. The economy is really driven by two things - experience (which can't be traded) and equipment, all of which exist in essentially unlimited quantities. Spend enough time and you can get everything the world has to offer.
What is needed is an economy that motivates people to cooperate and simultaneously drives conflict. Think RTS combined with RPG. There should be certain resources that are finite in availablity, but necessary for progress. To get the resources you need you can either find them, buy them, or steal them. To help this along there should be factions or groups to which you can belong and from which you derive certain benefits that help you get the resources you need. This sets up a natural conflict between competing groups vieing for the same limited pool of resources. You are effectively forced to ally with others in order to achieve your aims, since it is easier to defend your resources when you group together. In order to get some resources, it might be necessary to pool resources, for example to get enough cash to purchase a piece of equipment that enhances resource production. You would essentially be investing in an enterprise and expecting a return on that investment. The game could even support a stock trading system in which you could invest in various enterprises based on your interests and desires.
Once you have an economy figured out, everything else comes together. You don't need to provide monsters or quests, since the dynamic of the game creates them all on its own. You get people working with or against each other, which is what it should be about anyway. Other humans are going to be far more interesting and challenging opponents or allies than any AI creature.
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
I was reading this article and suddenly had a vision. Combine MMORPGS with Augmented Reality ! Let the game world coincide and merge with the real world. A virtual world (or several) layered on top of the physical world, visible only to those who are logged in.
Technoli
This was apparently written by, a participant of elementary education only. The writing and progression were light, if not fluffy, and without competent theme or concrete style of presentation. This story effectively reduces what are clearly some intelligent and well meshed ideas into 2-second text-bit mud. Bravo, you've sucked something of worth out of the world.
Any spoon would be too big.
Aside from flashier graphics and more sound, they aren't really going anywhere. EverQuest, for example.. Is nothing but a MUD. Tradeskills? Seen it. Hell levels (Which are now gone), been there, done that. Raiding planes of existance at the high levels? Hell, I implemented that myself on a mud a few years back. Only my system was cooler. :)
:P
What's cool to see is old school mud ideas being taken to the extreme though. The amusing part is watching player vs. staff 'battles'. Look at EQ, again, for example. Players insist the staff of GM's are 'out to get them'. The GM's are trying to do their jobs amidst a bunch of people who will claim they just suddenly 'lost' all their high-end gear for no reason. You wonder why GM's get pissy?
Personally, I've never had any problems with Verant Interactive's customer service people. Hell, they've gone above and beyond for me - but maybe that's because I realize there's about 5000 players for every GM. Maybe it's because I was once a mud implementor and realize that, yes, players are out to exploit loopholes and do things the easy way.
Erm, I'm waxing off topic somewhat. Right, well, I don't expect any earth-shattering ideas from graphical multi-user dimensions. In the long history of muds, everything's been done. It'd take a rare stroke of genius to present something totally fresh and new.
At any rate, I think we may see an increase in normal mudding again as well. EQ, AO, DAoC, etc.. The graphics are nice, but nothing compares to the graphic processor that is your imagination.
Funny how you shit for brains are always anonymous... Get some fucking balls....
Easy:
Most likely, the game will some kind of account/character system. The person will have an account name. Whenever someone creates game objects, it records the creator account name. If someone creates copyrighted material, they can trace it down and they can delete/disable his account, while removing all his objects.
Really, it sounds like what I said before. Worlds will become easier to modify for the user. And there may be an ownership problem where a user creates something good, and a company wants to assume ownership, through their license agreement (you forfit all your rights of creation and ownership to them)
Nothing in the gamespy article gave me the feeling that these game designers were looking to make better online worlds for us to play in. This was a business meeting designed to maximize profits and reduce risks. And these people are suppose to be competitors. When major industry leaders get together like this it doesn't bode well for their consumers. "Higher prices, less content, join today!"
I read an article in the Wall Street Journey describing how kids today no longer fall prey to conventional advertising, as if a resistance has been built up to it over the years. I'm thinking the same thing applies to the geek community, and we don't yet have what it takes to say no to these escapist fantasy worlds. I predict a dark age in computing is coming and I weep for the future of us all.
A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.
SW Galaxies has a chance of becoming huge. The omniconsole Final Fantasy MMORPG will probably hit it big, at least for a while. Everquest might keep on truckin', though I don't see much growth. WoWarcraft is a wild card. Everyone else is toast.
I don't think the current MMORPG model is fated to last much longer. Too bad nearly every one of those games decided to model themselves after the developers' favorite text MUDs (Everquest seems suspiciously like Diku with graphics) rather than creating new systems from scratch. Mindless hacking and slashing through dumb mobs attempting to level and avoiding PK, etc., was fun on muds, but I'll be damned if I'll pay $10 a month to do the exact same thing with graphics and 7000% more 13-year olds attached.
Games like Neverwinter Nights, and to a lesser extent Dungeon Siege, are the future. I would kill for a NWN-style Fallout game...
It's the future. There was even a recent survey that placed Everquest as having a larger economy than most (smaller) countries. Now if there was only some way to harness this for world peace. Think Arafat and Sharon going out and leveling up together in Everquest.
I think this would be a great edition for any MMRPG. It's a win-win for everyone. It gives me a reason to be evil, I get to PK in a role-playing manner and adds additional quests to the game. Forget building a huge castle and manning it with defenses. Give me a hole in the ground, some imps and some other evil characters and lets start making player-created dungeons.
Don't forget that alot of the eurotrash, canadians, and other assorted fucktards that post are communists
GameSpy.com:
What's This World Coming To? The Future of Massively Multiplayer Games
Slashdot.org:
The Future of MMORPG's
FARK.com:
Multiplayer game developers declare the future of online gaming to be something like a "Fascist Disneyland."
__
Choose mnemonic identifiers. If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem. - Larry Wall
Import characters from the Sims into EverQuest!
No wait, that was a few threads ago...
Ok, better, How about I import trains from Railroad Tycoon into Everquest!
I'm going to disagree, but not for the reasons you might think.
The true jump in quality won't come from masses of gamers deciding in unison that, yes, I feel like pretending to be a sweaty dwarf named Argus McGinley of the Axehandle Clan today -- or whatever one's idea of traditional role playing might be.
Rather, it'll arrive when these online worlds become immersive/enjoyable enough that you don't even have to think about role playing. Not consciously, at any rate. That is to say, as these games evolve and their in-game mechanics grow to be more fluid and natural (instead of the hundreds of little annoyances -- zone loads, clipping bugs, slash commands -- that constantly remind us of a game's limitations), a majority gamers will begin to act more naturally within them.
Setting influences behavior, in a sense.
I feel the payment system should go the other way.
The game should be free - or cost at most one months subscription fee and include that first month. Then you pay a monthly fee for as long as the company can keep your interest. And all of the "expansions" should also be free - after all you are paying a monthly fee, the least you should expect for your money is new programming.
Heck, if I were to pay for HBO or Showtime, I'd drop it very quickly if I only got to see the same movies as were available when I first signed up. HBO and Showtime (and other "premium" channels) understand they have to offer something new to keep my interest. They even offer free trial periods to help get people to sign up for their service.
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
Judging by the posts here, I can see that not much of the slashdot crowd really likes the current generation of online games. I agree anyhow, as every single new MMORPG is just Everquest in a different world. It's boring, anyone can see this.
There is one place left to go for it, and that lies in Player-Vs-Player combat. The problem with Everquest is that after you get to a certain level in the game, there is no where left to go, no motive to keep playing. What's left? It needs to be be PVP.
More and more games are going to have to get away from this idea that people will want to play forever to kill monsters. AI will never have the thrill of being able to know that you just did something to another guy sitting at his computer somewhere, it will never be able to call up your buddy and go on about the kill, and it will most definitely will never get the real players to be respected.
What we need is to merge the genre of MMORPG with the FPS genre, not to make it totally the same, but to have an eternal quake game that keeps your statistics and items is just what we need (not to mention want). We need dynamic leveling, where if a mage wants to be a mage he customizes all his statistics by working on only the things he needs to. Seperate HP, Mana and endurance from levels. Most of all, put the players more in control, so they control the world.
People are going to realise that fighting monsters is not what an online community is about. People need people, if only to kill.
(As a note, the thing that has been the thing that has kept Meridian 59 alive and kicking with its 7 year old doom-looking graphics is the mechanics of PVP. It still has the most loyal fanbase in the world)
I was sort of amazed at the line about making users who only play 5 hours a month feel involved or meaningful to the game universe. I can't imagine an entertainment persuit less suited to extremely casual commitment than RPGs of any variety. This is particularly true for the medium in discussion, which continues to run 24/7. If you're in a D&D group, at least the action stops when you go home. MMORPGs inherently only appeal to people with a fairly particular interest and a high level of commitment. For goodness' sake, the whole point is to *immerse* yourself an another universe! How do you immerse in just 5 hours? ;-)
In that it mimicked small text-based RPG's and actually developed a community that multiplied its attractiveness tenfold. To gain popularity, MMORPG's will have to tend to the player-centric mentality that is common in all video games... otherwise, the player becomes a useless extension of the world. This can be done one of two ways:
l
1. Create a close-knit community, with many fragmented servers and about 1000 people max per server. Allow some sort of mass communication to make it like a chat room, build a small enough world so that people are constantly interacting, and display the status of people often (x was killed by y, etc). Mass communication will develop the community, and cooperation will flourish as a result of this communication and a relatively small world. I play Meridian 59 to this day with hundreds of others... the close-knit community setting sets it apart from RPG's like Everquest and AC by offsetting the monotony of leveling.
2. Allow complete control of the game world... This would require a humongous dynamic world, in which players could construct and destroy everything as they saw fit. This would propel interaction to new heights but would require a *lot* of innovations about pretty much every aspect of MMORPG's... So I think that's a bit off.
Current RPG's often amount to little more than single player games with no plotline. Community *is* the driving force behind these games, and it needs to be incorporated as such, or MMORPG's will remain as level fests and not as games.
Any RPG's coming out that try to veer away from this formula? I know UO2 was going to innovate in several areas, but sadly Origin decided to wage war against UO2's huge fan base and dedicate efforts to revamp its aging UO franchise... Blah... The success they could have had with UO2... *sigh*
P.S.: Shameless plug: Meridian 59 link (it's alive again!), if anyone is interested: http://meridian59.neardeathstudios.com/index.shtm
Well, if news stories on Slashdot are any indication, the future of MMORPGs is the constant asking of the question, "What is the future of MMORPGs?"
I'm sick of hearing about it.
I don't see how it's so addictive you'd actually have to quit. There's a limit to what you can do in a given hour, and really if you log in every hour you aren't going to gain a whole lot.
:)
Currently, I log in about 3 times a day and spend 5-10 minutes managing my province, then bounce out. It's a game where the amount you play does directly affect how well you do, but you get major diminishing returns on the time you spend after about 20 minutes a day.
Example: You can only send four or five attacks out, and that's assuming you found targets that have defenses low enough that you can break them with the troops you have four times. Remembering that the troops you send will therefore not be defending your province for the next real-time day or so.. and all this is is running the information from that province through your formatter and deciding how much you need to send to break them.
So you're a mage. You have a limit: number of runes you have, or amount of mana. Cast enough spells and you can't cast anymore for at least an hour - and an hour's regeneration gets you maybe two more spells.
Thieves? Just stealth... but you lose thieves if you fail, and sometimes even if you succeed. And you have "mana" too... a limited number of operations, and the more you attempt the less effective you'll be. You'll need to spend money to train new thieves, but first you have to wait for the soldiers to be drafted from your population, which requires realtime too - and money, which, surprise, takes realtime to be earned.
So there's not much point to playing this game more than, say, a half an hour a day... Even given that, it's a great game, and I suggest you check it out. Utopia Have fun
The art of the MultiUser RolePlay Environment/Entertainment (MURPE) focuses in on the unique role-play perspective, rather than just being a hack-n-slash game like Everquest and most other so-called MMORPGs. MMORPGs will prob hang around for a year or two, but MURPEs are more along the lines of MUDs, which have been around since the late 80's.
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
It's good to know that there is GPL'ed mmorpg game project called Arianne. By now it's in alfa2 stage, but later WE will shape future of mmorpg genre ! Bwahahah! Join us! www.arianne.cx
Yes - you're right - but I was playing it for up to 4 hours at a time. But at the stage I was 1000+ acres I was getting more runes than I could possibly need & I had to keep building on the new land to keep my taxes at a reasonable level - also constantly adding to the army to keep the dpa the same. When there's about 4 provinces all trying to cast about 3 negative spells on you at once it can take a while to sort out the damage. Anyway - it is addictive - trust me.
Video Game cheats, hints a
It is interesting to see the attention paid to policing these virtual worlds. Currently, they are trying to do most of that with volunteers. A few paid staffers or contractors (GMs) oversee a larger force of volunteer guides.
The upside to volunteer guides is enthusiasm and game knowledge. Downsides include poor training, spotty supervision and questionable legality. Game users regularly complain about the lack of guides online. These "Disneylands" certainly aren't patrolled 24/7.
Everquest is attempting to address this problem with the launch of their premium Legends server: where they promote a dedicated CS staff. Even they aren't promising 24/7 coverage, though!
ancarett, historian and zombie gamer
they will find a shorter name for massivly multiplayer what was the rest???
Michael...couldn't stand it could you? Couldn't go a few days without telling us something else is ...a good read
Were you absent in writinng school the day they talked about using your imagination when typing?
The people on this panel seem to have ignored the most pressing issue looming up, and that is the monetization of the MMORPG object tokens.
Up till now MMORPGs have been too low on the radar to register for fundies who like to ban this sort of thing, politicians who want a piece of the action, and the mob, sorry, Vegas, who want all of the action.
When you have outfits like Entropia blatantly charging people for their addictions, this is when matters come to a head.
It's already been suggested that's why companies like Mythic are so eager to ban online auctions of their "objects", because this turns them into at least retailers, and probably casino operators.
Now because of the weird alliance between the mob, sorry established casino operators, and the unusual number of puritanically minded prohibitionists in the US, online gambling is effectively banned, or regulated out of the country.
It's existed for a while, but operators generally have to set up servers in dubious countries and share rack space with porn merchants.
If MMORPGs go on developing their virtual economy, then they will soon be subject to at least taxation, probably regulation, and possibly prohibition.
Da Blog
Isn't there a point [after age 12] when playing RPG's is just a bit sappy?
Saying things like "my Elvin clan will get midevil on your black mage dwarfs" is just a bit socially inept when you are of the age to vote.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
In good old RuneQuest (pen and paper =) there is a experience system that works somewhat like this:
When you (successfully) use a skill, you get a "XP mark" to that skill, but only once per a quest. It also has a combat system where almost anyone with enough luck can kill almost anyone (or anything) making combat always dangerous even if more experienced people will be less likely to die. There are few other things also, but those are the most important.
Now, when we started, we had quite short quest (or adventures or whatever you want to call them), and it was common to players to try to utilize every skill once to be able to gain experience quickly.
However, as time went by, quest became longer and this "check experience gains moment" became more rare. Because of this, you often got the combat "marks" from the first battle for a specific quest and after that there was no experience gain from other fights.
Because of these things there was to changes in the way players played their characters: They no longer fought any extra combat, since there was no experience gain but a danger of death (one good blow can kill in RQ). Instead, they started doing things to gain marks to the more rarely used skills.
Examples would include starting a (little) bar fight to get a XP mark to bare handed combat, but also things like searching herbs, making weapons, worshipping gods, trading, playing, singing, hunting, and well, anything that there is a skill for in RQ.. this also included things like "wait a minute, i think this wall is not too strong, if go through it we won't have to wake up that troll" and "no way i'm going there, let's go back and hire an army".
People want to get experience. But most of them don't just want to became better in fighting. I think the problem in present MMORPG's is that fighting is the only thing that you can became so good that other notice you.
Building cities isn't necessary to make people famous. If you could became the best damn swordsmith in the whole world, and your friend was a mage so good that together you could make blessed simitars so powerful that only the ancient artifacts would be more valuable..
I propose less combat experience, more fatal combat, more other skills, no skill limit for things other than fighting (some kind of more close to perfect skill system maybe), and ability to make items at least as good as those found in dungeons..
It really doesn't hurt if nobody is interested to risk their characters life for a sword in a dungeon that can be bought for the local smith. It just removes some stupid combat.
Software should be free as in speech, but if we also get some free beer, all the better.
Like some people allready mentioned most people still think (with reason) that the best online Roleplaying experience are still the text-only MU* and Play By E-Mail games, but I think it isn't realistic to assume they can just be scaled up to MMORPG's, as most MU*s I know don't have much more then a 1000 users online at one moment. There has to be some moderation to keep low on the damage and the spam that can be caused by ill-intending users, but it is virtually impossible to actively watch everything that happens. Maybe the rogue players could be held in trackt with a slashdot style of moderating players, with a possibility of playing with only positively rated players. The old article on everquest economy in here (392K PDF file) has some nice views on the future of MMORPG's and how people interact on them. Actually some of the findings in the article prove that a large majority of the players will, just as I have seen in MU*s, create an own set of unwritten rules that allows the game to be quite self-regulating anyways
Most developers agreed that in small communities you can rely on the user base to police itself. But large-scale games with tens of thousands of users logged in at any given time can't be counted on to effectively self-manage. Conclusion? Control the environment. Just as Disneyland keeps its attractions clean and ejects any troublemakers from the park.
Trying to police and control your player base is a waste of time. 100,000 motivated subscribers will always find ways to circumvent arbitrary barriers and rules that game developers put in their way. Implementing these barriers steals valuable developer time and resources not only to implement these barriers but to also patch and maintain the barriers against their cunning player base. If you would instead give the player base and incentive to do the policing for you they'll do a far better job than a flotilla of developers could. I'll give you an example...
"In the land of Yore there lies a forest where the king's finest stag's graze. These stags are known throughout the world for their tasty meat and great horns both of which are highly sought after abroad (and are Yore's top exports). Now only the king and his servant's are allowed to kill stags in the forest as the stag population is cautiously controlled so as not to thin the heard too much. Commoners (controlled by player's) have been killing the stags illegally and ruining the game's economy. Do you...
A) Make the forest and no kill zone and technically implement this solution? Or
B) Deputize trustworthy members of the player base and pass laws against venison trading (punishable with prison terms for the character etc) by anyone except the king's men?
With A) your players will most likely figure out some clever way to either lure the stags out of the forest and kill them or figure out a hack which would allow them to kill stags in the forest. You'll end up spending all of your time fixing exploits that your players find and devs spend less and less time making the game more enjoyable and more time 'fixing' their game.
With B) you get an armed guard for the stags which never sleeps nor rests. Oh, and by the way you just made your game a lot more fun and interesting! Your player's are chasing dirty rotten thieves all over the forest and countryside to make them pay for trying to ruin their beloved land!
Some of you are probably wondering what stops a grief player from simply creating another account and griefing again? Simple, limit the number of player accounts a person can have per per credit card. In this way you limit grief players in the amount of trouble they can cause (although a little trouble can be fun and interesting). IMO it shouldn't be about trying to control user's and their experience. It should be about developer's injecting the right amount of reality into the game (where there are consequences for your actions) w/o removing the fun from the game. Game developer's: please allow players to police their own with the occasional encouragement and incentive from you to do so. The current model of "control the user's experience" is clearly broken and something needs to be done to fix it. MORGs are very costly to develop and company's don't like taking chances on unproven theories such as mine. I would very much like to see an atmosphere of experimentation and risk taking expand into the world of graphical MORGs much as was/is seen in the MUD community. This is one reason why I'm working with WorldForge. I would dearly love to promote an indie gaming scene where innovative games are created and interesting concepts tried. To take players where commercial game developers dare not tread.
G. Washington on Government "it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
I'm engaged in an ace project which proposes to create a system by which our Nüsse(tm) brand 'nut transportation satchel' users may engage seamlessly with other users.
The basic idea is that users attach our patented device to retrofit their nutsack, enabling wireless 802.11a communication via not just wireless LAN, but also via the existing network of cellular communications towers through the use of our award-winning transparent signal translation layer.
By this, users will connect to a massively distributed nutsack to nutsack (N2N) network, allowing our users, for the first time, the ability to truly make a mark on this world with their nutsack.
Cheerio!
-------------------
I am a highly intelligent squirrel
I've been reading these comments & laughing. Back in 1989 myself & a bunch of naive developers spent LOTS of time & inbibed a LARGE amount of herbal stimulants whilst trying to crystalize our ideas on what to include in a 'killer' app. We we're too dumb to realise the limitations of technology circa 1989, hmm .025
mips nice ! BUT the basic idea that GDC discussed were the SAME as the ideas
we thought of back in '89. These ideas are not new.
I've got a book on my shelf from 1990ish about how to produce computer based
wargames, written by the head cheese at SSI at the time. He mentioned a TEXT
based online simulation he'd help create that simulated the 100 years war,
(Punch-up between the English & the French between 1300 & 1400ish). The basic
system was unreal, they modeled the details for 1500+ noble families across
both France & England. Estate management was CORRECTLY modelled. Players could
opt to become member of the clergy & aim for advancment to Archbishop or Cardinal
. They could be a simple knight who hoped to build a power base through battle or
allicance. But the BEST bit was that the English king was 'voted' for by the
English players, whilst the French king was randomly chosen. The point being
that the real French monarchy of the period, was as nutty as as a shithouse
rat. So, you could end up with the English king 'played' by a 45 year old
accountant, whilst the French king was a 13 year old schoolkid !
The whole universe was completely open, a humble knight could become the
Marshal of France through courage & skill, likewise a humble cleric could
become Archbishop of Canterbury !
My point is if we could create this sort of vision 10+ years ago with VT100
terms & PDP's & 16Mhz processors, why the fsck can't we have something similar
now but with kick-arse 3d graphics ?
FYI the book is ....
'The Complete Wargame Handbook - How to Play, Design & Find Them' - James F.
Dunnigan ISBN 0-688-10368-5
Answers on a postcard to ... aross@compsoft.co.uk
Here is some interesting reading as to why makes an MMORPG work. People argue about games being too much hack-n-slash, too little role-playing or a combination of the two but I think the real question is what makes a player hooked? According to the Skinner Box idea, getting hooked is accomplished by slowling increasing the difficulty of the game while offering random rewards. Everquest ("Evercrack") has done very well with this approach. I think the future of these virtual games is bleak. It will involve painful, long chores and amazing rewards...although there will always be a chance to get a better reward in the future. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to log onto Evercrack and clear VP for several hours(I wish I were joking).
"A final psychological theory regarding the appeal of MUDs is termed "the Virtual Skinner Box." [19] This concept is based on the writings of the psychologist B.F. Skinner, who developed an idea known as Operant Conditioning. In Operant Condition, a subject is coerced into performing complex tasks by repeatedly doing much easier tasks. The key is to provide frequent "positive reinforcement"--rewards--for the easier tasks. The subject is then eased into fewer rewards, as they have to perform increasingly elaborate tasks. In MUDs, early rewards come in the form of obtaining low level abilities and objects, which are plentiful, for the gamer's character. [19] Gradually, the reward system enters the background and players will play for lengthy periods before receiving tangible benefits. [19] Hence, the "Virtual Skinner Box" is designed to addict a player from the start. In general, the above three ideas illustrate how MUDs have sparked debate in terms of what the human mind finds appealing."
The Norrathian Scrolls: A Study Of EverQuest.
Technically World War II Online fails the role-playing part of MMORPG. Yes you do play the part of an armed forces person who moves up in rank in their chosen country and armed service branch, but you don't really get the RPG trip. There is no economy per se other then the marketplace of getting a desired piece of hardware that is limited by logistical constraints. The person each player plays is really themselves tearing around 1940 France. The normal combat result is most likely a bullet or .88 round in the back thanks to the lethality of 20th century warfare and a player base that is not sufficiently rewarded for living.
So why bring it up here? Because it's underlying fundamental design could be readily used for RPGing.
For instance, the game literally allows you to start out in an English sea village, catch a boat across the channel, and walk from the French coast to Germany in 1:2 scale. So it has room that would allow for a lot of player interaction and situations to develop.
The game is being built to track logistics to the point where capturing a key rail junction can impact the enemy all across the front. Obviously that can be used to 'fix' a lot of RPG headaches- markets could actually be represented, and the impact of the frost giants smashing all your riverboats will cause everyone to go hungry- better go gettem.
The physics are utterly accurate. Recently the programmers set off a 56 kt weapon in the game by just scaling up the numbers on a normal HE round- it blew a mountain off and rained down debris for minutes.
The tools are being developed which will give volunteer commanders the ability to manage their forces, thus actually incorporating military organization into the game. Even now, you don't get missions from game designers, you get missions from fellow commander players.
All of this means that it could be the big MMORPG engine to lay on whatever design an inventive game company can come up with. For instance, just thinking about the game, you could do Cold War Spies on exactly the same terrain- or Terrorist Hunts, come to think of it.
Finally, each side is really really compelled to whale on the other. Part of it is a game on WWII automatically conjures a lot of passion. Also, it is supremely wonderful to watch your opponent go nuts as you frustrate their carefully orchestrated attack, but that's just me.
Whatever the RPG game is, it should be compelling on some level for the target audience.
________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________
Several reasons:
1) These engines and more specificalyy their server backends are highly customized. The backends are designed to play THAT GAME and nothing else. Customizability was never a thought. It probably wouldn't even run on different hardware. Since the client software is useless without a coresponding server, it'd pretty much be an all or nothing deal.
2) MMORPGs are a recuring revenue stream. When people buy the game they keep on paying until they are bored. Therefore it is not in your best intrests to have any competition at all. You don't know how many people I kew a year or so ago said "Ya I hate lots about EQ, but it's the only thing available" and then jumped ship to DAoC when it came out.
3) Mature in this case also means outdated. I can't speak on UP because I've never seen it, but the EQ engine really shows it's age. Several guys at work play it and there are some real problems. Yes they enhance the graphics, etc, however when you really look at it, there are some major problems. IT takes a lot of power for something that looks so bad (even with the new graphics).
Due to the highly customized nature I just don't think you'll see the engines getting sold. IF someone wants to make a game like this, it's going to be mostly custom anyhow. They might start by picking up a 3d engine, but in that case there are things like Quake 3 for sale. As for the bulk of the code, it's going to be their orignal work.
I did design work on an unpublished online game about six years ago. Even then, the company I worked for had pinpointed the endemic MMORPG problem of "only players who live online can enjoy the game." In the games I'm familiar with, spending many hours a day in the game was, and remains, the only practical way to advance -- but what's worse, such getalife players also actively interfere with the enjoyment of casual players who play a few hours a month. The heavy player gets all the quests and equipment, upstaging the casual player to the extent that the casual guy can't do much except set up a bakery or something.
The solution we had is the same one Neverwinter Nights is about to introduce: modules. Free-standing adventures, similar to individual Quake episodes, would reward experienced players who replay them multiple times, but would still offer a rewarding experience to the casual player, independent of the player's standing in the game world. Sure, the heavy player is having a deeper experience, but the point is, that deep experience wouldn't interfere with other players who wanted to have fun with less involvement.
I expect that the likely success of Neverwinter Nights will help popularize this meme. About time.
I read somewhere that the average MMROPGer quits after about six months. Isn't a coincidence that's how long unemployment lasts after they lose thier jobs from not bathing and skipping out for guild meetings?
["Marge, I agree with you - in theory. In theory, communism works. In theory." - Homer]
Dispite popular belief, MMORPGs did not start when you started playing UO.
UO and Everquest are both game engines that have only been around for about 5 years. MMRPGs have been around for about 15-20, but they're all text based. The "engines" are already fully evolved, and in some cases are more complicated than Everquest's or UO's.
And they're free.
For some people, this interface is a problem, but really its only a temporary one. Because they're free, development is slower - less people are doing the development.
But that doesn't mean its not happening. Its quite likely that these rich, powerful systems will replace UO as soon as graphical interfaces are easy to deal with.
If you don't believe me, consider that the only text-based system that works quite well with a gui now - majormud - is actually quite successful as a commercial product system (this one you have to pay for though).
If Origin and Everquest would release their game engine code, it would quickly be swallowed by the older mmorpgs and no one would pay for it.
Even if they don't, its only a matter of time before its all free because people like me would like to use their free time to work on this, and are quite entertained by creating worlds and having others interact in them.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
All of this emphasis on building online communities.... no wonder real life communities are going to shit. Think about it- how many people do you know online, now how many people do you know in your neighborhood, and how well in each group?
For those of you who have balanced lives, not bother replying telling me you do, I know that there are plenty of people who have satisfying online and real life interactions.
I'm pointing this out for the people who are immersing themselves in an artificial word, and probably don't even think about talking to their neighbors.
As unreality becomes more real than real.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
You've hit on the central concept of Starship Traders. Relative to these modern games, however, it's hopelessly simple. It relies entirely on the other players to make it interesting. While there is a fledgling graphical interface, the vast majority of players still use the more refined text interfaces, either browser or telnet.
Geeky modern art T-shirts
I remember reading the manual to some old Maxis 'game' (perhaps SimEarth?) where they discussed the difference between a game (i.e. football) and a toy (i.e. a ball). Football has lots of rules covering every aspect of how you go about playing it. A ball has no rules...except the ones you make for yourself. Maxis (at the time) aimed to provide me with a toy. I could play SimEarth (for example) in a variety of different ways that were fun for me. Lego had the same idea (at one point) - give me blocks and I'll build whatever I want with them. Of course, now Lego is more focused on modeling - if I buy an X-Wing kit, I'm probably only going to build an X-Wing.
I think that this is at the heart of the some of the problems with MMORPGs. Right now, the developers are making games which they want to be treated like toys. They're making 'football', saying 'anyone can play with this however they want', and then wondering why people get upset when they go to play with the ball and some 300 lb guy tackles them.
While I acknowledge that there are plenty of people who just want to play a game, I think there's a market of people who want a 'toy' as well - a world where there aren't rules beyond how the world works.
Breaking down the arbitrary rules of these games would go a long way to making them better. I'd much prefer systems I can play with myself - particularly economic, community and justice systems.
Also, it would be nice to give players the ability to deal with problems, rather than letting the 'gods' (the developers do so). For instance, PKs/grief players...rather than create rules (no PK, PK and get 'flagged', etc), let the players enforce some consequences.
"Most developers agreed that in small communities you can rely on the user base to police itself. But large-scale games with tens of thousands of users logged in at any given time can't be counted on to effectively self-manage. Conclusion? Control the environment."
I would have the thought that the the correct conclusion is: "Have small communities." Current environments work on having a server of some kind, with lots and lots of people that log in. Naturally, there are a lot of dick-heads. I remember many a night spent on Bungie.net or Battle.net having fun, but many more wading through the large numbers of idiodic, foul-mouthed children determined to make everyone else miserable.
Therefore, I think that the techology would be better following the old MUD example: sell the server software for low cost (ahem: open source?) and have lots of little environments develop. MUDs aren't really in vouge anymore, but that's mainly because the technology is dated, not because it's a bad idea. Interactive fiction made the jump to the modern puzzle game; I don't see why MUD games can't make the jump to graphical multiplayer environments.
---Nathaniel
IMHO, the Ultimate MMORPG would be The Sims + EQ (or your favorite flavour of fantasy RPG). Essentially - you get to build and change the environment, find grain control of everything, and plenty of interaction.
I would love to go raid my Neighbor's luxury home which he just built, but forgot to put doors on.
Jake
Dating: while( 1 ){ call_girl(); get_rejected(); drink_40(); } return 0;
On that day as well myself, and a few others meeting a specific age group and other criteria (namely being male, not working for anyone in the gaming or ad industry, ect.) did a couple hours in a group (one of several) to talk about what we wanted in MMORPG. It was leaked out (the poor guy was obviously very tired having dealt with us gamer's all day) that it was for the XBox and that it would be an Everquest knockoff of some sort.
On a more amusing note: The main thing the gamers wanted as a feature was NO LAG.
--- www.krackintoshlabs.org ---
it' sort of like drawing dirty pictures instead of staring at a Monitor for several hours...
It is interesting to see that Free Software is apparently not an option for anyone. People at the GDC talk about giving their players the ability to create things. They should realize that it works best when you don't actually grant the user a controled creation tool. By sharing the software, releasing it under a Free Software license, people will come up with creative ways of doing things and the game will evolve. I guess this concept is some kind of alien to those people immersed 24/7 in a proprietary software culture. Well, that gives a nice competitive advantage to the small initiatives such as www.crystalspace.org or www.nevrax.org. Internet was built on Free Software, virtual universes will truly emerge on the basis of Free Software.