GDC: 10 Reasons NOT to Make MMOGs

Warrior-GS writes "Gordon Walton, who helped create such games as Ultima Online and the Sims Online, is at the Game Developers Conference giving a seminar on "Ten Reasons You Don't Want to Run a Massively Multiplayer Online Game". GameSpy has been providing coverage of GDC, with several game previews and several conference reports. They also have a hands-on report of the Nokia N-Gage from four of their editors, and a somewhat unorthodox report of the Game Developer Choice Awards, where Metroid Prime was named Game of the Year. The convention continues through Saturday."

Comments

Two things:

[Wind_Walker]

First off, that guy looks like the Heaven's Gate cult leader from a few years ago. The bald head really does it for me.

Secondly, and more seriously, he brings up valid points. I just started playing Asheron's Call 2 last month as part of a psychology experiment run by the University of Michigan. I found that the lower level game was very intense and packed with content, but as I gained levels over the course of a month, the content tapered off and turned into merely hack-and-slash. This makes sense, because the game is only a few months old and should thus have more content for low levels than high.

Unfortunately, high levels are relatively easy to attain. I played for 1 month, a few hours a night, and I'm currently at level 32, right where the content stops. But there are people who were level 50 only 3 weeks after the game was launched. What do they do now? They sit around, or create alternate characters until the 50 level cap is released.

A big reason left out...

[Tofino]

A huge reason for not making a MMORPG, especially on a shoestring, is that your game at release cannot possibly hope to compete with games that have been balancing and adding content for a year, or three, or more.

A good example of this is Asheron's Call 2 vs. the original Asheron's Call. AC2 is a beautiful game that you can run through and just appreciate, while AC1's graphics are merely functional. AC2 has brand spanking new crafting and town building systems, while AC1 has the same old ones. AC2 offers individualized dungeons so groups can go hunting and questing without running into packed "camped" dungeons, and AC1 does not.

Which game has more subscribers and active players? AC1, by a wide margin, despite never having received anything in the way of advertising from Microsoft (as opposed to AC2 which was widely and aggressively marketed). AC1 simply has more content -- more stuff to do. It may not be eye candy like AC2, but the eye candy effect wears off after a week or two anyway. To catch up to AC1's three years of monthly (free) expansions, AC2 would have to -- well, be out three years. Or hire a MUCH larger content team (the AC2 content team is basically the old AC1 content team).

EQ2 will face the same problem compared to EQ1. People are going to buy EQ2, go "ooh, ahh", log in, appreciate New Freeport's amenities, walk outside and fight a couple of rats, and go back to their level 65 guys in EQ. Why would they want to level up on rats again in a game with 1/10 the content of EQ?

Games without the brand recognition of AC and EQ have it even worse off. Dark Age of Camelot somewhat sidestepped this phenomenon because they were the first "next generation" MMORPG out of the gate (Anarchy Online was too buggy at release, so doesn't count ;)), and got the disgruntled AC/EQ/UO players. The newer games, such as Shadowbane, have a LOT to live up to. Current MMORPG players will compare everything to their current game, and if the new game doesn't REALLY shine, they have no reason to leave. They have too much time invested in their characters. And The Sims Online's tepid sales show that the market isn't ready to expand much yet -- you're dealing with the same bundle of players that you have to lure away from their current addiction.

Interesting comment about shorter gameplay.

[TheKodiak]

It's interesting that he mentions shorter gameplay - one of the online games I've enjoyed the most is (Although not an online RPG) Magic: The Gathering online. I really like it because I can sit down, log on, play a game, and log back out - all in the space of 10 minutes. There's no "I need to go get something to drink, let me wait for a 30 second logout animation, a 20 second 'connecting to character server' screen, and then another 20 second login animation when I get back," and there's no "I want to play, but it's going to take me 10 minutes to get my character ready to play, and another 5 minutes to run to the place I want to hunt (or another 10 minutes to try to find a ride there) and then there's really no point if I don't play for at least 20 minutes."