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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."
They suck once you realize it's just an IRC chatroom with graphics that you're paying $40 a month for.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
But I need to get back to the game, sorry.
Slashdot's February 2002 story about the technical challenges in starting a MMORPG.
Internet attracts
nitpickers with no money;
driving you to drink.
Karma: pi (Mostly due to circular reasoning in posts).
"Please don't make them, because we don't want any more competition."
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
10: Too Many are Being Built
9: It Requires a Mastery of Too Many Disciplines
8: A Huge Team is Required
7: Getting a Credit Card from a Customer is Hard
6: The Online Industry is Counter-Intuitive to Packaged-Goods Company Management
5: Everything You Know about Single-Player Games is Wrong
4: The Internet Sucks as a Commercial Delivery Platform
3: Customer Service is Hard
2: There are Lots of Legal Issues
1: They Cost Too Much money to Build and Launch!
0: WHA WHA WHA!
Nick Powers
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
If you are only going to make a half-assed attempt then you may as well not bother.
.. if they do then we're probably all doomed
Surely the brightest minds in game development dont need someone standing up there telling them that massive online multiplayer games aren't as easy as single player ones?!
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.
"You make too much money and have to hire more accountants. Trust me- you don't want to have problems like that"
I particularly like the realization that Customer Service is the key to maintaining a well-run MMOG. If you want a steady stream of cash coming in, it only makes sense that it takes a steady stream of cash to support your customers - but all too often, customer service is viewed as a grudging neccesity, not a potential for competitive advantage.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
This, I think, falls under that rarely used "constructive" branch of criticism.
All I ever wanted was an honest week's pay for an honest day's work.
They shouldn't be regulated for one very good reason.
Personal responsibility!
Maybe you've heard of it. Your grades are slipping because you play too much EverCrack? Too bad, quit playing EverCrack. Can't quit playing EverCrack? Seek out addiction counseling, it's availabe, often for free. Your ass is getting fat because you've eaten too many cheeseburgers? Quit eating cheesburgers every day.
A little common sense and some personal responsibility seem to be sorely lacking in the populace today.
...was that MMOG are A LOT harder to create and run than your standard game (console and PC included).
Just like with FPS and RTS games there is this rush with the success of UO and EQ to make these MMOG persistent games by small companies. These games will more than likely fail due to the lack of resources. This is deluting the MMOG genre because everyone is promissing to be the next "EQ Killer" and failing to deliver in one way or another.
So if you have a company and are thinking about making some persistent world, stop and make damn sure you plan a lot of resource and time into it...then double it. If word of mouth can kill a stand alone game it will uttery destroy an online one.
Massively Multiplayer Online ChatRoom ;)
Seriously, these games need to be made so they have a real point, and so that people will not get so attached to them. I'm sick of seeing my friends drop out of classes because they'd rather wait two hours for an imaginary dragon to spawn so they can cast the same spell over and over again and after another half hour they die and sit around waiting for someone to resurrect them.
I have a friend who's 65th level on EQ. (Currently the highest possible so he says proudly). He's also a year behind in his studies, and has had bouts of depression and alchololism (due to his lack of social life) for the past three years.
Pardon the sudden rant, but why can't there be an actuall MMOG that people can spend, oh, 1-3 hours on a week instead of 10-30 hours a week and still have fun.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
That's reason enough. I bet he had hair before he started.
Sony has LONG since tackled the issue of harrasing customer phone calls with their customer service program, "Operation: Go Fuck Yourself". Sony believed that if you truly just stopped giving a shit, eventually your customers would pick up on this and quit asking for help. It's a beautiful, horrifying behemoth of a program that paid off big time in their favor. Grats to them.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
He mentions in the article how 'old business models' aren't suitable for online games; reffering to the pre-packaged product.
Surely the answer then is to develop a new business model adapted to the new market?
Is this too blindingly obvious? (I would think he mentions this in the seminar although its not in the article)
"And don't call me Shirley!"
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
The author sees problems that need to be micromanaged. In my experience with projects like this, you need organic growth, not sudden, rapid growth like the Sims Online got. Many users are willing to create content for you, if you waive their monthly fee. This could represent a small portion of your userbase, and the content creators become more valuable than their waived fee. In regards to customer service, many of the most sucessful online games have a group of players who are in a "mentor" role. They answer questions, help out newbies, etc. Some do it out of good will, others do it for special privilages they get in the game. These two simple steps can drastically reduce the complexity of an online game.
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.
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."
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10: Too Many are Being Built
But there are very, very few good ones.
9: It Requires a Mastery of Too Many Disciplines
Oooh, I thought that was half the fun. It's like saying "the tech tree is just too darned big!" in MoO3
8: A Huge Team is Required
But somebody is obviously making money off of it, so what's the problem again?
7: Getting a Credit Card from a Customer is Hard
Huh? Not from somebody who actually wants to play the game. Maybe you're talking about the whiny 15 year olds I hear on the XBox forums all the time.
6: The Online Industry is Counter-Intuitive to Packaged-Goods Company Management
So you look towards other examples of services that have succeeded with "24-hour operations, 365 days a year, with continuous customer support, etc, etc". Is this really a reason not to make an MMOMMOMMORPG? Sony obviously disagrees.
5: Everything You Know about Single-Player Games is Wrong
Um, not really. Plot? Interaction? The mastery of many disciplines????? Sure, there are radical difference in some areas, but a reason not to make a MMORPG? Pretty weak.
4: The Internet Sucks as a Commercial Delivery Platform
Dot bust, blahblahblah. Once again, where you complain, others have succeeded.
3: Customer Service is Hard
I'm sorry, but this man's "points" sound increasingly like whining. Customer service is a fact of life. Yes it's online. No, it's not crippling. DEAL WITH IT.
2: There are Lots of Legal Issues
Like ANY industry. He refers to Ultima misfortune. Last I heard, ultima was a good example of how not to handle an MMORPG. It was especially bad in it's opening years if I remember right. Customers were revolting in droves. So yeah, if you screw your fanbase over, I can see the potential legal issues.
1: They Cost Too Much money to Build and Launch!
Perhapse, but lets refer to point #10: Their are too many being built. Points #10 and #1 don't exactly share a happy coexistance with one another in why you shouldn't make an MMORPG. "My God! They cost too much, but everybody is building them anyway!" Huh? Either A) You're lying/Don't have a clue or B) There s enough profit potential inspite of reasons 1-10 to do it anyway.
If you said C) Both A and B, you get a star.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
In truth, sony pours TONS of money into Everquest. Their bandwidth alone is huge. Add onto that that they have a full development team for dealing with the implimented game, (the live team: fixes bugs, etc), and then another whole development team that builds expansions and such to add content. They are contuiously changing the core code of the game, (such to add features not implimented in the original game such as 2 new user interfaces since the game was released).
They have 50ish servers compromising, (from what I understand), of roughly 30 computers per server, which means for every patch they are possibly updating around 1500. (Though it should be noted that I doubt they patch every computer every patch.) Also, these servers are located in both the United States and in Europe. And they are expected to have minor patches done in 2 hours, major patches, (for things such as expansions), done in 8. And no loss of any amount of data, (such as what character has which items), is tollerated in any way. Because of this their network administration must be near flawless.
Now lets look at what we have down the pipe. We have games that are being thrown together by people who come from single player games instead of MUDs and D&D. We have people who design games with out the backing of the enormious companies it takes to supply the capital required for a 4 to 5 year development cycle, implimentation of the enormious amount of hardware, the marketting, and the payroll for the support staff. We have people who don't realize that they must either be perfect at what they do, (see blizzard), or tap a previously untapped nitch, (Star Wars Galaxies) of MMoG potential. It would be wise that they make sure that the nitch exists and that the model for advancement in the game actually holds water first though (The Sims: Online).
In the end, we will have many companies that put 2/3rds of the work and money into making the games all competing with each other for a very small populace of people who are not already commited to as many games as they can afford time wise and monitarily. Most of them will die out, just like the dot-com bust.
But many games will pervail. Star Wars Galaxies will likely be as big, if not bigger than Everquest. Worlds of Warcraft shows amazing promise. Horizons seems to be a crowd favorite. And whatever product is being build by Sigil will be one of the leading contenders. (For those who don't know, the company is run by the people who made the decisions about Everquests form and is funded by microsoft. They also have recruited alot of the senior staff that had previously worked for the Everquest team.)
But with the majority of the market for Online RPGs and D&D type worlds already accounted for through Everquest, (or soon to be picked up by the above mentioned games), Developers better have a spot for their game to fit and they better do a DAMN good job of designing it, populating it, and supporting it if they plan on recouping their losses.
I do security
I never have been into MMO (Massive Multi-Player Onlines) and I'll tell you why:
1) Recycled games themes; You get either Dungeon and Dragons or Future Space SciFi. No one is really breaking out of the box on this. Of the 100 games on the market, they fall into these two catagories.
2) Too restrictive, Narrow play. Stop making the game so static. Just make a world that has rules and let the players do the rest. Don't make it so you have to do missions to advance.
If players want to be in a clan that raids other clans, then let it be. You can make protection zones (No fighting in the zones), but once out of the zone, go at it. For exmaple, let players set the price of items by supply and demand.
I am still waiting for a Fallout (Post apocalyptic) style MMOG where I can be evil or nice or anything in between. Just create the world and let the players do the rest.
Linux O Muerte!
The reason the first Metroid was difficult would be the fact that you had NO MAP!!!
Sure you could create some bastardized atlas yourself on severla hundred pages of paper using nothing but fat Crayola markers, but really...I'd rather not go into the childhood trauma which was losing those maps.
---- Anyone can act smart, but it takes a smart person to act stupid. ----
This guy has got this issue right on.
I worked for a computer gaming software development company called Maximum Charisma Studios in 2001-2002. I was the systems and network engineer, doing all of the production and corporate infrastructure -- desktops, servers, Microsoft, GNU/Linux, WAN and LAN networking.
Maximum Charisma actually produced their first software title called Fighting Legends to store shelves, which was a huge accomplishment considering that we were independent. We had Sony manufacture the CDs and a few other things, but we handled distribution. We outsourced some customer service agents for the anticipated needs of customers, but that was about it. The company consisted of about 30 people at it's height.
Fighting Legends was supposed to be a Multiplayer Online Real Time Strategy (MMORTS) game. It required a network connection that I metered out to be an average of something like 25Kbps bursting to 80Kbps per user for the persistent connection. Latency was a big issue, with the edge of enjoyment being about 250ms.
There was trouble with Fighting Legends. The big mistake was design. The game was designed poorly because the company was inexperienced. It lacked story, it lacked refinement of play, and it lacked fun. The game was not fun, so nobody played it. I know the actual statistics of how many players we had, how many at one time, etcetera, but I am not going to quote them. Instead I will just say that we didn't have enough.
The overhead to keep the company going without the subscription cost meeting the break even point is what killed the company. We could have gotten more money, we could have really cut down on spending, we could have probably made it for the second title if it was not for the overhead costs of Fighting Legends. It was the data center costs that were the killer -- $900 per month per cabinet, and about $5K+ per month for power data and other service costs.
Maximum Charisma took about 2.5 years of development time. The product was on the shelf on November 1st of 2001. The company called it quits on January 29th 2002, even though the servers stayed up for almost two months after.
Here are is a picture from Maximum Charisma Studios of our data cabinets. This is off of a 1.5Mbps VDSL line, so be wary. And don't even tell me about cable management. We got those 65 some odd servers out of box, software loaded, and in the rack within 72 hours. It was a break neck operation. As for the hardware costs of all of this equipment that you see, it was something like $450K -- I still have the receipts to prove it.
http://www.Opendreams.net/jesse/images/Maxim
Here is the Maximum Charisma death notice;
http://pc.ign.com/articles/354/354578p1.