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EverQuest And The Skaff Effect Explored
Thanks to the QT3 forums for pointing to a Bastion Press column discussing why EverQuest and its sequels may always be the most popular MMORPG series. The author argues that EverQuest, though not without its problems, is good at keeping up with the competition: "Sony learns from other products released into the marketplace, and they continue to watch new developments from new games and absorb the more innovative features." This is all part of what he calls 'The Skaff Effect', referencing a similar phenomenon seen in another genre: "Despite a number of very good games in the tabletop RPG marketplace, none of them have ever managed to topple D&D as the #1 game in the field. Skaff Elias (one of the guys behind the Magic revolution) hypothesized that any new game released into a marketplace dominated by one brand would only serve to drive more consumers to that brand."
While in pure dollars, none have managed to topple D&D, many have stolen large numbers from its playerbase. In the article (yes I did RTFA) they mention that while new games coming out may be innovative, they will never steal a significant portion of EQs 500,000 playerbase. Let me give an example of why this may not necessarily hold true.
Whitewolf.
If the points made in this article were true, D&D would have absorbed the innovative features Whitewolf games have, and Whitewolf would be histroy. Yet Whitewolf has its own thriving playerbase that grows every day, in large part due to their many innovations (LARP?). There are always exceptions, and the points made in this article are most CERTAINLY not the rule.
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The addictiveness of everquest (besides the social contacts) is an unhealthy amount of player competition. (players compete against players to beat X, rather then players competing against X) The hardcore players aren't playing to have fun, but because they have something to prove.
/. ID make me inferior?
A lot of the hardcore players play because they need to get to the top and stay on the top. They'll even resort to sabotaging other guilds (In everquest such as racing to kill key mobs they don't need, just so another guild can't get access to a zone). I wouldn't classify it as griefing since their goal is not to cause misery, but to remove the competition.
This is why everquest is so popular, because in the other games it's relatively easy to reach the peak. The players then realize they're only a big fish in a small pond. When a game is first released you'll see the players racing to the top in a most unhealthy manner, only to quit when they reach the top. Afterall, if you're going to try to the compensate for the size of your.. shoes, you'll want to show off where there's a large playerbase.
Furthermore Everquest is one of the only MMORPG's that doesn't rank players. This allows players to make their own arbitrary rankings to skew it whichever way they want. Most of the MMORPG's give a score (such as pvp kills) which means less dispute over who is the most L33T. "We killed super_mob_a first" "Well we killed super_mob_a with only 30 people" "Ha! but you used cheap_method_B, you're pathetic!" They can argue forever when ranks are subjective...
I stopped playing MMORPG's when I realized I was buying into that attitude that one has to compete against someone that is not their enemy. Unfortunately the MMORPG encourages this competition more then any other gaming genre.
But our whole society is based on ranking people.. does my High
I think this dynamic holds true for software as well. Embrace and extend anyone?
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
I kind of exemplified the Skaff Effect in my own habits. I'd started with alternative PnPRPGs (RIFTS and a half-hearted attempt at designing my own) before moving into D I'd proudly collected the ST:TNG CCG before I realized that nobody played that and everyone was playing Magic instead.
But in terms of MMOs? I doubt it. I tried twice to get into EQ (two years ago to the day and again last year, around November) and found it tedious, anti-social, and with far too steep a learning curve. I started FFXI a month and a half ago and wouldn't dream of going back now; having progressed further than I ever did in EQ, having enjoyed the company of my fellow player FAR more than in EQ, and finding the experience more newbie-friendly than EQ. Almost everyone I've spoken to in my limited experience agrees.
It may have some merit, but to be honest I really don't think so, MMORPGs being somewhat different from other products.
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Contrary to this assertion, Everquest and D&D succeed based on their design. Not their entrenched positions.
they are the easiest games in their genres to pick up, play, and put down. The rules are very simple, straightforward, and hard to get 'wrong' in the beginning.
Sure, there are tactics that make a big difference in the end games, but the gamer is given a long time to figure these things out.
Contrarily, you can much more easily screw up a Hero-system character long before you ever play. And many other games seem to use complexity as a reward in and of itself. Complexity for its own sake.
This complexity seems to be the dividing line between casual and hardcore gamers.
As we all know the more casual gamers are more numerous, so it shouldn't be a surprise that if your game design is to take D&D but remove the archetypes, change the fiction, and add a more complex combat system, you're going to wind up not doing as well. Indeed, you may actually attract people to your game, who are put off, but like the genre itself, and gravitate toward the more consumer-friendly game.
This isn't to say they're the -best- games in their genres, just to say that they are certainly not sustaining their strength from being the first arriver. Everquest quite frankly was the third commercially supported 3d massmog. but it was friendlier to the mass market consumer than UO, and M59 before it.
When a massmog design hits that is both appealing and friendly to the mass market gamer, and still provides the depth of experience the hardcore gamer requires - it will overtake everquest. It's as simple as that. The network effect has weight on pulling people -to- a game, but not keeping them.
Indeed, Everquest's primary weakness, is the number of people who have played and left. This suggests there is room for improvement in appealing to the more casual gamer.
And if you appeal to the more casual gamer, you probably won't 'kill' any other massmog out there. But your numbers will certainly dwarf theirs, and push them firmly out of the genre-leading position.
The problem currently is that everyone either tries to directly emulate the leader in a slightly different genre, or they try to make gameplay advances through complexity.
Poker, Hearts, Chess -- the most endearing and widely appealing games in western culture (the only one i know enough to speak intelligently about) have very straightforward rules that make them easy to learn. Yet they harbor a depth to gameplay that modern role playing games and massmogs seem to miss in their never-ending quest for loot and levels.
Personally i think the number 1 reason for the seperation, is the longstanding tradition that in roleplaying games (online and off) a player who has been playing longer (higher level, higher skills, whatever) is nearly infinitely more powerful than one who just began -- not because of the player's ability, but because of the resources heaped upon them.
imagine playing cards against a euchre player who got to keep every trump card he was ever dealt. you simply would never be able to win.
in the cooperative sense, he would never play with you as his partner, for your lack of trump cards would be a liability in any competition he found challenging for his hand.
also consider that the truly interesting and exciting stuff is almost always reserved for those at the high end of this power scale.
The new gamer has to trudge through a level grind of killing rats and bats to get to the point where teamwork matters, and -his- ability can be challenged.
EQs numbers primarily show that -most- people who try massmogs are not looking for the level grind, though many more hardcore gamers are more than pleased with it.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Maybe, but it can't just be dominance alone, since Ultima Online was the only game in town for some time, and now they have been displaced. So clearly it's not enough to just be dominant for the Skaff effect to take hold. Probably it has to do with overall (absolute) popularity as well.