Alternative Distribution Schemes For The MMO?

Thanks to The Adrenaline Vault for its editorial discussing ways the MMO and online gaming industry can evolve beyond its current saturation levels. The author argues: "The structure of MMOGs all but requires consumers to choose one title to the exclusion of all others... so, how can game makers continue to use this business model without collectively suffocating?" Therefore, a solution is suggested: "Scale projects back and use episodic content instead. Under the drip feed model, users pay for gameplay in small chunks rather than a periodic access fee. For example, Resident Evil: Outbreak would have translated perfectly into this type of game because its scenarios are encapsulated and self-sufficient... This approach... requires much less in the way of maintenance costs and initial investment [and] provides entertainment in digestible bursts... which means more room in the marketplace for everyone to sell their wares."

Comments

Won't work.

[user no. 590291]

Pay per play is less appealing to the houses running the games, because there's not the potential for residual income from people who sign up, lose interest, and forget to cancel for a few months. That, and gamers would feel the sting of having to pay each time they "topped-up."

Re:Won't work.

[Snowmit]

Pay per play is less appealing to the houses running the games, because there's not the potential for residual income from people who sign up, lose interest, and forget to cancel for a few months.

I think that if your business model involves relying on people to forget to stop paying for your product after they're done with it, then you are NOT WORKING HARD ENOUGH.

Re:Won't work.

[Anonymous Coward]

(offtopic)
*cough*AOL*cough*

Re:Won't work.

[mwheeler01]

I think that if your business model involves relying on people to forget to stop paying for your product after they're done with it, then you are NOT WORKING HARD ENOUGH.

Well it's certainly not a perfectly straightforward and all together honest bussiness model but I'm sure companies make a lot of money from recurring payments that get noticed only after someone sees it on their bill 1 - 2 months later.

South Korea

[Apreche]

It is my understanding that in South Korea they have tons and tons more MMOs than we do. And while many of them are the same glorified chat rooms that we (don't) enjoy some of them are quite amazing. They have forced roleplaying. They have lists of characters predefined in a great story and you apply to take the roles of one you really like. People actually role play. This role playing cancels out the negatives of the treadmill style gameplay. Camping the fields for items != game. Heck, its as close as you can get to playing D+D without getting a bunch of bums in your friend's basement.

Keep in mind, this is just what I've heard about SK MMOs, I haven't actually seen a game like this. However, if it is untrue, it SHOULD exist. Set up an MMO world that plays like D+D. Heck, it could even be the freakin' forgotten realms. Then when people sign up either put them in parties or have them sign up in parties. Find a time each week they can play. For continuities sake make it so they have to start and stop at an inn. Hire dungeon masters to handle all the gameplay. It will be just like real D+D. You can make it episodic. And you will constantly come across people in other parties and your plots can intermingle. The mere presence of a DM assigned to your party will force role playing and remove treadmilling. Sure, you have to pay the DMs, but you can just charge more for the game since it is so high quality. And you can charge a per-campaign basis. You could even set a pricing model based on how often you want to play. If you want the DM there every night, more money. Once a week, average money.

Just take the idea and run with it. I've got to go to work :)

Re:South Korea

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this what Neverwinter Nights was trying to do? How successful was that, both in terms of retail sales and achieving the goal of getting people to roleplay? I don't hear much about it now, so I guess it disappeared (please correct me if I'm wrong though :)

Re:South Korea

[blueZhift]

Interesting. I wondew how much of the South Korean MMO scene is due to the culture there? That would make an interesting study. The main thing though, is the variety of play that you mentioned. For better or worse, the $40 box/download plus monthly fee is probably here to stay. It's just too expensive to operate the servers unless money is coming in up front. And until broadband becomes more prevalent and cheaper in the US (oddly enough SK has very high BB penetration), the market for MMOs will be restricted.

There have to be alternatives to the levelling treadmill. And there needs to be fresh content that all/most players can take part in on a regular basis. I'm a FFXI level 12 dilettante, mainly due to time constraints. But I'm still having a good time because there's new stuff on a regular basis and a lot of things to do other than killing monsters. Another MMO that may be getting it right is City of Heroes, which makes it very easy to jump right in and do interesting things. And COH makes it easy to hook up and play with friends regardless of player level with the sidekick function.

Re:South Korea

[llefler]

For better or worse, the $40 box/download plus monthly fee is probably here to stay.

The box price is lock-in. The cell phone industry business model.

Players won't try out new games on a whim because they have to pay $40-60 to do it. That cuts both ways for the providers; they don't lose as many players to new MMOs, but they have a harder time attracting new ones too.

My personal preference would be a free client, a monthly charge, and regular content additions. Then I might be inclined to subscribe to more than one MMO. I don't have time to play more than one, but I might play one this week and a different one next week.

Re:South Korea

[Blakey Rat]

There are MUDs in the US that do that right now and for free.

For instance, (shameless plug) Eternal Struggle MUD has nothing *but* roleplaying, including a RP-based combat system and a RP-based levelling system.

I'd love for the big MMORPGs to focus more on RP in their games, but that's just not going to happen, at least not for a long time.

Re:South Korea

[Thrikreen]

It's still very much alive, and a lot of digital distribution stuff is being planned by Bioware to continue to support it. The reason you don't hear as much is because, well, we're all too busy playing the game or making stuff.

Re:South Korea

[Psychochild]

Set up an MMO world that plays like D+D.

Just so you know I'm not talking out of my ass: I run my own subscription-based online RPG, Meridian 59.

The problem is one of cost. If you've run a D&D session before, you know how much time goes into running a good gaming session. It takes a lot of prep work to do a great gaming session.

This isn't so bad, but the problem is that people simply aren't willing to pay what this service is worth. Look at the people complaining about having to pay the box fee and a subscription fee in order to play online RPGs in this very thread. (Not that I don't agree with them; Meridian 59 has no "box fee" because we want to offer a good value.) Consider that a 5 hour session requires a minimum of 5 hours of prep work and that someone smart and tech-savvy enough to run a game like this could probably easily make $20/hour in a "real" job. Are you and your friends ready to spend $200 for a night's worth of entertainment? How many people do you think are willing to do that on a regular basis? Unfortunately, it seems there are very few people willing to do so.

A perspective from someone actually running one of these games. ;)

Have fun,

Re:South Korea

[miyako]

While what you say is true, I think there is a way for the parent's suggestion to work. The first thing is that each campaign does not have to be unique. Considering that the average campaign consists of maybe 5 people, 7 at the max. Since there are a LOT of people who have to play any given game for it to be profitable. Because of this it's completely feasible to have a set of maybe 20 or 30 pre-written quests of varying levels that players could take on. Outside of this, add a full standard MMORPG world for players to interact and create their own stories. Offer the standard game at a lower than normal rate, then have the quests as sort of an ala-carte add-on to the game. I don't think a company would have to higher a DM, if there were a way for players to report people who are not RPing well.

Re:South Korea

[grumpygrodyguy]

There are MUDs in the US that do that right now and for free.

MUDs are a great way to get the MMORPG "feel" without having to pay an arm and a leg for expansions and monthly fees.

There is one thing about MMORGs and MUDs that I find incredibly frustrating though. It seems that whenever I start playing a new MUD or MMORG I get really into it and sink ungodly amounts of time into my character...which includes a very careful study of the rules of the MUD universe...then after about 2 or 3 months of feverish gameplay some bum in charge of the MUD ends up nerfing my character class.

I mean, I put something like 2000 hours into some of these characters only to have the guy who runs the MUD arbitrarity decide that I'm too powerful and he nerfs my character. It sucks, and after having it happen several times I'm loath to return to MUDs or MMORPGs(EQ). (You might be saying it's my fault for powerplaying, but lots of people ENJOY powerplaying. It's a form of roleplaying, and if you don't want it in your MUD then design your MUD to exclude it so I don't waste my time playing your game). I just wish there was some solidarity to these virtual worlds, because ultimately the player base is at the mercy of the game designers. It's almost like a form of political servitude. You have to constantly petition and ass-kiss to make sure your player class gets its fair share of upgrades(big problem in EQ especially). I'm not saying there's an easy fix to this but it's a drag to worry about while playing.

When I load up Wasteland or Fallout or Diablo I at least know the rules won't change as I'm playing it...it's agravating to me that I'm shying away from online games because of this issue, but it's true. I almost prefer playing single-player games now simply because I don't have to worry about some pain in the ass admin ruining my fun.

Re:South Korea

[Blakey Rat]

(You might be saying it's my fault for powerplaying, but lots of people ENJOY powerplaying. It's a form of roleplaying, and if you don't want it in your MUD then design your MUD to exclude it so I don't waste my time playing your game).

We do. You'd give up on Eternal Struggle in about ten minutes... if you don't like to type emotes and interact with other players, there's nothing for you on ES.

But part of the problem is that there are a TON of MUDs and MMORPGs that cater to the obsessive-compulsive powergamer type, and very very few that cater to the person who wants the interaction and couldn't care less about the combat system or how many AC points your shirt has. That's what makes ES unique.

What incentive for the developers?

[Synkronos]

There are absolutely no incentives for the developers of quality titles to create an MMO environment that encourages playing multiple games. If you feel you have the best (or even just a good) title, you would rather have subscribers locked into your service. The only people who wouldn't want openness is people who have created mediocre or sub-par games, who are desperately hoping for a few people to try their games out for a little while, since they can't hope to captivate their audiences.

Re:What incentive for the developers?

[popcultureicon]

When I was a teenager, I wasted countless hours playing RPG's to all hours of the night. Now that I have a full time job, I just don't have the time necessary to devote to one of these massive games, and I therefore simply can't justify the subscription price. If content were episodic in nature, I would most likely be able to play some of these games again without worrying about the time commitment. If I bought it and didn't play it for more than 4 hours, it wouldn't matter as much.
Now I appreciate your assertion that this is a much less attractive revenue model from the producer's point of view, however, I'd be willing to bet there'd be a much larger audience for this.
Hell, don't the stats say that most game players are in their mid twenties now anyway? That demographic may have a lot more disposible income than teenagers, but they have a lot less time!

Re:What incentive for the developers?

[P_vWork]

If content were episodic in nature, I would most likely be able to play some of these games again without worrying about the time commitment.

This is a point that applies to most people I know. Gamers with lives.

The other incentive for developers is mitigating the risk of losing your players everytime the next big thing comes out. If your players aren't forced to pick one game to the exclusion of all others then people can play your game and that other one, instead of simply leaving yours for theirs.

Re:What incentive for the developers?

[Synkronos]

The other incentive for developers is mitigating the risk of losing your players everytime the next big thing comes out. If your players aren't forced to pick one game to the exclusion of all others then people can play your game and that other one, instead of simply leaving yours for theirs

The good developers will not be worried about losing their gamers. People who have been playing one good MMORPG for a long time will be very high powered and they will not just jump ship for no reason and lose it all. Some other game would have to be demonstrably far better than what they are playing currently for them to bite the bullet and change. I think you severely underestimate the ease with which people will switch.

Re:What incentive for the developers?

[P_vWork]

I think you severely underestimate the ease with which people will switch.

Actually, all of the gamers I know switch games whenever the next one comes out. Being that this is primarily a social activity they tend to follow their friends regardless of the time they've invested in something. Of the people I know who play MMOs regularly, they have switched from EQ to DAOC to SWG . They're now playing City of Heroes and they say they'll jump straight into WoW when it hits the streets.

MMO developers need to realize that any "loyalty" that their games command is only amongst the power-gamer minority. They're missing out on the enormous demographic of the casual gamer, to whom the time barrier of entry is simply way too big. There's millions of 25-35 year-old, 9-5 working, trying to start a family, ready-to-throw-my-money-at-something-cool people out there who simply don't have the time to invest in the current state of MMOs and don't feel like throwing away $15/mo for something they rarely use. These are the people that episodic gaming can bring in.

Re:What incentive for the developers?

[llefler]

MMO developers need to realize that any "loyalty" that their games command is only amongst the power-gamer minority.

I would have described it the other way. Power gamers are LESS likely to be loyal to a game. They burn through levels and content so quickly that they get bored and try new games. A gamer with only a few hours a week will stick around because they have to work harder to build a character. The thing that gets the average gamer is the repetitive nature of leveling that power gamers have ways of getting around.

Here is an example: Asheron's Call recently opened a new server. The power gamers are racing to see who can be the first to hit maximum level (126), and in a month, several are getting pretty close. (lvl 100+) As a more average gamer, my main character is in it's 20's. The power gamers are going to max out in less than 2 months and move on just as my character is maturing into it's interesting levels.

Just a gimmick.

[Bluesman]

The only way to make these things work is if success is based on player skill rather than how much time you've put in.

With a D&D style leveling model, this is always going to be impossible.

These games are always going to be glorified chatrooms until technology catches up and allows either much faster content creation or player skill based gameplay so that a relative beginner can be an asset to a group that's been playing a long time.

Re:Just a gimmick.

[Synkronos]

There is at least one MMOFPS out there - Planetside. I haven't played it myself so I'm not too sure how levelling up works, but I know that you do get some reward for playing.

Re:Just a gimmick.

[Synkronos]

Okay, from the Planetside manual:

Capturing bases, killing enemies, & destroying their equipment will give your character Battle Experience Points (BEP). As you accumulate these BEPs your character will go up in Battle Rank. As your character goes up in Battle Rank, you will earn Certification Points and Implant Slots.

* Certification points can be spent at Certification Terminals at the Sanctuary or at friendly Bio Labs to unlock access to various types of equipment, such as the Medical Applicator which allows you to heal injuries you or your friends may have suffered. Certifications also unlock access to vehicles such as the Basilisk or AMS (Advanced Mobile Station).

o By spending your Certification points, this is how you will begin to specialize your character. You could choose to go Heavy Assault and grab the tougher armors and bigger guns but then you might be dependent upon getting transported to the battle by others that have chosen to specialize in Piloting Vehicles. Or you could choose to be an Advanced Combat Medic with the ability to revive fallen comrades on the field or an Advanced Hacker with the ability to quickly hack your way into an enemy base. Or perhaps a smattering of all of the above? In any case, the choices you make are not permanent as you may unlearn certifications and choose others in their place via the "Unlearn" feature in the certification terminal.

* Implant Slots are where cybernetic devices known as Implants are surgically implanted within your character. These devices can endow you with super human abilities such as Surge, which allows for a brief but explosive burst of running speed or the Personal Shield implant, which when activated gives your character a temporary force field to protect them from damage. Your character can earn up to a maximum amount of three Implant Slots but beware, Implants when activated, can quickly use up your stamina leaving you drained and unable to run. Implants may be installed via Implant Terminals at the Sanctuary or friendly Bio Labs on any of the Battle Continents.

How about a little variety?

[hal2814]

It seems to me like every MMOG I've ever played is just the same MMORPG in a different setting. While change of scenery is nice, I'd like to see a little bit more variety than that. How about a MMO football or soccer game? I'd buy that in a second if it were at least decent. Maybe someone out could do a MMO casino. I think it would add a level of social interaction not found in the browser-based casino games. They probably wouldn't even have to charge a subscription for that one since the house should be taking enough in to pay for the servers.

Re:How about a little variety?

[llefler]

How about a MMO football or soccer game?

How would you do a Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game? It seems like you're limited to the number of players on the field at one time. Even with multiple games at any given time, you still have to deal with forced grouping of a very specific number of players playing at the same time/duration.

I can see multiplayer and online, but I think the massive part is going to be tough to design.

Re:How about a little variety?

[Blakey Rat]

That's actually kind of what Microsoft is going after with the XSN, XBox Sports Network. The idea being that it is basically a fantasy football/baseball/soccer/whatever game where you actually entire the game and use the multiplayer to play scheduled matches. I'm not sure how well it's caught on, but it's a great idea.

Re:How about a little variety?

[Arngautr]

go outside, for the love of god man, go outside!!!

Re:How about a little variety?

[hal2814]

The problems are really no different than the problems you would encounter when getting a neighborhood group or intramural group together to play. People might leave early. Enough people might not show up. People might show up late. The teams could be given options of what to do in those situations. They could play a man short, get to pick a player from the other team, etc. There could also be an option to sub in an AI player for a human as needed. The AI player could come out when a human wants to join in on the game as long as both teams agree on proper procedure.

The rules could be as laid back or as strict as the players dictate. You might have different substitution rules for a tournament than you do for an exhibition game.

Re:How about a little variety?

[slaker]

How about a naval battle simulator where the players each take an important function in running a ship? I could see this implemented with tall ships or a WWII setting or in a setting like "Star Trek" or "BattleTech" (especially since the latter could also then have a Mechwarrior-like 3rd person game and/or an RTS-like Mechcommander game).

How about an espionage/stealth-based game where players protect and steal information from one another, or an MMO based more closely on electoral politics (since that's what a lot of games degenerate into anyway)? Combine the two, even, and play out a game of continous organization and supression of surreptious rebellions, assasinations, riots and coups.

Re:How about a little variety?

[Doctor Cat]

You could let people play as fans sitting in the stadium, that would add tens of thousands of players that could participate in a single session. Beginners could start out by buying and eating hot dogs. Successfully completing "The Wave" would give experience points to all the participants - with enough advances on your Wave skill, you could do it without spilling any of your beer. Advanced players can try to subtly influence the impact of the game by hurling their empty beer bottles at the referees at strategic moments! When the next add-on pack comes out, you can look forward to shaking your pompoms as a cheerleader, playing the cocaine-snorting team owner in his private box, or if you master the secret bizarre combination of skills required you can play the most coveted character of all - stadium janitor.

Re:How about a little variety?

[bugbeak]

http://www.pangya.com -- if you can will yourself to navigate thru plenty of garbled korean text to try out a MMO golf game...

Here's my idea

[truffle]

As a gamer you pay a monthly subscription fee for a gaming service, the fee is something like $19.99 a month.

Any online game can choose to be covered under this service. If it is, you can play that game.

My $19.99 fee is then distributed proportionally to each of the game providers based on how much time I spent playing their game.

For example, in one month I might:
- Spend 10 hours playing MMO #1 ($10)
- Spend 5 hours playing MMO #2 ($5)
- Spend 5 hours playing team FPS game ($5)

My total allowed gameplay is unlimited, it's only the proportion of play that matters.

Unfortunately I don't think the publishers will ever agree to that, and unless the majority of fun online games was covered, it just wouldn't work.

Re:Here's my idea

[Teppy]

Skotos does this distribution method exactly.

Re:Here's my idea

[Pxtl]

Well, look at Steam. Steam is ultimately intended to be a monthly service you pay for in exchange for getting oodles of free games and content. This just migth be the future:

Games following the same distribution system as "cable companies". You "subscribe" to the company, and they give you access to their MMOs and downloads of their games. So one company may run several MMOs, and MMOs that are very intermittent in play (like a game where you have to spend most of your time resting and waiting for stuff to complete) would be viable as MMOs, as it would be only one of the many things your gamers do.

Re:Here's my idea

[Doctor Cat]

Sony is also offering a subscription plan like this. Right now it's $21.99 a month to get access to Everquest, Planetside, Infantry Online, Cosmic Rift, and Tanarus. It does NOT include access to Star Wars: Galaxies though. I imagine they'd have a lot more luck selling the package if it included two hit games - but I suspect the terms of their deal with Lucasfilm didn't give them enough flexibility to do that.

Re:Here's my idea

[herderofcats]

www.skotos.net does this now with the 11 games that it has. It charges $12.95 a month, but then allocates the royalties to all the games based on usage.

However, the calculation is more complex then a simple percentage of hours used, because that only incentivizes game designers to create games that consume user hours, rather then necessarily good games.

So they measure game interest based upon how many hours a player spends in the game, how regularly a player plays the game over the course of the month, how long a player has been playing the game over many months, and how much he says he likes the game. It's a calculation that's intended to be fair to lots of different games, not just the ones that encourage players to play 16 hours a day, 7 days a week.

-- Herder of Cats

Re:Here's my idea

[truffle]

sounds like skotos is run by smart people, that sounds great!

obv.

[h0mer]

How about giving the client away and only charging for the subscription? I know there are some smaller MMOs that do this. I would've probably tried one of the larger ones by now if I didn't have to give them $50 to start with.

NWN

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks fairly alive to me... nwvault.ign.com

Nifty idea

[MykeBNY]

I haven't played the Resident Evil game they're talking about, so I'm not sure how they're comparing it.

But it would be a nifty idea to scale back the monthly subscription to something small, like $5/month, and then just sell add-ons.

For example, you bring your shrinkwrapped game home, and with it is your first month subscription, and an invite to Noobland. Noobland seems pretty fun at first, but it doesn't have many higher-level enemies, and by the time a player gets to level 10, he's forced to buy access to the new L10-15 continent for $10.

Design it so the average gamer would be spending $10 a month in new things, in addition to monthly fees. That way, the power gamers would be burning through some serious cash in the game, to make up for the casual players, who really wouldn't use up much bandwidth anyway.

Most Annoying Part

[_Neurotic]

Is having to shell out $40-$50 for a retail box for most of the online games. If I'm paying $15-$20 month for a subscription, why should I have to walk down to my local CompUSA and pay $50 for a CD? They should be downloadable, period.

I can say that I probably would be a susbscriber to one or more games if it were not for the barrier of initial investment.

Re:Most Annoying Part

[joinder]

I totally agree. One of the biggest obstacles I see towards widespread MMO adoption is the current distribution model which emphasizes inital purchase of the "starter" set rather than giving it away.

The first "hit" should always be free. If you have a good product, you'll get them hooked.

Re:Most Annoying Part

[Psychochild]

One of the biggest obstacles I see towards widespread MMO adoption is the current distribution model which emphasizes inital purchase of the "starter" set rather than giving it away.

The problem has many levels.

First, most game purchases are made by people browsing games at the store. Go to your local large chain store and watch people in the game aisles. They look through different games and pick up boxes to look at the marketing on the back. If someone has $40 and I'm in the local Best Buy, they're probably not going to hold off on their purchase just to go check out download-only titles online. My own game, Meridian 59, allows you to download the client without a box purchase, but it's hard to get as much attention because you don't have the store presence, you don't have a store willing to advertise your game in their circular, and there's still an overriding perception that a game that is good will be available in the store not downloaded.

In addition, it's a question of investment. If you pay $40 for a box, you're going to stick with the game a bit longer. All games have learning curves, and online games are a bit worse because you sometimes have an audience as you fumble around the game. It's easy to get embarassed and frustrated. If you only paid $10 or even nothing for a free trial, you are more likely to quit out and not want to play the game again. A larger investment means that you will be more interested in learning the game in order to get your money's worth.

Further, some games just don't lend themselves well to free trials. Meridian 59 is a game that focuses more on PvP fighting than many other games. Allowing for a free trial means that players could distrupt paying customers with the trial accounts. Restricting the activities of these trial accounts means that they could not participate in the focus of the game. Plus you have to consider the additional customer service costs of allowing anonymous people to log onto your game easily; putting more restrictions on the signup will make less people interested in trying out the free trial. So, really, a free trial is sometimes not the answer.

There's a few other reasons, too, but I won't bore you with them. :) Needless to say, I've looked into this area a lot and have a bit of practical experience.

Have fun,

Re:Most Annoying Part

[_Neurotic]

Wow, great points Brian. If I could mod you up, I would.

Guild Wars

[wickedj]

Hmmm... I remember playing the E3 demo for Guild Wars. It's almost an MMORPG. The pricing scheme announced for this game seemed totally different from other MMORPGs and seems more desirable. Basically, you pay a one time fee for the basic game. Every few months, they release an expansion which allows for new classes, skills, areas, etc. You can buy the expansion or if you want to try out the new stuff for free, ask a buddy who has the expansion to invite you to a new area. All the content is streamed over the internet. The gameplay handles like Diablo 2. Check it out here.

Ahead of it's time: Majestic ?

[LordPixie]

Did anyone ever play Majestic ? This was the 'MMo' that attempted to integrate itself with your real life via faxes, phone calls, E-Mail, and WWW browsing. Think: The Game.

Besides its incredibly unique method of interaction, the gameplay was also structured into 'episodes'. I think they were officially called "Chapters". This was quite nice for several reasons. As mentioned in the article, you didn't need to devote yourself entirely to playing. But it also helped structure players together that are in roughly the same place in the game. It also allowed the developers to craete the content as the game went along. I was blessed to be one of the beta testers for Majestic, and new chapters were rolled out to us about a month before everyone else. That sort of development model can really cut down on the initial investment required for a MMO. It requires less content to start, and thus a quicker revenue stream.


--LordPixie

p.s.Did anyone else play this game ? I personally loved even the unpolished beta version I played. A real shame when it went under.

Re:Ahead of it's time: Majestic ?

[th3walrus]

Majestic showed the main reason that episodic online games don't work too well. The Majestic episodes were way too short and people got bored with it quickly.

Also, the interaction with most other players in the game was actually detrimental to the game experience. You were supposed to be able to team up with other players to solve clues and what not, but most of the time the other players you talked to would straight out spoil the game for you by telling you everything you needed to solve everything.

When people would contact me to ask me about stuff in the game I would always play as if I were in on things and give them cryptic hints and tips to try and keep the game interesting for them. Mostly they'd just get pissed off at me and go on to someone who would just give them all the answers.

It was a really fun and deeply interactive game that I wish would have survived. Unfortunatly they just couldn't keep the content coming quick enough and keep it varied enough that players wouldn't ruin the game for each other.

Re:Ahead of it's time: Majestic ?

[LordPixie]

Majestic showed the main reason that episodic online games don't work too well. The Majestic episodes were way too short and people got bored with it quickly.

I think the slow/boring charge has less to do with the episodic content as it did the gameplay itself. It was designed to be tied into the real quite heavily - and unfortunately, stuff isn't always happening. So you might want to play, except that the characters are all stuck in a van twiddling their thumbs during a cross-country road trip. It certainly adds to the immersion, but it's nothing like your normal MMOG. And this is what really killed the game. Their target audiance was the relatively hardcore MMOG player, who will be bored shitless with the gameplay. But to anyone with a busy schedule and limited time, it fits in perfectly.

Unfortunately, you've got a very good point in regards to the community. Like any online game, they can really make or break the fun. Solving Majestic's (Or any MMOG's) puzzles was twice as enjoyable when it's done in a group. But that assumes everyone is equally ignorant. The inability to ensure that all participants are at the exact same place likely means that plot/puzzle based online games aren't going to do very well.


--LordPixie

Why per month and not per level?

[whitepony02027]

The whole idea of playing per month is what keeps me from plaing MMO's in the first place. I go to school and work in two different cities that are 2 hhours apart. Driving between the 2 takes up valuble playing time that i would still be paying for under the pay per month model. I think things would be much better if i could pay for a group of levels. Like $10 keeps me playing until i get my character to level 30. Then I have to pay another $10 to add more levels on to that. This way if i can't play for a month for whatever reason my money isn't just thrown away.

Re:Why per month and not per level?

[Synkronos]

Play on a laptop with some form of wireless connectivity :P Just beware of the traffic cops

Re:Why per month and not per level?

[Creepy]

Unfortunately, that's really not in the best interests of the companies involved. They want you continuously forking over money as long as you have any interest in the game - with the threat that if you don't pay 'em, your character or characters are erased. Basically, it's a creative form of extortion.

Re:Why per month and not per level?

[whitepony02027]

I agree that having a bunch of users leave your server space full of characters that aren't being used in the hopes that people return and buy another level expansion is way off base. What if they left a time frame where you would get emails letting you know that if your account is left inactive for say 2 months (more or less) your information would be terminated? The extra bonus of this method is that when it comes time to eBay your character you have a base flat rate to charge. I think this will make the idea of selling your character more attractive and cause more people to do so. This will mean that people will be able to step straight into games like Final Fantasy XI where ever they want without the need to level up to buy some world pass to play in the same place as their friends. You could just buy a character on the server you wanted at a level equal to your friends and start playing.

Re:Why per month and not per level?

[leapin13]

I have worked my virtual butt off to build my FFXI character up. It's not that hard to find a party, especially on weekends. I might not catch up to my friends, but that isn't the point. I take pride in the skills my character has as I have earned them myself. I really dislike people purchasing characters. Part of building your character is a learning curve to playing the game as well.
Just my two gil :)
As far as the pricing, i wouldn't mind the 10 - 15 dollar monthly fee, (I a am 28, married and work FT, and still log around 40-50 hrs on the game too per week.) Its the upfront cost, I don't think it needs to be $50, that right there has kept me from other MMOs until I watched a friend play FFXI on PS2 and i feel in love with the game. Still took me awhile to make that kind of initial investment though.

Re:Why per month and not per level?

[whitepony02027]

I think if square or some other company could set up a place of auction to buy and sell characters and for them to net a small profit in the process they would. don't get me wrong i too love the idea of building up my own character and all the work that goes into it. However, do you think if another game came along that you also fell in love with you would still be able to keep playing FFXI at the same pace? I just think it would be nice to see that if i wanted to move on to another game i could try and get some of my investment in the older game back. I too think that the initial fee to buy the game is way to high. I would imagine it should be more in the $20 range with the first set of play time (whatever that might be) free.

Slowly but surely getting there...

[Soukyan]

SOE currently offers their All Access Pass :

"If you play more than one SOE game, or you want to try the other great SOE games available, SOE All Access opens the SOE game catalog to you.

SOE All Access grants access to all current games published by SOE*, which includes: EverQuest® EverQuest® Macintosh Edition PlanetSide EverQuest® Online Adventures Station Pass access, which includes the popular games Infantry Online, Cosmic Rift and Tanarus

Full access to these games for the low monthly subscription price of $21.99 is a potential savings of more than $18.00 every month over the total cost of the individual subscriptions!"


PlayNC (NCSoft) does not offer such a deal but is a central site for managing your online game subscriptions and I imagine once Guild Wars, Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault and others are released, we may start to see some special offers from them as well.


Skotos has been offering this type of service for a long time. For one monthly fee you can access and play all 11 of the games that they offer. Only 2 are graphical MMOGs (Meridian 59 and Underlight), but the other games are very good as well.


The largest factor in offering multiple "A list" titles for one monthly fee is offsetting development (and in the case of MMOGs, maintenance) costs and bringing in enough revenue to show a good profit. The bottom line is always a driving factor in any business. However, there is hope. As technology moves forward, we will start to see more and more rapid development of MMOGs of higher quality and consequently we should start to see a wider array of offerings and price points.


I also agree that some sports games should start to appear on the scene. XBox Live will probably be a driving factor to this more than anything. Playing football online against other players is quite fun and should prove to be very popular considering the amount of sports console games sold. Now, as to whether that genre will move to PC is yet to be seen, but as I mentioned before, in SOE's All Access Pass, they combine online console and PC subscriptions into one package. A diverse product line benefits them in this case. More comapnies need to grow in the genre and diversify at the same time, but that takes time and money. Soon though... very soon.

Re:Slowly but surely getting there...

[Psychochild]

Skotos has been offering this type of service for a long time.

I'd make note that we make significantly more money on the Meridian 59 servers we host ourselves than the ones we licensed to Skotos. The Skotos server is a bit different (it's the non-PvP version compared to our PvP-focused servers) so it's not necessarily a direct comparison.

That said, I think there's more room for indie developers than people might otherwise think. The biggest thing is that the market needs to support the games the indies develop. A Tale in the Desert and Puzzle Pirates also offer innovative and interesting gameplay you won't find in the larger, heavily-marketed online RPGs.

Have fun,

p2p

[Basje]

All the MMO's I've seen require a central (bunch of) servers. This brings costs with it, which have to be earned back through fees. Thus the fees will be relatively high, prohibiting irregular recreational play.

Why not develop a p2p based MMO, where everybody conncects to a number of fellow players? That way, the operational costs could be significantly lowered. Fees could be much lower, more players would join, and MMO's would be profitable to run with much fewer players.

I understand there are issues with crackers and cheaters, but those are only obstacles which I'm sure can be solved.

Re:p2p

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly what Guild Wars has done. The town areas are massive, in that many people can be there, but when you go off into an instanced mission with a group, it switches over to p2p.

That's why it has no monthly fee.

Re:p2p

[IndigoDarkwolf]

I know it sounds like a really good idea at first, but imagine what a single jerk could do to a group of unsuspecting gamers in a p2p environment... ick.

Maybe if Trusted Computing (read: Microsoft becomes the rightful owner of your soul) comes to pass, that would be feasible.

Re:p2p

[Doctor Cat]

I thought about this kind of model a long time ago. The main issue for me however, even bigger than cheating, was that you can't control quality of service. Someone whose connection to you is suffering from major netlag, dropped connections, or bandwidth problems because they're foolishly trying to host 100 people on a dialup modem are going to make the game often become frustrating. As the game developer, people's overall perception of whether "your game is fun or non-fun", whether they want to try your next game, whether they think you're cool or you suck, and whether they want to buy anything from you, that's all impacted by whether they're getting inconsistent and/or lousy performance from the network. Especially in the mid 90s, when we were starting out with DragonSpires and Furcadia, it was a pretty safe bet that many/most people would get lousy quality of service. Today I would imagine it'd be significantly better, but still not as good as you can get by paying for a good high quality server farm at a hosting site with good private peering and lots of fiber.

Splitting up a res. evil game would be horrible!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see it now:

Congratulations! You've beaten off the zombies!

Now reach for your credit card.

The Death Spiral Begins...

[Anonymous Coward]

Face it, right now, the whole MMOG thing is fueled by hype, not reality.

The reality is that there is a finite amount of people who have the time and money to participate in these games, and it costs a ton to develop and run these games. At some point, things will start 'not adding up'.

I predict that companies will soon start cutting back on things to make things work financially, and then the cuts will cause the audience to shrink more, and then all of the games will enter a death spiral.

So everyone should play any game currently online like it may be the last...

Subscription Pricing like ISP

[leapin13]

Why not charge for hours of use per month. Like the pricing for dial-up, unlimited hrs is $20, 40 hrs is $10 and 20 hrs is $5, my DSL has tiers of service also. With all the information I had to give to play FFXI I am sure they could track hours of use. Just have Tiers that consist of hours of play, or levels would work too. But in FFXI for instance, you could get alot of mileage out of your characters job level, by just working on crafting and not building xp, which is why i suggest buying packages of hours, or tiers of hours per month. Just my two gil:)

Planetside

[EarwigTC]

Planetside is definitively different. While it often gets billed as a FPS, it's really more of a tactical game of cooperation. I don't really like most FPS games, but I enjoy Planetside.

MMOGs are fun when you can affect the world around you... in Planetside, you do this more than any other current game of which I know.