Year in MMORPGs Reviewed

Grimwell.com has an excellent piece on the past year in the MMORPG scene. It highlights the best, worst, and in-between as regards Massively Multiplayer Online Games. From the article: "I have never played so many different MMORPGs in one year before. This is one of the defining features of 2004: an abundance of choice in the MMORPG market like never before. While a few games, like Earth and Beyond and minor independent ones, closed their servers, most games from previous years are still available."

Comments

Many new games, none of them really new.

[Golias]

I enjoyed City of Heroes for a while, because I liked the genre, but it still ended up being "Everquest in tights." One oddity of CoH was that, like most MMORPGs, it gave no experience or rewards for defeating low-level opponents with a high-level character, so you ended up having hundreds of "heroes" in mighty-looking capes casually jogging by as old ladies getting mugged were screaming for help.

I now play World of Warcraft for the simple reason that most of my friends who play such games are playing WoW, and I would rather game with them than a bunch of strangers. There seem to be a lot of nice evolutionary touches, but it's still really just a new skin on the same old Nethack.

I'm still waiting to see what the "next big thing" in MMORPGs will be. I don't see much evidence that the answer is coming in 2005.

Then again, I'm one of those jerks who sits down at just about every single mouse-controled FPS deathmatch game, frags a few people, and says "meh... I played this game already, back when it was called Quake."

Something for the adults?

[Shihar]

The year might be considered 'diverse' next to previous years, but the truth is, only a few companies offered up anything new on the formula. You basically can cut MMORPGs between the Everquest arch type, the space arch type, and small time odd ball like puzzle pirates. Unfortunately, the only companies that have truly tried to innovate and change the generic MMORPG formula have been smaller companies that lack the resources to really go all out.

The major MMORPGs are defined by the leveling treadmill and dice roll based combat, pure and simple. WoW might have refined the treadmill, and AO might have thrown it in a new setting, but the core game play is the same. I don't know about anyone else, but I am burnt out and annoyed.

Gamers are thought of as kids under the age of 18. How you make a game for someone under the age of 18, and how you make a game for someone with a job and a wife are two very different thing. The thing that is being discovered is that the only reason why we have the misconception that games are for kids is because the first generation of video games was embraced by younger folks. Those people have grown up now, but they have certainly not out grown games. On the contrary, they are the best market out there. Not only do they love games, but they have a big fat wad of cash and consider 50 dollars spent on a video game to be nothing. They don't care if they shell out 20 a month for a subscription based game that they like. For some reason though, MMORPGs seem determined not to appeal to these people.

When I was young, I could afford to spend 8 hours a day on the computer. A game like Everquest was perfect. I had the time and the patience to blow large hunks of my day at some leveling treadmill when I can load of CS or Unreal and start kicking ass instantly. I am older and richer now. I can't afford to waste that much of my time, but I am willing to pay significantly more to be entertained.

I like MMORPGs. I like the social aspect of such games. I like the massive persistent worlds. I like that there are things to do besides killing. I just fucking hate having to 'level up', 'pay my do', 'work', or whatever the fuck you want to call it. My time is more valuable then the time of some 14 year old boy who can spend 18 hours a day on the damn computer every day, yet I have pay the same amount of time to get the same things that he gets. Rationalize the reasons why you should have to waste that much time on an MMORPG all you want, but me and people like me hate it. Period.

What I want is an MMORPG with all the basic ingredients of an MMORG, I just want the damned experience/leveling/skill/treadmill systems and the combat systems stripped. Gut the damn MMORPG and fill its innards with a Half Life 2/FarCry/Thief style engine. Imagine if your thief character really had to sneak around like you were Garret from Thief. Imagine if swordplay was fast paced like Jedi Knight. Imagine if your archer snuck around firing and running like in FarCry. Then imagine after a hard day of fighting you could go kick it back in a bar or craft Puzzle Pirates style. Maybe for the economically inclined there could be an economic game like Rail Road Tycoon (or whatever) underneath. Perhaps there is also a A Tail in the Desert style player senate and politics. Maybe there is even a little Command and Conquer style tactical commanding.

Whatever the case, there is a lot more out there then whack the mole RPGs. It is too bad no MMORPG makers have grown some balls to do something more creative then a leveling treadmill (WoW, Everquest, SWG) or tribes with a larger battlefield (PlanetSide). I suppose in the end it isn't all bad. With some many MMORPGs out there that I don't want, that leaves more money to go to games like Half Life 2.

Re:Something for the adults?

[Golias]

With the old pencil-and-paper RPGs, the levelling concept makes sense. The combat is all storytelling and imagination, and levelling allows a mechanism for your character to "get good" at fighting dragons or facing other challeges.

But video games have a proud legacy of combat and action simulations. There's no need roll random numbers to determine whether your character managed to time his jump right to get across the chasm. The player tries to do it, and succeeds or fails. Plan your tactics just right, and you (along with your friends) might have a shot at defeating the big dragon.

I completely agree with you that a game engine in which you do things (rather than hit a button and have the computer randomly tell you whether you did things, based on how many things your character has done and/or attempted) would be much more fun.

If the gameplay is sufficiently fun, no "rewards" system is really even needed. Given a choice between doing something fun and getting no artificial rewards, and doing something tedius to get some numbers associated with my character to become higher, I'd rather go with the "have fun" option.

Re:Something for the adults?

[Khuffie]

This whole "click on stupid rat thing and wait for it to die" kind of game play is really what puts me off from all the MMORPGs: frankly, it's extremely boring. When I'm forced to do so for hours on end just to level up my charater, it gets ridiculous.

I've played the WoW, EQ2, Guild Wars and City of Heroes betas. The first three never really held my interest: the CoH was a real step in the right direction. Besides the absolutely kickass character creation screen, there was a bit more strategy in fighting, especially when you were in groups. It was fast-paced, and more importantly it was fun. I didn't play it much though, as I had to leave the country with no internet/pc...shame.

What would be cool is something along Jedi Outcasts 'dueling' system in the multiplayer games. Would be great if an MMORPG implemented something like this: youd have the normal world, with buying, selling, living, all that jazz. Whenever you'd go in a fight with either a player or an enemy, you'd go into 'duel' mode, which basically means everything around you is irrelevant. That would open up the opportunity of focusing the bandwith being sent on the fight at hand, which would allow for far more interesting battles than the good old "click on mouse thing and wait for it to die".

Re:Something for the adults?

[realdpk]

Planetside, while being entirely PVP, offers what you want (except the character creation screen, which is stuck in the 90s). Strategy in fighting, it's fast paced, and while fun is "objective" I think it's quite fun. Needs more players though. :)

Re:Something for the adults?

[Attaturk]

What I want is an MMORPG with all the basic ingredients of an MMORG, I just want the damned experience/leveling/skill/treadmill systems and the combat systems stripped. Gut the damn MMORPG and fill its innards with a Half Life 2/FarCry/Thief style engine. Imagine if your thief character really had to sneak around like you were Garret from Thief. Imagine if swordplay was fast paced like Jedi Knight. Imagine if your archer snuck around firing and running like in FarCry. Then imagine after a hard day of fighting you could go kick it back in a bar or craft Puzzle Pirates style. Maybe for the economically inclined there could be an economic game like Rail Road Tycoon (or whatever) underneath. Perhaps there is also a A Tail in the Desert style player senate and politics. Maybe there is even a little Command and Conquer style tactical commanding

Sounds like you're looking for Roma Victor. It's historical, aimed at a more mature player, has twitch combat, politics, crafting like ATITD, no levels, and lots of resource management.

My bias is of course declared in my sig but it does sound like exactly the kind of thing you're looking for.

Re:Something for the adults?

[Shihar]

Half the point of the MMORPG is growing your character. That's half the point of any RP game. Throw out that part and what's the point, anyway? Imagine if in the Legend of Zelda you started out with all the items and heart containers! Wouldn't that be fun! No, wait, it would suck. Half the fun is watching Link grow and being able to take on larger and harder challenges.

Part of the paradigm shift that people are utterly unable to move away from is that an MMORPG (or RPG for that matter) needs to have levels and all of that other crap. That stuff is a crutch. Fallout would have been absolutely amazing RPG, even if there was not a single skill in the game, combat was FPS, and skills were puzzles. There has been a distinct fear (maybe terror is a better word) of trying to meld action and role playing. That is role playing spelled with an E, not roll playing with dice.

The building up of a character to near god hood is all well and good if you are playing D&D with your friends. It is even stomachable if it is a single player RPG. The problem comes in when you try and keep this concept into the multiplayer realm. Not everyone can be a god, but MMORPGs sure as hell try regardless. What they are missing is that you are not feeling a sense of being an awesome hero rising up in an MMORPG like you do in a game like Zelda. You just feel the compulsive urge to level up, knowing that with the exception of a few children who have 18 hours a day to spend on the computer, you will never be that awesome hero who looks at people and makes them die. So, you have a combat system built for heroes, but a game that crushes them with the reality that you need to be a complete loser in life or child to get there.

What these games need to do is get rid of the hero mentality and build a game around a world where everyone is mortal, and any idiot with a knife can kill you if you are caught off guard. More importantly though is the inverse, an idiot like you can kill the greatest player in the world if you catch him by surprise.

An MMORPG is a massively unbalanced game. A monkey with a level 50 character couldn't die to an expert with a level 1 character if he tried. All that I want is a game that puts balance first. This sort of world doesn't have to rule out progress or character development. The idea is to instead focus on balance and fun. If one guy is completely and utterly incapable of killing another guy even after he goes AFK for 10 minutes, chances are your game is massively unbalanced. Character development can certainly include things outside of a few numbers or a score card. Character development includes joining organizations, politics, exploration, team work, PvP, and a whole slew of other things that don't revolve around experience, levels, and a boring combat engine.

I know people have a hard time believing this, but MMORPGs (and RPGs in general) are NOT defined by having a worthless combat engine. Bad combat doesn't make a game a role playing game. Perhaps technical challenges are a valid excuse for lack of imagination in MMORPGs. That said, those technical challenges are quickly evaporating. Raw number crunching and data sending capabilities continue to increase at a rapid rate. If there is a barrier, it isn't going to be there for much longer. It is just going to take a few people to break out of the clone mentality. Right now the MMORPG world feels like déjà vu of the state of video gaming after Doom. Everyone and their dog wants to repeat what has already been done, and no one has the balls to step up and move forward.

Re:Something for the adults?

[Golias]

Half the point of the MMORPG is growing your character. That's half the point of any RP game.

All of the point in a RP game is RP. If you don't find joy in roleplaying, you're just a lab-rat pulling on the lever which randomly rewards you with pleasure pills.

Levelling is meaningless. You get bigger numbers on your character, and fight pictures of monsters which require bigger numbers to fight, with a net change in the challenge of zero.

Roleplay is a fun pastime in which you and others collectively tell a story for each others' amusement. Levelling for the sake of levelling is an addictive (or rather, obsessive/compulsive) behavior which offers little to nothing in the way of real-life rewards.

Re:Something for the adults?

[*weasel]

Or maybe he's just looking for something without the repetition?

Killing hundreds of blue foozles just to advance to the point where you can kill hundreds of red foozles is not some golden game design. You know what the core difference is between an RPG and a FPS is? Nothing. They're not mutually exclusive.

An RPG is just a game with a strong story context. Look at Thief, System Shock, Deus Ex, or GTA even. They're RPGs. There's just no level treadmill, and the combat resolution in each game is different from the D&D standard. But there's a strong story, character development, and immersion.

There's nothing wrong with the standard game designs per se. They're just wrong for some people. And when those people wish aloud for something different, it isn't any sort of threat to the established standard. No-one has to take your games away to make something new. So why do you care if they want something different; even if, in your opinion, it isn't an RPG or MMORPG that they want?

Casual Gamers Won In 2004

[EngineeringMarvel]

I played FFXI from Oct of 2003 to Feb of 2004. While I enjoyed the game, it is not casual gamer friendly since getting anything done requires time slots of atleast an hour. I then played Star Wars Galaxies from July 2004 to Sept 2004. That game lacked content and bug fixes more than anything else. As soon as the Star Wars part wore off of me, the dullness of the game sunk in.

In comes World of Warcraft. Wow, what a relief. This game is ideal for people like me. You can actually play for 30 minutes and get a lot done. WoW also has in game documentation that gets rid of all the guessing. Another biggie for casual gamers, we don't have the time to try 100 things just to get item we want. In short, casual gamers now have an excellent choice for MMORPGs that fit to our gaming style. Before, I'm not sure there was, so either way, the casual gamer gains a new game type in 2004 (even though it existed for several years before). Besides, I don't think too many veteran MMORPGers will mind seeing SOE losing profits after the type of customer satisfaction they have gotten in the last year.