John Smedley On the Future of MMOGs

RosethornKB writes "John Smedley, President of Sony Online Entertainment, wrote a letter about SOE's look to the future. In it, Smedley asks some questions about virtual children, skill based combat and player created content. KillerBetties.com posts a response to his questions. From the article: "What if you could have families in MMO's? Virtual Children... What if your characters could have children and pass on the family name...This is a very vague idea and I'm not sure if he words it that way on purpose or not. The concept of Virtual Children and passing on the family name isn't new. For example, upcoming Limitless Horizons MMO Mourning has had it in their design since the game first was announced. Their system is actually very interesting in theory."" Grimwell.com has commentary on SOE's recent activities.

Comments

I'm really not sure what the future holds...

[Goronmon]

Its tough to know what the future of MMOGs hold when you consider how little the genre has changed since the Everquest days. I mean, really, look at the gameplay elements of the first 3d games, Everquest and Asheron's Call 1...the games coming out today play almost the same exact way. In fact, you could almost consider games today a step back, since in AC1 you could at least dodge projectiles and spells if you wanted to.

I mean, yeah, sure, the games have gotten better, but mostly in terms of graphics. The core of these games is still about creating a character, running at mobs and hitting a bunch of icons on the interface to use different skills. Aside from the gameplay, the environment is still about the same. Quests are getting better, but they are still as simple as "Go here and kill this." with some little variation thrown in.

Another pet peeve of mine is character creation where you have to choose your characters skill set before you even get to play the game. I wish a game was open-ended where you could dabble in different areas as you went on, before deciding what to actually stick to. I want game rules like PvP that are determined by in-game repurcussions, not by hard-coded limits by the developers.

I guess I just see tons of this untapped potential for MMOGs that just isn't being realized. Everygame seems to tought its one big, new "feature" that is really just a mild improvement on what was done previously.

Re:I'm really not sure what the future holds...

[Durinthal]

Funny.. a lot of MUDs have been around for years that have the skill development after creation deal, not to mention the virtual family concept mentioned in the article. I'm honestly wondering why they're still so much more detailed than visual MMOs.

Re:I'm really not sure what the future holds...

[Jameth]

You'd be right about them being largely unchanged if you started at EQ, which really isn't reasonable if you consider how successful UO was. It may be dead now (only 21 servers and an average of around 20,000 players on at a time, not including the free servers), but UO was huge in its day and really kicked off the MMOG market.

So, Ultima Online had:

PvP with in-game repurcussions that worked adequately (bounties, murder counts, reputation, etc...)

Skills that were determined during gameplay (you have a percent score for each skill, you can start with three skills with a total of 100 points and none over fifty), raising in skill level just by using the skill, rather than by putting points towards it.

Statistics (Str/Dex/Int) determined the same as skills.

Skill and stat atrophy (it was fine once they let you control locking and so-such) so that you could not get infinitely good by mastering every skill, but rather had to find your own balance and maintain it. However, you could freely switch skill lines with only a little work.

Whether for better or worse, MMOGs have changed a lot since the beginning.

Re:I'm really not sure what the future holds...

[RosethornKB]

Try A Tale in the Desert :)

Re:I'm really not sure what the future holds...

[Attaturk]

I wish a game was open-ended where you could dabble in different areas as you went on, before deciding what to actually stick to. I want game rules like PvP that are determined by in-game repurcussions, not by hard-coded limits by the developers.

I feel (see sig) obliged to point you in the direction of this, which certainly fits that description.

Re:I'm really not sure what the future holds...

[ajs]

What the future holds for MMOGs is uncertain, as you say, but it certainly will not involve SOE unless they do something dramatic to demonstrate to the gamers of the world that they have changed.

I played EverQuest for four years, and in that time it went from a fairly story-driven game with GMs who at least made an effort to incorporate players into the storyline to a pay-per-dungeon-crawl that had almsot no GMs and very little customer-focus (they changed this a bit just before I quit, but it was far too little, far too late).

When EQ2 came out, almost everyone I knew was in one of two camps: the "I've never played EQ, so I don't need to start" camp and the "another SOE game?!" camp.

For those who wish to learn from SOE's mistakes: yes, customers whine, cheat and otherwise behave poorly, but keep in mind that that ill behaved mass of complaints is your revenue stream, and treating them without a modicum of respect, and more importantly treating them GAME without a great deal of respect is the fastest, easiest way to lose your player base to the next game to come along.

Hope this is helpful to those of you working on the next generaion of game.

-Perlmonkey AKA Deepone

Re:I'm really not sure what the future holds...

[ricka0]

I'd have to at least partially disagree. Many of the aspects haven't changed since farther back.. to MUD days... However I think it IS an area which does have some current improvements (despite its slower growth).

- URU: Myst's online game (fan site) was very different for example a game, which focused on group interaction and problem solving. Saddly, it didn't make it past Beta but many new cutting edge models don't. Its user group was very different from 'typical' MMORPGs... Overall older and very loyal to the game. It's focus wasn't on killing anything at all actually it was more of a history lesson approach (about a fantasy group of people though).

- There.com is also a different type of MMORPG, which has no fighting system at all. It's described as, "There is an online getaway where you can hang out with your friends and meet new ones--all in a lush 3D environment that's yours to explore!" This description is only about the social aspect, however there are other aspects such as users making game objects and clothes for other players to buy so the game economy (although hard like in RL). It can even allow great modelers to make some RL cash (I wouldn't go into it for that since there are honestly only a few who have pulled it off, and the risks are with RL money but it is an interesting concept to explore).

And as far as KillerBetties.com comment "Smedley means twitch combat, is this really skill-based? Sure, it's a skill with controls, but how is mastering controls truly a skill? I'd love to see someone reinvent the meaning of skill-based." I think URU actually could claim to get away from this twitch skill placed model to a degree. Puzzles were more important and then communities based on creating art, fan fiction and poetry, mapping, and history were created which each used other more real-life skill bases. I for example actually know about GIS map systems BECAUSE of the URU fan community who were creating a semi-one for keeping game maps and historic information in. Also There.com is skill-based in other ways as well. Because users can create objects, good artists can sell items and make money in the game. Good marketers can run successful events and sell other's items. Good traders can buy items when listed low and wait till they are high playing sort of stock market game with real money. There are in game 'skills' for things like driving vehicles, etc however honestly the majority of people don't focus on them so much as really just hanging with other users or other 'skills'.

Re:I'm really not sure what the future holds...

[RosethornKB]

There are lots of games without combat that require skill to play. My comment was only about combat -- since that is what Smedley asks in his question. Right now, MMO's mostly use stats-based combat (meaning it compares the players stats against the mobs stats, then does a roll based on those stats and that determines damage, etc.). There's not a lot of true skill involved, since it is mainly dependant on your stats -- although there may be some strategy with special moves in certain MMO's that yield a higher degree of damage when used at the right time. Skill-based is often thought of as first person shooter combat aka twitch. A lot of woman will tell you they don't play FPS because they can't master the controls. I don't think its because we can't master them, but instead its that we don't have the patience to master them. We claim lack of coordination but the truth is its lack of interest in mastering controls. We'd rather be playing the game that struggling to play the controller. The commonly accepted figure in the industry right now is that 10% of MMO players are female. This is based off of gender polls during surveys and sign-ups for MMO's. Some MMO's have a higher percentage. Some, like Puzzle Pirates and A Tale in the Desert, have disproportionately high numbers. I've asked both of them what they think their numbers for female players are at. ATitD came back with about 50% and Puzzle Pirates said 40-50% and he thinks that ratio will keep going up. However, the standard sci-fi or fantasy based MMORPG with traditional MMO combat and gameplay is probably about 10%. I personally plan to do some kind of study to validate that number, since although its the accepted number, I've never seen any studies prove it. The point of all of this is that I really want to see combat that is truly based in skill with the game. How can we do that?

Not to rain on your parade, but...

[bigtallmofo]

I know we all have joked about "Evercrack", Everquest-Widows, etc... But at some point do these games become really harmful to the average person? I mean when you can start being able to have virtual families including virtual inheritance, we might be crossing the veritable rubicon of unhealthy gaming.

I've never even considered playing an MMORPG because I know I would become addicted in about 3 seconds. Maybe that's just me.

Re:Not to rain on your parade, but...

[WankersRevenge]

Nah ... mmorpgs are not harmful. games are not harmful. it's the GTA argument all over again.

people are responsible for their own actions. When people sit down to play these games, they are making a choice. I agree that the designers construct these worlds for the purpose of treadmill running, but at the end of the day, its your choice to play them - each and everytime. (you being used in the general, as opposed to you personally).

I'm guessing, if you interviewed the real hardcore addicts, you'd probably find the game being used in place of other things (ie, can't deal with the wife and kids or, can't deal with classes). As for the true addicts, I bet that if it wasn't the latest MMORPG, it'd just be something else like fantasy football. Just my thoughts.

So, in a MMORPG...

[Realistic_Dragon]

...when she walks out and leaves you she takes the kids, half your gold and the pet dragon, just like in real life?

Re:So, in a MMORPG...

[EnderWigginsXenocide]

In real life you are the dragons pet!

Re:So, in a MMORPG...

[irokitt]

In real life you are the dragons pet!

In Soviet Russia, the dragon pets YOU!

i give up on $ony

[mpower1]

after playing EQ for 4 years I have given up on any quality games from $ony. Their customer service does not exist and they do not listen to their players. It got to the point that it turned my off of all MMORPG's, good thing WoW came along.

bigger

[alfrin]

As MMOG get bigger so does the average person, more they want to explore the virtual world the less of they'll want to explore of the real world, Eventually they won't even want to venture past the dreaded kitchen..

Future: "Clone more text mud features"

[HBI]

Pretty much. I mean he admits it at the beginning. This stuff is not new, and if you want to know if a feature is going to work or not, one of thousands of text-based games has probably implemented it in the past.

Magic in MMORPGs

[Dogun]

Here's a quick one for you: How many of you out there choose mages as your first character EVERY SINGLE TIME? Probably a lot of you.

You know what I'd like to see?
A MMORPG with a magic system that wasn't geared toward combat, or ease of use. Something so incredibly complicated that you have no idea what's going on. For once, I'd like to see the PLAYER learn magical theory. And the magical theory to be entirely player researched, and incomplete.
A magic system that lets YOU design spells, but all the knowledge you need to do so comes from experimental error. A magic system that KILLS you if you screw up badly enough.
Obviously, that would be one of the greatest challenges ever to create, but I'll tell you right now, I'd quit my job if I had one and play that 24/7.
Who's with me on that?

Re:Magic in MMORPGs

[yderf]

I totally agree.

I was diappointed in Evercrack because every magic class was the same within their class. Everyone knew exactly how a cleric should be played or how a wizard or enchanter should be played. There was no room for uniqueness.

I played Gemstone, and even though it was a MUD it had a better general game design than any graphics game I've seen. It would be nice if they could make magic so customizable and unique that the programmers didn't know the limits or all the possibilities.

Re:Magic in MMORPGs

[HeghmoH]

This exists already; it's called the internet, plus the programming language of your choice.

A somewhat more structured framework would be interesting. Something like CoreWars, but updated for the modern day.

Re:Magic in MMORPGs

[Lord_Dweomer]

I've thought the same exact thing for a long time. Asheron's Call was the first game to even attempt something like it, but it was ruined because inevitably, all the formulas got spread around on the internet.

What I'D like to see personally is something involving a new peripheral gadget that might be gloves, or a wand or something that could sense movement, and could detect somatic components of spells so that you actually had to learn the movements for spells.

Then magic isn't just down to "ok, put ingredients a,b,and c in the box, hit combine, and there's your new spell. You might learn what movements are required, but it might take you a long time to actually master them well enough to use in combat. And variations on those movements could affect the spell in a variety of ways from duration, range, damage, effects, etc. You could even botch.

And as fruity as this might sound, I think it would rock if there was a Harry Potter MMORPG that had this. Players are students in Hogwarts and need to learn magic, and go through student life there. I'll bet it would be a HUGE hit.

Re:Magic in MMORPGs

[Jameth]

The problem is that, if you can design the spells it will all just end up in a tutorial online.

The better solution is to just make spells which are more complex to use, as many single player games have. Unfortunately, most complex usage spells require low latency because timing and so-such are often vital for them.

I would personally prefer a magical system which incorporates magic into the world, rather than having it bolted onto the side at random. That is, usually they just say, "It's a world like ours, with magic," rather than making it a world which heavily uses magic. Why don't crafters use magic? Wouldn't fire spells help a blacksmith? Why don't warriors incorporate small spells into battle to give that extra little umph to a swing here and there? What about the city planners? How many of them, used magic to make a place that was truly efficient?

And, remember, above all, that it is a game. Thus, making it fun is paramount. I think that a strongly interwoven magic system with many spells which can be used cleverly can be very fun. I don't think a system where you accidentally blow your head off because you're the only person not reading the mage's strategy guide is such a good idea.

Re:Magic in MMORPGs

[drinkypoo]

Any harry potter game worth playing would necessarily contain speech recognition and a wand controller. The wand would recognize gestures and the voice recognition system would require proper enounciation. You could get by without the wand by using joystick or mouse gestures but I think it would be a big mistake and cheap little accelerometers can do the job. Kids would just up and die over the chance to actually flick the wand, speak the name of the spell, and direct it appropriately, and for that matter I'd be pretty excited about it, if the game it were wrapped in weren't so utterly likely to be a load of pap.

Re:Magic in MMORPGs

[khallow]

I think there's a good compromise between the two ends. Namely, create a programming based magic system (blurring yet more the distinction between magic and code :-) or perhaps something based on mathematical or perhaps philosophical grounds. But the average user would employ proven spells as distinct units. So there's room for your wild-eyed experimentalists and for the normal user who's not interested in ludicrously complex systems.

This also allows room for spell combos that could work together in interesting ways. I first heard of this sort of idea more than a decade ago so someone somewhere has worked on the idea before.

Re:Magic in MMORPGs

[lawpoop]

I was just looking over core wars -- it's seems to be some kind of virus creation lab using fantasy terms as a metaphor. Imps, dwarves, etc. are 'warriors' that fight to control memory space.

But I would like to see a magic system like the one you describe -- where it's more like a powerful programming language. My guess as to the best way to do this is to have the server host the virtual environment and give players some kind of API to affect qualities of the environment. Players would write their own programs and scripts, share them, sell them, etc. What fun!

Re:Magic in MMORPGs

[vadim_t]

Morrowind had a system that let you design spells. Kind of.

Choose duration, power, touch or ranged. The problem is that they didn't go far enough. There was no point in making a spell that burned, because making a spell that did 30 points in one blast, cost the same as one that did 15 per second during 2 seconds.

There was the lack of effects too, I'd like to have been able to choose the effect to be used.

I actually thought about how this should work. Came up with the following:

Casting should begin with a powerup stage, where you gather the required power. The more powerful, the more time it takes. Big spells would involve long incantations, with a proper request for help from the appropiate deity. If it sounds like it's from Slayers, it's because it's pretty much from there.

The second stage would be optionally modifying the original effect, like for example choosing to compress a fireball to make higher damage in a more localized area. Or add the possibility of controlling the direction during flight.

The third stage would be adopting the proper position for casting the spell, depending on where you wanted it to go.

Finally, release it, maintaining concentration during the required time.

With a decent implementation, it should be possible to make a quite cool system, where different effects can be combined, power/speed/damage/radius can be adjusted.

Personally...

[astebbin]

...I see two posible futures for the MMO(RP)G genre, each with distincively different results and social implications.

#1: One company emerges from the fray victorious, and becomes the Microsoft-esque supergiant of massively multiplayer online games. It happened with EA and the NFL, and I think that it could happen again with RPGs through the means of the merging of Blizzard-SOE along with few patents in just the right places. Thisscenario would open itself up to more global connectivity, with Japanese gamers playing alongside their American friends and the US no longer hating the French since they've got all the best healers and spellcasters (what? it coudl happen...).

#2: Gamers, fed up with big-name companies giving them lousy customer service and blase customer support, band together and create a variety of independent MMO(RP)Gs in a fashion similar to the Protestant Reformation breaking away from the Catholic Church and forming many splinter groups each with different and unique approaches to the same common issue. Already there's the assumption that if you like MMORPGS and live in Korea, you play Lineage II, and that if you live in the US you play EQ or WoW, and that if you live in Europe you play EQ and don't know what WoW is all about... this phenomenon could become even more regional in the days to come, with people in Virginia playing something different than those folks out on the West Coast and vice-versa... this scenario would lend itself more to isolationism and modular commnities with one area having nothing to do with the other, and each group of gamers living in their own seperate world.

Just the thoughts of an ex-EQ addict who's been monitoring the industry... and to all of my friends still hooked on EQ, I say: "Camp out right now and go for a walk... the Planes of Power will still be there when you get back, but you may have missed a million opportunitees in the real world". As much as I love online gaming, it's still no substitue for real world experiences; However, it's still ok as long as you balance playtime with human-to-human facetime.

How about bring 'game' back into virtual worlds.

[PocketPick]

Are MMORPGs really an piece of entertainment software or a financial enterprise and glorified chatroom.

When we trade characters in order to provide for our own financial well being in reality, or complain about having to 'go to work' and 'Grind EXP', is that game still a game? Virtual children? Virtual families? What happened to making games more fun, or more accessible?

We need more bandwidth

[nate nice]

We seriously need more bandwidth in these games. And if throwing more bandwidth isn't likely anytime soon we will need to develop better algortihms and design better systems for ensuring players have low latecny when encountering large amount of other netoworked players.

All too often when a player is near a large group of other players they are hit with a large lag spike making large scale PvP frustrating and frankly, not fun.

It is this single issue I believe these games need to address before moving onto anything else really.

We'll see how Blizzard tackles it with their battleround concept of making an instance out of a predetermined largescale PvP arena, but even if this works it needs to go further. We have to figure out how to make flash mobs of people interact like anything else without the high latency that is a characteristic of all these games.

Fraom DaOC, Shadowbane, WoW and the few other I have played or observed, it seems this is the one consistant plague they all have.

I offer no solutions as I haven't thought to hard on how to solve this problem and even if I did it's possible my ideas would be naive considering I don't have experiance designing or developing these types of systems. However, from a players viewpoint, I can assure you this is a problem.

Would you like to play a game?

[JavaLord]

The only way to win is to not play.

Ok Joshua.

For every "level" you get in one of these games, you will lose one in real life.

Damn, and I was really working twards level 255 at Java Programming and I just lost it for level 25 paladin at WoW. Oh well, at least I have my holy light spell to keep me happy.

Re:Why is it?

[grumbel]

### That everyone says MMORPG players have no life?

MMORPG players can of course have a life, the thing that MMORPGs however offer that other games doesn't, is an alternative life in a virtual world. In CounterStrike you play a few rounds, exit and are done, your character doesn't evolv and doesn't persist, it gets reset each and every game you play. The whole 'world' is made up of a few very small maps compared to the large ones that MMORPGs offer, so there is nothing to explore, no special events to happens, its always the same, just tactics and player change.

On the other side you also have clans in Counterstrike, which work somewhat similar like a party in a MMORPG, however such stuff isn't part of the game itself, but something the community does outside of the game, in a MMORPG most stuff can be done in the game itself.

Not saying that MMORPGs necesarrily are more addictive than casual games, but the persistence of the world makes them quite a bit different from a random round of CounterStrike or SuperMarioBros.

Re:We need more bandwith

[LearningHard]

It has got much less to do with bandwith available then it does with the processing power available on the server side. When a large group gathers in one area it drastically increases the server load. I think it has to do with the way the load balancing works. In AC1 I know it was because the load balancing was in vertical "strips" along the map. If there was more than the expected amount in one strip the whole strip could experience server-side lag. It really sucked when you were hunting on the same strip as old arwic or ayan baqur where tons of people gathered because sometimes you would get caught in the lag and die to monsters even though you were on the other side of the continent.

Smedley

[Dragoon412]

Who is Smedley trying to kid - the future of MMOs, at least in the short term, is to keep cloning EverQuest until it's no longer profitable or some independant does something better and gets the ball rolling in a different direction (my fingers are crossed for DDO).

Look at the big-name MMOs for the past 5 years or so: EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot, Anarchy Online, Lineage, Lineage 2, Final Fantasy Online... every single one of them is, fundamentally, the same game. Sure, the Asian-market games tend to have a sadistic streak, but beyond that, they're all about grouping up, camping, pharming, looting, wash, rinse, repeat.

Their combat systems are downright shallow. Their characters are less characters and more like animated spreadsheets. They're about spending hundreds or thousands of hours killing progressively larger bats, rats, and snakes to attain the privelage to spend more time killing even larger bats, rats, and snakes.

There's no thought. Combat and gameplay is so mind-numbingly formulaic that there's nothing to get the adrenaline going, and there certainly isn't enough happening to engage the mind.

Why can't we have a MMO with a combat system like Jedi Academy? Why, when mecha fans are some of the most hardcore gamers on the planet, has there not been a mech sim MMO?

Like I said, I have high hopes for D&D Online, but I don't foresee MMOs radically changing any time soon. It's just going to be EverQuest: Again: And Again: And Yet Again. ...at least until someone realizes that there's a huge group of people that aren't twitch gamers, but are bored half to death by the current incarnation of MMOs, and makes something that might actually entertain them.

My 2 cents on MMORPGs

[Mitaphane]

I've never really throughly played an MMORPG so take that it consideration before reading. It seems to me though that a big problem with Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games is that a lot people don't notice "Role Playing" part of it. Most MMORPGs I've seen are way too heavily focused on virtual combat. There's so much potential for a "virtual world" It's so sad that most of is spent in the endless cycle of "Kill more shit to get better stuff to kill more shit..." Of course hack-n'-slash dungeon crawling can be fun, but you can play Diablo II if you want that. MMORPGs should have a hack-n-slash element but it should have more...

A merchant class in a game world should have very little to do with combat. He should be able to hire people to defend him. Moreover, his ability should be gained by knowing people(like a game with a sort of built in social networking mechainic) and things.

A dancer/entertain class should play like rhythm games such as DDR.

I could go on but you see my point...A world that has 80% of it's population wandering the lands killing various creatures is pretty boring if you ask me.

Yes it would be very complex to create a game that played very different based on all different classes. Yes it would be hard to set a complete game world with all these classes interacting with one another. But for the $10-15/Month people pay for MMORPGs I don't think that's too much ask. Especially when someone can pay a flat $30-50 for a copy of Diablo II and get a similar experience on BattleNet. Then again, I don't have much first hand experience about MMORPGs. I just know what I see...

Already done

[Jesrad]

Virtual families already exist in Second Life. For example my character has a virtual mother, and one friend who married ingame has modified her character to look pregnant. Another friend who married and later divorced ingame has adopted another player as her son, etc... And there is a field in character profiles for your partner, be it husband or wife or whatever-you-call-it.

Doesnt grab me

[jrushton]

Ive never like MMOGs much, partly because I want casual gaming, where I can appear and dissapear from a game without suffering for it. CounterStrike would be a good example, you have the same capabilities as every other player in the game, regardless of whether you have player for an hour, or five days straight.

I also don't like the idea of paying a subscription for my games. I want to buy the entire thing and have it right there in my hands. It's very unlikely that youll be able to play a MMOG in 25 years time if you dig out your old computer.

A lot of the fun comes from the number of players in the servers. Why dont developers just increase the server capacity of new first person shooters for instance? A 64 or 128 player fps which was designed to play well with that number of players would capture a lot of that. So called leveling up reminds me a lot of caring for your 'cyber-pet'!

Realworld Handheld Mmog

[also aswell]

Nokia has the technology to launch a new style of game that hasn't been mentioned here or anywhere else as far as I can tell.

If Nokia added a geo positioning mech to it's hend held units something like the real world DnD could be developed. If the software were modifiable almost anything would become possible.

I live in New Orleans and know there are enough great places to let the game become partly online and partly reality based. In the French Quarter costumes wouldn't stick out. And the possibilities are endless. Spy v Spy v Spy, Tag, Capture the flag, Treasure Hunts, whatever.

And while I know costuming in New Orleans is somewhat di regur(sp) any city or area would do. Plus the local fans would be necessary for the implementation of the games to ensure a good mix. I already have a small secenario designed for the French Quarter that's part puzzle, part bar hop and part scavenger hunt.

Maybe it's time to thing outside the box ...er, I mean screen on this one.

Re:Why is it?

[agraupe]

Well, that being said, I think it's better to have an alternative life by playing World of Warcraft or Everquest, than it is to have it by smoking pot and drinking, for example.

GUI's for MUDS

[DrStrangeLug]

That's all most of the MMO's out there really are.

I tried the SWG:JTL demo , and found the space combat rather fun, but didn't like the ground stuff at all. It would have been much better if the ground combat againts the mobs worked more like an FPS (ala Planetside).

The real killer for a lot of MMO's , at least as far as I'm concerned, is the turn based combat.