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MMOGs Reaching For Casual Gamers
The Guardian Gamesblog has a nice bit of commentary up today discussing the push for MMOGs to connect with casual gamers. Announcements of Massive games on the next generation of consoles have been fast and furious, but skeptics seem to feel casual gamers may not make the leap. Indeed, even veteran MMOG players have difficulty with the genre, as a recent AFKGamer column on how to deal with Grind illustrates. From the Guardian article: "Still, in order to be a viable entity on a home console unit - competing directly with the likes of GTA, Super Mario and FIFA - things will have to change. Some may call it dumbing down, but the product must be created with the consumer in mind. Personally, while I consume my fair share, I'm still only primarily interested in them from an academic perspective, as resources of human sociability in online space" Update: 07/02 05:09 GMT by Z : Gamasutra's weekly question dealt with this exact issue. The opinions of industry participants are always welcome.
That's the thing about MMOGs: there's always going to be someone who is obsessed with the game and have better stuff than you, and because of that, they're going to do better. They're fun, but flawed, just like every other type of game.
After starting to play a MMOG as a casual gamer, and finding that I had to play more and more to keep up with both my real friends and online friends, the Grinding of playing became a time-sucker and I stopped being just a "casual" gamer. That is the real catch of these games though, where they are designed so that you can progress slowly at first, and then moving up becomes not necesarilly harder, but more time consuming. I don't think that any MMOGs that design their end-game to appeal to the casual gamer will succeed. There would just not be enough to keep their player base around. Anyways, just my 2cp :)
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MMOG's biggest collective problem is the lack of an ability to be a casual play. Virtually every MMOG I've played outside of a FPS forces you to play constantly if you're be at all successful.
;)
Frankly, I'm just not a kid anymore. I can't spend 8 hours a day on a Wintendo playing a game. The only games I'll play today are ones that don't suck up my time and aren't Windows-only. That means I don't play many games.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
Even if you're as efficient as possible, you'll still end up spending way more time than any casual gamer is willing to spend. IMHO, 'casual gamer' and 'MMOG' should never be mentioned in the same sentence.
99% of MMOG's (except Guild Wars, but it's not quite a normal MMOG, I'd say it's more like PSO) depend on subscriptions for their main profit. This leads to design decisions that would be considered horrible in any other type of game: infamous level grinds, mandatory level cap quests that require hours of killing to find some rare item, and worst of all, forced grouping (I'm looking at you, FFXI).
I quit FFXI for two of those reasons. I was looking for something to play one or two hours a night, but the combination of forced grouping (Waiting 45 minutes to an hour for a WHM was just too painful) and the level grind made it impossible to get anything useful done in less than two hours.
WoW looks like it may have resolved a lot of these issues. A lot of the 'hardcore' guys criticize it for being 'too easy' to get to high levels, but from my limited experience, it seems like the fun/grind ratio is much higher than it is for any other MMO I've played.
I think that one of the steps to reaching the casual gamer is establishing a system where players don't necessarily have to load the game in order to participate. In fact, I wrote about pone idea that could help the casual gamer play the game by using the content syndication features of RSS here
I have some friends who have been into MMOG's for some time and about two years ago they tried to get me into EverCrack. It seemed interesting and all, but I never got into it because I saw what happend to them. One of my friends played so many hours that when he calculated it all, he figured he'd invested one year worth of gaming over a three year span. That is, one third of his time was occupied with EQ. The other two are a couple who played EQ side by side for hours and hours and hours.
All three of these people who are in their 30s were able to devote so much of their time to EQ because they didn't have to worry about money. None of them worked a normal full time job, and none of them had kids. I took one look at their addiction and realized there was no way I could hack it, so I didn't bother with more than a cursory couple of game sessions.
I'm looking for the day when the casual gamer like me has an alternative that's better than a choice beteen time-sucking MMOGs and YAFFPS (Yet Another Fuggin' First Person Shooter). Until then it's Ace Combat for me.
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There is no way I am going to play a MMOG. I have enough problems getting addicted to single player games (wanting to play at work, staying home from work because I am 'sick') and I when games like Everquest get called 'Evercrack', I know I will stay away from it like the plague.
I hate subscription model games as well. I want to 'own' something, and have the ability to create a server of my own should I want to play with others.
Actually it's quite hard since not even the players can agree. If you browse the WoW forums you will see this is one of the most talked about subjects.
Hardcore players don't want casual players to be able to obtain high-level items even if they play the same amount over a different time spectrum. The casual player of course wants the same (or equal) rewards even if they can't commit 50+ hours per week or even go raiding.
Many things come into play here specially those that relate to "real life". I'm sure many would be hardcore players but can't due to _small_ obstacles like jobs, family, health, etc.
My guess is you will need to differenciate your MMOG wether you want to target the hc (Lineage 2) vs. the casual (?) or stay in the middle (WoW)
My penguin ate my sig
The problem is trying to balance between development costs and getting the most out of existing content. This is why "the grind" exists in one form or the other(slow progression, gating, etc).
You see, developers can not instantly produce endless wells of content. Nor can they stay in development beyond a certain period of time to build insane masses of content in advance. You have to draw a line somewhere based on development costs and development time.
A further issue that is arising is the increasing complexity of these games. As these newer games attempt to "do everything" and "look real/great" they exponentially increase the complexity to develop for them. Thjis causes it to take even longer to produce additional content and/or requires increased cost(more developers, better tools, etc).
To attempt to combat this, developers use some form of grind to milk existing content for as much as they feel is possible. Various games have also come up with varied solutions:
SWG relied for the longest time on really innovative social content to let the community come up with their own ways to occupy themselves while they dealt with the admittedly complex range of systems the game offered. SWG's fall was due to
A) Not infusing enough new content(and new social tools) into the game. Players could only do so much with what they were given. Albeit it took them a year or two to finally exhaust everything.
B) The game was too complex for the development resources allocated towards it. The game had tremendous potential but never realized it because they just were not given the staff and funding needed to cope with the vastness of the game's systems.
C) The game was pushed to release way to early, and given problem B, the result was the devs constantly having to play catchup yet constantly falling further behind.
WoW takes another approach. For that game, level progression is very easy, in fact, the grind is very limited compared to other games. What WoW relies on is the PvP aspect of the game and the overall quality of the existing content to keep players "hooked". While it doesn't have endless fountains of content, and you can go through what it does have rather swiftly, Blizzard hopes that either the PvP or compelling gameplay will either keep you playing when there is little content left, or inspire you to start over again with another character and do it again.
This strategy isn't perfect either. While it certainly has resulted in huge success and lots of people buying and playing the game. People get bored with WoW very quickly too. WoW has become "that game" that lots of people play until they beat the current content, then they go and do something else until an add-on comes along. Then they play it some more then go back to whatever else they were doing. What we have yet to see, however, is if Blizzard will be able to sustain its active subscribers or if they will eventually fall into a pattern of high subscription rates around expansions with a large lull in activity inbetween. I think, long term, the later will be what happens. WoW will still be a success, but in the end I don't think it will have the staying power Blizzard had hoped.
EQ2 takes another approach to the whole situation. EQ2 has massive content. And the game itself is highly modular allowing for new content to be added with ease. Likewise, the game was built with longetivity in mind with a powerful graphics engine, systems gear towards expansion, etc.
So, what hurts EQ2? Well, for one, reputation. Many people left EQ1 because of the grind so they tend to jump at shadows in EQ2. EQ2 definitely has the "most grind" of the three games mentioned here. But, it has tons for you to do too, plus they are actively adjusting the game in ways to attempt to eliminate or at least hide the feeling of "grind". Likewise, after the mess that SWG became, SOE has really gained a reputation as having poor customer service. While they aren't "that bad" in EQ2. T
You are who you are, let no one tell you different. But, never close your mind to a new point of view.
That's what broke me free of Evercrack: I just don't have the time or inclination to live in a virtual world. As a result, I couldn't stay up with any of the people I knew playing it (who were practically living there), nor did my availability line up with them. That made it impractical to group play (other than joining up with random groups, which is very hit and miss and often I'd rather just do my own thing), and the game is impossible to advance in for single users (at least casual ones). I enjoy it, but after you reach a certain point, there was just nowhere to go.
I can hear the question now, "if you want to solo, why go online?" The fact is, the environment is nice for a number of reasons: learning by watching, ask people questions, sometimes people even give you things, sometimes you do feel sociable or find a good group, sometimes you do want to play with friends.
One of the things that surprised me about it was how much like myself I actually played. I'm much more outgoing in email and usenet than in real life, but when it comes to direct interaction with immediate feedback...all of a sudden it was as hard to meet people as it is in real life. Well, not quite, but as I think about it, there's a real difference between tossing something up in the air for all to see and those interested can respond to if they want versus directing something to a specific person and being unsure of their reaction.
Here are some of my experiences from playing Guild Wars:
- There is very little if any tedious travel from place to place. The player can simply click on the map to travel to any city (once that city has been discovered).
- The game's level progression is more designed around accomplishing quests and team based missions and not killing creatures purely for experience sake.
- A player can group up with AI controlled characters to do quests if there is no one to group with at any give time. Generally it is better to group with real life players but AI characters do a good job filling in where no human player can be found. This can cut down on a lot of wasted time looking for certain classes to fill out a balanced group.
- The quest system is designed to keep a player moving through the world of the game naturally. Almost always a quest entails a player to travel to the next city where there is almost always new quests or missions to do. One is never left wondering what to do or where to go next
- The map also clearly marks where to adventure to for a given quest. This cuts down on a lot of wandering and wasting time. Another interesting aspect of the map is that players in your adventure party can draw with their mouse on the map that is shown to other players. This allows tactics and directions to be given to everyone in a clear and simultaneous manner.
- And arguably most importantly, there are no monthly subscription costs. A player can take all the time they want progressing through the game. There is no feeling of pressure due to mounting subscription costs. If a player needs to take two months off from the game, they can come back at no cost to them and pick up where they left off.
All in all, I'd recommend Guild Wars to anyone curious about MMOGs but were afraid of the time sink and complexity of them.Chew: You Nexus, huh? I design your eyes.
Roy: Chew, if only you could see what I've seen with your eyes.
I was a pretty active planetside player for around a year on Markov... That game's development was just one massive mistake after another.
Everything was going great in beta, but the downhill started one -day 1- of the game's release. They made a massive and totally untested change, even the manual described the way the game was in beta.
In beta, you got -full- XP for every kill anybody in your squad made. On release day 1, they divided it by the number of players. On average, if you were used to 10 man squads, you got 1/10th the XP you were used to, drawing out the level up period by a factor of 10.
But that wasn't the only effect, there was a massive unintended consequence. You could still get pretty good XP if you sat inside of the Spheres of Influence while capturing bases.
Result: everybody and their mom was stuffing themselves into these spheres of influence constantly. They made up maybe 10% of the overall landmass and were very repetitive and uninteresting locations. There were only a few base designs and everything became focused on the rather weak indoor combat as opposed to the much more epic and cool outdoor vehicle combat.
The massive outdoor battles of the beta were gone and replaced by overcrowded lag fests that started crashing servers. Same number of players as beta, but because they pushed player density way up with this totally untested change, network traffic and server load increased exponentially since it normally didn't have to transmit the locations of players to so many people since they were more spread out.
The devs turned an absolute blind eye to how they had ruined the game and populations dropped by what seemed like 75% in the first month as people chose not to subscribe because the game was pretty much unplayable during prime time. Continents were crashing so often that the sanctuary continent you'd get kicked to when they crashed, would crash, and you couldn't login at all.
There were -more- people in the free public beta and it was very stable towards the end, how in the world were the devs so dense as to not to see what their change had done?
I've been playing iClod City or whatever (does that even qualify?) which is turn based, but free, and often go days forgetting I was even playing.
By the time I com back, it's difficult to remember what I was doing or what I had planned to do next.
I dunno, to me sounds kinda like companies are getting desperate to find an audience.
Maybe the reason is cost, even at 10 bucks a month, if you're playing 5 or 6 of them, that's (duh) 50 or 60 dollars just for online gaming. Coupled with the prices of console and PC games, gamers quickly have to decide what to play. Maybe fix the problem with dedicated players and then solve the problem of MMOGS for the casual user.
R(k)
So why don't any companies offer a casual server along with their regular servers? Cap the amount of hours you can spend in the server to say 30 a month, let any remaining time carry over to successive months so that if you're on holidays or something you can get that extra gaming in. Increase experience and loot drops by 20% or something low like that to speed things up just a tad.
I know I'd be more inclined to play a mmorpg if they had something like this.
So, your ideas aren't new. They've been attempted in one form or another; pretty much from the start.
/duel.) You can play on a full PVP server, or not. You could play WoW with only some areas PvP. Likewise with others.
"1. Make the earlier levels more enjoyable."
EQ2 had a crap load to do at low levels. Even EQ has plenty to do, explore, etc. At low levels. You've put your own pressure on yourself to "grind" them away instead of enjoying them. And there's even games without levels at all (SWG, etc.)
"2. Find a new genre. No, you're not Tolkien. Every single game doesn't need trolls, orcs and dragons. Nor magic spells."
But a lot of us LIKE dungeons and dragons. And magic, and orcs. I do. It's not a bad setting, and it happens to play exceptionally well in the MMORPG genre. However, if it's not for you, you could check out SWG or a few of the others that don't follow the mystical theme. But what else is there? What else works as well? I can't think of too much. And anything I could come up with is probably already on the drawing board somewhere.
"3. If you're having PK make it reasonable. You don't want high players going round killing every lowbie they find"
What MMORPG's have you played, exactly? Besides original OU, most MMORPG's have limits on player killing. You must be within level ranges, or something like that. Or you must agree to do PvP with another player (ala
One of the biggest problems with PvP is class balance. EQ was never really designed for PvP - it came after. Classes had a lot of different traits that made them useful in groups or raids, but not in PvP. A Wizard could bomb the shit out of you, or a cleric could just keep healing himself. A pure melee would be fucked, even with all his armor and hit points.
So how do you make a game both good for raids or PvE encounters, and PvP, without dulling both?
"4. Make the game rewarding and exciting."
I'm sure the goal of every MMORPG developer is to make the game crappy and boring.
" Of course grinding-games like Everquest with fixed-mobs and fixed-loads will never be that exciting. Equipment can't load consistently, it has to be random. That evil dragon can't load the magic potion every time, it has to be say 1 in 5. And you can't find out 'till it's dead. That's what makes it exciting."
Okay - wait. How is your idea different from EQ, exactly? Killing the same mob over and over to get that rare epic drop or armor component? And since when can you tell what EQ mobs have for loot before they die? ShowEQ hasn't shown loot for many years.
"When you gain a level, it has to mean something, even at low levels. Going from level 1 to 2, or 4 to 5 should give you something on top of the number. "
Nothing new here. Even in EQ, you get more abilities and spells quite often, even at low levels. When I played EQ, I enjoyed every level UNTIL the higher levels. So I'm really not sure where you keep coming from with this "low levels need to be fun" stuff. They were/are.
In fact, what kept the pressure OFF me to level in EQ, until maybe level 47, was the insurmountable amount of time that was required to reach 60. I didn't worry about it, because it was so far away.
"5. Keep the levels down. Don't let people get to level one million so if you only play a few hours a week you may as well not bother. Level gain should not be linear."
Herein lies the crux of the matter. None of the other garbage means much, because it all comes down to this.
If some guy can spend a lot of time in the game, and does, and works hard at advancing his character - is it right that JoeShmoe casual player with no dedication to the game gets the same level of play? And what's to keep the people that can spend time playing, paying?
You need to benefit players that play a lot, because these players will pay month after month as long as the game keeps them going. If you deliberately ne
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
I think it's fairly obvious that all of the MMORPGs are based on the same template. If they want to attract more players then they need to give up on the RPG genre and branch out into sports and other things that people might like to do.
Some people like to dress up as Elves and play D&D but how many more people belong to Motorcycle clubs or Car clubs? How many people play Golf? Lots.
Bringing the MMO game model to other interests is the way to go. Imagine a MMO Auto Racing game. There could be a persistant city you could drive around with races being held on tracks in various locations. If you have a FWD, 4 cylinder car you could go race against other people with the same style of car. Casual gamers could all afford a Civic and longtime gamers would just have a larger collection of cars. They might have a Ferarri but they could only race that car against other rear engine supercars.
Check out this game in the Golf genre: www.shot-online.com