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.

Comments

Freaking Grind

[cloudofstrife]

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.

Re:Freaking Grind

[ndansmith]

Well put. I think that "casual gamer" is the polar opposite of someone who plays an MMORPG. The great thing about Madden and Super Smash Bros. is that they game only lasts a few minutes. After that you are free to enjoy the same mindless fun again, or move on. There is very little investment. But MMORPGs, you have to invest hours and hours and hours to get a decent character, and if you do not, the game will not be as fun. So I do not expect to see a great increase in MMORPG playing among casual gamers.

Re:Freaking Grind

[killtherat]

you have to invest hours and hours and hours to get a decent character

Maybe that's why some of the underling assumptions need to be re-thought. Is there a way to present a MMORPG in such a way that you can get in, and get some cool stuff done without worry about some 40 hr/week player coming along and kicking the stuffing out of you with is 'super special nuclear sword'.
Obviously a game that allows for that sort of social structure isn't going to be popular among hard core gamers that like to newbie bash or fight master wizard battles.

Re:Freaking Grind

[An Onerous Coward]

Not necessarily.

Most MMORPGs use levelling and equipment as their primary rewards. It's the sort of system where time -> better character. If the goal is to provide the best experience for the casual gamer, then it seems like it would be a good idea to break that link, or at least minimize it.

If you want to attract casual gamers, it seems like some cash bonuses are in order. For example, if you charged $1/hour up to the first twenty hours in a month, then said anything above that was free. Chances are, even a "casual gamer" is going to play for fifteen hours a month, so the financial difference isn't huge. The point is to make them feel like they're not getting too gypped by not spending their every waking hour in Azeroth.

Now, if someone is playing an hour a night, every other day, they won't last long unless you give them something interesting to do in that hour. If just about every dungeon requires a five hour grind-a-thon to complete, that's no good. Whatever the goal of a dungeon is, there should be another path to that goal which--though harder in aggregate--can be completed in 50-90 minute chunks.

Casual gamers are good for a company because they provide steady revenue, and they outnumber the fanatics by a huge number. But the fanatics are the ones who run the clans, maintain the websites, buy the tee shirts, and tell all their friends about teh aw3som3st g4m3 EVAAAR!!!1 So it seems to me that going the route I suggest could suck away the most enthusiastic portion of the fanbase.

Re:Freaking Grind

[readin]

As a casual gamer, I didn't mind that people have better stuff; what bothered me was that I could play no role in determining what "better stuff" was. Everything interesting about the game - which combination of equipment, race, spells was best for a character - which combination of classes was best for a group - were already worked out. If I wanted to play a class I was expected to play it exactly the way someone else had figured out long ago.

I would like to see some effort put into making every character an individual. The best solution I've thought of is to provide some sort of "gift" once every few levels(in EQ the trainers would give them out). Your elf-ranger wouldn't get the same gift as every other elf-ranger, and those elf-rangers wouldn't have anyway to get that gift on their own. Some people might complain if they got a bad gift, but the sting would be reduced by the knowledge that a few levels later they might get a great gift.

When grouping with new people, you wouldn't just assume their role. You would need to talk to them, find out what abilities they have, and then decide who does what.

Early role playing games tried to introduce variety by rolling dice to get player attributes, but people would just start over with a new character if they didn't like their dice roll, so in games like EQ you get to assign the stats yourself (again, their are expectations of how you will assign them). With gifts being randomly given out every few levels, it would take long enough to get the gifts that it wouldn't make sense to keep going back and starting over.

Re:Freaking Grind

[Total_Wimp]

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.

There's no "grind" in Uunreal Tournament or Counter Strike. Your only indicator that you're doing better is, well, doing better. You know it's fun because you're having a good time, not because you reached 60th level.

I kind of look at it like exercise.

If you gave a group of people $10 every time they went to the gym, then after a year you'd have some people with more money than others. Note that these might be the strongest, fastest or thinnest of the group. But they might not. They might be having fun, or they might not. I see these as the MMOGers

But what if instead you just said, "go to the gym as long as it's fun to you." At the end of that time some people are going to be more fit than others and some are going to be more happy than others. These people are winners because they're fit or happy, not because they have more money (levels).

But what do casual gamers want? They just want to have a good time, either by themselves or with their friends. If MMOGs want to attract these gamers, they're going to have to find a way to focus on haveing a good time instead of getting stuff.

TW

Re:Freaking Grind

[drsquare]

No, that'd put people off playing. If you charge by the minute it's the same problem as when dial-up charged by the minute: all the time you're on you're concious of how much it's costing you. When you know the charges are adding up and you're going to get a large bill, you can't enjoy it. With a one-off cost you can play all you want and your mind's at rest.

It's not even the amount that matters. £20/month for unlimited play means you feel a lot better about staying on for a while so you can enjoy the game more, even if the hourly charge means you pay less per month. It's the psychological aspect more than the financial aspect.

As for making MMORPGs more enjoyable:

1. Make the earlier levels more enjoyable. No-one likes spending weeks doing nothing but killing rabbits over and over again. Make it something interesting. A grind is never fun, it's like being at work only with no monetary reward. Find a new idea, rather than the tired old 'find mob, kill mob, loot, and repeat'. That got stale back in the 80s. Concentrate less on the graphics and more on the gameplay. If the game's fun, exciting and psychologically rewarding enough, you won't notice how good or bad the graphics are, you'll be immersed in the game no matter what. Even text-based MUDs can have more immersion than even the most technologically advanced graphical game.

2. Find a new genre. No, you're not Tolkien. Every single game doesn't need trolls, orcs and dragons. Nor magic spells. Get some new ideas. Every other MMORPG seems to be exactly the same. It's just Diku in graphical form. The ones which stray from the genre tend to be just based on graphics with little gameplay. Eve Online for instance seems to be a game for the purpose of displaying their 'fog' technology.

3. If you're having PK make it reasonable. You don't want high players going round killing every lowbie they find, but if you have a good situation, like a war, where each side is on different sides of the map, and PK is free across the sides but restricted on the same-side, then low level players can spend their time in and around their own cities with little danger, whilst the higher levels can go and wage war against similarly-skilled players. Of course each side can invade the other side's towns now and again, so there's always that distant vague fear that keeps the game exciting.
You can restrict the frequency and effectiveness of the raids with the right balance of defensive mobs which keep out or disrupt small groups of raiders allowing the newbies to get away, but not too high so a large group can get in. In the MUD I used to play, it worked like this: you needed a relatively large group to conquer a town. Of course large groups didn't form very often because you needed a large number of players on one side, and as the game was international it didn't happen very often.

4. Make the game rewarding and exciting. Killing mobs isn't exciting unless it's the first time. PK is always exciting, especially when you're unexpectedly jumped by mobs. Make the good equipment rare enough to be worth getting, so when you loot a corpse it's satisfying. I bet a lot of people can recall that feeling when you're playing a game and suddenly you find a great piece of equipment you hardly ever get. Although it can't just load in a predictable place, you need that feeling that if you get a bit of luck it could fall into your hands, if you get the right kill in the right place. That keeps it interesting, even boring situations can turn into great situations. 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.
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. New exciting skills, powers,

Re:Freaking Grind

[globalar]

"time -> better character"

This seems to penetrate the entire issue. I think this is the entire problem for casual gamers. The MMORPG model is tied to accumulation, and people like gaining things - levels, items, spells, etc. It's human nature (and particularly effective for industrialized societies). But, it is not necessarily fun, just addicting. We all have addictions, but MMORPG's are not everyone's.

This accumulation model is basically just a placeholder for real content. Multiplayer games have as their content, usually, the dynamic of interacting with other people. The trick is to create content which brings players into interaction. A new town or forest is only a means of fostering dynamic interaction. It may be content for some, but the minority.

Accumulation is actually counter-productive to human interaction (and I'm a capitalist, basically). It ultimately divides the haves and have-nots. An MMORPG needs a model where the accumulation system is secondary. Where interaction is what keeps people coming. FPS's have discovered this. Only the kiddies care about the killboard in CS - everyone else just plays with guns. Sure, there are different weapons, but that is only the beginning. CS uses the limited accumulation as a pretense for entertainment, not the climax (else you would be at the climax in ~10 minutes).

Forcing people to play together will not rectify the situation. Neither will making things take longer or breaking things into smaller time-units. These will only continue the model we have today - which really doesn't seem too interesting. What these games need are new ways to interact. FPS's, every few years, take a few steps this way. The MMORPG's need to find their own way, though.

Re:Freaking Grind

[AdamWeeden]

If you're having PK make it reasonable.

After playing a round of golf this weekend I realize what PKs in MMORPGs need. Handicap. Then when two players come together either the lesser of the two is given some sort of advantage to compete or the better of the two is brought down to the other ones level. This then becomes a battle of who is a better fighter, not who has the most toys/buffs/etc.

Re:Freaking Grind

[mobilebuddha]

just to comment on your assessment of eve-online. it happens to be the the only game that can support over 11000 players online in the same world simultaneously. a true massive multi player online rpg indeed.

additionally, it is the only game where there is a true ingame economy. most of the other games have vendors that will buy things from the players, to my knowledge, it is the only game where the players are the only participants in the market.

i don't play the game anymore, but when i did play the game, the #1 thing that attracted me was the economy.

Re:Freaking Grind

[EvilIdler]

Apart from step 2 (you can play trolls), drsquare here pretty
much described Dark Age of Camelot, the crack-pipe I can't put down :)

1) DAoC has new quests for the lowest levels, that both tell a
story and gives OK equipment to start with. Lots of killing, of
course, but that isn't necessarily all. Many new Catacombs quests
are also entirely peaceful, and rewards are 5-20%(!) of a level
plus occasional gear. Then there are the instances, a faster form
of grind for those who still want it.

2) The setting isn't exactly Tolkien; Norse, Irish and British
mythology clashing on the battlefield. Although you could say
Tolkien lifted liberally from the same sources ;)
Orcs are there in some of the realms, but they're minor critters
without significance.

(There are also the masterlevels in Atlantis, a different annoyance
not as fun ;)

3) The main form of PvP in DAoC is my favourite ever. It's called
Realm versus Realm. The game has three realms who are all enemies,
and the end-game is all about that. Keep/tower capture, plain
ganking, with its alternate reward system parallel to experience.
Inside each realm, players can't attack eachother, except on the
under-populated PvP server.

4) The RvR part and Trials of Atlantis' master levels give special
powers as rewards (in the first case, you buy them with points,
in the second, you progress through 10 master levels with around
10 steps of killing/puzzles each). Some rewards are pure PvE
goodness, others useful also in RvR. Many random quests around the
realms have great background stories.

5) There are only 50 levels + the middle realm rank that counts
as level 51. Mythic probably won't add more, as they've found ways
to extend characters besides that. Yet another set of skills will
be added in a forthcoming expansion, giving characters powers that
aren't strictly for their class normally (like weapon skills for
pure healers, evasion on casters and other oddness).

6) Combat is more than building up combos and hoping to win;
reactive styles are it. Special styles for position, when you
parry, evade or block, and followups to make regular combos.
Tank characters are actually more work to learn than some casters,
the latter being one-button monkeys in some situations :)

Of course, there are casters with so much utility you spend way
too much time learning to play them properly ;)

It's about a quarter to six in the morning, and I think I can
squeeze in another couple of hours of casual playing before I'm out
the door..

Re:Freaking Grind

[nametaken]

These games exist. Check out www.puzzlepirates.com

You really don't have to CARE about someone being ranked higher than you in anything. Its just always a good time.

Oh, and no nuclear swords... although there are plenty to choose from. :)

Re:Freaking Grind

[cvas]

You are right that the current MMO structure is time = better character, but exactly where is the new route you seem to think you suggested?

Charge per hour played? What will that do to change the equation? It just saves money for people who play less hours than the cut off point.

Provide alternate dungeons that can be completed in shorter time? All that means it the hardcore gamer will take the fast route and be able to complete the task even more times than the casual player.

You haven't broken any link between time and character. It may even be a link that can't be broken, not with any of the resources available today and its parallels to our "real" lives.

Why do you go into dungeon X for the 13th time? It's to get a new piece of equipment, or help a friend do the same. Now what if we break the link, what if spending more time doing the dungeon doesn't net you any gain, why would you ever go back after you had completed it once? To see the pretty graphics again? I doubt it. So now you need a new area to keep your interest. And since hardcore gamers chew through content, you either need to have new areas being added on a daily basis, or you need to say goodbye to the hardcore gamers.

And maybe that is what it will take. A company to finally say "Hardcore gamers, come play, tear through everything we have, but when you're done, don't bother bitching for new content, just leave. We don't want you here."

Unless someone can find a way to let character expansion/growth not be tied to time played.

Re:Freaking Grind

[drsquare]

But then you end up with no reward for effort and achievement, so people don't bother playing the game as much. Then you end up with a game that's just another Quake.

The Grind

[LoganAvatar]

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 :)

Never gonna happen

[BuddyJesus]

Why?

• Gamers with more time than you
• Gamers with more money than you
• Companies that sell good accounts
• 
  These 3 factors will exist in any game, leading to people who are just better than you, period, defeating the fun the casual player would normally get.

academic perspective

[Goonface]

I'm still only primarily interested in them from an academic perspective Yeah, whatever you need to tell yourself to justify that 18 hours a day you play.

Frigging finally

[Kethinov]

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. ;)

Grind still is a huge issue.

[Synbiosis]

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.

Re:Grind still is a huge issue.

[Blakey Rat]

WoW kind of tried, with the rest system and some other things. But since release, every single patch has catered to hard-core players, and there is NOTHING new for casual players... I quit the game because of this very issue.

It's telling that a Blizzard dev made a forum post about adding a new "casual" raid dungeon into the game-- his idea of "casual" was 20 players and 2 hours! (Forget that it takes at least 2 hours to even gather 20 players!) In fact, I think I can trace that to the exact moment when I quit the game.

Not only is WoW putting in only hard-core features, but it hasn't added anything for smaller guilds. I like small guilds, where you can know every other person by name and have meaningful discussions with them, but when half the dungeons in WoW require 20-40 level 60 players, only the largest guilds can gather players.

Planetside?

[TopSpin]

It was possible to play at least one MMOG casually. In Planetside, player skills were effectively capped after roughly 1 month (level 20 or something) at which point it came down to skill and teamwork.

It was fun and I had a blast playing the first year. Then they introduced so-called "command" skills which required lengthy accumulation of "points" eventually resulting in special "command" powers like evoking god beams from space to annihilate a few acres of players. Within a few months every non-casual player had this and satellites were going off every few seconds. Then came "mechs"; another lengthy point accumulation resulting in practically unkillable casual player eating monsters. At that point I quit.

Had Planetside not changed into a game of point accumulation I would still be playing. They could have introduced new environments (sea combat, air combat with more depth, hacking that wasn't merely watching a progress bar, buildable structures, customizable vehicles, elaborate sensor and trap systems, etc.) Instead they introduced things that stratified players into those who had 10 hours a day to play and those that didn't.

Making a causal player friendly MMOG is easy. There is basically one rule; if a player must play more than 1-2 hour every other day to stay on par with the hardcore players (in terms of "stuff") it's not going to work for casual players. The game must rely on skill and knowledge rather than accumulation of wealth and rank. End of casual player requirements.

Is a casual MMORPG even possible?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm beginning to think it isn't. I'm sure everyone here has heard of World of Warcraft. It was supposed to be casual friendly and managed to succeed fairly well at it - for the first 35 levels or so. Some time around level 40 it reverts to the "grind XP" model and once you hit end-game, it's back to EverQuest-style raids.

The problem is that World of Warcraft is ultimately starting to alienate both hardcore gamers, who rushed through the content and are now bored, and casual gamers, who are just now starting to finish the content and are now discovering that they're getting bored too. A proper setup needs to somehow balance both casual gamers and hardcore gamers.

Final Fantasy XI had an interesting system set up originally that could have made it casual friendly and allowing hardcore to have fun too, by allowing casual players to play one job and hardcore players to play several jobs (on the same toon) thereby allowing hardcore players to get more rewards than casual - but not sufficiently more to be completely overpowering. Except FFXI made soloing impossible (no, Beastmaster doesn't count, because you have to have grouped to get it in the first place), and that concept was totally defeated when they raised the level cap from 50 and started adding end-game pseudo-raid content.

Ultimately, you have to find some way to allow both casual and hardcore players to succeed, or else both are going to get bored and leave. WoW is an interesting case-study in that - it'll be interesting to see how the next several months go as more and more casual players reach level 60.

Re:Is a casual MMORPG even possible?

[dfiguero]

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)

Reach the Casual Player

[LordKaT]

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

Time ain't what it used to be

[Infonaut]

MMOG's biggest collective problem is the lack of an ability to be a casual play.

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.

Addiction

[Kaorimoch]

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.

yeah, me too

[d34thm0nk3y]

Personally, while I consume my fair share (of porn), I'm still only primarily interested in it from an academic perspective, as resources of human sexuality in online space.

Re:Why would..

[SydShamino]

Why would a casual movie watcher pay $8.50 to see one movie a month in the theater?

$8.50 for just two hours of entertainment makes no sense at all.

WOW isn't any better

[Original Buddha]

Yeah it's really easy to get to 60. But then it's like running into a wall once you get there because the only thing to do is instances which can take hours. And that's if you can find a group. Many classes just aren't considered special enough(like priests) or you're one of 50 other hunters looking for a group.

The problem

[Solr_Flare]

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

Casual player

[vanyel]

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.

Depends on the game...

[DogDude]

Actually, I've found that Kingdom of Loathing is exactly what I was looking for: a fun game that has plenty of casual gamers and hardcore players, but it honestly doesn't matter. The game is fun for everybody to play, and people *do* get sucked in, but the creators make it a priority that new players have as much fun as long time players. Of course, it may also help that the new breed of caffinated, medicated "twitch" kids aren't going to be too excited about a web-based black and white game. But more than anything, the creators work very hard to level the playing field, while the long time players still get fun goodies. The most telling aspect of the levelling is that player vs. player combat is set up so that it's unlikely that you'll get totally and completely spanked by some 9 year old that spends 12 hours a day in front of the tube.

My point is that it *can* be done. This is at least one example.

Guild Wars

[Castaa]

IMO, Guild Wars is a good attempt at a "casual gamers" massively multiplayer online game.

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.

Painful memories.

[vhold]

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?

Re:Why would..

[Squeeself]

The same reason millions of people pay $30 a month to watch satellite (or cable) television. I find it extremely interesting when people say this: I just bought a $50 game and now you're telling me I have to pay $10 a month to even use any of it??? Why is it that people don't say: I just bought a dish system and now you're telling me I have to pay $30 a month to see anything??? I've never been able to find the distinction. Both are entertainment. You're paying for a service in both. The mmog even costs less than watching your TV...Why do so many more people make this complaint over the other one? Now, you may be like me and just not *want* to shelve out money (I don't have satellite either) but that's a whole different issue. That's what marketing is for: to convince them they need it (Joe Bloe across the street believed the marketting in satellite TV...)

Subspace/Continuum

[biff-mo]

Subspace/Continuum fits the 'MMOG for the casual player' bill perfectly.

I pick it up whenever I have 10 minutes.

Check it out....

Totally, I forget to play free ones

[EtherAlchemist]

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.

Everyone's got the answer, huh?

[cbreaker]

So, your ideas aren't new. They've been attempted in one form or another; pretty much from the start.

"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 /duel.) You can play on a full PVP server, or not. You could play WoW with only some areas PvP. Likewise with others.

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

Other styles.

[FEEBLE*BMX]

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