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MMORPG Evolution
1up.com has a piece looking at how Massively Multiplayer Online Games have evolved from the days of UO and Meridian 59. From the article: "As far as the genre has come, though, MMO gaming has still only barely grown out of its infancy. Blizzard crows that 4 million users globally are hooked to World of WarCraft-but that leaves 6-billion-plus people on Earth yet to be reached. Are MMOs doomed to continue fishing from the same pond of players over and over? Major publishers are asking themselves that very question right now. So are we. Developers must do six very real things to make MMO games reach out to even more people: rethink monthly fees, manage in-game economies in new ways, explore new worlds and themes, use new technology to change the way people access games, weigh the balance between structured storytelling and open worlds, and foster a better sense of community among players."
This article sets up an absolutely ludicrous comparison - "yeah, sure, you're four times bigger than any other MMO EVER but you don't have the rest of Earth's population yet! So you SUCK!"
I think that WoW proves quite clearly that there's plenty of players to tap and that the market is in its infancy. All you have to do is play the right cards, something WoW has done/is doing quite effectively.
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The argument about MMORPGs all drawing from the same pool of customers and simply trading them around in accordance with the latest fads is, and has been known to be for some time, complete and utter rubbish.
MMORPGs are the fastest growing genre around, from what I can see. Go back a couple of years and you've basically got UO and Everquest with about 400,000 players each, and a couple of others, like Anarchy Online, hovering at their heels with 200,000 players max. These days, You've got World of Warcraft with millions, Final Fantasy XI with a significant fraction of a million, Everquest and Everquest II both with 400,000 plus players, City of Heroes with a good few hundred thousand and Guild Wars (which arguably doesn't count due to the lack of a subscription model) with loads as well. This is before you even move onto the dozens and dozens of smaller MMORPGs, such as Galaxies, Eve Online, Matrix Online, Planetside, Dark Ages of Camelot, etc, etc, etc. In short, there are both more and bigger MMORPGs.
I think what you've really seen over the last few years, particularly with franchise MMORPGs (WoW, FFXI, Galaxies etc) or niche MMORPGs (Planetside, Sims Online, Eve etc) is new players being brought to the genre through bridges from elsewhere. Want to hazard a guess at how many people play World of Warcraft because either of the Warcraft connection, or the Diablo/Blizzard connection? I've not seen any figures, but I'd guess it's a significant part of the player base. Galaxies was, by all accounts, a pretty appaling MMORPG when it was launched, but it was reasonably successful due to the franchise drawing in fans of other SW games and has survived long enough to develop into something worth playing.
I suspect that over the next few years we'll see other genres moving into the MMO world. We've already seen Planetside have a stab at a MMOFPS and although it's not been a wild success, it's done some important and useful proof of concept work. I suspect that RTSes and, in particular, Sports Games will be the next to go MMO in a big way. You could almost argue - although it might be pushing things a little - that the online career options in Forza (popular X-Box racing game, a la Gran Turismo) already have most of the elements of a MMOG.
... they were called MUDs.
Let's not forget our roots!
I believe monthly fees (or, at least, high fees like WoW's) are going to be the main stumbling block for the developing MMORPG market. If people are going to be paying for a game five times over in a single year, they're going to buy fewer games. Right now, I play WoW and it's the *only* thing I play because I want to get my money's worth out of it. Not many people will want to pay for three of four MMORPGs at $15/mo because the fees will simply be too high.
Unless monthly fees are drastically reduced to a reasonable level -- say, $2/month (especially if you have to drop $50 up front) -- there will simply be less of a market for more than a handful of MMORPGs. There are not 6 billion more people ready and waiting for new MMORPGs to hit the market.
Reasonable pricing models will ensure everyone gets a piece of the pie. Obscene pricing models will guarantee one or two major games will dominate the market. I don't know about you, but I would prefer more variety in my online gaming.
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I really couldn't care less about MMORPGs. I used to play MUD, but quit shortly after they started charging a monthly fee. I'm much happier playing single player games that I purchase for $20-30 as opposed to paying for the same game repeatedly.
Way back, when the dinosaurs still roamed the earth, I used to play muds religiously - Sanctuary, Armageddon, 3K, I loved them all. Lucky for me, my roommate failed out of college due to mudding, which caused me to take a hard long look at my life and come to the realization that while I wasn't failing, muds were certainly keeping me from excelling. I dropped them cold turkey, which was probably one of the best things I've ever done. I've always followed the MMORPG scene quite closely and have always wanted to get back into it (especially since I had a number of friends who played Everquest). Finally when WoW came out, I decided that I was at a good place in my life and career and, after a long talk with my wife, I bought the game. At first it was great - the quests didn't take too long, I could play an hour or two a night without any problems, and I had a great time. Unfortunately, I quickly got to a point that if I wanted to accomplish anything at all in the game, I'd have to sit down for a solid three to five hour stretch (sometimes for several days in a row depending on the raid dungeon). That simply isn't practical. Additionally, while I enjoyed the social element, you simply can't walk away at any time - to an extent the game dictates when you can quit. I finally quit WoW when it became clear that I'd never see the new content that was being released as all of it was catered to the hard core player.
Is it possible to appeal to the casual player? I believe so. For example in Guildwars, you can hire henchmen which allow you to play by yourself when needed and still progress in the game. The MMOs out there demand that I work my schedule around them; instead I need the games to work around mine.
I honestly don't see why so many people get upset about these... they're getting their money's worth (NOTE: I don't play any MMORPG's, and never have)... I mean, updates for the MMORPG's are HUGE, sometimes adding all sorts of new content. On top of that, you've got GM's and such who keep an eye on the players and try to make sure no major cheating is going on. SOMEONE has to pay for those servers, and I'm sure that no one wants to pay > $100 for a computer game, up front.
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Are MMOs doomed to continue fishing from the same pond of players over and over?
While World of Warcraft did take some players away from other MMOs it's success is also due to the fact that it significantly increased the number of MMO players. It made MMOs far more accessible, especially to casual players. In short, it grew that "pond". There is no reason to think that the pond cannot grow some more, it is just a matter of someone introducing something that non-MMO'ers would find a fun use of their time.
WoW is successful because for the first 30 levels you can accomplish something every time you log in. I realize that they follow the skinners box method of making things more difficult as you go along to keep you hooked, but I think MMORPG's will succeed when their gameplay (combat) is a compelling enough reason to play, rather than just grinding out for the next level/epic item.
I'd like to see a game using a fully realtime 3D engine to present a world that appeals to me.
Ultima Online was great and I completely understand the limitations of 2D and the dialup Internet of 1997.
Star Wars Galaxies, for example, has the benefit of an exponential increase in processing power, line bandwidth, and even community experience. Yet, we're stuck with the same obstacles of UO and even a few more.
1) Awkward and uninituive controls that harken back to Resident Evil on the PSX. Would it have been so hard to implement something more free like Mario 64? Not singline out SWG, I ask this about loads of games every year.
2) Point and click attacking and autodefense instead of any real control. This is why people moan so loudly about unfair imbalance...the whole fight is determined by statistics and the items they're derived from.
3) It just gets too grinding too fast and for too long. If you learned anything from UO, it's that people might play for more than a month or two. Realtime control would put more emphasis on learning technique and less on grinding for skill points and camping for stat boosting items.
That and the upfront fees are steep. It makes me think very hard about whether I purchase a game. Rather than the possibility of a fun experience $9.99 at a time for 4 years, it's easy to see the waste of $59.99 if it turns out to be bad. The end result is that I never (well, save the bomb that was SWG) buy an MMORPG at full price, if I even get around to doing it at all.
This isn't a difficult concept. Every single piece of the puzzle's been done. It's just a matter of taking the risk of putting them all together and raking in the exploding profits that result.
This is why you may see the number of MMORPG's produced actually accellerate. The current crop is what you get when people invest hoping to be the next 400k superstar. Now that the bar is 10x that, expect more, and larger and more professional productions to come about.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.