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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."
As a fairly hardcore FFXI player who's been playing for over 2 years, I can tell you now that servers are busier than ever. There was a dip when WoW came out, but it swiftly ended, as most players who left FFXI for WoW came right back. WoW's gameplay and depth just aren't sufficient to keep somebody who's used to a more traditional MMORPG occupied for long. Blizzard have done a superb job at making a game that's accessible to new players, but the majority of those who are used to other MMORPGs have shunned it. Note that this is actually a good thing for the industry in general.
Japanese players are not a "vast majority". Best estimates from regular players would be a 40/40/20 split, between Japan, the US and Europe (where a vastly delayed release meant the game got more or less ignored).
I think your comments about the Chains of Promathia expansion really sum up just how shallow your knowledge is. There was indeed some initial disappointment from CoP, largely from the people who had convinced themselves (despite the complete absence of any evidence) that there would be new jobs included. However, people soon realised that what CoP really added was a strictly player-skill based element to the game. By adding extremely difficult missions to the game, often capped at a relatively low level, Square Enix forced veteran players to learn new styles and assess how they'd been playing the game. Similarly, new players with a talent for the game but without the time to have reached the top levels, were given an opportunity to be among the first to achieve new things, which is always a rare chance in a MMORPG. World of Warcraft has, at present, nothing to match this.
For me, an accessible console rendition would get me to try one. Sitting in a chair for that many hours isn't something I'll trade my single player experience for. And no, FFXI on the 360 doesn't count...I would want something closer to Guild Wars, City of Heroes or WOW.
It's not complete rubbish as I know that many of the players of these games are signed up for multiple games. I personally only play Guild Wars as I don't like the monthly subscriptions, but I have two friends who plays WOW, SWG, UO, CoF and Guild Wars and two other friends who play 3 of those (WOW, CoF, GW) and another frind who plays EQ and GW.
So the total pool is definitely larger than the largest MMORPG but it is definitely not the total of all of them. I would probably venture a to say (without any stats to back it up) that 30%-40% of players play multiple MMORPGs if they play any at all.
But you have to ask yourself: how big do we need MMOGs to get? The movie Titanic broke box office records, but it was a steaming pile of shit.
Wow has set the bar, and as far as I'm concerned, it's a good bar. It's a healthy bar. 4 million is a damn healthy bar. If you want to go more mass-market than that, you have to go into areas that don't appeal to me as a MMOG player.
At some point, you have to say, "We're making enough money to satisfy our art", and leave it at that.
I don't think I want to see the MMOG that attracts 1 billion subscribers.
My script don't crash! She crashes, you crashed her!
weigh the balance between structured storytelling and open worlds
Call me crazy, but I think WoW does a fine job of this.
Wow does an a acceptable job of this but I think there's a subcontext to that small sentence. The continents are used up, there's no open space. No player housing or even just guild housing.
A guildy brought up how cool it would be for the large guilds with sufficient in-game cash to be able to create a guild house. Maybe have a flag or something that other guilds could try to 'steal'. Be able to buy guards and merchants for the guild house. Have an actual guild bank, not just an extra character that gets mailed stuff. But that isn't going to happen because, of course, they never intendid it to and that even if they wanted to do it it's not like you can just plunk down a guild house in the middle of the Barrens or Duskwood.
Even as much as I like WoW, you can go on to the forums and see people asking for some pretty standard stuff that is included in other games. I'm still holding out for a global 'looking for group' channel.
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