Rethinking the MMOG

Gamasutra is running a piece right now called Rethinking the MMO. Game designer Neil Sorens takes issue with some of the consistent blights on the traditional Massive gaming experience, like the phenomenon of the 'ordinary' hero, and the extremely large time investment required to 'get anywhere'. Though he doesn't offer a lot in the way of concrete solutions to these issues, his appraisal of the genre is sure to spark a few conversations: "As long as developers and publishers do nothing but copy what is successful, they--and gamers--will continue to miss out on these games' staggeringly awesome potential. And as long as [MMOGs] are designed by and for stat geeks (whom I know and love and sometimes am) with little regard for traditional game design fundamentals, they will continue to waste that potential."

Comments

Time wasted^3 + experience = power

[Shihar]

When I used to play chess against someone who knows what they are doing, I tended to get my ass handed to me. I didn't play chess all that often, so this should not come as a surprise. For one summer, I played chess a lot. I actually got pretty decent at the game and could hold my own against most people instead of the usual ass kicking I came to expect. Even today (now out of practice) I can put up a decent fight. The same goes for FPS, even ones I have never played. Why is it that I can pick up either of these games after having not played for a while and if not dominate, at least hold my own?

The answer is simple. These are games of skill. If I decided to play chess or Counter Strike against someone who had been playing it for 2 years straight, they might kick my ass, but not because they have a super Queen that can teleport across the game board while I only have pawns, nor because everyone else starts out with shoot-through-walls rail guns while I start with a knife.

Playing most MMORPGs is like playing chess against someone with a teleporting queen while you get three pawns, or playing Counter strike where you start with a knife and everyone else gets instant kill rapid fire laser guns. MMORPGs stack the game against you twice. First, people who play more will be more skilled at playing (make sense, eh?). Second though, the game also rewards them a thousand times over for playing a lot. So, not only do you play with people who are more experienced, but have the MMORPG equivalent of teleporting Queens against your two pawns.

Start a n00b off in Counter Strike or Chess, and the n00b at least has the possibility of winning. Take the most skilled WoW player in existence, give him a level 1 character, and make him fight a level 60 no matter what happens, the level 60 will always win.

This is the reason why a lot of people loath MMORPGs. I love the idea of a massive online world with other players to interact with, quest with, and fight with (or against). What I hate is that MMORPGs unlike most other multiplayer games, is that MMORPGs DEMAND that you spend thousands of hours of your life in them before you are even given something that kinda-sorta resembles and even footing with the top players.

Why can't we have an MMORPG where the older and more experience are not given the double bonus of l33t stats and equipment in addition to superior skill at playing that they should have developed?

Hell, I'll answer the question. The reason why MMORPGs used this worthless system is because they have simple and basic gameplay. If in an MMORPG your stats/numbers/equipment didn't constantly slide upwards, people would simply quit the game. The game play is so dull that MMORPGs need to rely on addiction to seeing stats go up to keep people in these games. Take out of the 'achievement' aspect that comes with killing 10,000 kobolds and people would not suffer the horrible and repetitive gamplay of an MMORPG. The gameplay of MMORPGs does not stand on its own for very long. Hence, we have piles of MMORPGs with atrocious game play that retain players by keeping them addicted to the 'achievement' aspect of their repetitive gameplay.

When you see an MMORPG that can stand on the merits of its actual game play and not rely on hopeless addiction to watching stats slowly tick up, you will be seeing the first TRUE second generation MMORPG... not the copy cat Everquest crap that is spaming the market right now.

Let the players run the game

[danaris]

The best massively multiplayer online game I've seen or heard of, bar none, is Tom Vogt's BattleMaster. (Said Tom is actually a Slashdot regular, too, and with a 3-digit UID ;-) ) While it is not perfect (as what can be?) and is more or less in a state of perpetual beta (which I find a great deal of fun, but others wouldn't), it does a great job, in general, of dealing with the powergamers who want to turn the whole thing into a numbers game, and does its best to give even casual gamers the chance to participate meaningfully (ie, invest ~15 mins/day, and keep up pretty well with those who invest 15 mins/hour).

BattleMaster is a roleplaying strategy game, where the player has a small family of nobles who can command troops in any of several different classes. The real key here is that in BattleMaster, there is precious little centrally-provided content: the interaction between the players is, essentially, the whole game. Which isn't to say that it's pure, text-based roleplaying (though the game is entirely text-based, aside from the maps); it has a relatively comprehensive system that helps to model a medieval European setting, complete with diplomacy, battles, wars, etc. But all the story is created by the players.

It's a heck of a lot of fun, and I've been playing it for the past 3 years and more. I don't explain it too well, so take a look at the site, linked both above and in my sig.

If someone were to take the concept and make a commercial MMORPG out of it, I dare say they could do pretty darn well--at least, once they had enough players signed up to populate a large area. The fun is directly proportional to the complexity of the system, which grows out of the number of people playing...

Dan Aris

Re:Really? RPGs and the lack of real changes.

[RingDev]

Would they improve with a better story line instead of hack and slash? Potentially but you don't really see a lot of this in the pen and paper version of RPGing either. Sure, the GM can entertain and let the group run about with little crazy side adventures but in the end it always comes down to the same question: How much XP to the next level?

I think this varies a lot from DM to DM and system to system. White Wolf in particular has a system that really doesn't push for stating. In fact, the thing that made each of the White Wolf (VTM and WW) campaigns I've played in so much fun WAS the story. I'm a geek, through and through, I have geek friends. I used to go to hang out at a local Perkins and recap the game, in story format, to some of my geeky (but not geeky enough to dice) friends. Heck, you kick back in the smoking section and tell a chapter of an epic story and people get interested. I had one guy ask me if I was talking about a movie script. The retelling of those stories was often as much fun as playing them the first time too.

In a MMO video game, I don't think it would have much of an impact though. For two reasons:
1) The games are stat dependent. It doesn't matter how well you know the Barron, his aura is going to smack you and you need the gear (stats) to survive it.
2) As soon as anything is done once, instructions are posted on the web. It doesn't matter if you spend 4 days in the libraries learning all you can about the boss, when it comes down to it, someone can just look up the encounter on thottbot or wowhead and know it all.

Think about it, if you're telling a story from a pen and paper game to another gamer, it's new and different. If you're telling a story about how you took out a boss in WoW to another WoW player, they're going to respond with "Oh yeah, my guild took him out last week."

-Rick