Richard Garriot Argues Against Stagnant MMOG Design

The creator of Ultima Online and Tabula Rasa and well-known designer Richard Garriot spoke at the Develop Conference in Brighton, England on the subjects of stagnating MMOG design and the NCSoft deal with Sony. His commentary on Massive game design is fairly direct: "If you look at the vast majority of MMOs that has come out since Ultima Online and Everquest, you can look at the features and they are almost exactly the same. Even though the graphics have got better and the interface is much slicker, fundamentally the gameplay is unchanged. Worse yet, there are many things that have become standard that I look at and even though they are powerful enough to encourage the behavior of people obsessed with playing these games, I don't think they are the right way of building the future."

Comments

Dear Richard,

[Bieeanda]

Your fifteen minutes of fame ended when your avatar was flame-walled in Britain. Consider it a symbolic death, of your worth as an icon, and of your grasp on gaming and of the MMO industry in particular.

YOU are the one who hailed the original Lineage as a sign of the next big step in MMOs.

YOU are the one who championed Lineage II and brought its grind to end all grinds to North American shores.

YOU are the one who, to judge from all the little NDA-breaking birdies, is developing a boring PVE grind that rivals the worst of the Korean-developed games that you've fallen in Stockholm Syndrome with.

Your ship has sailed, Richard. Unfortunately, you were too busy sitting at Brit Bank on your true black horse to notice. You're just embarrassing yourself now.