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

Re:Very perceptive Richard

[Om]

I think (and I could be wrong here) that that is exactly what he is trying to do with Tabula Rasa, innit?

Oh, I get it... this is the obligatory Richard-Garriot-Sucks thread. I would think it would be further down. My bad.

More elements of simulation needed

[spun]

MMORPGs need more interactive elements and less static content. I would love to see a game where you could start a merchant empire, overthrow a king, or build a village, as well as delving in dungeons and hacking monsters. Everything outside of combat skills is relatively useless in most MMORPGs. With elements of simulation included, skills such as diplomacy, leadership, and acting would become important. Every server would develop differently. Developers wouldn't write static content, but would instead script dynamic content that would draw from the present game world instead of shoe-horning new plots into every instance. For instance, rather than making quests that use the same NPCs, existing NPCs with the right characteristics would be used every time the quest was given. Rather than use the same locations, generic locations such as "any lower class bar" could be specified, and the quest might be activated any time the PC went into such a location.

Re:UO=innovative and no one has gotten it right si

[GearType2]

The point he was trying(at least I am hoping he was trying) to make is that in WoW the difference between a lower level and a higher level is pretty vast and outright. Lower levels are worthless in groups, or parties. In Ultima Online, you only grind if you feel the need to. You are virtually effective at any level. Just at higher levels you are more effective. This was one of Garriot's core game design issues when designing UO. I remember high "level" players coming to my blacksmith for gear, and repairs well before I was 100 in my blacksmithy skill(which is the max in UO).

Can you say the same in WoW? Is there any reason for a high level player to go to a low level crafter? Or how about low level players helping on high level quests?

This is grind. Players feel the need to do monotonous dull tasks to level up because doing the riskier task will kill them and halt their progression, or slow it down(exp penalty). In UO the only reason to grind was if your impatient, or a powergamer. There was never a need for it. In WoW, it's gameplay design. This is what Garriot is angry about. Grind is now considered to be a gameplay aspect that players "expect", and grind isn't fun.