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Richard Garriot Argues Against Stagnant MMOG Design

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the kill-ten-rats dept.

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."

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  1. Re:UO=innovative and no one has gotten it right si by GearType2 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.