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LOTRO Dev Talks About Bringing MMOs To Consoles
Jeffrey Steefel, executive producer for Lord of the Rings: Online recently spoke to Eurogamer about the game's upcoming expansion and its future in the MMO market. One thing he mentions is the challenge of designing an MMO for consoles, which have a larger player base than PC games. He admits that UI development would be a huge issue, but also thinks MMOs could benefit from splitting tasks between various devices.
"Long term, for me, the real exciting vision is ... thinking about a game, a franchise, as this centralised content. There's this thing called Lord of the Rings that sits on a bunch of servers ... and whether you're on your PC, your console, your mobile device, those are all just access points, and they're all good at different things. ... The console is great for fast action, immediate activities. Combat, raids, things like that could be a lot of fun sitting on your couch. And some things that are necessary but slightly rote and boring, like managing your inventory or setting up for a raid, or some elements of crafting — those are things that you can do instead of playing Bejeweled when you're sitting on the train or on a break or whatever it happens to be."
Yeah get a party together and set up your inventory on the train and then everybody get back together 2 hours later when you're in front of your tv?..
Punctuated entertainment that doesn't try to consume every second of every day of your life. Magine that - there's other things to do besides play a fucking videogame. Be nice if some MMO developers stopped thinking up game ideas before they take their OCD meds.
I haven't played WoW very seriously, but from what I've seen, at least some classes need to be pretty focused, and have quite a lot of things to keep track of -- more buttons than exist on any console controller.
I guess I don't see how raids from your couch would be fun. After all, MMOs aren't the only genre that a keyboard and mouse is better for -- and especially if you're actually fighting other humans, why would you deliberately cripple yourself?
I can see exploration from the couch, or soloing.
Good idea, though, with the "centralized content" -- not entirely original, but good to see it catching on.
Then again, I'm really not sure I want to see people inevitably logging in just to text... txtspk is even worse than 13-year-old WoW griefers, if that's possible.
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I haven't played LotRO, but from what I hear its interface closely mirrors the WoW interface which would make it pretty much unplayable without a keyboard/mouse setup. Movement and using different skills are such a large part of both games and being unable to have precise control over both ends up making things ridiculously difficult in some PvE encounters and most PvP settings.
Entering text would be a complete pain in the ass and unless LotRO has built in voice support that everyone uses the console version would suffer due to a lack of Ventrilo or Team Speak support as voice communication is fairly vital in executing raid encounters. I suppose it could be included with the game, but that means getting it to work on both or either the PS3 and Xbox 360 and all the additional hassles that go along with that.
It'd probably work out decent for solo play where one joystick controls character movement, while the other moves the camera and cursor, and commonly used abilities are mapped to buttons. From my experience when I was grinding while playing WoW I never really used more than one or two abilities. There's probably a lot of other things that I'm overlooking, but as I haven't played this particular game, my knowledge is a little general.
It seems like something that won't draw a lot of additional subscribers and will probably end up costing more to develop and implement so that it works well than they'll see returned in increased revenue. I'm not saying that a console MMO couldn't be done, but it would need to either solve the problems I mentioned above by adding good voice chat functionality and allowing keyboard and mouse input or be designed from the group up with console controllers in mind.
Final Fantasy Online (11) already has this. PC gamers and console gamers already play side by side.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
Everything in LotR is set in stone. Your mary sue isn't going to save the day nor will the character be acknowledged by Gandalf or Sauron. The One Ring's going to be destroyed and everyone's going to live happily ever after once the elves cross over to the east.
It's not like Star Wars where there's a god damned retcon every time Lucas scratches himself.
And if the LotR takes place after The One Ring is destroyed, what will make it any different than a branded morepig other than mopping up remaining uruk-hai and orcs?
Part of the appeal to MMOGs is the social aspect. Especially that you can play with other poeple you know in RL at the same time. e.g. I play WoW with my husband and have had up to 6 people with their computers in our house playing at the same time. Not so easy to do if everyone needs their own console and TV (and sofa).
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
Sure, Nintendo did something much like this with Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, necessitating the use of a Gameboy Advance for each player, and both Sega and Sony had their Video Memory Units and Pocketstations-- but an MMO developer does not typically have that kind of control over hardware, and for each layer of hardware requirement you add, you whittle away that many more players.
MMOs work on consoles, and arguments that you can't use a keyboard on modern ones are easily defeated. Heck, a keyboard-equipped console could be considered the ideal platform for an MMO, simply because it is that much easier to track a user by their hardware signature, and ban him beyond a spoofed MAC address and a new copy of Lord of the War-Crafting Anarchists. Cell phones? They're an even bigger development headache than PCs, between the number of architectures, limits (both hardware and provider-assigned firmware) and the stupidly vast array of service plans that may or may not include data or SMS. A lot of people already balk at the idea of a recurring fee for MMOs. Incurring usage fees on their phone bills would drive even more away.
It ain't happening. Console gamers like to play for half an hour to an hour in the evening maybe, not an eight hour raid and shitting in a sock. They also like games that are fun, not grinding.
Is Lotro the family friendly MMORPG, the game that doesn't require endless hours to achieve the smallest things OR is it a game that in many ways rivals WoW and even Everquest in the endless grind?
The answer is that Turbine just doesn't seem to be able to make up its mind what it wants Lotro to be.
Level 1-45 are fairly light, LOTS of quests that give good XP and rewards so you constantly feel you are doing new things, going to new places, getting new skills etc etc. Compared to WoW and other MMORPG's getting to the endgame is trivially easy. We are talking 5 days of game time and that is with normal playing for the first time with no grinding for xp.
A mount? Well if you have been a bit frugat, you get your horsey at the right level, np. No endless money grinding for this either.
Crafting, well that is an odd one. The thing is that in Lotro you can't craft for yourself unless you grind VERY HARDCORE. That is PURELY grind to gather resources without gaining XP, else by the time you are a master and can create the best items in a tier, you will be to high level to make any use of them. So does Turbine want people to grind resources OR is this a way to let people do crafting LATER, when they already levelled? Perhaps they just never intended for everyone to be a crafter and where hoping that 1/5 of a kin would craft and the rest would supply.
So far so good, you don't really need to craft early on as it makes no sense, you get better equipment from questing for your level. Later on, you can craft for new characters you create. New players? No, they won't be able to afford to buy crafted gear. But since you can casually quest for XP and items without having to commit for more then an hour for the longest fights it is, by MMORPG standards, a pretty casual game. You don't have to worry for instance about having to kill 100 beasts for 1 item, drop rates are high and often shared in a group meaning a mob drops a quest item for everyone.
And then, things changed.
The level 45 class quest, is the first time players will encounter the dreaded ONE ITEM PER BOSS quest. The class quests require you to collect a list of items from all over the place, there are two quests to do, so two lists, the end items come from one semi-long instance 2-3 hours and one super long instance but that can be done in sessions. The problem is that only one person in the group can get the item and a few of them are shared between classes. Most famous is Slime of Helcham, an easy enough item to obtain, 2 hours, 1 if you got keys. Oh yes keys. They also drop ONE per boss and of course the person who NEEDS them, isn't around next time. With three popular classes needing slime and the fight being, up to that point, one of the thoughest AND one of the most bugged, people easily have to do half a dozen runs just to get it. Then of course, they will also be called upon to aid others in their kin.
Rune winged of Dominance is another item, same instance, but several bosses onwards. If you got keys, it is easy to get to directly, but of course, those who absolutely need keys won't be around when the gates need to be opened. So either you go hardcore and designate people who are key carriers to be online at certain points for opening the doors OR you commit yourself to do it in one run so all the keys will be with the group.
Why does the above matter? Well, it is taking the casual out of the game. In itself there is nothing wrong with being hardcore but there is something wrong with a game that changes its stripes half-way through. You wouldn't want a civilian flight-sim to suddenly turn into a twitch shooter would you, or have your twitch shooter suddenly ask you to remember radio frequencies for every airport?
Another example is reputation grinding, this was added in one of the book updates and is a real mixed beast. Some repuation factions give rep just for killing enemies in certain areas and this is easily obtained, gain rep questing and gain the rewards. But for some there are no enemies
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
What they deliver in UI usually is far worse than other companies. One thing I remembered from my LOTRO days was how their UI came off half finished. Parts of the UI would have an appropriate fantasy-rpg look while other parts looked liked a PDA from DOOM3.
I think it is interesting Turbine is looking towards consoles for success. With two of the biggest names ever in gaming titles you would think any competent company could hit a home run. I know, they don't publish their numbers and its rumored that LOTRO has a significant population, but the one measure of a game's success is how many fan sites exist and better yet, how many independent and active message boards exist for the game.
Look, if they or anyone else wants to make a MMORPG then introduce a custom controller. It worked for Guitar Hero. Sorry, but that game would never have worked otherwise. Why hamstring your MMORPG out of the gate trying to work with the base controller? Voice chat would get past the need for a keyboard. You can add support for a keyboard but just get a custom controller. If you think the market is large enough to support a MMORPG then it should be more than sufficient to support the controller.
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Yes I've played Phantasy Star Online, and nowadays its successor, Phantasy Star Universe. It did that. It also had about as much depth as a mud puddle. It was just a glorified button masher.
Managing all those abilities and possibilities and synergies between them, is half the fun of WoW. It's basically like a puzzle game. You have all these pieces, and your team mates have some more, and you have to see what cool things you can build out of them. In real time.
PSO had two lists of 3 buttons each. One normal block of 3 (the fourth button was for a substitute limit break) and a shifted one. Considering that two of those are your normal attacks, it leaves very little room for depth in your abilities. It's also a mere half a WoW action bar.
But let's say you use both shoulder buttons as shifts, and all 4 buttons. That's 12 different icons, or the equivalent of one WoW action bar.
It might be enough for an over-simplified straight-up damage class like rogue or maybe warrior. A mage is already getting squeezed in there. But it would make hybrids utterly impossible. You can't play, say, a druid where the whole _point_ is that you get the skills of 3-4 other classes (if weaker than the pure classes equivalents of those powers), with barely enough buttons for _one_ such class.
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Build for the console first then a computer second. Final Fantasy XI: Online did this six years ago and we're still half a million strong; SquareEnix must have done something right. The biggest issue is getting past not having a keyboard. In XI, you can use just about any USB keyboard and get it to work with a console and you're all set or use the soft keyboard (which is pulled up in one buttonstroke) wherever you need to. Hell, even the little Xbox 360 controller attachement works for this. It works because it stays within the constraints of the weakest console, in this case, the Playstation 2. The game and all of it's expansions still work flawlessly on Playstation 2. While a lot of people agree that, for the most part, it holds the game back a bit, there is also a majority of XI players living in Japan. So the game works because it was tailored for the weakest console then ported upward. Granted, the PC version looks the best but the Xbox 360 Version is VERY smooth in framerate and color. If you make a game for the PC in this sense and try to backport it I'll bet it won't work very well.
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I'll agree that FFXI could have benefitted from HD resolutions. Don't know why it doesn't support it, even 480p would have helped. It was also very grainy with a lot of shimmer, you know what I mean, compared with EQOA.
People need to remember that MMORPG's aren't the only MMO games out there. Sure they are the dominant archetype among mmo's, but successes have been made of others too, many of which are more suitable for consoles.
An MMOFPS like Planetside would suit console's perfectly in my opinion - easy enough to control using a standard console controller, and a good mix of action / twitch and persistent elements. Some console games are halfway there, they provide persistent elements in having ranks / xp for characters and allow weapons and skills etc to be selected accordingly ala COD4 or BF:BC.
The main difference is the lack of persistent elements affecting the environment of scenarios the players are playing. They are still playing standard multiplayer games but with added persistent elements on their characters. Part of me wonders why few people are bothering to try anying mmo-like on consoles, considering the potential money to be made. I can see no real technological reason full blown mmo's can't be done on consoles more often, so it makes me think developers simply think the market isn't there.
It could be that developers think most console gamers would be totally against paying monthly for the privelage to play a game. Big mmo's with high server and support costs maybe won't exist until people are more used to the idea of paying monthly for a game.
Someone will crack it at some point though, and make millions(billions) when they do.
Actually FFXI does support HD resolutions, just not on the PS2. The PS2 port is limited to 480i, but the XBOX 360 port runs at 720p and the PC port can run at almost any resolution your graphics card can support (I currently run it at 1920x1200 on my 24" LCD at home.)
First: You need hype, and a concept that has mass-market appeal. LOTRO could have possibly been that, but they are very true to the books and probably have more of a nerd-niche than they would have liked. WoW came out too long ago, and Warhammer still doesn't have enough mass market appeal.
Second: It needs to be bundled with a keyboard, and probably a mouse. theres too many things to target in most MMOs, and far too many UI menus and buttons. Thing Oblivion on an X360 but with 10x more options.
A character with a teleport to a safe spot solves that problem, though I suspect that the issue isn't really the "quick save". Depending on the game many sorts of magic users have that. WOW provides it to everyone at level 1.
Personally, I like a high quality permanent defense mode like invisibility or a "tree form". It is also a "quick save", but perhaps better described as a "pause" button. You do have to deal with where you froze if you don't get back before your friends leave.
Every class has its advantages to the player, whether it is the ability to take a bio-break or to respond to a parental summons. You choose what works for you.
Yep, I played it on the PS2. Most devs didn't go to the effort of doing anything other than 480i on the PS2. Squaresoft never did.
It's only the most popular MMO in Japan.
Console MMOs have been made. They have issues with UI and sophistication relative to PC RPGs. This is glaringly apparent with Final Fantasy XI.
The PS2 and PS3 have USB ports for a reason. Go on, plug it in to your PS3, works great in XMB. It's up to individual developers to decide if they want it in the games.
Besides, analog movement is a good thing.
I think Jeffrey has a good idea going: allow using different interfaces for different specialized activities. It would be great to access the auction house, answer mail, or craft on a PDA or smartphone. A well designed console interface might be much more possible if it didn't have to be particularly usable for anything but predictable combat.
If you want to grind but still craft and reorganize your bags during downtime, you can always use the full interface on your PC.
I recall one guy that went to some effort to build a gadget to tail an Everquest log so he could get prompt notification if he sold anything. That would be even more useful for auction results if you could re-post something that failed to sell, or put up more of an item that was moving quickly that day. The interface for that is easily within the capabilities of a smartphone. It might even be worth using both devices at the same time if it eliminated some travel time.
But it would be stupid to join a raid while waiting in the doctor's office, or answer email and manipulate a few hundred inventory items on an (logically) small TV screen using a controller.
That a LOT of PC's are used for playing games, just not monster games that make your CPU scream for mercy and you video card smoke. Flash games are just as much games as any triple A title.
Don't forget that there are web based MMORPG's that can easily be played on a PC that can only handle flash like runescape. Who says all MMORPGs have to be 3D beasts?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.