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The Rise of Originality In MMOs
Karen Hertzberg writes "Over the last half decade, gamers have been forced to wander through familiar worlds and universes. Studios have been licensing IPs left and right, grabbing everything from the Wheel of Time to Star Trek. Originality seemed to be a lost art, and although these worlds were fun to adventure in, many didn't hold the same sort of magical spell that original titles like EverQuest or Dark Age of Camelot once enjoyed. But change is coming. Blizzard Entertainment revealed that their next MMO would be an original IP, and this year's E3 lineup featured more brand new games than titles derived from existing worlds. So, why the sudden shift? To answer that question, Ten Ton Hammer's Cody 'Micajah' Bye sent a number of questions to original IP development teams across the world."
Call me when it's not just another minor variation on D20. That was my disappointment, coming from "Tradewars" into the graphical RPGs. After five minutes, "so.. it's just a dice-rolling game, then?"
I mean.. Yahtzee with a story behind it only works for so long before you have to change something other than just the story.
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It's the newest social networking fad, a place of unparalleled delights and frightening possibilities. It's First Life, a new Massively Multiplayer Offline Reality Playing Game, produced by Jehovah Labs six thousand years ago and only accelerating in popularity.
While First Life is referred to as a game, it does not have points, scores, fixed levels or an end-strategy. The environment is known to players as "The Real World." As of June 2009, over six billion users are in the World at any one time. It is famous for its ultra-realistic play and its amazing high-resolution 3-D graphics, framerate and physics engine.
In First Life, you are assigned a body type. You cannot trade it up or easily change its basic characteristics, though you can outfit it in various ways.
"It's weird," said one player. "You can hardly buy cool replacement penises anywhere. But sex in First Life is amazing. It's really hard to level up to, though, and it cost me a fortune."
Many now suggest that First Life could be a passing fad, with the World being all but abandoned after a few decades. But nearly half of all Americans who belong to the First Life community claim that it is almost as important as the virtual world.
Some worry about the apparently addictive nature of First Life. The huge growth in reality gaming in the last century means a sharp increase in the numbers of people who take their passion for the hobby too far. "I know of people who are spending their week's holiday from EverQuest playing First Life. An addiction to a game like this is far more costly in time than any substance. Keep track of time, make sure your Eve Online characters don't go stale."
In the game, you can buy accessories for your character with an exchange mechanism called "money." People have started working in First Life to earn "money." Part of the addiction problem is "jobs" - in which players have to perform long-winded, mindless tasks, up to forty hours a week or even more, to bring up their levels and gain access to more adventure.
Stories of gamers spending ten to fifteen hours a day in First Life are becoming more frequent. And the impact that is having on their families is quite distressing for some. "He said that if he could spend 24 hours a day in the World, he would," sobbed the avatar of one player's mother. "His Kingdom of Loathing character's died of neglect. An Adventurer isn't Him any more."
The Archbishop of Alphaville condemned First Life's moral integrity. "Whoever designed First Life has watched too much EastEnders and read too much Tom Clancy. It's a psychosexual nightmare given virtual form, where giant flying penises are nowhere to be seen and disturbed people fail to wear even slightly less disgusting forms when having repulsive intercourse."
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but if you use an artificially short time span you wouldn't see it. I guess that makes the story easier.
In the realm of MMORPG you could claim EQ was original IP when it came out, so was Asheron's Call (very different from any MMORPG then and since - if anything it had many features that need to exist in newer MMORPGS).
Still I can summarize the need for original IP.
Expectations are set to high especially if the IP is well known. Witness LOTRO. They are literally handcuffed by the novels and every feature is measured by rabid fans against whatever they deem as cannon. For Blizzard to create a new IP means that we don't have to worry about Starcraft being crammed into a MMORPG and will see good RTS games on it. Diablo too will not be hammered into some form alien from what made it so fun to play.
The reason to not use original IP. Because it can provide consistency and take care a lot of the work needed to give a world life. Many things can be glossed over relying on the player to know the history from the original IP. Why does mob X do that? Well if you had read the novels, seen the movie, etc, you would inherently know. A few patches in and some NPC might be wise enough. Plus it justifies what otherwise might be considered stupid abilities or traits on npcs/mobs/pcs that exist.
As for other companies, oh well, lets hope someone can figure out the right combination to at least get their original IP seen. The problem with many is they promise the moon and deliver a steaming piile.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Announcing "The Rise of Originality" because Blizzard basically said they're going to do an MMO which is not based on an existing story is like announcing the rise of a new city because you saw a building shaped cloud in the sky.
For one thing, it's all talk at this stage - I do believe that Duke Nukem Forever stands as a shinning example of what exactly "just talk" is worth.
For another thing, just because it's not a downright copy of an existing story, doesn't mean it's not something similar to an existing MMO or a merging of existing models (like a WoW-clone but in space).
Is the OP trying to "create some buzz" as part of a viral marketing campaign, drive potential clicks to the adverts on a website's pages or just being a Blizzard fanboy?
Coming up with your own Tolkien/D&D-derived IP to wrap around your generic DikuMUD clone doesn't strike me as being any more original than licensing somebody else's (probably more cohesive and interesting) IP.
As for the question, if it's even a legitimate one, of why a game like EverQuest had more fantasy verisimilitude than WoW, it's because EQ was willing to sacrifice casual-friendly, "gamey" aspects for the sake of creating a fantasy world simulator. Blizzard, OTOH, never wants you to forget that WoW has an accessible minigame around every corner. You already know which approach wins the mass market following.
Can you say they are that original when they basically have AD&D/Lord of the Rings races in them?
Really?
One of the first MMO's, Asheron's Call, has been around since 1999 and is still going today. It is based on a completely unique world and lore that's not used in any other game, book, or movie. IMO it's the best MMO ever made, and I've played a bunch of them. Characters are completely customizable (skill-based ala UO), it has a full hardcore PvP server, and combat is based more on skill than on your level or equipment.
I want original content.
Seriously, I like the Warcraft IP, what I didn't like is that WoW was just a combined clone of every MMO that had existed before it, just like every other MMO now is a clone of WoW.
Until we can move away from the situation where enemies are more stupid than your average rock and quests are about as exciting as your weekly shopping trip to the supermarket (Well in fact less so, my average shopping list has more variation than your average quest task list) then I don't see anything to get excited about.
Apart from Eve I don't even see much variation in the style of MMOs we're getting - what happened to the old style isometric (or 3D isometric) style MMOs like UO or an FPS shooter MMO like Planetside?
The MMO market doesn't need new IP, existing IP is fine, it needs innovation and new ideas, or in some cases, to even bring back some of the old ideas that seem to be long forgotten. To twist a common saying, the originality of your IP doesn't matter, it's what you do with it that counts.
The WoW model works for first time MMO players, but chances are if you've played an MMO in the last 10years, with the exception of a few of them like Eve, then you've played every MMO in the last 10 years. Did you play Everquest back in 1999? Well, not much has really changed, graphics got better, Dark Age of Camelot bought some minor innovations to PvP and not a lot else has happened.
While the concepts involved are not new; city building, siege warfare, massive pvp battles, crafting just about EVERYTHING ingame, ships, full loot ffa pvp; they are all together for pretty much the first time in a new IP, and so far I and everyone else who managed to get the balls to leave the newb zones either solo or in a guild, have come to love the game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mdomDOxVDA 3rd Largest ship in the game, it's massive, and there are 2 larger ships with even more guns for broadsides ala hundreds of years ago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHAMua8E-os Shitty siege video but it's basically around 100 people (that's the side the frapser is on) vs 300+ trying to take their city.
The lore of the game is pretty good, but as it's an indie game they've had to forgo going 'all out' with making the lore/questing etc, as the bread and butter of the game is the city building/clan warfare, although the lore that they do have ingame/out is pretty damn good as well.
When did we start saying 'IP' when we meant 'ideas?' A game can have original IP just by having an original trademarked name. That's not the same as being based on an original concept.
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I'm excited about this, the idea of getting in on the ground floor of a new original Blizzard or other developer's MMORPG is cool.
I'm not going to go out and buy one of these games blindly though, MMORPGs are pretty hit or miss.
But I'm sure these will be closely watched and we'll be able to get infomation on how they progress.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso
Original IP does not mean original game play. All it means is it's a world you know nothing about.
I'm getting tired of the fantasy based MMOs. But at the same time I'm not sure the SciFi/Comicbook based ones are any good either. It seem like the exact same formula.
I don't give a rat's ass if the IP is 'original' or not. All I care is whether or not the game is fun. WoW, while interesting for a while, is too much grind-fest. If Blizz's new game is the same, I won't be interested at all.
As for 'originality'... Almost ALL the MMOs are original IP. Look at all the ones from Asia. There are -very- few that are based on something else. FreeRealms by SoE is pretty original, too, and it was just released.
No, what we are seeing isn't a 'rise in originality', but the tail end of a big lump of non-originality that didn't work. (Except WoW, which started that lump because of its success.)
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
I think there are non-original IPs that one might use, that do not have the major drawbacks listed in the article. For me, the first thing that comes to mind, is Larry Niven's 'known space'. A large set of semi-independent settings, each with its own history, protagonists, etc. It offers the potential of amazing vista's, interesting characters and races, large and small storylines, etc. There is both a lot of available familiarity for fans, and although a lot of it is somewhat interconnected, I think the vastness of the setting leaves much room for potential new content to be generated by either the developers or the gamers. This would be especially interesting when combined with a generative 'user created content' system (as discussed here), involving the colonization of new planets, trade routes, etc. (with player-owned companies specializing in terra-forming).
Let's put the genes back in Genesis.
Have people become so ignorant to think EQ was original IP? No no it had no resembalance to Lord of the Rings, Warhammer, Conan, Authurian Legend, Dune, Arabian Knights, etc...
Original is hardly the word. I think kids these days call it a "Mashup" of existing IP.
Starcraft was dangerously close to directly lifting Warhammer 40k with Eldar=Protoss, Terran=Imperium, Zerg=Tyrannids.
WoW while building a decent mythology still is a rip off of most fantasy fiction that came before. In fact I cannot think of one original creation in it. I think the only remotely, and I do mean remotely unique thing WoW came up with was ummm... errr... shit...
Well anyway DAOC was British and Norse mythologies. It's IP was not all that original.
Conan was rather unique in putting together a period of time from which there was little documentation going that far back. (Cuniform anyone?)
Eve is hardly original, nor was planetfall. AO was cyberpunk pulled damn near out of several novels. Can't speak to Guild Wars or Shadowbane, didn't play either.
UO and Garriot's Ultima world was unique in the representation of gargoyles and the exploration of secular humanism as a religion. The world as best I can remember it lacked a real sense of high fantasy like Lord of the Rings. It was still fantasy but was a bit more low key.
The problem with developing new IP is that breaking from 'tradition' in fantasy can cause a good % of fans to say, "Elves would never act like that" kind of statement. If it's IP then it is a product and maximizing sales trumps creativity. I spent 15 years developing the MRL world and had 5 book agents complain after reading several drafts that, "I don't think fantasy readers are going to by a book that has evles as a bunch of slave owning, mercenary hiring, progressively going insaine butchers..."
IP as a concept means that your creation is a product and will be treated as such. They talk numbers, this type of story will move X units, you need these 7 characters to move an additional Y units, we need this type of cover art with these colors to get the book to stand out against the following J books that will be adjactent to it on Barnes and Nobles shelves.
Nothing feels worse then having a book agent tell you to rewrite the book because, "Demographics indicate you need a child to have effective interplay against your protaganist and the merchant in chapter 7 otherwise the reader will fatigue on the drama. Metrics also indicate that you are going to need some comic relief mid-way through chapters 4 and 9." That was the break point for me ever writing professionally.
The only ORIGINAL IP\games I've seen come out in the last 20 years was: Pixelart and Darwinia but nether have extensive Lore attached to the IP so far.
"We as a society have become so risk adverse we have made art and creativity a liability."
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Before anyone says "Well..there's Darkfall". It's not available in North America yet, and even so it's still so new a lot of people are waiting on them to iron out the bugs before getting an account.
Aside from that, what hardcore modern day MMO's are there? Eve? Sure I love science fiction, a lot more than I do fantasy, but Eve while having hardcore pvp is also a grindfest, I absolutely hate how the skill leveling works, you're paying for a game to basically not play it. To reach end game high level pvp content takes forever
So what's left? I'll take an established IP if I have to but give me something that isn't a grind fest. Look at Guild Wars, while it turned out to suck cause of the "Faction Points" grind to begin with, the ability to great a max level character for PvP-only use was divine. Why can't other MMO's do this? Why as a PvPer do I have to suffer through PvE content? I'm paying as much as the next guy. I want full loot pvp, minimal "safe" zones if any, the ability to either quickly reach level cap or end game pvp content. Darkfall seems good but it's still in it's infancy. Mortal Online has some rumblings but that's still far to early to tell. And as much as I want hardcore pvp, I'm not gonna go back to UO after all these years.
Aw Frell this
The change for originality can be explained by numerous wow-clones that have flopped in the last 4 years. Even Blizzard acknowledges this, and while a WoW rehash would do 'fine' for many current WoW players, it probably wouldn't reel any new ones in.
I've been an MMO gamer nearly 10 years. EQ, Asheron's Call, EQII, WOW, Eve Online, SWG, Navy Field, World War II Online, and even DDO(Dungeons and Dragons Online). Not to mention Warhammer Online, AOC, Lineage II, Guild Wars, LOTRO, and Vanguard.
My longest running MMO playtime is Eve online(5+ years) and Everquest(4+ years.) Until World of Warcraft, MMO's mostly catered to niche markets. EQ catered to the Dungeons and Dragons/fantasy game crowd. I remember a time when the maximum level in EQ was a 6 month endeavor or better. I really felt as though I achieved something. Then came World of Warcraft. A game that was an almost polar opposite. I once heard it described as "an arcade version of EQ." Now don't get me wrong, I'm not dissing WoW. Everyone has their tastes and styles. But what Blizzard did was take the concept of the MMO and bring it into the world of casual gaming and thus.. mainstream.
When Blizzard achieved stellar success with WoW, I think that MMO developers saw that and learned the wrong lessons from it. What exists today, for the most part, is a market where MMO developers create games to appeal to the biggest markets possible for the IP behind it. Matrix Online anyone?
What results is a mishmash of pooled ideas and diminished achievements so that everyone will enjoy it enough to want to pay for it. I remember the first time I played EQ. I walked into the Necromancer's guild in Neriak as a level 1 Dark Elf and shivered as chills ran up my spine. I've had similar experiences in Eve Online, but thats it.
When was the last time you played an MMO that could draw you in by sheer creativity?
Second, what's wrong with working within a framework? I have a lot of respect for the LOTRO Storyline writers and world designers for being able to work within the niches available to them. In the original (pre-Moria) incarnation, they managed to get a well balanced set of classes *without* a mage/wizard type. They have written an parallel storyline to LOTR without stomping too hard on the original. They've created entire areas (Forochel) out of 3-sentence descriptions in the books. They even managed a way to fight a Balrog and a dragon, and they managed to make those raids complex and epic-feeling. Knowing how rare Balrogs and dragons are in the LOTR, it gives a bit of extra "that's cool" feeling as opposed to the "Insert Generic Raid Boss" you get out of WoW or Everquest.
It's kind of like writing a sonnet. Why would you ever want to hobble yourself with all those restrictions about number of lines, rhyming patterns and so on when writing a poem- why not just write free verse?
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Is an MMO what you really want though? What is sounds like you want is counter strike with more players. What many PvPers refer to as the grind other MMO players refer to as playing the game. If all you want is instant PvP action there are tons of games that support that now.
Think about it, you want full loot PvP while at the same time wanting to reach PvP end game content quickly. If you have both of those, what makes losing all your loot mean anything?
There is plenty of original IP associated with MMO games these days..... but most of that IP comes from game developers outside of the U.S. I have seen some really good IP coming out of Asia, but the ideals that the IP brings forth clashes with the American culture, and therefore usually fails when an introduction is attempted.
The reason we decided to create our own IP was based on the fact that we have R. A. Salvatore and Todd McFarlane as our visionaries. -- Steve Danuser, Senior Game Designer for 38 Studios.
Me thinks that was just a nice way of saying, "naner! naner!".
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
I'm happy with a high fantasy setting -- I like Paladins, am fond of Elves, have it in for Dwarves, and think Orcs should be pitied. So leave me with Western mythology, but change up the gameplay. More than anything I'd like a game where there's a slight learning curve for the controls and such, but there isn't a level distinction. Even Pippin and Merry were useful alongside the likes of Aragorn and Legolas -- but in most MMOs, the difference between a level 5 and a level 50 is between a tricycle and a battleship. Give me a game with lateral skills rather than vertical -- Pippin should be able to do some serious damage if Aragorn isn't paying attention. I'd rather see Aragorn's Battle Sense skill increase than just a number which means anyone 5 levels below can't lay a hand on him.
And don't get me started on the World with a Purpose, thing: wolf attacks on neighboring farms cause a shortage in food at the bakers so characters either need to protect the farms or learn to hunt or starve. Then the baker's daughter earns a crush on you so you get reduced prices on your gooseberry pies, but then an orc raid captures or kills her (if only you'd been there to save her!). And when you go to collect 10 Furry Feathers, it's not just to turn into a garrison guard for XP, but it's so the garrison can continue to make arrows against those orc raids that captured the baker's daughter. People can lose a city if they don't help defend it -- can you imagine if Freeport was overrun in EQ?
The problem with many MMO's is the time investment required to gear and advance through the game. Working adults with families do not have the time (Unless they neglect their children) to commit to some MMO's because say in WOW raids can take 4+ hours and multiple days to complete. Progression raids were even worse, 4+ hours a day 4-7 days a week just to advance past a boss or two until you start outgearing the content.
It would be reasonable to make the 5 man dungeons hard as hell, be progressive, and drop similar gear to 10 man raids. Make all raids 10 man, break them up into 4 boss segments and increase difficulty as well. In either case you can do one, the other, or both to rapidly gear. Maybe even final bosses the 25 or even 40 man variant but one boss with maybe an hours worth of trash to fight through.
You can still have EPIC, just not EPIC time requirements.
Even with all the clues you gave, I was unable to identify what world you are talking about.
The problem is this: Writing a _good_ linear story is hard enough; we just don't know how to write a good dynamic story, as no one really has experience in doing it well.
But yeah, I'm bored of Static Worlds too. That was one of the things "Housing" in UO brought to the table -- I'm still waiting for another MMO to "get it."
I agree, it's the gameplay that keeps me coming back. I'm no lore geek for WoW, but I don't dislike it. It's a cute novelty. I've never been a MMO person much but WoW is fun to play. The mechanics and abilities of the characters are classes are fun. I love PVP, it's what keeps me going on WoW because I'm burnt out on the PVE environment. I know I'm speaking about WoW more than MMOs in general,I wish they'd find ways to make the game play more fun, from level 1-80. I hate that it's end game focused. Take some new risks. Maybe new AI on the mobs? Mobs are so predictable, how about some more random things. Mobs that fight back smarter. Or bigger risk you take, bigger rewards, less quest based activities. New content all around to make you want to enjoy leveling up again, not just grind to 80 ASAP. New classes, new low level abilities not just new end game abilities. We don't need new settings or environment, it's all about the game play. Wow is a complication of every MMO and D20 RPG but I'm fine with that, because they nearly mastered the interface and making it fun to play. And STFU with the use of term IP. Intellectual property is an oxymoron.
No I want an MMO. I don't mind progressing levels or getting loot, if it can be done in a timely manner. Rewards should be based on skill and achievement, not time invested. This is why Guild Wars really failed, in a lot of people's eyes, cause it was directly marketed as "Players are rewarded based on personal skill not time played". Yet when it came out, those who grinded through the PvE portion were vastly superior to those who just stuck with a PvP-specific toon.
Yes, what a lot of us want is something similar to Darkfall where gear isn't the end all be all of creating a toon nor is skills/abilities, it's often strategy and personal skill that wins. But as said, DF isn't in America yet.
As for full loot + easy high lvl access leveling PvP it's easy, they need to look at the way certain games handle player death and work around it. Case in point, one of the few cool features I do enjoy about Eve Online is limited character lives, if your pod gets trashed that toon is toast. There's risk but there is also great rewards in building it up. In Shadowbane, you could be PvP viable with slightly less than top tier end-game items BUT if you wanted those, you could attempt to fight others for crafting materials to make them or like UO, a thief class to steal stuff, etc
Done right, you can have full loot hardcore PvP with still meaningful PvE content if it's absolutely needed.
Aw Frell this
As Goonswarm proved, reaching high-end PvP in EVE takes about 3 weeks if you're organized (or join someone who is). There's little you can't do with a swarm of T1 frigs, a willingness to get yourself killed and the ability to be a real dick.
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
You see it as Counter-Strike... We see it as an opportunity to play in a world where our actions actually matter, instead of doing the same quest a thousand times for a worthless NPC arbitrarily given the title of King, who will then forget about what we did and tell the next person to walk up to him that he needs 10 Rabbit Tails to fix his mojo shortage.
The thing is, EastCoastSurfer, your loot comment (and your post entirely) is stuck in the mindset of a PvE player. You're assuming that top gear is grabbed mainly from monsters... whereas a PvPer sees full loot and quick endgame content as an opportunity to strengthen the in-game economy by making crafters and resource control integral (thusly encouraging more inter-guild conflict and making the world more exciting).
There's no reason why WoW (or most other PvE MMOs) couldn't be played on a NWN-style 64 person server. Other than no longer having a large pool of people to trade from, you lose nothing. Private WoW servers would dominate if they could somehow get past the rampant bugs, incompatibilities, and the low technical skill level of many WoW players... Although, then they would get shut down faster than BnetD and Glider.
A PvP MMO, on the otherhand, needs that persistent world with thousands of players. Things like guild cities, sieges, player accountability, alliances and politics are irrelevant when you're playing Counter-Strike; but completely relevant when doing a PvP MMO such as Shadowbane, Darkfall or old-school UO. In a game where your actions actually change the world, persistence is everything.
The change for originality can be explained by numerous wow-clones that have flopped in the last 4 years. Even Blizzard acknowledges this, and while a WoW rehash would do 'fine' for many current WoW players, it probably wouldn't reel any new ones in.
I think you're missing the point. Why should a WoW rehash as a new game do for current WoW players? Personally, I'd rather keep playing WoW than start with another game mostly like it.
As with Microsoft Vista and Microsoft Windows XP, Blizzard's biggest competitor with a new MMORPG will be Blizzard's World of Warcraft. I also do not see Blizzard being a Microsoft and threatening to pull the plug on a cash cow like WoW to herd people onto a new game.
I don't see any particular start of a movement. It's Blizzard making plans on how it will compete with itself. More than likely, this will include similar incentives like they have in WoW now with TCG for current WoW players.
How about a Space game with no fixed locations of importance? The only thing important are very large ships. Star systems, planets, moons, and asteroids are just desolate locations where you can get basic resources. (This also makes it easier to procedurally generate universes with *billions* of star systems.)
All of the important things need to be reached by ships with long-range warp capacity. At the beginning, players have ships which can't jump between star systems, and they must attain berths on NPC "motherships" that travel routes between systems. Most of the quests are "events" that happen while ships are "en route." Players who amass enough resources will be able to attain their own motherships and other kinds of long-range warpships.
One advantage of this setup, is that you can make a big part of the game FPS combat aboard ship. Another advantage is that all of the load balancing is inherently dynamic. (Make the "warp fields" of motherships render them invulnerable in-system. They can only be attacked en-route. Simply don't allow more ships into the "warp bubble" than a server can handle.)