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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?
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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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.
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You use Asian MMOs as an example of originality.
Seriously?
I've tried almost a dozen different Asian MMOs. They're all Lineage. They all have elves/dark elves, and they all run the same anime leaning forward crouch run thing. Gameplay feels the same for almost all of them. In the West it's the WoW-clones, in the East it's the Lineage clones.
Actually, it's more of us and them. And the blood elves are on the Horde side. Also, it's a lot more lived in of a world, and it has a healty dose of steampunk from the goblins and gnomes. Even an Orc can be the hero of his own story in WoW.
That which is done from love exists beyond good and 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?