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Global Chat: Let it go
Now that I've cursed your day by triggering that earworm song from Frozen, you're probably going to be in a grumpy mood. Don't fret; snow empowerment isn't the only way to set you free. Sometimes it's the well-penned prose of MMO bloggers who put to the page what only previously existed in your thoughts. On today's edition of Global Chat, one blogger and developer has a gaming heresy to share, another has a few harsh words to say about crowdfunding, and a third thinks that the future of the genre is all in getting smaller, not bigger. Check out these great posts from the past couple of weeks!
A bird's-eye view of China's MMO market
To a western MMO developer, China's market is alluring in much the same way that winning the lottery is alluring to everyone else. There's a huge market right there, even disregarding the almost stereotypical amount of gold farming associated with the country, but thus far western games have yet to make much of a dent. The only one that's been largely successful is World of Warcraft, and even that has a bit of a tortured history. Scott Jennings has taken the opportunity to expound a bit on what makes China so appealing as an MMO market and why it's been so difficult to get a solid footing in. One of the points he makes is that, by and large, China hasn't attracted a good portion of the western market either -- Perfect World International comes the closest to making a splash, and it's nowhere near the popularity of, say, Runes of Magic. He also discusses several of the difficulties in negotiations between western businesses and the Chinese counterparts, as well as the government's vested interest in ensuring the market stays solidly in China. The full article also offers as comprehensive a breakdown of the entire World of Warcraft controversy as you're likely to find in one place, making it an excellent reference point for anyone interested in the vagaries of the worldwide market.
2009 from a developer's point of view
We're finishing up our 2009 Reader's Choice Awards, but that doesn't mean we can't take note of the fact that the last year of the decade hasn't exactly been a stellar years. We've watched a recession hit hard, several games turn the lights off for good, several others lose staff, and generally not had the best of years. And it's something that's even more obvious if you're in the thick of game development. Scott Jennings has taken a few moments to look back at what he sees as the three major developments of 2009: layoffs, Facebook, and microtransactions. Of course, as someone who had an unpleasant brush with the recession, it's understandable that Jennings wouldn't be predisposed to mention things such as the free-to-play model making large inroads via high-profile titles such as Free Realms and Dungeons and Dragons Online. But the article is interesting as a retrospective of the many south turns the industry took this year, as are his guesses from a year ago regarding what things would look like. Here's hoping that 2010 provides us with slightly better news -- believe it or not, we don't like announcing shutdowns or layoffs any more than you like reading them.
Anti-Aliased: The Quest of Vindication
Happy Holidays everybody! Hope you're all having an exciting time that's full of epic loot drops from purple gift packages sent by the jolly NPC in the red suit. This week's column is a holiday-tacular rant fest as I feel like tackling one of the major sticking points of an MMO player's behavior: the need to pursue vindication. This isn't something unique to MMO culture or even video game culture at large. We all feel this rather odd need to defend our decisions or opinions to others, even if they will never ever agree with us.However, when it comes to MMOs, vindication can be a bad thing. When communities become polarized in thought and begin to shut out others it can hurt the game's growth and the game's sense of community.
The dangers of PvP-focused games
The trouble with PvP is... well, there are several problems with PvP. The problems of balance are always there, of course, as they are in every aspect of the game. There are the problems of making PvP both accessible to new players and rewarding for veterans, their are issues with keeping people engaged in the game without being gimmicky, there are issues with even such little things as how players get equipment. But as Scott Jennings notes in his most recent column, a lot of the problems with PvP-centric games center around perceptions -- both those of the players, and those of the developers. Developers who make PvP-centric games frequently are players of games themselves, of course, and so when they strike off to make a game with "PvP done right" they can sometimes fall victim to tunnel vision regarding their game. (Jennings cites Shadowbane, Darkfall, and Fury as examples here.) But there's also a problem of perception from the player end, as whether or not a class is overpowered often pales in comparison to whether or not the players believe it's overpowered. From Guild Wars to EVE Online, every PvP game has had to contend with these issues, so it would be well-advised to take a look at the full column if you're at all interested in the design of games.
The art of the expansion
Expansions are a fact of life for MMOs. We all know it, and while we might not necessarily like the fact that at least once a year we probably have to drop another chunk of change just to keep playing the game, we accept it as the price of progress. (And if you're a Guild Wars player, it's not like you also have a subscription to pay for on top of it.) Scott Jennings has taken his most recent regular column to talk about the ways expansions work -- both their benefits and the drawbacks they have. Because as he points out, more is usually better, but sometimes more just means more. Ranging from the free large content patches used by games like Lineage II and Darkfall to more conventional expansions, and discussing World of Warcraft: Cataclysm as one of the major points of deviation in the usual expansion model, the article talks about the benefits and drawbacks of the almost ubiquitous selling model for the genre. While it's not a revolutionary look, it's something that every MMO player -- and many designers -- could do well to look at. More understanding is never a bad thing, after all, and if we can avoid another Chains of Promathia we'll all be better off.
The breadth of morality in MMOs
It's been touched on before, but there's still more thought to be put into it: morality in MMOs, if you think about it, can be a touchy business at best. Scott Jennings recently took the opportunity to discuss the genre's stance in light of the Modern Warfare 2 controversy, pointing out that the genre as a whole has generally failed to touch on morality tacitly but has frequently done so passively. The game we play are almost relentlessly imperialistic, as he puts it, with an unambiguous march toward taking everything at gunpoint (or sword-point, or laser-cannon-point) and becoming the undisputed master of all you survey. It's equally true in EVE Online, where the game implicitly sends you up against all other players in a bid for maximum possible gain, or in World of Warcraft, where you can find yourself invading homes for no reason or killing people for holding a legitimate grudge. The only games that even start escaping from the whitewashed attitude are superhero games such as City of Heroes and Champions Online, and even there you most likely send several thugs to the hospital without so much as an effort to negotiate. Whether this can or should change isn't easy to say -- much of the rationale behind it is tied to the game design rather than player choice. It's a topic worth considering, however, and one that will doubtlessly be addressed more as the industry grows in maturity.
Why RMT won't go away
"Companies should just stop gold farmers." It's a consistent complaint in many games, with "gold" replaced by your game's currency of choice. As complaints go, it's right around "somebody should do something about all the problems" in terms of overall utility, but heck, no one likes the practice and it should just be eliminated, right? Well, as Scott Jennings has pointed out recently, it's not quite that easy. As Lum points out, there are several common misconceptions about the entire process. Among them are the idea that the game company doesn't step in because they're getting kickbacks, which is pointed out to fail the simple test of Occam's razor. When developers want to get more money from an existing game, there are usually better ways to run it, such as the Champions Online model or the Dungeons and Dragons Online approach. He also tackles the infamous statement that the farmers are paying customers and therefore the company has even less incentive to stop them. So if everyone hates RMT, why is it still around? The article briefly touches upon it, but We Fly Spitfires had a recent post that articulates more specifically: more people buy gold than would necessarily admit it. Since no one will admit to it, no one ever asks, and as a result there's a large culture of silence that publicly despises it and privately takes part. In short? As long as there's a customer base, the farming will continue. Food for thought all around.
Scott Jennings discusses fixing bugs in live games
If there's one thing that MMO gamers all agree on, it's the short list of things we almost universally hate: cheaters, gold (or equivalent currency) farmers searching for your credit card, and bugs. Oh, the dreaded bugs. They do so much damage to your gameplay experience, why doesn't the company just fix them? The inimitable Scott Jennings tackles this question in his latest column on game design, explaining that the main reason bugs don't get fixed faster is because doing so is much harder than it seems. As he points out, the architecture of an MMO is a tricky thing at the best of times, frequently only held together with the coded equivalent of a wing and a prayer. Some bugs are so massively detrimental to the game that they get to jump to the head of the class, but others are annoying and bad but not at the highest priority. Or -- as sometimes happens despite everyone's best efforts -- fixing the bug would require doing so much damage to the rest of the game that it's better to work around it. If you're wondering why your favorite company hasn't fixed a much-hated bug, this article should prove an interesting read.
Scott Jennings MMO interview prep
It looks like Scott "Lum the Mad" Jennings started up a new column over at MMORPG.com granting players a rare peek behind the MMO industry curtain. His first article covers some of the things you can expect to be confronted with if you are ever lucky enough to land a game designer interview with an MMO studio. Given the competitive job market out there, these insights should not be taken lightly, even though they are just one man's opinion. But what a man! No, we're not talking about his wild charisma and manly beard. Okay, that too, but Lum has been around the MMO block in various roles from programmer to lead designer. Put simply, his advice is valuable. The biggest point he made that stuck out to us was the suggestion to have opinions and back them up. "[A]s a designer you are being paid, in large part, to have opinions. Your job will be to analyze parts of the game and determine whether it will work, how it can be broken, and whether or not it will be fun." So, whether you're an aspiring game designer or simply interested in boosting your interview skills in general (not a bad idea in these trying times), we recommend you take a gander at Lum's new column.
Unraveling the mystery of John Deere Online
Scott "Lum the Mad" Jennings, well-known blogosphere participant and game designer, has recently been working on a game that is now sadly canceled. This is bad both for the natural sadness of a game having been canceled and the voyeuristic MMO fan impulse to ask, "Well, what was it going to be?" We don't know. The only reference made was to the cryptic in-joke name of John Deere Online. In his own words: "As a condition of my severance I can't discuss a great deal, and anything I say here will most likely be picked up by the MMO news sites (wave, wave!)." Well, he's right about that last part. But neither waiting for him to change his mind nor camping outside his front door has yielded any new information, so perhaps we can take a look at more pieces of information and speculate? After all, we know of at least two of his co-workers. From them and from the little which Scott Jennings himself has said, we can derive the following bits of information: that they were working for 2K Games, developing an MMO based on an existing franchise, that the game would have been strategy-based, and that it might possibly have had something to do with tractors. Considering that Jon Jones mentions on his LinkedIn page that he "created a series of low polygon highly optimized building models with a small set of textures that can be reused across that nation's entire series of buildings appropriate to that age," it's difficult to argue with the conclusion that the team was working on a Civilization MMO. But 2K Games also could mean Elder Scrolls projects... which might be pertinent, as both Jon Jones and Matthew Weigel have been working on Dungeon Runners. It's all idle speculation, sadly, and for all we know the game really would have been a massively multiplayer tractor simulator. (In which case it might even be for the best - lawnmowers would probably have been totally overpowered against seeders in PvP.)
Opinions flare from ex-NCsoft employees about TR's closing
As Tabula Rasa approaches its end days, the anger, sadness and I-told-you-so sentiments are rising up more than ever. This week marks an interesting occasion where two former NCsoft employees each wrote detailed stories on their own perspectives regarding the sci-fi MMO's downward spiral.First we have this post by Adam Martin, former CTO of NCsoft Europe, where he explains his views on why the game failed. Granted, he admits he wasn't actually on the TR team, but he was privy to the internal mailing lists and information about the game from Alpha to launch. As a response, we have a post from Scott Jennings, who sums it all up fairly well with this statement: "The biggest failing, though, was that it was in development about twice as long and spent twice as much as it had any right to. And that's what promotes it, in this snarky outside blogger's view, from understandable failure to extinction-level company-slaying train wreck."Update: Although Adam Martin's post states that he was the European CTO at the time, we get word from NCsoft that he was never the CTO for NCsoft Europe. He was the Lead Programmer.
MUD history dissolving into the waters of time
While many modern MMO users may never have looked at a screen of white text on a black background and typed "go north," multi-user dungeons, or MUDs, were the forerunners to modern graphical MMOs. Without their appeal and gameplay concepts, we wouldn't be playing World of Warcraft or even EverQuest. So, logically, we should make sure to preserve the histories behind the many MUDs which began our conquest of the online playing field, right?Well, it appears Wikipedia does not think the same way we do on this matter. The online encyclopedia powered by user contributions has begun cracking down and removing articles on MUDs, citing inability to provide verification along with reliable sources. Currently on the chopping block is the entry for Threshold, one of the oldest MUDs still active to this day. This isn't the first time Wikipedia has put online games under fire -- already pulling out the entries for BYOND, LegendMUD, and even removing the article on dragon kill points (DKP) for a time. The removal for the entry of LegendMUD is particularly painful, as there are other articles on Wikipedia that reference the LegendMUD entry, yet are still apparently viable on their own.
Lum the Mad on the many pros and few cons of WAR
Scott Jennings, known to the blogosphere by his nom-de-keyboard Lum the Mad (a reference that crusty old D&D players like this blogger have no trouble recognizing) has set out to amend his image as Mark Jacobs' personal imp of torment, and post a hearty list of things he likes about Warhammer Online which he thinks other games should learn from.The list is fair, honest, and educational - did you know you can earn the title 'AAAAHHHH' by jumping off cliffs enough times? - and makes some sound points. He's particularly on the money when writing about WAR's open groups, which he sees as much more radical and innovative than the more commonly trumpeted public quests. It's a feature we've also appreciated; instead of looking for a group or sending messages to ask if there is room in one, you can just dive on in to any open group nearby. Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out our Warhammer guides: Massively's Character Creation Guide and our WoW Player's Guide to Warhammer. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
Breakfast Topic: Dialing back your game
Ever since the whole 10-man/25-raiding split for Wrath was announced, there's been murmurs of fear from many raiders that the large scale raid will become a thing of the past, as people decide that they can see content just fine in 10-man groups. I noticed the subject come up again today over on Lume the Mad's blog (not to be confused with the awesomer Lum the Mad's blog): A guild on Proudmoore, Renaissance, has decided to scale back to 10 man raiding for Wrath of the Lich King. They have why, but Lume opines a bit on why: easier bosses, less hassle herding 10 people than 25 people, and stuff such as that. The reminder of the debate actually sort of got me thinking in a less controversial vein. I myself scaled back my game a bit from original WoW to the Burning Crusade expansion. In the original game, I was a relatively dedicated raider. Not the most uber, and probably still more casual than most, but I did regularly participate in 40-mans and tried to bring my consumables and my resist gear and be on time most nights. However, with Burning Crusade, I decided to retire from the raid game. I felt I was just spending too much time farming stuff to raid, I had more real world obligations to deal with, and I felt that spending 2-3 hours in Ahn'Qiraj or Blackwing Lair 2-3 days a week just wasn't how I wanted to spend my playtime. So, come BC, I decided to stick to 10-mans. Not that there were many, but I figured Karazhan would be about the pinnacle of my game for BC, and that was just fine. So, anyway, here's my question: Are you or your guild planning to scale back your game for Wrath? Are you dropping 25-mans for 10-mans? Retiring from Arena play? Dropping out of raiding altogether? What reasons have made you decide to try a new slower paced playstyle in Northrend?
Broken Toys: Broken models. Start thinking differently, says Lum
Scott Jennings, rather better known as Lum the Mad, made quite a splash recently when Wagner James Au at GigaOm published a piece called Why The MMORPG Subscription-Based Business Model Is Broken. Well, Jennings didn't exactly mean that, and he didn't exactly not mean that. Heck, really, the issue is a fairly complex one and Jennings takes some pains to clear up what he was talking about in more than nine words, and adds more than a little value besides. Certainly, 15 dollars per month by twelve months with multiple subscriptions seriously eats into your annual games budget, even though a single subscription is often quite affordable in and of itself. Jennings acknowledges, though, that subscription-based MMOGs can be fun, and that they can rake in the big bucks as well. That's not really the broken part. To get your fledgling MMOG to release and maybe get a piece of that money pie, it's actually irresponsible to innovate under current publishing models.
Why the subscription-based business model is broken
After Scott Jennings' departure from NCsoft earlier this month, he quickly announced his newest home at the small casual game startup John Galt Games, most-famously known for their Web Wars browser-based game. But to add insult to injury, Lum the Mad, as he's most affectionately known, took this opportunity to let us all know how he felt about the current subscription-based business model with most popular MMOs. It's "an arms race that few can even hope to compete in, much less win," says Jennings.This issue is often a heated debate among players and developers alike, but what does Jennings suggest we do about it? "Embracing open source development, crowd-sourcing content, targeting different platforms such as the Web or mobile phones, all of these are valid," suggests Jennings. He also points to the increasing costs of MMO development these days, and how some smaller-budget MMOs like Club Penguin and RuneScape have does much more with much less.Now that an industry heavyweight like Jennings has made the leap, and we see more big-name online games shutting down or losing staff, will others soon follow?
NCsoft Austin sheds staff
Rumors abound across the manifold tubes of the Internet over just what is (or is not) presently going on at NCsoft Austin. NCsoft's Austin office is presently home to Tabula Rasa, Dungeon Runners, at least one unannounced fantasy MMO, and noticeably fewer developers than last week. We have some confirmed departures, including staff from Dungeon Runners such as April 'CuppaJo' Burba, and Crickette -- The much-loved April Burba, you may recall was the newly minted Associate Producer for Dungeon Runners, having recently transferred from the Tabula Rasa team. That comes courtesy of Jester of w00tstudios.net, a well known DJ and broadcaster on the MMO scene, via the CoX forums.
Lum the Mad weighs in on the MMO industry's future
Scott Jennings has been known as 'Lum the Mad' for years now, posting regularly to a website of the same name in the murky mists of the MMO genre's past. Though "The Rantings of Lum the Mad" was a collaborative effort, Mr. Jennings well-known efforts on the site led to a lengthy stint with Mythic Entertainment. Since 2006 he's been working with NCsoft in Austin on an as-yet-unannounced massively multiplayer game. The folks at Ten Ton Hammer caught up with Lum at this month's ION conference. There, they asked a few questions about what he's working on, as well as some broader queries about the industry as a whole. If you've ever followed Mr. Jenning's writing on his current Broken Toys site, you're probably already aware he's got some great ideas about where the genre should be going.Scott confirmed that the title he's working on is a typical fantasy MMO. But, he notes, it's a collaborative effort between a number of veterans of the genre. On the industry as a whole, the MMO commentator is fairly firm: World of Warcraft has set a standard that must be met. Anything that doesn't "will fail and deserve[s] to fail." Beyond that, Lum and the site discuss open world PvP, the sticky wicket of investment money, and the daunting challenge of MUDflation. Says Jennings, "There are ways to give players more tools in their toolbox that don't completely blow the ability spectrum out of wack. It's one of those things that's very upward focused, and that's why you need tons and tons of testing cause it's the quickest way to kill your game."
Lawyers representing gold farmers threaten Lum the Mad
Late last month Scott "Lum the Mad" Jennings put up a post on his well-known MMOG blog site about an ongoing legal battle. It involves former IGE (yeah, the gold farmers) CEO Brock Pierce and co-founder of the company Alan Debonneville. Lum's excellent post, which quotes heavily from the lawsuit documents unearthed by the site Virtually Blind, does little more than sum up the case in one location. Not only have we been following the case along with the VB site, but numerous others have as well.And yet, in a post on the Broken Toys site today, Lum notes that somehow he's the one that has received legal threats from Brock Pierce's legal team. They've basically asked him to take down the post by the close of business today (February 15th). Mr. Jennings, being a practical person and with no interest in going toe-to-toe with lawyers, is planning to do just that. He does get off a nice shot back at them in his response, saying "I welcome your client's renewed dedication to legal documentation and remind him that there are several outstanding end user licensing agreements attached to games I have assisted in operating in the past, regarding the explicitly forbidden trade of virtual items and characters in said games that he and his company have performed and expedited, that would benefit from his and his company's attention."Of course, their harshly worded note has prompted responses from other MMOGbloggers, such as these posts from Ryan Shwayder and Matt Mihaly. Perhaps Pierce's team should have considered the impact before they asked Lum to take down his post about the lawsuit. This one, over here on his site. His post concerning Brock Pierce and Alan Debonneville. This post right here.
