mmo-design
Latest
The Think Tank: Building an MMO without levels
Welcome back to another Think Tank! This week, I charged the Massively team with a single task: Elevator-pitch an MMO without levels. What should an MMO without levels look like? Can it even be done in this modern MMO era? Here's what we came up with -- we'd love to hear your take too.
The Daily Grind: Will you play time-consuming MMOs when you retire?
Massively commenter grandmoffdaryl came up with this interesting nugget last weekend. "The MMO generation is in the 'I'm busy' part of life right now with jobs and kids," he wrote. "Just wait to see what happens when the MMO generation reaches retirement age: the rebirth of the time-consuming MMO." What do you think, Massively readers? Do you see deeper, more involving virtual worlds coming back into vogue at some point in the future, or do you think the genre will continue its move toward casual and more accessible designs? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Leaderboard: What's the best MMO design decision of all time?
Last week we stirred up some discussion by asking Massively readers for their opinions on the worst MMO design decisions of all time. In the interests of fair play, and because of today's peace-on-earth-and-goodwill-toward-men Christmas thing, we thought it prudent to ask for the opposite opinion. So, how about it? What's the best MMO design decision of all time? It's kind of a broad question, we know, so In lieu of the traditional Leaderboard voting options, feel free to write in your answers. Ever wish that you could put to rest a long-standing MMO debate once and for all? Then welcome to the battle royal of Massively's Leaderboard, where two sides enter the pit o' judgment -- and only one leaves. Vote to make your opinion known, and see whether your choice tops the Leaderboard!
The Daily Grind: Why is fluff considered fluff?
Yesterday's news of the World of Warcraft player who leveled to 90 without a single kill generated some interesting comments. A couple of them got us to thinking why MMO fluff is considered fluff, and why video gaming in general is so heavily focused on combat. Combat is probably the easiest answer when it comes to progression and monetization-based design, but shouldn't MMOs be something more than sticking the pointy end into the other man over and over again? So how about it, Massively readers? Why is fluff considered fluff? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Some Assembly Required: The newer-is-better fallacy
There's this idea that old-school MMO players don't know what they want. I've an inkling that the folks espousing this idea have little experience with the old-school games they purport to be evolving beyond. This doesn't stop them from claiming that old-schoolers are in love with a time period instead of a game, though, which in turn intimates that old-schoolers' minds are too muddled to know exactly what they do and do not prefer. Regardless of how you feel about old vs. new, sandbox vs. themepark, or world vs. game, it's easy to see that conflating someone's personal preference with nostalgia results in a perspective that's of limited usefulness at best.
Some Assembly Required: Guild Wars 2 goes back to the future
Like a lot of you, I've been goofing around in Guild Wars 2 this past week. What does that have to do with Massively's sandbox column? Not much other than that I feel like ArenaNet's game has arrived at an interesting crossroads in the history of MMO development. In one direction, you have World of Warcraft 2.0 and the continuation of the themepark model. In another direction, you have a sandbox akin to Ultima Online or Star Wars Galaxies. A third fork leads to the so-called sandpark hybrid. ArcheAge may live at the end of this road, and even titles like The Secret World and Age of Wushu can be said to mix both sandbox and themepark mechanics when it suits them. ArenaNet avoids all three paths with Guild Wars 2, though, and instead makes a fourth that's 80 percent themepark and 20 percent... well, I don't know what to label it. It's almost like the devs wanted to make a virtual world, though.
The Daily Grind: How would you design an MMO's endgame?
Earlier this week we asked if you were sick of raiding progression. A lot of you said yes, and that got us to thinking that there must be some other endgame activity that tickles your fancy. Let's pretend for a moment that budgetary concerns are off the table. You're the creative director on your very own MMORPG, and you need to come up with some sort of engaging endgame that will keep your max-level players entertained and/or paying (preferably both). If raiding is off the table, how would you design your MMO's endgame? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
CCP: It's 'deeply wrong' to assume that repetition is the way forward
CCP's got opinions. This isn't news. The Icelandic developer behind EVE Online isn't afraid to share its opinions, which is also par for the course. MMO developers rarely comment on other games, though, and so we read lead EVE designer Kristopher Touborg's thoughts on The Elder Scrolls Online with some interest. PC Gamer provides the setup, in which the magazine shares a quote from TESO's Matt Firor with Touborg. "At this point in the evolution of MMOs, every MMO has tried something at one point or another that you're going to do in your game. There aren't any more truly innovative features," Firor said. Touborg's response was lengthy and fills out most of the source article listed below. "It's kind of waving a white flag. Like, yeah. I don't like that statement. Because I think that's part of why there's such an attrition with MMOs. People go in and play an MMO for a month and they just want to throw up because they've leveled to 60 in ten different titles," Touborg says before going on to express his hopes that developers try something new. "Otherwise the same [MMOs] are just going to continue on the trend we see every time, where they sell a load of boxes and people play it for three months and then they go somewhere else. There has to be something else out there."
The Soapbox: Nobody's hero
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. We're not heroes, at least in the ubiquitous Hollywood sense. We're teachers and janitors and businessmen, and we may occasionally be heroic in the eyes of our kids or our colleagues, but rarely are we celebrated beyond a tiny circle of family and friends. Games can meet this emotional need, at least temporarily, and that's a major reason they've become such a booming business over the last couple of decades. We get to be Kratos for a couple of hours, or fem-Shepard or a thousand other pixelized pariahs -- until we set foot in an MMORPG, that is. Software companies sell pre-packaged heroism in ways that book publishers and filmmakers can only dream of, and it doesn't really matter that it's fake heroism or impersonal heroism crafted on an assembly line and shipped out to millions of consumers. Shouldn't it matter, though, when it comes to MMORPGs?
BioWare's Erickson talks about creating MMO story
Story is on everyone's mind when it comes to discussing Star Wars: The Old Republic, and who better to talk to than one of the devs primarily responsible for creating it. PC Gamer does just that in a new interview with BioWare writer Daniel Erickson. The development process is quite complex, and it's also one that takes some time given the hundreds of hours of dialogue required, not to mention the interplay between quest NPCs and players. Erickson says that the world-building team uses "greybox" placeholders to connect story quests together while the technical and narrative details are ironed out, and there's a lot less room for error than there is in a typical single-player RPG. "You can teleport people around in a normal RPG, you can fake things, you can make it look like you went from one place to another because there's a secret room hidden in the wall – you can do all sorts of chicanery that, if you tried to do in an MMO somebody's gonna find that room, somebody's gonna teleport out. We have to cheat a lot less, and that takes more time," Erickson explains.
The Soapbox: Applying Neal Stephenson's Innovation Starvation to MMOs
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. You've probably heard of Neal Stephenson. The celebrated sci-fi author recently released his 13th novel, Reamde, and while it treads a little closer to traditional thriller territory than some of his more cerebral efforts, it still packs a futurist punch (and even led the author to comment on MMOs, virtual worlds, and World of Warcraft in a recent interview). In addition to speculative fiction, Stephenson is also prone to the occasional essay, the latest of which found its way onto the intarwebs a few weeks ago. While not directly related to the gaming or massively multiplayer industries, the piece does feature some interesting observations about the stagnant creative culture to be found in contemporary corporate America, and Stephenson also offers plenty of food for thought that can be applied to the current state of the MMO space.
The Soapbox: On armchair development
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. A couple of weeks ago I penned a Soapbox that, to put it mildly, elicited passionate responses. While a few people sided with me in my belief that MMO combat is silly and sucky, the cries of the masses drowned us out with variations on "you know nothing, Jon Snow" and "go back to consoles, you inexperienced newb!" Some of the responses got me to thinking about game design in general and about game designers and their cult celebrity status in particular. When you cut through the anonymous insults and keyboard courage, most of my would-be critics were actually right about one thing: I'm not a game "developer." You know what's funny, though? That doesn't make a lick of difference when it comes to the ability to talk intelligently about games and game design.
The Anvil of Crom: What's wrong with AoC's crafting?
In the wake of Funcom's glorious announcement that Age of Conan is due for an extreme tradeskill makeover in 2012, I thought it might be fun to brainstorm a few crafting-related design ideas. To be frank, I think any change will be an improvement, as it's hard to fathom a more boring and ultimately worthless gameplay system than what currently passes for crafting in Hyboria. This is a pretty huge topic, of course, so join me after the cut for the first part of what will likely be an ongoing discussion over the next few months. Before we can talk about solutions, though, we've got to identify what's wrong with AoC's crafting.
Funcom's Craig Morrison on background, story, and immersion
It's been a while since we checked up on Age of Conan game director Craig Morrison's personal blog, and the latest update is a lengthy morsel designed to get gamers thinking about MMO story as something more than a marketing bullet point. Along the way, we get a glimpse of Morrison's thoughts on games ranging from MMOs, to Brink, to id Software's forthcoming RAGE. While you might think that story is all about narrative and characterization, Morrison opines that a sense of place and attention to world-building details like societal structures are equally important. Quest text can be crucial too, and while gameplay is obviously a big deal, Morrison says that it's only part of the equation. "Sure, a game can be good on its own mechanical merits, and first and foremost a game must be a compelling gameplay experience... but those truly great games? Those are the games that also create a sense of place for the player. A world they can believe in," he writes.
GamersFirst hires Dave Jones as APB Reloaded advisor
Raise your hand if you saw this one coming: Dave Jones is back on the All Points Bulletin team. The former Realtime Worlds boss and the brains behind APB's original incarnation (as well as Crackdown and the first two Grand Theft Auto games) has joined GamersFirst "in an advisory role and will share his vast game design experience during critical design stages" according to a new press release. Jones has flown under the radar since the meltdown of Realtime Worlds and appears to be excited to get back on the development horse. "The game was my passion back when I was developing it with Realtime Worlds, and I'm extremely excited to be able to participate in fulfilling the long term vision for the title," he said. Jones also goes on to praise GamersFirst's free-to-play vision for San Paro. APB Reloaded is currently winding down its closed beta stage, with open beta scheduled for May 18th.
Age of Conan's Morrison talks progression, design
Armchair designers of the world, take note. If you've ever wanted a peek inside the mind of an MMORPG developer, Craig Morrison's latest personal blog entry might be right up your alley. The Funcom executive and current Age of Conan boss has posted a lengthy look at his thoughts on massive design, and more specifically, progression. Morrison examines progression versus entertainment, and goes on to contrast the need for the former with the desire for storytelling. He also touches on the vast array of player motivations, ultimately concluding that while "progression, and the need for it, is a bedrock of the expected player experience," future MMO designers should be mindful of the differences between what they want the player to do and what the player wants to do. Clearly, there is no easy answer to the question of how does one design a good MMORPG. After all, one gamer's soul-sucking grind of death and despair is another's relaxing evening at home. That said, Morrison's perspective illuminates at least one line of developer thinking and is worthy of a read-through whether you're a dev, a player, or both.
Anti-Aliased: How I mine for craft
This column was bound to come sometime. We've had legions of people asking us, "Why don't you cover Minecraft? It's totally an MMO!" The email barrage was so constant that I had nightmarish fits in my sleep, where I was drowning in oddly block-shaped emails pouring out of my ceiling. Now, after I've finally played Minecraft, my nightmarish fits have turned into scenes in which I'm being attacked by giant block-shaped spiders, but that's neither here nor there. I can see why people have fallen in love with this game, and they have every reason to. Minecraft may not be an MMO by our standards, but it is an example of gaming done right. It's the purest form of everything we love about gaming, and it's a game that could teach MMO makers a lot about design, should they care to listen.
Anti-Aliased: Don't hate the playa, hate the developa
So I noticed something last week, in the comments section of my piece on UI design, that finally kicked me back into "endless rant" mode. It's a sentiment that I've noticed in the video game community at large for a while now, but I never really knew how to approach it until recently, thanks to my own life experiences with games. It's an idea that's pretty misinformed on how the industry works. It's the idea that the developers behind any given game are an idiots. According to commenters, they're all blind, non-gamer morons, bumbling around in the dark without the slightest sense of what game mechanics are actually fun. Why are these bumbling morons in the industry? Why don't they listen to the endless array of golden ideas that pop up on game forums? Don't they realize that these revolutionary ideas will turn every game into double-rainbow-crapping unicorns? Why haven't 15% of my readers (a totally accurate statistic, mind you) figured out how sarcastic I'm being at this point in the introduction? This week we're going after some of the common misconceptions about developers and game design, and how making a game as complex as an MMO is really never as easy as you claim it is.
The perfect MMO concept is complete
GamerZines just wrapped up a blog series detailing all the ingredients that make their perfect MMO and they want your feedback. They also plan to pitch these ideas to various MMO studios and eventually compile it all as a full feature in their free MMO magazine, aptly titled MMOZine.We wrote about parts one through five a couple weeks ago and since then they have come out with a sixth part. In part six, the author suggests "next-gen" MMOs should become more homogenized in terms of their feature sets. Why re-invent the wheel when you can copy a perfectly working system already, they ask. Somehow, we don't think everyone's going to agree with that one.If nothing other than one man's (or magazine's) opinion, this series highlights a valid point about game development. Because everyone has different gaming tastes, developers are bombarded with strong opinions from all sides. "You should focus on hardcore raiding." "No, you should focus on casual questing." "I want to experience epic large-scale PvP." "But I want your PvP to be solo-friendly!" That has to be difficult, unless you're so focused on your game's vision that you can tune out most of the background noise.
Gamerzines blog series on crafting the perfect MMO
Gamerzines doesn't want to sound arrogant, but they're pretty sure they can design the perfect WoW-killer and because they're such nice folks, they're going to spill the beans in a series of blog posts. There are five parts so far that include their must-have elements for the next best MMO since [insert your favorite MMO title here]. Part 1 - User generated content that passes through a quality filter Part 2 - Persistent world and good story Part 3 - Crafting and economy 2.0 (see EVE Online's industry) Part 4 - Old school RPG customization system (stats, appearance, gear, etc.) Part 5 - Real world simulation This is obviously a pretty bold series if it aims to change the MMO landscape, but the ideas do seem interesting even though none of them are exactly novel so far. That said, they are starting to fit together nicely as newer parts of the series come out.For instance, allowing players to have a visible and lasting impact on the game and then mixing it with the concept of a more real world simulation could produce interesting outcomes; e.g., too much hunting of one particular species could throw the ecosystem and biodiversity of the surrounding area out of balance.[Via: Warcry]
