The Future of MMO's

[Tedsterz]

I honestly don't see F2P as the future for MMO's. Currently it just seems like a back up plan for MMO's that failed to convince consumers into playing their game. What they need to do is bring something new to the table for MMO's. If they do this and do it good I can see a new MMO entering the market bringing in a large chunk of new players and also evening out the entire MMO playerbase with WoW.

But alas, ever since WoW launched no MMO has actually been able to do this.

On another note, I see the GW2 stlye a much better future for MMOs. buy to play with some minor micro transactions seems like a much smarter idea.

[melodramocracy]

There will never be another large scale MMO not produced by Blizzard. It just does not make economic sense.

You must have first hand knowledge of TES:Online being cancelled.

And it most certainly does make economic sense in the long term. Games do not need 10 or even 5 million subs to be profitable and sustainable.

As for the future... I don't know, gamers are a very fickle, follow-the-herd bunch. Many will burn through content, burn out, and simply move onto the next *thing*.

My overall experience with MMO's is that you really do need to develop some sort of 'attachment' to what's going on in the game, via either the growth of your own character, or whatever. When you get that, you get a player that's going to stick around (if sub model is what you're going to do).

Also, the genre itself has a lot of pitfalls due to its nature, and none of them really do much for making the play experience better:

a) PvP. It generally simply doesn't work in this genre, because leveling is an intrinsic part of most games, and thus, there are severe imbalances. To make it work, someone will need to come up with a system where leveling is more about gaining access to various things, and not merely power. Yes, GW2 has the right idea, but world PvP there is a seperate entity from the PvE game.

b) The element of surprise. Often overlooked in games, experiencing something with no prior knowledge is often where gaming is at it's best, as you work out how to overcome an obstacle. Sadly, in WoW and other games, the average raider is expected to completely know a given encounter before setting foot in the place. What's coming up in patches is completely spelled out for every single player ahead of time, also ruining the discovery factor.

c) Current trend is to insulate players from each other in terms of possible bad behavior and risk, along with complete removal of any sort of justice that can be dealt out by players who have been wronged. This helps lead to a lack of attachment to what's going on (see part a), makes in-game friendships and trusts less important, and doesn't help a player stay involved. While I've played games where theft of items was possible, as well as item loss through PvP means, the aggressor in any situation seems to always have a significant upper hand, and I've frankly never seen a game balance this out. Instead, the potential for it is just removed altogether.

TL;DR? Someone will need to go out on a limb of sorts, perhaps take a step backwards, and do things in a pretty different fashion.

[MoanaLisa]

My overall experience with MMO's is that you really do need to develop some sort of 'attachment' to what's going on in the game, via either the growth of your own character, or whatever. When you get that, you get a player that's going to stick around (if sub model is what you're going to do).

This is why WoW goes on. People have invested in the place and in their characters. It's difficult for many to think of abandoning entirely some entity they've created that in some ways represents themselves. Maybe that's the RPer in me writing but I think there's a little bit of RP in everyone.

Someone will need to go out on a limb of sorts, perhaps take a step backwards, and do things in a pretty different fashion.

Agree. Just taking a slightly different path through the by now well-worn trails that Blizzard uses isn't going to cut it if you have mass-market intentions.

[Angry Bob]

In the future...people will learn not to put 's when using a plural.

[wynterlyn]

Found this article. I thought it was a pretty interesting read. Maybe you will too...

Just a little snippet from the article in case you don't feel like reading it all..

"Mark Kern, the original lead developer of the breakthrough MMO World of Warcraft and now the head of Red 5 Studios, explained the problem in an interview with Wired earlier this year.

“The biggest problem is the fact that you’ve got a monthly model, but it’s so expensive to make content for the traditional MMO now that if you spend $250 million like EA did on Star Wars, you’ve only got 30 days’ worth of content,” he said. Old Republic’s big draw was an elaborate, multi-part storyline set in George Lucas’ galaxy far, far away. But once Old Republic players burned through all of that content, there was nothing to keep them involved. The cost and time required to develop more content for players to enjoy made it difficult to impossible to keep them supplied with entertainment for their $15 a month.

“So you’ve made 15 bucks from the consumers, basically, before they churn out of your game,” Kern said.

World of Warcraft, said Kern, didn’t have this problem because in 2004, game production costs (and players’ expectations) were so much lower that it was economically feasible to churn out content and keep players engaged every month, so they didn’t cancel their subscriptions.

With today’s high cost of game production, Kern said, “that model is dead.”"

Article: http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/1...-of-mmo-games/

Enjoy.

I think that was a fair thing to say considering a lot of the newer games are basically competing against a game that has been out for the better part of 8 years and has a lot of content to provide to any new person willing to join the game. Even though I dislike where WoW is going, I have to give credit where it is due. I mean no other game has has much detail has WoW has which includes in game festivals, the darkmoon fair, etc. There is practically an event/festival every month of the year which usually carry on for a 1 -2 week duration.

I mean even WoW themselves are having a hard time holding onto their subscribers. The main reason they can hold on to a wast majority of their customers is cause of the emotional attachment each one has to their character. I mean I've literally had numerous chances to play a different MMO after I quit WoW but it was like, "I would rather play WoW than invest myself in another one." Why would I want to start from scartch when I have an entire character built for me to go back to including vast financial resources. People fail to realize the commitment required to play an MMO, especially one as vast as WoW.

And I will also agree if WoW had launched today in its current state it would hardly be a financial success. I mean every major game developer puts considerable amount of their resources on improving the graphics of the game than they do they game play. And it is a fact, in the current times, graphics are as or even more important that content.

WoW was launched at a time where people's expectations were so low and technology as a whole had not progressed to where it is today.

Playing BoP2 recently made me go back to the very first COD in 2003 and the game wasn't as polished as it is today. This goes for a lot of the older games including Morrowind when compared to Skyrim. As much is the game enjoyable and fun to play as each one I have just mentioned, its clearly easy to tell the time when they were released.

And lets not forget EA and Bioware make no money from Server/Faction transfers. I know or have seen individuals that have spent over a $1000 on faction/race/server transfers during their time in the game. And a huge portion of the player base has invested in one of those services at least once. And its even more when couples are involved and when they plan on transferring their 5+ toons across servers and factions. So Blizzard have a lot of additional revenue coming in from other sources including the pet store and other sales.

But I will agree, that it is a hard to actually develop an MMO in today's day and age that has content to keep players coming back for more.

P.S But I have a long standing history when it comes to EA especially. They are known for one thing and one thing only. They provide a very visually impressive game and this is across all their titles. The game content may never be the best or the depth may be lacking when compared to other games but their games are visually impressive. Being an avid sports gamer, the FIFA and the FIFA Management series for example. The games looks visually impressive and are probably the best games out there from a purely graphical point of view but if you want greater depth and a broader sense of the world PES and the Football Manager simulation are better games.

Well the success behind a MMO is comparable to a "catch 22 situation". Any MMO requires a considerable large player base to continue to grow and remain successful. Otherwise your current players are left with ghost towns and no one to queue or do anything with which results in them leaving as well. I think a MMO is a very unique genre where you need people out in the world to actually feel the true sense of the open world. I mean you can have 100 people playing multiplayer COD and it wouldn't matter a bit. On the other hand game developers can only continue to churn out new content regularly if they have a large player base to support them. I would hardly call Blizzard pioneers in the MMO market.

[cubby]

What I find most interesting is that Blizzard is working on a "next-gen MMO", set to theoretically release in 2015. With all of the experience and know-how, and huge player (and therefore revenue) base, I wonder what they are going to do to address the many legitimate issues raised herein.

I also have a side bet with myself that it will somehow be linked, in a general sense, to the characters currently in WoW. No idea how, but I figure WoW will hit it's peak at the level 100 cap, and then swing right into the new MMO.

[Stormdash]

Maybe in the future it's no longer necessary to achieve something to have fun.

Pretty depressing commentary, if true -- even in our escapism, the feeling of accomplishment is too much bother to pursue.

The game that leaps to mind to counter his argument is actually "Rift". I'm not a "Rift" shill, I haven't actively played it for almost a year, but they have retained the subscription model, and have still maintained a very energetic schedule of adding new content, and lots of it. Now, maybe they aren't making money, I don't know, but I don't think aggressive expansion is a sign of a company doing badly. If the development costs are too excessive to keep a pace to keep subscription players happy, someone forgot to tell Trion.

All I really ask of an MMO is to be engrossed and challenged (when I want to be). But being engrossed in the story that my efforts (with a group) unfold is always the thing I like most.

[Yig]

I think the line between single player and multiplayer games will being blurring a lot more.

I think the only thing limiting the next big push in MMOs that's going to do anything like WOW did to it is at the moment only limited by technology. But we're almost to a place in the next 5-10 years where worrying about latency for any kind of game with multiplayer needs will go away. Once you can have any kind of game you can cite as an example right now merged with a persistent online world, things will be a lot more interesting.

Right now we are limited in so many ways, it's a lot like when WOW was about to come out. Nobody took the time back then to put effort into the art style of their graphics or simply making movement itself be fun and polished instead of basically having a placeholder for a character model that moved like an action figure on wheels.

We're at the place now where the effort that's needed for making a city with the detail of a GTA game as well ash the effort that is needed for a movement and combat system like Assassin's Creed or Demon's Souls or with the effort that is needed for a large seamlessly connected world with varying nations and terrain like WOW has, all of those things can't afford to be part of the same project. Nobody think the price for so much effort in one title seems realistic. And the people funding games wonder who the crowd will be this is marketed to, they like having specific targets to market a genre to.

People joke about a game where you literally fly through virtual space through the atmosphere to the surface of a visually interesting full sized planet to explore as if it's impossible, but stuff like that will very soon just be waiting at some point to happen. Imagine a world roamer like Skyrim that had full sized cities like instead of fancy villages with 20 NPCs you pretend is a city.

[cFortyfive]

You must have first hand knowledge of TES:Online being cancelled.

How "large scale" this is going to be apart from initial sales remains to be seen.
Anyways I pretty much call bs on the issue. Just because swtor was burning money for voice overs and coke doesn't mean the only way to get a top title nowadays is to have millions of dollars at your disposal.

[Angry Bob]

How "large scale" this is going to be apart from initial sales remains to be seen.
Anyways I pretty much call bs on the issue. Just because swtor was burning money for voice overs and coke doesn't mean the only way to get a top title nowadays is to have millions of dollars at your disposal.

It does if you spend the money in a useful way. Bioware spent it on voice actors and tons upon tons of single player game content, unsuprisingly as they ARE a single player games developing company. It was obvious that once people hit maximum level, they said "where the fuck is the end game content ?!". Oh, Jennifer Hale has your end game content in her bank account.

[fixz0]

NerveGear.

nuf said

[Angry Bob]

NerveGear.

nuf said

Yeah, not gonna happen for a long time.

Here's a more likely technology: games using heavy motion capture technology and making your character do what you do and not following a built in set of motion rules. Swinging a sword in a game involves doing it irl and it follows the motions you do irl. Suddenly, basement dwellers everywhere lose weight and start building muscles and endurance just from playing WoW 7.

[Protar]

While GW2's definitely not perfect, it's still a fun game. I don't know how macs work on the hardware side, but you might be able to dual boot it with a Windows installation and play through that; it's worth the $60. Alas, that's not the purpose of this thread.



The thing is, that's very difficult to do if you're trying to create a constant world. If it were a game with a definite start and end, that'd definitely be possible. The only game on the market that I can think of that really caters to the idea of constantly changing is EVE.

I agree that it's no easy task, though the idea I suggested did involve a definite start and end, with the entire server unlocking the new chapters of the story together. Obviously the stages the server goes through would be the same across the board though, which while better than nothing, could still be a bit restrictive I suppose. But then if there's a wide open sandbox with a large proportion of player created content, it's virtually impossible to create a meaningful storyline, which I personally think is important.

[bufferunderrun]

Found this article. I thought it was a pretty interesting read. Maybe you will too...

Just a little snippet from the article in case you don't feel like reading it all..

"Mark Kern, the original lead developer of the breakthrough MMO World of Warcraft and now the head of Red 5 Studios, explained the problem in an interview with Wired earlier this year.

“The biggest problem is the fact that you’ve got a monthly model, but it’s so expensive to make content for the traditional MMO now that if you spend $250 million like EA did on Star Wars, you’ve only got 30 days’ worth of content,” he said. Old Republic’s big draw was an elaborate, multi-part storyline set in George Lucas’ galaxy far, far away. But once Old Republic players burned through all of that content, there was nothing to keep them involved. The cost and time required to develop more content for players to enjoy made it difficult to impossible to keep them supplied with entertainment for their $15 a month.

“So you’ve made 15 bucks from the consumers, basically, before they churn out of your game,” Kern said.

World of Warcraft, said Kern, didn’t have this problem because in 2004, game production costs (and players’ expectations) were so much lower that it was economically feasible to churn out content and keep players engaged every month, so they didn’t cancel their subscriptions.

With today’s high cost of game production, Kern said, “that model is dead.”"

Article: http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/1...-of-mmo-games/

Enjoy.

no the biggest problem is that big producers like EA invest tonload of money expecting to have 10m+ subs like wow at release and make alot of profit and then blame the devs when their dream bubble burst; lotro, rift, D&D online even star trek online are going with a small playerbase, a free to play model and frequent updates.
It's time for the producers to accept that wow 10m+ subs is an exception like the guy that win the lottery, and it's impossible to expect any other game to reproduce this unless maybe one day a super ground-bracking mmo appear that introduce a completely new way of play.

[Stormdash]

World of Warcraft came along at the peak of a lot of ideal circumstances to let it become successful, almost too many to mention, that let it not only succeed with normal MMO-level success but to just grow exponentially to what it became. I think it helped that, while it was an existing IP, it wasn't licensed, it was just Blizzard making it themselves. I think trying to build an MMO with someone else's toys is not a recipe for success because of the limits placed on you from a creative standpoint not to contradict the "real" thing too badly.

And, as an existing IP, Warcraft did have a built-in playerbase that wanted to try it out in the MMO format.

And, it was well within the technology horizon for non-gamers to get into and play effectively, and always has been. I don't think a lot of true gamers out there really realize that a huge reason why 10 million play WoW is because 10 million people that want to play WoW have computers that are up to it.

Now, if there's a game that I think can duplicate most of these factors, I think it might be ESo, but I don't know if that will translate into WoW-like success (not a WoW killer, because that's always been an impish fantasy), because the MMO moment may have or is passing the way that the side-scrolling shooter moment passed.

[mosely]

I think maybe they could address this problem by adding more complexity and depth to games, rather than dumbing them down for quick mass consumption.

[Ryme]

Then explain RIFTs production cycle.

I freaking envy the people who are playing that game.

[adam86shadow]

I don't agree with that. I think it's that production values are too expensive, as the article is explaining. We like MMORPG's...if we didn't, we wouldn't have 10m+ subscribers to WoW. It's just that the cost of producing the content is very high compared to the amount of money gained in the timeframe necessary to make more. It's a losing proposition now.

That's the problem though WoW is the only MMORPG with 10mil active subs... Every other MMORPG hasn't sustained said numbers thus the problem

[bufferunderrun]

That's the problem though WoW is the only MMORPG with 10mil active subs... Every other MMORPG hasn't sustained said numbers thus the problem

excatly if take wow out of the picture you can see the real number that a new mmo should expect.

[Deathloc]

In my opinion there are two things which could ruin MMO games:

1. Players expectations: We gamers tend to have unrealstic expections towards new games. Take Diablo 3, Guild Wars 2, SWTOR for example... all those are good games, objectively. But when a new game is being released, most of us hope that this or that game is going to be groundbreaking and the very best of its kind... every game has its good and bad sides - there is not *the one perfect* game IMHO.

2. "Mass elitism": I'm pretty sure that there will always be a group of "top notch players", no matter what game we are talking about. But I think it's pretty bad for a game if the majority of its community always tries to be the best. An MMO game should be more about socializing, making friends and having a good time - but I feel that the "trying to be better than the guy next to you" attitude can ruin a games fun factor. I got the feeling that some years ago people played games to have fun; nowadays they just play to win and be victorious - to strengthen their egos.

Hope this makes sense. Sorry for my bad English.