This is a sad development. Many MMOG's which aren'T successful turn on item selling mode, ie. you can play for free but have to buy high end items.

Th first games did tons of money. The result was that the competition followed. I can give you an example: in china where over 10 new MMOG's are launched each month (!) most of them are free play and item pay.

The result is a crash in the market. With over 120 MMOG's to play free not many pay actually. There are enough free worlds to play in without having the high end items.

The result also disturbs the players who pay for items (powergamers). As the population dwindles the operators merge servers. So more powergames are joined on one server and your position is not strong anymore. So they leave. Double ouch.

I see the same problem developing in the western world. Free MMOG's hurt the rest. They will destroy themselves.

This happened already in the past if you are not familiar with history of MMOG's: back when Genie, AOL and Compuserver had the most subsribers the management decided to have a flat fee to pay them all (ie. $10 for all games per month). The operators didnt receive enough money anymore and many games shut down, nearly crashing all three services. Luckily a couple of months later UO appeared and showed a business model which works.

Why change it. Oh my god. Stupid people never learn from history :/
 

[This is a bit snarky, but you set the tone with that post.]

Oh come on, criticising someone for experimentation in the new areas of online experience and suggesting that those new areas haven't made money yet (except for the people they have made money for) is one thing. But going on to compare this with World of Warcraft and suggesting that as a route is not one of your best posts.

Even you are beginning to post about having spotted that WoW is, after you've experienced the content once, a pointless and dreary crawl towards an ever-receding horizon. I have high hopes that you're giong to have a Naked Lunch moment and realise just what you are doing in WoW.

And the cheap shot at Raph over SWG is also unworthy of you. He designed what could have been a very good game, but which was implemented a year before it should have been (against his protests). In any case, it proved an extremely stucky world for certain players, despite being a bugfest. A designer designs, but he is at the mercy of flawed implementation.

Anyway, WoW is not a model. Lessons can be learned, sure. It has succeeded because it is polished, but it is still a predictable, samey diku, and the days when most people will numb themselves into catassery in a diku world are numbered (there will always be a market for the "predictable, easy but polished" game, but most will move on eventually). Raph is quite right to be looking for the next big thing, and your suggestion that he look to the last big thing is dubious advice.

Contrary to what you say, WoW content is creatable in that dreary pervathon, Second Life. There are limitations due to SL's stupid architecture, but it can be done (there are two fantasy dikus in there already). And give me an artist and I can re-create any non-raid quest from WoW in Multiverse (raids would be a matter of scale, and beyond one dev, but not a technical issue). WoW is not inventive or hard to do. Really. It is just smoothly done. That's what it got right. There are troops of monkeys living in triple-canopy rainforests in Amazonia who have put together half-decent dikus.

And another reason not to chase the diku dollar is that the barriers to entry are only money: spend the cash and take the time and any decent game company can make a polished diku. From what I hear, Dungeon Runnings is just a better WoW with a couple of minor innovations. But thank God that they're not all doing it. I played and enjoyed WoW off and on for three or four months, but that was all it took to see all it really had to offer. I'd hate to pool at /played and see enough time wasted to try a dozen other quality titles, read a score of wonderful books, or do a year's study towards a degree.
 

Oops: "pool at /played" is "look at /played" with missed keys
 

Even you are beginning to post about having spotted that WoW is, after you've experienced the content once, a pointless and dreary crawl towards an ever-receding horizon. I have high hopes that you're giong to have a Naked Lunch moment and realise just what you are doing in WoW.

WoW is like a good book I read. Twice. The fact that I'm tired of reading it again doesn't make it a less good book. If you gave me a "new" WoW, identical in gameplay to the old one, but wiht all new content, I'd play it immediately.

A designer designs, but he is at the mercy of flawed implementation.

Sorry, but in my opinion SWG had several areas of bad design. Yes, it was a bugfeast, and I don't hold Raph responsible for that. But many basic game design choices were just flawed, the combat system, the quest system, the crafting system. The game had its good sides, I absolutely loved the resource system. But the game just didn't "tick" from a gameplay point of view, and I sure think Raph is responsible for that. You can't be the head designer and only be responsible for the few good parts.

You are obviously a "world" MMO fan. Great, I have no problems with that. May there always be a good game of that type around for you. All that I'm saying is that the *majority* of potential customers prefers "game" MMOs. That doesn't make "world" MMOs bad, it just makes them a bad investment.
 

I like worlds and games, actually. But the last thing I want is yet another diku. WoW did it best: play it, leave it behind and move onto something better. Don't ask a talented and creative man to replicate it with different graphics.

And to defend Koster further, it's pretty common kowledge that the fundamentals of the game were often not what he designed.

You mention the combat system: he's gone on record with what he designed, which was fast-paced and improvised, with rapid depletion and recharging of the various pools. Implementation let him down.

You might say that a good designer designs for what is available, but he was told "sure that's possible" by the dev team on several points, who then backed off at late stages. The quests in beta were really cool, with multi-level complexes spawning to be explored, but the time wasn't there when SOE changed the schedule. The mobs were dynamic and interesting, but the server programmers turned around later and said that the "event horizon" had to be dramatically shorter, which ruined that.

I think he perhaps didn't foresee the effects of crafting with real top-end, 1000 quality resources. That's an avoidable problem (one of the easier to model, I'd have said). But SWG's biggest problem was not design-related: it was a decision to curtail the implementation of that design at a stage when large areas of it were not in place, and hope that the rest would hang together, while debugging using the live team.

And as regards a "new" WoW, with the same gameplay but different content: you'd really want to play it that much? I mean, you are very clearly an extremely smart guy, and you've spent literally years now collecting 10 foozle-hats on a 12% drop rate, playing whack-a-mole with healing, or keeping aggro on an enemy in pretty much the same way as you would have with EQ. Isn't hitting things to get a sword to let you hit the same things but with a red scarf and all attributes multiplied by a scalar of 1.1 getting very, very unfulfilling?
 

It seems Endie just doesn't like games in general. You could say the same thing of Tetris - Isn't shifting blocks to be placed in empty space to let you get to the next level to shift more blocks, only faster very, very unfulfilling?

Don't most games have repetetive elements?

Now, tell me what the point is of a "world" MMO like Second Life. It's basically a graphical chatroom, with highly customizable avatars and backgrounds.
 

Don't most games have repetetive elements?

I'd even say *all* games have repetitive elements. That is the definition of a game, as opposed to a toy. You have rules, which form a repetitive framework, but inside of these rules you play the game in different ways.

And as regards a "new" WoW, with the same gameplay but different content: you'd really want to play it that much? I mean, you are very clearly an extremely smart guy, and you've spent literally years now collecting 10 foozle-hats on a 12% drop rate, playing whack-a-mole with healing, or keeping aggro on an enemy in pretty much the same way as you would have with EQ. Isn't hitting things to get a sword to let you hit the same things but with a red scarf and all attributes multiplied by a scalar of 1.1 getting very, very unfulfilling?

Since you can read, you are reading books using the same old 26 letters in different combinations. Isn't that getting very, very unfulfilling?

No it isn't. While the basics are always the same, the possible combinations are endless. Same is true with games. If there were only foozles to kill, it would get boring. And in fact quests in SWG were boring, because the mobs were all samish, and the quest text were obviously created randomly. But in a game like EQ or WoW, every quest is different, telling a different story. And there are hundreds of different mobs, having different abilities and reacting in different ways. You can't use the same tactics on murlocs and wolves.

And in the end your argument is self-defeating. Because you know very well that me and millions of other smart people enjoy playing World of Warcraft for very long periods of time. Even average players are in the game for over a year, with hundreds of hours played. Compare that with Second Life where the average player downloads the free client, walks around in the world for an hour, logs off, and never comes back.

It's all very fine if you like "worlds" more, but trying to convince us that they are superior to "games" is fighting against windmills.
 

Alex, I'd suggest taking a look at my blog before firming up your suspicions about me and games. I love them. I write them for fun. I have 3 consoles bought on launch day. I just don't want to play one single game, loooong after I've grokked it.

That's what the core of Raph's book about fun was: a description of the process whereby we see a challenge, we work out the patterns involved, we get a rush from working how to "defeat" it, our interest tails off as we realise that we have mastered that process, and we move on.

I wholly agree with you about the boringness of quests in SWG. Defending someone against facile accusations regarding elements over which he had no control is *very* different from saying that I hold the result of that poor implementation up as a paragon.

And my argument certainly is not self-defeating. I certainly *do* believe that millions of people, some of them smart, some of them not, play or have played WoW for a time. But, in the process Bartle describes very clearly, they complete their journey, they realise they have "won", and they move on. There comes a point when even the dumb ones think "I've done that, boring..." and the smart ones say "I see the meta-game: the wizard behind the curtain". And the fact is that your writing for *months* has had a slightly uncomfortable edge to it, as you come to terms with your own very obvious jadedness.

And please, do not ask me to defend Second Life. Ack. I seem to spend my life arguing wth Prokofy Neva.

You really don't seem to be reading what I have said: youare the one tilting at windmills. I have not said that worlds are superior to games. One day I suspect that they will be better at providing rich and enjoyable fun. In that case, it will simply be the richness of the range of challenges that is available that swings it (and it will be a range of minigames, as in SWG or UO, that will make people say that it is a "world"). But for now, for fun, play a game. But play it for a little while and move on, and don't knock the people who are trying to add exciting innovation to the genre. If you get your wish, and the next big thing is the last big thing with different pretty pictures, that will be horribly tedious.
 

The social element is what keeps me playing WOW and other online games; if this game was an off-line single player game, I would have quit a long time ago.
What else I like about WOW compared to a lot of other MORGS is that I am safe from PKers and Item thieves. I can also /ignore rude and offensive players in seconds.
It's funny how having quests to do, eg collecting 10 Scorpid Glands and delivering them to an NPC is a lot more rewarding than just going out and collecting 10 Scorpid Glands on your own initiative. People clearly need targets to aim for, and will keep playing as long as those targets have not been achieved, no matter how trivial those targets are.
 

@Anonymous - I agree: the social element is the real dlight to MMO devs: the bit that keeps subs going even when the game has become a bit of a glorified, graphical chatroom. And you're right: grinding 80 scorpids is alien to me. But I pounded those saltflats for them when the quest said to fetch 20 of their glands.

@nick: I wish i'd managed to boil down what I was saying into one paragraph like that: spot on with your third para!
 

Let me start off by saying I hate the game Second Life.

Now that that's out of the way, I would like the label of "world" & "game" to be broken down. I think most people identify a "world" MMO with user created content, I on the other hand do not.

To me, a "world" MMO is just that, a "game" with a "worldly" atmosphere. When I say worldly, I mean the lifting of restrictions to extend the possibilities of game play.
I am strongly against player created content, but there can be a "world" MMO that doesn't consist of player created content.

I've been playing MMO's since 1996. I started with MUDs and quickly moved to Ultima Online. I still play Ultima Online today, but not nearly the 10 hours a day I put in when I was a teenager.

After my initial UO experience, I looked around for a different MMO to feed my need. I tried games such as, Anarchy Online, Everquest, Asheron's Call 1 & 2, Shadowbane, DAoC, Star Wars Galaxies, Matrix Online, Eve Online, City of Heroes, TSO, Neocron, World of Warcraft, etc etc etc...

I've pretty much tapped any mainstream MMO that's been put out. The strange thing about all this is that to this day I still find Ultima Online to be my favorite. Why you might ask?

The game Ultima Online had little restriction placed on the player's ability to make decisions. In Ultima Online, if you wanted a house by the lake (not in an instanced housing zone) then you could place a house on the lake and customize it from the ground up. If you wanted to player kill someone who had been stealing your kills, or just being an ass, then you could.

The possibilities in the Ultima Online "world" still surpass those of all the subsequent MMO's and their online "games".

I yearn for the day where I can play in a virtual world where the possibilities nearly mimic that of the place we call reality. The first step to achieving this dream is for game developers to start lifting restrictions that, to me at least, hinder the worldly-like atmosphere.

I understand the reason most restrictions are put into play are to prevent grieving and exploitation, but let players police those situations, not programmed game mechanics.

Take WoW for example, why can I not attack a member of my own faction if I so see fit? I should be able to attack the alliance hunter stealing my kills for being a dishonorable player. But then, you say, we would have PK's running rampant; however, this would not be the case if there was a penalty for the said action.

If I kill that hunter, even thou I was probably in the "right", I would have to suffer some consequences that the "players" would have to enforce. This would bring a worldly atmosphere that I haven't seen in an MMO since Ultima Online.

If any of this comment has struck a nerve with you, or has captured your interest in anyway, then I urge you to check out a new game in development that is aiming to achieve the things I've mentioned in this post. The game is called Darkfall Online, and can be found at www.DarkfallOnline.com.

Please go to that address and check out the F.A.Q. and you'll see what I think an MMO should be like. (whether the game lives up to its hype is a totally different matter)
 

Sometime in my first year of playing WoW, I thought it would be so cool to allow more player freedom: user-generated content, or maybe world-state permanent changes. But then I saw how games went when you allowed that kind of freedom: the hardcore oppress the newbies. And then I realized that WoW is more like Disneyland than a real frontier world. And a lot more people go to Disneyland than to unlawful frontiers where they can be shot and robbed. It depends on the spectrum of where you want to live: lawful and safe, or free and dangerous. There's always more work to be done on creating laws that allow people to live both free and safe lives. But I personally (and millions of others) prefer to err on the side of safe -- that's more "fun" to me.

I find enough permanence state change in the Auction House, where I can stockpile, monopolize goods for a while and control prices to some extent. Best part is, it's all consensual and no one gets killed permanently.

In the course of playing WoW, I've also discovered the fun of PvP guilds, end-game raiding (always a challenge to class-balance a raid and bring new people up to speed), and keeping up with rule changes. For example, now that healing-over-time spells stack, how do I equip and play my druid differently? So Disneyland seems to be adding attractions at a pace that keeps me entertained and paying $12/month (in 6-month blocks).

Finally, I think a big part of "fun" is the implementation details. Blizzard does such a good job with the UI that I find it hard to play other games now. I tried Guild Wars for a while (free, with prettier graphics!) but it felt "clunky."
 

"...the hardcore oppress the newbies. And then I realized that WoW is more like Disneyland than a real frontier world. And a lot more people go to Disneyland than to unlawful frontiers where they can be shot and robbed."

Have you ever wondered why the majority of the population doesn't attack each other in the streets; if you think it's due to law enforcement, you are wrong. The police are there to respond to dangerous activity, such as a person attacking someone. What about when you walk by a random stranger in a dark alley and no one is around and nothing happens?

The reason is, unless you are an ancient Freudian, that people are inherently "good". We have law enforcement to deal with those that "go bad".

Now to relate all this to the MMO world, what is wrong with instilling a system where players police themselves? Why should I, a person who has not "gone bad", suffer because of a few bad apples; why should everyone who abides by the law suffer a game lacking possibilities?

It might sound like I'm advocating random acts of violence, but I'm not, I'm advocating open-ended game play. The open-ended game play I speak of would allow for grievers, sure, but with the policing system in place, the griever would just receive grief from the general population.

In my 10 years of MMO experience, I can honestly tell you that the grievers are outnumbered 10:1. I just don't want the other nine people to suffer because of the stupidity of one...
 

keystone: In an online world, anonymity and minimal consequence are what make the people who abide the laws in real life start to experiment with doing bratty, grievous things in-game.

My gaming history practically mirrors yours. I started playing MUDs when I was 14. Now at 24 I have 10 years of MMOs under my belt. In my experience, too, the griefers are outnumbered in game. But, it only takes one griefer to ruin someone's night, and there is almost no reprisal from people who want to play the game peacefully.

Remember UO, trying to go out and mine ore? How many times were you ganked? All of your effort gone. You tried to wait a few minutes and then go out again, only to be ganked again. Your kryss and armor taken, all of your regents gone.

The majority of players don't want their hard-earned rewards to be stolen. They don't have time to take care of the griefers by organinzing some sort of player-policing-party. They have a few hours to play and want to get some things accomplished in the game.
 

"Let me start off by saying I hate the game Second Life"

Second Life's a game?

What's the aim of it?*




*This is facetious at best. I do know what Second Life is but I personally would never describe it as a game as it doesn't fulfill many of the basic qualities of a game.
 

noun 1. an amusement or pastime: children's games.

I'm not defending Second Life as being an amusement, at least for me it's not; it is however to it's player base, hence the label, "game"

*see definition above
 

another game for my list and nice info :D thx
 

Keystone, around the world, most folks do whatever they think they can get away with; mebbie folks have a decent cord at their heart, but it is easily overpowered by their desires and reasoning of relative cost to others. (IE, "I'll gank him and take his X, because he can go get more, and he could do it to someone else-- he might even be the alt of the guy who did it to me!)