Recently as I was surfing on different blogs, I came upon an interesting article from a guy named Richard Bartle, and I had no idea who he was at that time. Nethertheless the article was very cleverly written, and the thoughts being developped there pointed exactly at the main flaws of the MMO genre we may have noticed those last years : a lack of originality, and a really hard time being truly innovative.
It's only after thinking a bit about it that I found out the article was written in 2004: I was shocked ! It was not a very precise description and explanation of the present situation in the MMO genre, it was a truly visionary article at the time it was written, and that was even before World of Warcraft release. No surprise after all, or not that much, Richard Bartle is considered by many as the father of the MMO genre and has been spending all those last years conceiving games, teaching about game design or also being a consultant for some major gaming companies.
Let's sum up his 2004 article, and see how well he predicted what has happened those last years on the MMO scene.
1. Richard Bartle's first point (and I will refer to RB for the rest of this article) is that a MMORPG (or a virtual world) doesnt function like a regular or solo RPG game in its relation to its playerbase. A regular computer game will most of the time perform well or badly according to its first months sales : if alot of people buy it, play it just a few hours and have fun during that time, it will be considered as a success.
On the other hand a MMOG needs to keep a constant, if not a growing population to survive, and that even months after its release. A MMO world whose population is decreasing is a dying world, therefore a dying game. And you can't expect all of your first hand players to stay forever, or even for a few years, as unavoidably some will leave. They need to be replaced, and they'd better be replaced by more players if you want your game to really succeed. Every MMO game is the same, and the genre as a whole is eagerly waiting for new players and new subscribers. That means that a MMO has to attract newbies to survive. Not only one game can get all the newbies, and the other will have the oldies, or the hardcore gamers... No, that certainly cannot work this way. Every game on its own has to attract newbies to survive, as a microcosm, each one works as a reflection of the whole genre.
Note that the term newbies is not necessarily pejorative, it's just a way to say 'new players to the game', or 'new players to the genre'.
2. RB's second point is very well developped in his article, and I'm going only to sum it up here. Newbies, and even players as a whole, are essentially conservative toward the features they want in a game. If their first big MMO had let's say feature A, B and C, they also will want those same features repeated in their next game or they just won't join. And paradoxically that's also true if they left their previous game because of C being responsible for their boredom on the long term. They will still ask for C in their next game ! Most of the time of course, they couldn't explain what made them leave their previous game and they ignore C is one of the reasons.
C could be many things, as a death without any consequence, a possibility to rebuild your characteristics and talents as much as you want, an instanced PvE raid game... etc. Newbies are convervative and want a repetition of the same features they already know well, so that they can immediately feel at ease in the game.
3. The last point of RB's theory starts to wrap everything up. Newbies always prefer what is short-term good for their enjoyment, that is often long-term bad. If something is implemented that is meant to be long-term good for the game, but not that easy to adjust to in the short-term, they will complain and may quit. On the other hand they're looking for features that make their enjoyment immediate, even if it might make it shorter and less intense.
And that explains the introduction of alot of 'weak' features in recent MMOs, that are known to be short-term good because easier to deal with, but long-term bad because they tend to partition and compartmentalize the game, spoiling every kind of real immersion, surprise or new form of experience.
Let's sum it up :
1. MMOs need to attract newbies to evolve and survive.
2. Newbies are conservative and want a repetition of the same features they have already experienced before.
3. Newbies prefer weak features to be implemented in the game, that are often short-term good, but long-term bad.
A non-exhaustive list of weak features could be : death without any penalty, instanced PvE, instanced PvP, items bind on pick up, impossibility to attack any other player unless he's in the opposite faction, or impossibility to attack any other player at all, possibility to rebuild your character's stats and talents as much as you want, no possible loss of experience or stats, no possible loss of items or wealth, no possible treason to your faction, race, class, a possibility to solo all your leveling, a linear leveling quest system... etc. We could go on further and further. But you should start to see what I'm talking about.
Yes all those features have become mainstream, and if a game is released tomorrow with just one or two of those missing, it already takes a risk. If it is released with several or most of them missing, it will be considered as a commercial suicide, and will have really to proove alot before gaining a large playerbase (EVE Online is a good example that this can still happen fortunately !).
It's time that we, as players, start realizing that those 'weak' features we become so much used to, are also the ones responsible for the long-term boredom we sometime experience, the unoriginality, the repetitiveness of the content from one game to another. And I'm pretty sure that the older gamers (and not necessarily the oldest ones) will perfectly know what I'm talking about. That doesnt mean game designers should get rid of all of those 'weak' features of course, but at least start to look at their new game from a different perspective rather than taking as being a mandatory feature what has just worked before. There is so much to offer in virtual worlds and virtual realities as a whole : do we really want only levels, items bind on pick up, and PvE raids until the end ?
And that is RB's last point I kept in mind : is there still hope for MMO games to evolve beyond this overdone compartmentalization and this loss of freedom ? This hope would be called a 'growing maturity' of the playerbase. That means players realizing they don't want anymore to be spoon-fed with the same old thing over and over, but asking for innovations, even if it's at the cost of loosing some of their usual comfort.
If you're interested or share some of those ideas, you should definitely look at Richard Bartle's article.
MMORPG.com writes:
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