MMOs evolve, whether people realize it or not. Jon Wood runs down five ways that MMOs are changing, offering proof that they have not stagnated.

Every Tuesday, Managing Editor Jon Wood counts down things in "The List."

Five years ago when someone described a game as an MMORPG, it was easy to figure out exactly the kind of game they were talking about. You knew that it was an online game with a persistent world, probably with a fantasy setting, with all of the standard RPG game design elements.

In today’s MMO landscape, new ideas are more and more often bubbling to the surface as the classic ideas of persistent world, advancing characters, guilds, crafting and the like are beginning to share design space with concepts from other genres: Action, FPS, RTS to name a few.

There are certainly examples of this spread throughout the history of MMOs. Upcoming games like CrimeCraft, APB, Cities XL, Global Agenda, Huxley, DC Universe Online, and The Agency, are all playing with the established conventions of how we think that an MMORPG should operate, and that’s probably a good thing. While there is a group of purists out there who feel that the genre is just fine as it is thank-you-very-much, I think that anything that expands on the existing genre and gives more gamers more options when it comes to MMOs is probably a good thing.

Read it all here.

They are evolving, but with that 3-5 year wait between concept and initial release, that evolution seems glacial to us players.

Probably the biggest revolution in the evolution of MMOs will come when some kind of framework is developed that allows for much faster iteration through the development process.

-w

Originally posted by wyrde

They are evolving, but with that 3-5 year wait between concept and initial release, that evolution seems glacial to us players.

Probably the biggest revolution in the evolution of MMOs will come when some kind of framework is developed that allows for much faster iteration through the development process.

 

-w

If you read anything on the Hero Journey game engine that Bioware is going to use for their star wars game they built the engine with the tools to edit the game in 'real time'. So they could be in the world and build it around them, this also allows for GM interaction with players and the world at any time.

With this step I am wondering how many years down the road it will be before the graphic MMOs will become so easy to create, like the old text based games, that any hobbyist will be able to create one with only a small team of friends. Waves of free open source game engines will flood the market until their are so many graphic MMOs out there that we will have to look to some new platform of gaming above them.

But who knows, this is what i witnessed with text based games and history does have a tendency to repeat itself

Almost all of the examples are future games that are not released yet.

In released games they don't differ enough from EQ to be called a new generation even if some features have evolved since then.

So I don't agree that the MMOs have evolved much in the last 10 years, even though it looks like they finally will now in the next 2 years or so.

I wouldnt call the payment plan an evolution for the game, it really have very little with the game to do, it is just another way of doing business for the company selling the game, not the game in itself.

But I have waited a long time for real evolution and the next gen MMO and it do seems like it is just behind the corner :D.

I think that the genre isn't really going anywhere till some poachers kill that 600 lb gorilla that is WoW. Developers keep looking at how much money WoW makes and go, "Ohhhh that looks good" and try and copy it.....and fail. So in my opinion someone needs to get rid of that monster, or say  "Hey, lets do something else, maybe we'll attract a whole new crowd"........so far all attempts at that have failed miserable.......but here is hoping that one of them doesn't :D *tips a glass of wine your way in a cheers*

When comparing the current "crop" of MMOs to Ultima Online and Asheron's Call, I don't know that "evolution" is the term I'd use as evolution has a particularly positive connotation. The current crop...the current design "handbook" is so far away from that of UO and AC that they are, away from basics like "graphical, character, items, etc", a different beast. For the worse in my estimation.

Would be nice to see more "AAA" companies do updates of those games' systems/mechanics as opposed to the hyper-infatuation they seem to have with the mechanics prevalent in WoW. Everyone's making vanilla icecream these days while chocolate and strawberry are sorely missed.

In my opinion, we have seen a steep decline in the MMOG industry. SW:TOR talks several times from EA/Bioware about micro and middle transactions. Sorry you just ruined the whole idea of the game for me. Give me a monthly sub fee and I'll play. I don't do free to play or any cash shop crap. All it becomes is a ploy to milk more than a monthly subscription fee from its user base. DDO has turned to this, Runes of Magic, Free Realms, AOC talks about it,etc... and the list will continue to go on.

Nothing in the last 5-7 years has been dramatic enough to see a true change in design and ingenuity. The days of the passionate "geek" designing a game based on a love for the sake of money are clearly over. However, we cannot also blame corporate entities for trying to make a buck and pay employees and overhead, etc...

Everyone talks of this beast WOW and how every developer tries to compete to take some of that cash flow away from Blizzard. The problem however is that WOW was, and still is, a phenomenon. No other game in the history of all games combined has done as much sales as WOW. WOW drew in a new type of gamer that never played a MMO before. This changed the social structure of how to build a MMO and what draws a certain type of player. I don't think Blizzard's next IP will out due WOW, although it may just surprise me.

The problem is that the games that could have broadened the market and changed the flow for the better never saw the day of light; The original Warhammer MMO; Mythic's Imperator; Wish; Mythica; Gods and Heroes, etc.. These games alone could have changed the way the corporate watchdogs look at social gaming. The problem is the economy as well and the risk taking. We are not talking a few hundred dollars of development today, we are talking millions of dollars. One cannot expect a corporation not to desire to break the red.

Everyone needs to think about the job they go to today and ask themselves if they would take a major pay cut to give a little more. The resounding response would be no. The same holds true for these corporate entities creating virtual worlds for us to play in. I am not saying I like it and my days of MMO gaming are coming to a close end because of it. However, I understand business structure and therefore cannot blame them.

I think the genre as a whole is going into a steeper decline and it will, sorry to say, lean even more so to appeasing the new age gamer. The day of the "geek" gamer has come to an end. This new age gamer mentality that these games are being built around focus on spoon feeding more and more.

WTF, I have gone into a diatribe and no one really gives two shits what I or anyone else really thinks.

Feels like De-Evolution to me where publishers are taking a more, and more risk-free approach to MMO and just cranking out simplistic, dumbed down cookie-cutter MMOs.  A disposable product if you will where marketing sells as many boxes as possible, the game goes into maintenance mode and the publisher movies onto their next Value-Meal MMO.

I currently play one MMO that I really enjoy.  There is currently nothing else in the works that looks innovative or pushes the envelope in any way.

 Don't knock poor Dana, you can always pay $23 for this guys views on the subject.

Originally posted by fansede

 Don't knock poor Dana, you can always pay $23 for this guys views on the subject.

Noones knocking Dana. He didn't write the article. If you look/read closely, you'll see that Jon (Stradden) Wood wrote the article. Dana just put the article up on the site, which is one of his many duties.

Sorry Dana I comletely disagree.

MMO's are not evolving the way players want them too - they are evolving the way publishers want them too.

Maybe good for you or them, but hardly good for us.

Originally posted by Loke666

Almost all of the examples are future games that are not released yet.

In released games they don't differ enough from EQ to be called a new generation even if some features have evolved since then.

So I don't agree that the MMOs have evolved much in the last 10 years, even though it looks like they finally will now in the next 2 years or so.

I wouldnt call the payment plan an evolution for the game, it really have very little with the game to do, it is just another way of doing business for the company selling the game, not the game in itself.

But I have waited a long time for real evolution and the next gen MMO and it do seems like it is just behind the corner :D.

The point was that they ARE evolving not that they HAD evolved...

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Originally posted by Stradden

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Originally posted by Loke666

 

Almost all of the examples are future games that are not released yet.
In released games they don't differ enough from EQ to be called a new generation even if some features have evolved since then.
So I don't agree that the MMOs have evolved much in the last 10 years, even though it looks like they finally will now in the next 2 years or so.
I wouldnt call the payment plan an evolution for the game, it really have very little with the game to do, it is just another way of doing business for the company selling the game, not the game in itself.
But I have waited a long time for real evolution and the next gen MMO and it do seems like it is just behind the corner :D.

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The point was that they ARE evolving not that they HAD evolved...

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Loke's point was he doesn't believe they are evolving or at least that seems to be what he is saying. And its a bit forward to say if a game is a new evolution of mmo when its not even released yet (you kinda have to wait).

I Like reading Jon woods articles, but I don't always agree. In this case ill refer to a movie. This movie is called Idiocracy (sp?) and its a wonderful and witty movie, in which humanity devolves into fart loving, 'family jewel' kicking, backwards people of low IQ. I think mmos are heading more toward that.

So if i wrote an article id call it the devolution of mmos (i do realize this is a political science term, however, i am stealing it but not its meaning).  I mean even wow has. Wow used to support multiple types of players (many forms of gameplay) and allow easy access, it no longer does this.
People used to pvp while leveling up in wow, while you may find a twink or two around its no longer part of the game. End game pvp requires the player to farm for weeks and weeks (the worst grind ever made) to compete. As for pve raids, they used to be challenging and teir'ed to meet various groups skill levels; now you can roll your face on the keyboard and accomplish many of the things great guilds are, still there hardmode which is normal mode but you meet other conditions.

When i look back to daoc, i know better guilds and players could pretty much own lesser guilds, however, not always. In fact a good mezz would go a long way, but no matter what it was competitive and challenging.  AC was similar in that there was a lot that the player did that mattered. WOW atm will tell you if you have a 3v3 or 2v2 and often 5v5 it 95% of who wins is based on what classes face what classes.

Looking at aoc this is once again largely true, but in aoc combat is not as mobile as it was in wow or as positional/tactical as daoc. Looking at lorto its not close in anyway, but the rp elements are good .

That brings into mix what about how you level, at one time killing a lot of mobs was the mode to leveling, now you have quests and mobs and pvp and others. This is good in a way, but when i have to spend a good 15-40% of my leveling time JUST RUNNING FROM ONE POINT TO THE NEXT FOR QUESTS, i see this as a big devolution. Why do i see it that way?

The idea of quests is to keep the player engaged and involved with the word and guide their progress. Great.
Running around does not do this (mind you while running for quests there is no to little exploration).

So while before i may have just grind mobs for hours, at least i was actively engaged in controlling my character and better defeating my enemy and maybe walking every once in a while to move camps.
I am not saying quests are bad, they are wonderful and necessary, but i would like to see less walking and more exp from mobs to allow for more rounded and diverse leveling methods.

Why not do it all. I can tell you at lvl 20 in lorto, if your not questing for exp your pretty much not exping and my question is why? Now aoc gives you plenty of exp for mobs , yet requires travel times (for quest or getting to mobs) long enough to kill three kittens.

Why not happy mediums, that is evolution.
Take the good, drop the bad, improve on the good, and innovate some new ideas. Sounds easy but certainly is not.

Who knows many i am just crazy; i would like to think so but i doubt i am that fortunate
 

I think this article directly reflects the question...'What is a Next Gen MMO"?

You hear it all the time on these boards but its difficult to define and you'll defintely get a 100 different responses when asking 100 different people. For me, the 1st gen is defined...it is those 1st few...the Merdian 59, the EQ and UO...but the evolution past that sort of disolves for me...

To me it seems each game looks at a simliar game before it and picks out features that are good, drops those that aren't and attempts a few new ideas to 'shake it up' from the previous games that it was founded on. WoW to me, is a perfect example of this, I really didn't see anything innovative in it other then the fact it was extremely easy to play on the worst laptop you could scrounge out of the bargain bin throwaways at your local computer junk store.

New things have been added since then, expansions and the like and some of the big boys have wads of dough to throw out at new ideas that sometimes fall flat /cough aoc. Yet overall I still am not seeing much as far as next gen...to my way of thinking its a self-propogated myth, the holy grail of mmo's. Evolving, in a way I guess, but defintley not next gen, If you look back at those games you mentioned they are defintely a new generation away from games of today (eve, wow, aoc, eq2 etc) but there's no clear defintion of next generation between those and many have claimed as being such.

I'm working on Force of Arms, we clearly aren't next gen by my own defintiion. We have characdters and advancement system (skill based but other games have done that), we've got crafting (although a different take on it) we have environmental changes (a new idea evolving) and we're defintely looking at a different business model thats not 15 bucks a month or F2P but somewhere in between. However, are we evolution or nextgen or just ...the young indie upstarts looking to break in to a big money industry with some new ideas and borrowing some old ones from those who came before us..

Once they finally come out with MMOs that treat all play styles equally, then I will consider it evolved.  Till then, I see it as nothing more than nerd fantasy, wasting internet space.  Lets face it, nerds have a difficult time interacting socially, let alone creating social games.

 The only evolution in MMOs is stearing away from innovation and honest creativity and into big buisness models of dumbed down safe formulas run by white collar dirtbags.

MMOs have DEvolved into cash crops for big buisness.

Would City of Heroes/Villains count as being "men in tights"?

Anyway, I would think that the addition of player generated missions would count as a step in MMORPG evolution.

Originally posted by Alverant

Would City of Heroes/Villains count as being "men in tights"?

Anyway, I would think that the addition of player generated missions would count as a step in MMORPG evolution.

which he credits as a inovation but whati find odd is calls out other mmOs that brok from fantasy before the "new gen' and comply ignores City of Heroes. Matrix Online wasnt even in beta when CoH gave us unparalleed character creation and the first even super hero mmo, paing the way for Champions online AND DCU

The genre doesn't need slow, evolutionary changes, it needs fresh, revolutionary changes.

There are two major problems though:

1. Finding developers who can successfully create a game outside the established MMO box.

2. Finding someone willing to invest the needed money on what would have to be viewed as a risky venture.

To me, this has nothing to do with Fantasy vs "X" setting either. A setting other than Fantasy doesn't make the odds of producing a revolutionary game any higher (or even a game that produces successful evolution, either, for that matter).

In fact, a Fantasy foundation may make it easier for gamers to accept a title that is revolutionary in other ways beyond a change of scenery.

Interesting post, I do wish more people would understand the "big picture" creative process that happens in any genre and see that every game adds at least something to the overall evolution, even if it's in the negative, as in, we tried it, it didn't work, next idea.

I also think the lure of $$$$$$ is having an affect on how many games end up, and what we call "wowification" the technical term. The story seems the same, developer has "the vision", gets some funding, but not enough, almost gets half the game done, is forced to go look for more funding from big $$$$$ company, ends up releasing game unfinished, shortly fails, losing most of player base, big $$$$$ company takes over and wowification begins. Or "sissy guys in spandex pants and long girl hair singing power ballads are in, find me 20 more bands that look the same and sing almost the same shyt!"

Point being as long as the story of MMO's typically involves big $$$$$$ this evolotion process is going to be extroidinairly slow....

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

When comparing the current "crop" of MMOs to Ultima Online and Asheron's Call, I don't know that "evolution" is the term I'd use as evolution has a particularly positive connotation. The current crop...the current design "handbook" is so far away from that of UO and AC that they are, away from basics like "graphical, character, items, etc", a different beast. For the worse in my estimation.

Would be nice to see more "AAA" companies do updates of those games' systems/mechanics as opposed to the hyper-infatuation they seem to have with the mechanics prevalent in WoW. Everyone's making vanilla icecream these days while chocolate and strawberry are sorely missed.

This. I want chocolate.

Even the half assed games like WAR and AOC as well as all of the older games, still make decent to excellent money.  It's not like the MMO industry is hurting despite some games closing down.  This is no different than any other business that has to invest money to make money.  I think too many people give too much credit to the investors for stagnating the industry, when it's more likely close minded developers that are the real culprit.

Many if not most of the developers in this industry were around when it began.  They created and played the current paradigms.  They like and are comfortable with them and seem quite reticent to really shake things up.  Creativity seems to really take a back seat in this genre.

Until many of those stated games actually come out, I don't see much evidence of evolution at all since WoW. The few compaines with the resources to produce the next generation have presented games that are more bloated, though not actually bigger or better.

Otherwise there's just a wasteland of free-to-plays possessing all the substance and durability of a meringue crust. They seem to exist in a bubble entirely removed from evolution, while a few hopes on the horizon do all the real work of advancing the genre.

The term MMORPG used to mean something.  The fact that it now doesn't is not an evolution of the genre, it is a pollution of it.

Regardless of what else "evolves" into the online gaming spectrum, some people are simply going to want a Massively Multiplayer Online RolePlaying Game.

Segregation of games into genres was a good thing.

MMOs have evolved a long way. If you don't think so, go back and play UO or EQ or AC for a bit. See how stilted they feel? How many features now taken for granted they lack?

But a lot of MMO players want everything given to them in one package while also relying on the Next Big Thing to "save" them. If a revolutionary MMO came along, most of them would likely be confused by it, scared off and return to their familiar MMO where they can safely complain that no-one is doing anything new anymore. Here's the thing: if you think that UO was the best MMO evah, go back and play UO. Don't sit around and complain that no-one does games like UO anymore when UO still exists (or whatever title you want to throw around).

Players claim they want something new, but the familiar succeeds and the unfamiliar scares them off. Theme parks succeed more than sandboxes. It's not hard to do the maths.