There seems to be a new battle emerging in today's MMOs. In the inimitable words of MMORPG.com Lead Writer Bill Murphy in today's column, the battle rages between "well-groomed but less innovative products" and "smaller companies pushing the envelope in the MMO world". See what Bill has to say about the issue and then leave us your thoughts.

As I’m playing through Faxion Online from UTV Ignition Games, I find myself wondering why it’s mostly these smaller companies pushing the envelope in the MMO world. Now I’m fully aware that UTV is a fully-funded publisher of games, with a growing stable of software at its disposal. It’s not exactly two guys in their basement, after all. But UTV isn’t Blizzard, EA, or BioWare. And I’m somewhat confident (without any real-world knowledge) that Faxion didn’t cost the company anywhere near the amount of money that something like The Old Republic is costing BioWare. My hypothesis, and maybe this is just common sense, is that the lower the cost of development the more likely the game which comes out will be something other than the norm. It’s up to these smaller companies, with their smaller budgets and smaller teams, to make something big that will change the way we play.

Read more of Bill Murphy's The Weight of Our Worlds.

The big question from mmo players right now is just what kind of end game will SW:ToR have?

How do they plan to keep people playing past the 30days mark...

Please don't say chasing gear by running dungeons or raiding and pvp, WoW has already beat this to death.

And I won't be playing alts either just to keep playing... so I sure hope Bioware has something up their sleeve.

Just to clear something up before people get the wrong idea. You wrote:

Guild Wars 2 has the whole “no subscription” angle cornered.  Everyone understood why GW1 was free after the initial purchase, but people’s jaws dropped when they found out that GW2 was going to be much more “worldly” in scope and still retain the same stance (albeit with an added cash shop to help drive revenue).

Guild Wars 1 also has a cash shop, which primarily has cosmetic things for sale. The exception is the ability to unlock skills for use in PvP (which normally requires playing through PvE or PvP) and a few mision packs. Arenanet has already stated that the cash shop for Guild Wars 2 will be similar.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_In-Game_Store

I like your analysis, and agree with the big/small companies situation.

I see also that innovation comes from indie/small companies, but then a lot of good ideas really spread through the mmorpg world raising the level of the gaming experience.

Yes, philosophy won't pay your bills...but NCsoft will publish GW2, and that means hope.

Originally posted by NeVeRLiFt

The big question from mmo players right now is just what kind of end game will SW:ToR have?

How do they plan to keep people playing past the 30days mark...

Please don't say chasing gear by running dungeons or raiding and pvp, WoW has already beat this to death.

And I won't be playing alts either just to keep playing... so I sure hope Bioware has something up their sleeve.

 

I 100% agree, I am wating for SWTOR and I sure hope its not grinding marks for Tier gear. 

I think the main reason that large companies do not roll the dice with new ideas is because they are risking not only their cash but their rep.  Could you imagin EA putting out a 100% first person madden game? Yeah me either.  It comes down to more than just money, if the risk is too large it can only be one of two extremes.  Sure they would love to redifine a genre but, the chance of being the definition of bad is also there.  The larger the company, the more their rep means to them.

This is a topic we have talked about ad infinum on these forums and that doesn't look like it's going to change. Large fat companies feel the hot air of investors breathing down their necks to meet "X" stock price so they seldom stray far from the current WoW inspired themepark template.

Small companies are more willing to try new things because they can't compete quality wise with the larger companies. The trouble with this is that while their attempts at something different are appreciated on paper at least the final product has usually been in such horrible to mediocre shape that players just can't play it. This is a symptom of not having a) enough money to pull off a polished MMO in the first place which leads to b) having to put the MMO out months before it is ready.

And frankly, it's unrealistic and flat extremely insulting to demand players, the end consumer, to spend their money (you looked at the global economy lately?) to support the smaller comapnies "great idea but poor implementation" games. You don't buy other consumer entertainment goods with the caveat that it's way rough around the edges but will get better in an undetermined amount of time in the future if you just keep pumping cash into it.

Interest you in an iphone that you begin month one paying full charges for all options but only have access to two of them (phone and text, no internet or apps, etc.) as of month one, with a "maybe" at best on seeing an app month 2 but no eta on web-browing or other media functions? Apple would have lost their butts as a company trying that angle.

This genre is in danger, despite what some of the more vocal will try to pass off. And it is because of this situation here. Unless a smaller coampany can knock out a homerun and convince the fat cats to start down a new path of MMO making, the field will grow ever more stagnate with fantasy themed thempark games that people play in large numbers for a month or three and then leave. And even there eventually the masses will get tired of that process.

But, then, maybe that's what this genre needs. The large companies to fall and not find the genre worth investing in anymore. Once the spotlight is off the genre then smaller companies may get more time to fully develope their "niche" ideas and we'll start seeing MMO worlds that grab you and hold onto you for years again as a common occurence.

Innovation is a cost and a risk.  A perfect example is Square-Enix which is a MASSIVE publishing firm who gave us Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV.  Both featured what we might call innovative concepts that were far different from anything in the gaming industry.... and they bombed.  They were so far off base with what the genre was doing that people... rejected them.... in hordes.

As far as marketing goes the same people who complain about all games being clones are the same people who would call something different crappy.  If Coca-Cola is the most popular brand in the world you would try and produce a knockoff you could sell cheaper rather than invent something like root beer (which is a commercial success in North America but fell flat everywhere else in the world).

Small developers have to get their foot in the door.  If they don't make games that are attempting to be innovative they will just fall down to larger firms who can publish more expensive titles.

I think WOD will fit in this period of change too.  Class systems are for lazy developers who want to control how your avatar develops.  

As to TERA, it is just another Korean game, really offers nothing new.

I know some of what follows may sound kind of ridiculous, but these games are going to have to grab me right out of the box. The comment in the article that Archage's "early levels are a more guided and quest-based experience to help players grasp the game’s many different systems and later on the world opens up and the true sandbox style of play" worries me almost as much as watching gameplay footage of the tutorial areas of Faxion where you collect quests, do them, and then turn them in.  I am to the point where I am not going to do that anymore.

If I want to grind quests to get powerful so I can have fun in the game, I will just play WoW. These games are going to have to hook me immediately or I will just play something else. I don't have a problem with games easing players into the action and fully openign up in the mid to late game. But I'm not going to quest grind in MMORPGs anymore. I'm tired of it. Questing is fine. If the developers or my friends can get me into the story so I'm not paying attention to my stats or level, that would be perfect. But if it's blatantly obvious that I'm only helping these NPCs so that I can get experience points and loot, I am done.

Atlas: Good choice.

...is that the lower the cost of development the more likely the game which comes out will be something other than the norm.  It’s up to these smaller companies, with their smaller budgets and smaller teams, to make something big that will change the way we play.

This seems to be the case. Eg Eric Chahi mentions a similar trend: Another World's Chahi: There's More Creativity Today Than Seven Years Ago

It's also in evidence on the latest iOS, Android and general ditital distribution markets. Eg Shadow Cities mmog and even possibly up to a point Pocket Legends redesigned for these platforms can be developed in about 6 months innovate in various ways.

My only worry is that the comparative scope of these less star-studded experiences will not attract players in droves, and instead we will continue to put our money towards more well-groomed but less innovative products and thereby sealing our fate to play the same damn game in a different wrapper year after year.  It’s easy to justify: why should I support something that’s obviously of lower quality, when I could pay the same amount of green for something that (mostly) works like it should and has fancy voiceover work?

What's to like about the smaller developers: Making the game for the gameplay/experience and for a target of players and trying to innovate that idea and vision they have not seen in other mmos. Unfortunately I'm guilty of not trying more of these games... mmos are beasts of dedication and it feels like a mountain to try them out in the first place.

What I dislike intensely with larger devs is their tagline of this game is for everybody (= we want as many subs as possible before we consider improving the gameplay for a subset of players)! I'd much prefer to hear a dev say, "This game is for these players", or "This game is not for everybody but the people that do like it will love it." etc

Another consderation in the Small vs Big Developers imo:

Eg: When you scale down mmos to mobiles, they loose a lot of things, but at the same time they make it much easier to dip into, try and play for short periods when you want. To me more likelihood of getting a return on the time you try/play ie a good amount of fun for the short time of playing it/expected. Playing an mmo for a few months for it to start fading on you is a miserable experience by contrast! Perhaps why larger devs usually win out? IE risk of personal investment as well as the polish of the larger studios over the same conservative money-making formula and same assumptions on game design.

No doubt, its going to take a "middle of the road" development house that has the resources to pull off a well polished, yet innovative title.  But once we get one big hit, the entire genre will shfit rapidly to the new model and we should have a few good years of fun.

The Dark Ages continue to roll on.......

To me it's simply what am i getting for my dollars.  I can pay 15 dollars a month for a game that has some new things in it, but if i'm done with the content in a month or i'm crashing every few minutes or being told it will be done soon. I'm just simply not interested. Especially now a days when i can get much more content and much higher quality for the same buck that i'm getting from this other developer.

I know smaller companies have this problem with lack of funds but knowing your game has less content, less polish means you need to start charging less then the other people do.  While you have new ideas and thats great your game in short is of lesser quality then the bigger games.

For analogy puproses lets say i'm going to the ice cream store and theres two kinds of ice cream.  Both are 6 bucks, one is classic cherry, normal shape, taste good, and can stay out in the sun for 10 mins before melting.  The other is strawberry lemonade blast.  It's new but lasts in the sun for 30 seconds, has an odd shape and the handle is sorta broken.  While the new taste "might" be nice why am i paying 6 bucks for a inferior product that i might not like?

Sell it a promotional price of say 3 bucks (or in the games case 7 bucks a month) and let me try it out. If i like it then i'll continue to play it beyond the promtional deal.  Smaller companies need to know that they can't ride on name and good feature intentions alone.  They need people, and they need these people to stay.

Draw em in with lower costs, keep them there with consistant improvements, and get up to big company status as fast as possible

As for bigger companies while they may not be turning night into day. They are attempting to do something different with their games.  GW2 is doing a lot, as is archage and WoD.  I really wouldn't shrug ToR off as not doing anything new though with branching story arcs, cinematic design and chrographed combat.  I think we are at least in larger companies seeing new things that are making these games better.

As for younger companies bearing the weight of innovation, i think the reason they have to innovate so much is because this has to be their selling point.  They can't go on company name. They can't go on product name. They can't go on good will. So they need to go on features. Thus they need to be something other then something we've seen before. That will get people in but they can't twiddle their thumbs when they have them. I think Xyson is a perfect example. People were really hyped over it and flocked in droves (okay maybe not droves but there was certainly interests), the problem was beyond that nothing changed. Combat didn't improve. The features that were suppose to be in game didn't get implemented and people started to leave because they were tired of always having a broken stick to their ice cream or in this case being charge for a full game and getting 1/2 a game.

I truly hope that GW2 is a success.  I like the idea of 1-time purchase (to a point) and the 3-way server fights in open world PvP.  Combined with the healerless system of play and dynamic quests, I almost wonder if there is too much new stuff that could make it just one big mess.

Vanguard is a typical example of a smaller company (initially anyway) developing a game with more innovative ideas than all games after it combined. However, it didn't suceed because the majority of the game was unpolished and unfinished, while the more polished but old concept game won the customers in the end. There is no point in having a Porsche with a broken gearbox, when the Model Mondana fits your whole family and works reliably for years.

So a small company with innovative ideas is not enough, it also takes alot of skill, dedication and also some luck. My hopes are more from a medium sized company, that is so big it can produce quality, but not so big that it is ineffective and ideas drown in management decisions.

As for the GW2 hype, it all sound a little too good to be true - It is entirely possible for them to implement everything they say, but it working completely different than what you thought they meant. There is only one way to find out, try the game when it comes.. I have pretty low expectations, that way I can either say I told you so, or be pleasently surpriced.

As always, good article Murphy.

My opinion is that 'innovation' is overrated. New isn't always better and that's been proven time and again with games touting the 'new' failing hard. Also I find it strange what some folks call 'innovation'. I've noticed on this forum in particular that anything called sandbox is equated with 'innovation' while anything themepark is equated with the status quo. Neither is true and both of these ways of thinking strays from what 'innovation' really means. Sandbox by nature is not innovative, if anything sandbox is the oldest form of MMO.

Innovation is an evolution of old styles of gameplay and improving them with new ideas. TOR's use of companions for example is innovative. It may not be an entirely new idea, but it takes old ideas and improves on them. That's innovation. It may not be a huge innovation, but it's still innovation.

Innovation in a sandbox game requires the same sort of thing, improving on old concepts with new ones. While sandbox games might be on hiatus right now, that does not mean that when the rare one is developed that it is by default 'innovative'.

Also I think these things may be cyclical...sort of like politics here in the US, for awhile the nation may favor republicans but in time the nation will favor democrats again, then back again to republicans. I think the same thing may be starting to happen in MMOs. In the past 5 years or more themepark games have been developed the most, but I think we'll be seeing more sandbox games being developed over the next 5 or so years and then back again. At least until developers find a way to develop games to be all things to all people. Yeah, that's real likely, right?

In short I would like to see people start using these terms correctly instead of identifying them with a style of gameplay. Neither sandbox nor themepark games have a monopoly on 'innovation'. Neither are 'innovative' by default, rather you need to judge each game by what is actually new to the genre or by what has evolved and improved.

Also it must be recognized by the gaming community as a whole that being 'innovative' in and of itself IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER.This is a problem not just in the MMO community, but in the gaming community as a whole. Sometimes taking the tried and true of past games putting them in a new game is what makes a game successful. WoW is the best example of this.

Let's take for example Deus Ex: Human Revolution. All I want in this game is to be like the original game but with updated graphics and gameplay. Other than that if the developer just simply sticks to the spirit of the original game they can't help but to have a hit on their hands. I fear however that this will not be the case since it is being developed with console gaming in mind when the orignal Deus Ex was a made for pc game.

"My only worry is that the comparative scope of these less star-studded experiences will not attract players in droves, and instead we will continue to put our money towards more well-groomed but less innovative products and thereby sealing our fate to play the same damn game in a different wrapper year after year.  It’s easy to justify: why should I support something that’s obviously of lower quality, when I could pay the same amount of green for something that (mostly) works like it should and has fancy voiceover work?"

I think you hit the crux of the issue right there. The current state of MMOs is just as much to blame on the players as the companies making them. We keep whining for change and yet when given a new choice, what we jump on every time is the same overhyped crap we bought last time. This gives big industry little reason to offer anything different on the menu. Of course it also does not help that most of the indie companies with some new (or old but not recently tried) MMO ideas, can't seem to find their ass with both hands and a road map when it comes to actually building a working game. So because of this we keep getting big budget disposable games, or innovative yet buggy games that no one except the diehards will touch with a ten foot pole.

Now some of you who just read that are probably wondering "wait how is any of that the MMO consumers fault?" Because, WE are the impulse control freaks who have to play SOME game ALL the time, and can't just up and walk away for awhile and let these crap compnies go belly up. Or say "oh well its no big deal" when these not very good (or at least stagnant) games add a cash shop on top of a monthly fee, yet don't use any of that new cashflow to improve the gaming experiance, or worse, when a bad game that should have failed is kept alive with a "freemium" pay plan. As I said on these boards a long time ago, if you continue to be prepared to eat crap, you have no right to complain to the guy who keeps serving it to you.

Which brings me to *SWTOR and GW2. Do I think they will be fun games? Sure I do. Do I think they will bring anything new to the table? Not enough to make them seem vastly different from games I'm already tired of. Do I feel that their massive overhyping by some of the player base in the blind hope these games will be the new messiah is going to be harmful to the creation of new MMOs for the next few years? Most assuredly. I think that after a month or two many people playing these games will realize that it is just the same old stand by with a new hair do and a vajazzle. Once again the old dissolution will kick in and these forums will be filled with the angst ridden cries of of the disenchanted gamer looking for their new fix. Of course by then its too late. Since we have shown these games we are now bored with, to be financially successful, at least for the short term, most of the big budget new games being designed are going to follow in their footsteps. So we can look forward to yet another cycle of dissapointment for the next five years.

If we want MMOs to change we are going to have to start by fixing the short circuits between our own ears first.

* I did not mention TSW because I do not feel enough is known about the game to fairly judge it at this point. Nor did I mention Archage. Whatever Archage will be is meaningless (at least for those of us who do not speak Korean) until we see how much translating it for western audiances effects it.

UTV is 60% owned by Disney. Not kidding.

i think the reason why its falling on the shoulders of the smaller companied to be more inovativce is because the bigger companies are now drowned in financial debates of the cost effectiveness v's successfulness of all prior and future investments

now lets take wow for a momment. thats probably the most succesful income generateing mmorpg ever developed.. i hate to say it because i hate wow. but blizzard has managed to pull in the masses!! although the game is a load of rubbish it does still apeal to the majority of gamers on a whole.

its almost as if blizzard was trying to unite all kinds of gamers under one universal title.  the wow players are mostly people who have very little other mmog experience and many of them have a console background. 

wow is successful purely based of its advertiseing model and nothing more. reason i say this is because there are far far far better games out there that hhave pushed the envelope as this op has already stated. the problem these smaller companies face are advertiseing, they cannot advertise on the scale that wow is being advertised and there for the popularity is limited.

swtor isnt popular because of adsvertiseing well not as such anyway, its popular because of its name. sw has been around since the 1970's its had alot of time to become a household name and a fantasy subject to almost every person on the planet. now take that and comine it with word of mouth and the other lesser methods of advertiseing such as simple websight links and banners and you have something not even wow has accomplished.

cheap advertiseing on a global scale. also starwras has an already established fan base which is something wow didnt have, well atleast not in the numbers we are talking about.

the success of swtor is pretty much gaurenteed, however as we have seen with titles such as sto and lord of the rings that success lies in the ability of bioware to create a qaulity product that gets people hooked.

i personally would rather play a game from a back water game developer, thyey just have far far more inovation and far less fear of failure. and their games are always better in comparison. content and complexity of a manageable proportions is a win as far as im concerned.

bioware should have made neverwinter knights 3. not waste their money and ruin their good name with swtor. swtor will be a bad thing for them. this is biowares first mmo and it already resembles much of the same features and styles of game play wow does, people dont   want to see anymre wow clones. there are too many out there already, people are fed up with them. simply sticking a new skin on the same game is not development, its called pulling the wool over peoples eyes.

i think mortal online in a year or so more will be a great game, but it has the advertiseing problem. it cant get enough players fast enough to maintain a growth.

i fear a great game is going to end before it has the chance to even grow. sad times!!

Because small studios invest less & a self funded studio knows not to over extend itself with taking a risk on something new. Many players pay for WoW and WoW clones then reject anything thats a bit different after a month or two instead of giving the games time to mature, then go back to WoW and lament that new MMO's show no innovation.

Take a look at what Runic games is doing with its Torchlight franchise. TL1 was a proof of concept for an MMO and sold for $15 a copy, thats a calculated risk but not overextending. TL2 is coming out this year and will have the same formula as the first + new features but includes co-op multiplayer because players asked for it. After that the TL MMO will be due to come out.

@troublmaker

FFXI was released before WoW was and at peak had 550k subscribers which, for a pre-WoW release, is incredibly successful.  It was an amazing game, and it had things which many developers could stand to emulate, such as grouping actually be necessary (god forbid) in a MULTIPLAYER GAME.