This week, in this MMOWTF column, Dan Fortier takes a look at linear systems as a trend in MMORPGs.

You just had to see this new show. All the critics raved that it was the next classic and it's been sold out since it was announced. You had to buy a scalped ticket on E-bay just to get in for the premiere. The seat is comfy and they even pass out delectable H'orderves on shiny silver trays. Eventually the light dims and a man in a top hat who looks like he belongs in a carnival struts across the stage in front of the curtain and bows dramatically.

"Ladies and Gentleman, children of all ages! Welcome to the release of the greatest thing since sliced bread! A spectacle fit for the Gods themselves. You will be witness to a performance that will leave you breathless and steal your heart away with its complexity and drama. You've waited patiently for this day and we're proud to show you what we've accomplished. Now without further ado, let the show begin!"

Read the whole column here.

Dividing the games into zones and putting levels on them is hardly original, but I like it...a LOT.  Especially if a noob can walk around such as in CoV, my level 1 can go anywhere in any zone without help...and with help it is incredibly easy!

Critics and "professionnal reviewers" may bitch, they may try to say it is meek or weak...I don't care, I am enjoying that aspect of the games!  I rather watch a movie that is entertaining me such as the LotR then some stuff with Charlie Chaplin, I am sure the critics put Charlie ahead of the LotR, but guess what, I would watch LotR right now, Charlie Chaplin...well, prolly not!    Charlie is good and all, but I watch him in the past, it was fun, but I have no desire to watch him again...unlike LotR.  So, go with the critics or with your heart?  I pick my heart! 

I agree with the author on this one. However, I can't help but admit defeat on what is more popular. It is obvious that the overwhelming majority prefer treadmill, spoon-fed content games over the sandbox games where both you and the devs create your own content and the goal isn't to gain the next level. So players that want a sandbox game are left wanting and either have to choose one of the currently existing ones, that are old and whose community is smallish or suck it up and try to make do with an MMORPG like WoW. I view the people who give in and play a game that they don't find fun as people who are addicted to MMORPGs and can't find something better to do with their time. Those that like MMORPGs and prefer the sandbox games, but don't need to play a MMORPG to be happy probably have a nice life and will either wait until a good sandbox game is released or will forget about MMORPGs all together.

I personally play SWG. Even with the NGE, the game is still mostly a sandbox. You can create player ran cities, run a shop, or go out and have an adventure. However, because of the NGE, most of the people playing only care about gaining the max level and doing end game content. The sandbox community that SWG used to have, has quit for the most part. You can still find some in-game, but they are scattered across many low population servers. Slowly, but surely, those people are transfering their characters or creating new characters on the heavier servers.

One of the reasons why I'm looking foward to PotBS is that it seems to have only a few "limits" zone-wise (PvP/PvE, and three "newb" ports per faction).  Otherwise, the entire map is open to exploration.  And yes, while there are skills, there doesn't seem to be the normal "leveling" system of other MMO's.  From what I've seen, ships won't "con" red or orange or purple to you, and you won't be limited to fighting the same faction for 5 levels.  Which, for me, is a refreshing change from the standard MMO practices.

From what I've seen so far, PotBS may be the first release that moves in the direction the article's author would like.

But, I could be wrong.

I gotta say, this article has really odd timing. I was just messing around with the Lotro beta, and felt myself thinking the exact same thing. I went over to my brothers house (a fellow mmoer who plays wow) and told him this same thing. Within 15 minutes of playing lotro, I felt like I was playing warcraft. Seriously.  I have actually quit being serious with mmorpgs for almost a year now, because Im waiting on that game that does what Grand Theft Auto did for consoles.

A game that opens up the concept of something new. Personally, I believe it does lie in the sandbox content as the user above posted. I also believe that change will come dependant on the way PvP is implemented.

All in all, right now I feel that MMORPGs are just like that recent article on yahoo about rebuilding the internet. Someone has to man-up and make the move to scrap the existing way and start over with a clean slate. Now that we know what works, what doesnt, what we can live with or without, why not start anew?

Better yet, lets just coax MMORPG.com users into making the perfect MMO. We have the best and brightest right here in one place.

A depressing article indeed.  And the worst part is, it offers no solutions. 

I too would like to see a sandbox type MMO, but they don't exist and it isn't clear if they can.  Those kind of enviorments are better suited to single-player games (someone mentioned GTA).  If it can be done, then I'd like to be a part of it.  But for now, I'll appreciate this genre of gaming for what it is currently.

I think the problem people have isn't with an open-ended game. Oblivion sold well and was very open ended. You could close the gate of Oblvion or you could join the Mage's guild or you could help a lizard lady collect some ingredients or fight in the arena. The difference is that for some reason MMORPGs think open ended means lots of land with nothing happening in it. Your choice is to follow the linear path or kill random yard trash or farm a dungeon.

The sandbox method has always been great on paper but stinks in actual production. The reason I believe is that none of these games are prepared to truely do a sandbox game. It's much more difficult to plan an open ended game than a linear and most people simply run out of time/money and release a big open world that is predominantly empty.

I got all excitied when Dark and Light and Vanguard commented on how big their seemless worlds would be. The problem is someone needs to work their butt off to give life to that world. If Timmy the Gnome decides to explore instead of following  the intro quest, then he needs to find something besides wandering deer and bear mobs.

To me, Oblivion was successful as an open ended world because I never found myself lacking for choices. In MMORPGs I seldom have played a game that gave me more to do than I could accomplish. Instead I normally get four or five quests, run into a dead area and grind, find some more quests, run into a group quest, can't find a group and grind some more.

My decisions in most MMORPGs of late were not based on my own free-will but instead were based off of content and lack of content the game gave me. Dungeons are fast XP in MMORPG A so we go to dungeons, Soloing is awesome in MMORPG B so we solo. I seldom find immersion because I am observing the mechanics and content of the game instead of just logging in and exploring and the game being a true world instead of a series of hoops.

When you think about how much content exists in the Star Wars IP for instance you could see where a IP could overwhelm you and give you more than you could possibly do with one character. Unfortunately when the MMORPG is released, you see big empty areas devoid of space battles, sand people, jawas, bounty hunters etc.

A dwarf with a sword running thru an endless forest of beetles and giant spiders doesn't make a good fantasy novel and it shouldn't make a good MMORPG.

Originally posted by Timberhick
Linear is so much better for the whole community.

Lil'Billy shouldn't be going into the Temple of Elemental Evil right after toon creation.

If you dont have the restriction you get way too many whiners and morons bitching about something being to hard.

Gamers are stupid and need the hand holding.

There's definitely a kernel of truth in this statement.  If you want to attract new players to the genre, you have to expect they'll need help getting used to things.  And, if their first few experiences in the game are highly difficult, and end in death and defeat, then you'll lose them just as quickly.

MMO's NEED to have a way to inform players that, in their current state, a certain zone, enemy, action, etc. may be extremely difficult, and should be avoided if you don't appreciate constant defeat.

But there still has to be a way of signifying that without being so blatant, or constricting, as the current zone, level, and conning systems are.

From a site the professes to be about the entire MMO industry, I found this editorial to be rather myopic.  Does the entire industry have to design games that are non-linear?  That's a rhetorical question. Of course not. Some games will be linear and others will not.  Apparently the editor hasn't played Second Life, or Shadowbane, or WWII Online, or Ryzom, or EVE, or.....you get the picture.

So what could this article mean? Perhaps it means that the editor is pissed that his favorite game didn't end up as a non-linear game. Sorry to hear that if it's the case.

All of you complaining about there being no non-linear games really have to do your research because they exist.

And even those games that have story-driven content (Oblivion, anything BioWare, CoX, LOTRO, even SWG) have sandbox elements to them in varying proportions.  Are they 100% sandbox? Of course not.  But then it sounds rather childish to demand an all or nothing state. Ever listen to say a 9 or 10 year old talk? They frame their world in absolutes.  Either you're mature enough to live with a spectrum of playstyles or your not. No one can help you there.

As for the whole concept of being led through hoops, that's rather simplistic. When I read a book, am I being 'led through hoops'? When I watch a movie, am I being 'led through hoops'?  The creator of the work of art is giving you a story, and is directing you through that story. Directed content in MMOs is the same thing.  A story is being told, and you participate in that story on a level that is unprecedented in entertainment .  To somehow disparage people for enjoying story is to indict the entirety of human race and history for enjoying stories from Plato to R A Salvatore.

Finally, I do see a place for non-linear MMOs, don't get me wrong. I enjoy a game that gives a player tremendous agency, much like Oblivion. But the MMO space is large enough for the entire spectrum of playstyles to exist.

I would love to see MMOGs move more in the direction of Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, which, if you haven't played this amazing game, is a skill/xp based game that gives you diverse clan options and a variety of ways to tackle a problem. It's not quite a sandbox, since there is an underlying story and an "end," but there is a lot of stuff to do on the side that are respectable stories in their own right. I can only imagine how much time and effort it would take to create this kind of content in sufficient quantity to justify releasing it as a MMOG, however. I think I'm starting to see how a developer is really limited in their options in creating MMOGs, because you have to create a model that is able to be constantly infused with new content to keep people paying their monthly fee, or at least make the class choices so diverse that people are willing to go through the same content many times because it is so fun. Let's hope someday someone accomplishes it!

The best solution would be to just get rid of standard quests altogether. Just make an MMO full of real time events. Of course that would require GM's that actually cared enough about a game to put in the time and effort to run the real time events. Yes I know that a lot of people would be upset if they missed out on an event but I think it would be better than everyone doing the same standard quests all the time. Real time events would give life and breath to a MMO world. And becaue they're real time events and not standard quests, there's no way to know how they will turn out. They could have a positive or negative effect on the world, and most importantly a lasting effect on the world. If an NPC is killed he doesn't come back to life in 5 minutes so he can be killed again like in most MMO's. If a town is raided and burnt to the ground, it isn't rebuilt in 5 minutes so it can be raided again. That's the type of MMO that I want to see.

Originally posted by Cerion

From a site the professes to be about the entire MMO industry, I found this editorial to be rather myopic.  Does the entire industry have to design games that are non-linear?  That's a rhetorical question. Of course not. Some games will be linear and others will not.  Apparently the editor hasn't played Second Life, or Shadowbane, or WWII Online, or Ryzom, or EVE, or.....you get the picture.

So what could this article mean? Perhaps it means that the editor is pissed that his favorite game didn't end up as a non-linear game. Sorry to hear that if it's the case.

All of you complaining about there being no non-linear games really have to do your research because they exist.

And even those games that have story-driven content (Oblivion, anything BioWare, CoX, LOTRO, even SWG) have sandbox elements to them in varying proportions.  Are they 100% sandbox? Of course not.  But then it sounds rather childish to demand an all or nothing state. Ever listen to say a 9 or 10 year old talk? They frame their world in absolutes.  Either you're mature enough to live with a spectrum of playstyles or your not. No one can help you there.

As for the whole concept of being led through hoops, that's rather simplistic. When I read a book, am I being 'led through hoops'? When I watch a movie, am I being 'led through hoops'?  The creator of the work of art is giving you a story, and is directing you through that story. Directed content in MMOs is the same thing.  A story is being told, and you participate in that story on a level that is unprecedented in entertainment .  To somehow disparage people for enjoying story is to indict the entirety of human race and history for enjoying stories from Plato to R A Salvatore.

Finally, I do see a place for non-linear MMOs, don't get me wrong. I enjoy a game that gives a player tremendous agency, much like Oblivion. But the MMO space is large enough for the entire spectrum of playstyles to exist.

Ah... a post I can get behind.

I feel the exact same way. The article makes very bold statments, offers no solutions and essentially says that if it isn't his way it is the highway.

That's fine and good. But as you pointed out there are games that are completley open and yet they aren't juggernauts.

I do have to agree with one point that he makes and that is that once player finish with a certain area and level they have to move on. I have always thought that this was a shame as there are some very nice places that then become ghost towns (cough L2, cough)

My thought is that dungeons should have several "layers" or levels. The first few can be for lower level players and the lower (or higher if it is a tower) levels could be for higher level players.

Also, why can't an area have dynamic quests that become available once a player is of the appropriate level? This way you get a mix of players in an area and you can have more in one area than just noob quests.

Finally, I enjoy leveling up a character, becoming more powerful and then using my power. I don't want a house. I don't want to craft objects just for the sake of crafting.

I really loved Morrowind and Oblivion (Morrowind is why I decided to try online games as I wanted to see if they were like Morrowind where you can discover things that were off in the distance and open up a storyline - but with the competition of that real people give) and would't mind quest systems like that in an mmorpg. However, what then happens is that people have to grind quests or else the designers have to be so prolific as to make it impossible to keep certain players happy.

And what of URU? That seems to be a pretty open ended game. And I don't believe there is leveling. I tend to wonder if author of the article will be playing that?