Newsroom
Newsroom
General : Killing Fun by the Numbers
Posted Jun 15, 2010 by Jon Wood
MMORPG.com's Bill Murphy writes about the trend of MMO games to forget to "add the fun" and instead focus solely on how to keep us paying that $15 a month.
We’re all rats.
We get set down into a box and we’re told to press a button over and over until we are assigned rewards at random intervals. If we stop pressing the button, we get electrified by the grid below our feet: a diabolical way to keep us pressing that button. It’s a clever way to keep us locked in our operant conditioning chamber lest we break free and realize that there’s a way out of the box should we choose to cut loose.
We are gamers.
We play our chosen MMOs and we kill virtual creatures repeatedly in the hopes we will be assigned shiny gear at random intervals. Should we stop killing the virtual creatures in search of our loot, we won’t be able to compare to our peers. We won’t be able to progress our characters. In the shift to subscription gaming, developers must find a way to keep us playing and paying.
Link above cycling back to front page....
Can we get a new one?
Cheers!
Yeah, link is AWOL.
yep broken link to bad.
argghh link pirates !
Link still MIA...
But with out reading it I'm gonna guess that adding fun will keep people p(l)aying....
WHERE"S MAH CURSOR!!
Maybe the link isn't broken. Maybe it emphasizes the point made in the article. Just a thought .....
The guy above me has a point. It may be set like that to prove the point. We're rats, rats in a box. Cogs in a machine that makes developers rich, while we scramble about trying to afford the time we need to get our fix.
Gaming is an addiction, plain and simple. Without it, we go through withdrawel, which is very true. We start dreaming about the game, shaking out foot in anticipation, shivering when we don't get our fix. We need the gaming, and the gaming needs us. In hindsight, it's a win win situation, but on the other side of the coin, we still lose. No matter what. The game developers will always get us to pay, even if it's between several months at a time, to even years. We will end up paying for them again, even after we say we're done. We've quit. Sooner or later, you'll get that urge, and need that fix.
No matter how much we try to quit, we always come back for more...
Disturbing trend is continuing. Bad links (the site is beginning to feel like it's coded by rabid monkeys throwing poo), bad articles (I hope that they aren't being paid to express those lame opinions), bad reviews (and by that I mean positive reviews of horrible games). This is just sad.
Fix it, yo.
Maybe thought that it could be on purpose? Never seen a broken link which wasnt fixed after few mins.
Aparantly you must subscribe at $15 a month to keep reading this article.... [link still awol]
he's made his point. We clicked the button expecting a shiney new reward, and instead we came back here and talked about it
Or else the link is just broken. Still.
Cool, impressive way to make a point. XD
<.< >.> <.< *looks for article*
Maybe its a search and find game?
What ever it is, its annoying. But he is speaking the truth. We are all (including me) wasting precious time on these games, to what purpose? Its a hobby to me, so I look at it as entertainment. But the tie in to human psychology is very real.
I's a known psychological effect called a skinner box. here is working links to explain:http://www.nickyee.com/eqt/skinner.html
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3085/behavioral_game_design.php?page=
Link is fubar, but after reading the preview, I'm not sure I want to read it anymore. I thought it would be a commentary on how all the datamining/min/maxing/theorycraft crap is taking all the fun out of MMOs, but the skinner box metaphor has been done before, and it's a short sighted one at that as it completely ignores the myriad aspects of things you can do in an MMO and motivations to play one. I can't see it getting much better if that's where they're starting from...
If you are going to level serious criticism you need to also provide evidence for the problem. WIthout said evidence your criticism is very easy to ignore.
Meanwhile, we can all nread this Cracked article on MMOs dropping fun for addictive behaviour that was written in March: http://www.cracked.com/article_18461_5-creepy-ways-video-games-are-trying-to-get-you-addicted.html
I blame two groups for this problem. First are the stupid gamers that will pay for anything new and shiny. They throw money at anything, and keep funding the crap. Second are the shill reviewers that will write a positive review about any game no matter how terrible it is. They will do anything to stay in good standing with the game companies.
Certain websites that only seem to publish developer approved news stories should share some of the blame too, but im not going name any names.
I agree completely.
Lol we got trolled :D
Don't really care what I play as long as my clanmates are playing as well. A rat?? Naww.. I just enjoy watching myself and friends pull off really stupid shit and dying because of it. Sure, the game needs to be good, but it's the people ya play with that make it most memerable. (example) *Don't kill me I'm typing..* HEY I THOUGHT YOU SAID YOU WERE TYPING, WHY DID YOU KILL ME!! * I was done typing*....
You would think they were never told how a Skinner box was supposed to work.
This same article, worded differently, is all around the internet and has been for years. So on that front I'm a bit disappointed.
The thing that players forget is that players ASK for games to be designed this way. Have you ever read through a bunch of of the MMOs official forums? Gamers actually ASK for a repetitive grind to new shinies experience over and over again. So no you are not being treated like a rat out of some plot to make you addicted and spend hundreds of dollars. You are being treated like a rat because a lot of vocal players are ASKING to be treated like rats.
"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar," Mae West.
I was told once that it is not that you get anything done but the perception that you re getting something done that counts.
In truth how you measure yourself and your time is up to you in the end. It is not who or what you are that counts its what you do, what you actually get done that really matters in life. Games are like tv and movies, entertainment nothing more. If you cross the line then the padded room is your next destination.
Excellent article, Mr. Murphy. Way to tell it like it is.
There are still some devs out there who want to make fun games. Our design pitches get shut down because we want to do risky things, like not follow the theme-park quest-grind push-the-button get-an-M&M model that makes the publishers So Much Money.
I've thought more than once of leaving this broken industry and getting a job at twice my salary coding business software.
One of the best articles I have read here! I can only fully agree.
There are some escapes.
A) STORY: I hope SWTOR does it right. The Tortage part of AoC and the book quests of LOTRO are going into that direction. Tho even LOTRO in it's later years began to fall into the "faction grind" trap, which I so loathe. As a PnP nut I hope story will be the great new part in future MMOs.
B) NO LOOT: See CoH. Sure they added dops later, but by and large you look how you design and loot and cash don't play a larger role.
C) ROLEPLAYING: Difficult to attain game-wise, because people have to do it actively. If a MMO is too much a Theme Park like WAR, it practically kills the RP. I especially loathed Warhammer for it's narrow theme park orientation. It was like one long quest tunnel and not an open, free world to roam and explore.
D) EXPLORATION: Usually the strength in games with a Sandbox element. IMVPO I don't think Sandbox and quests with story are condradictions. A MMO can quite well have a large sandbox part where gamers can just live a virtual life AND have quests and missions with story. Either way for me who loves exploring I want my MMO worlds big and open. One of the things I loved about Vanguard.
MMORPGs cease to exist if they don't keep the players subscribing (or in the case of F2P, keep them dipping into the item mall). Grinds exist because it is content that takes a lot of time to accomplish, so it keeps players in the game. If there were no grinds, players would run out of things to do, and if there's nothing to do there's nothing to keep them subscribing. There's no way that a developer can create a steady stream of hundreds of hours of fresh gameplay content. That would be great, but it's unrealistic.
What is the alternative? I think the best thing to do is to give players the tools to create their own content. I don't necessarily mean something as direct as a "quest-builder" although that works too. The simplest example of player-driven content is PvP. PvP never really feels like a grind because the competition is a little different every time. The unpredictability of players makes it less monotonous. Another example is a player-driven economy. Give players a deep and rewarding crafting/economic system that lets them spend time building up an economic empire (see EVE Online and Pirates of the Burning Sea). Tools and game systems that encourage role-playing are also good. Not everyone is into roleplaying, but I think that's partly because most games don't encourage it with in-game systems. If you give players tools to play with, they will try it out. APB's system that allows players to incorporate their own art and music into their character is a good example. That may not seem like a Roleplaying tool, but I think roleplayers would definitely make good use of a system like that (although I don't think APB's gameplay and setting is good for roleplayers).
If a developer could create good systems like these, and perhaps some other systems that I haven't mentioned that empower the players, you wouldn't need grinds and probably wouldn't even need levels.
You are missing the entire point with this article. Of course they are trying to get us addicted, but if you are playing a game to acquire "shinies" you are doing it wrong. You should be playing because you enjoy the game, not because you get a reward after so much time playing.
I have the same mindset as William Murphy, and I have had that mindset for a few years now. Extremely repetitive content isn't fun, nor should it be pointed out as such. But all we get on the MMO gaming front are the same type of crap from different gaming companies.
It just really shot the point forward when World of Warcraft started with the automatic LFG system, in a few ways it's quite decent, but in more ways it ruins the game and shows just how repetitive things have become. But most people don't care, and that's where the problem is at.
Exactly. There is a reward because the game is not fun. I was thinking a month ago about a fun quest and after I put everything then I thought about the reward. I asked myself why should there even be a reward. Peoples would do it anyway because is fun. Like in most single player games, you just play it to have fun not to get a reward. This is how mmo work. You get a level up after a long boring farm as a reward. You get this shiny armor after you've donne this boring quest chain. That is how devs are keeping peoples playing. By rewarding the repetitive and lame road you have to walk in not by making it fun. That's why the leveling doesn't feel like an adventure but like a boring grind.
I thought about this article as I read it, and it has many true points, but there was something lacking in it. It wasn't until I re-read it that I caught it myself. The great grindfest is not brought on by developers I believe. I believe the reason we are hooked on games and continue to pay is the marketing department.
I'm beginning to think that Developers really are players. They want to make their product as excellent as it possibly can be. To do that, you need money, lots of money, buckets and buckets of it. Originally as I was working on my own RPG I definately thought this was the path. The problem is that where developers get the money is the proverbal devil on the shoulder. Especially since the developers take money up front for development and sign over control of the game to someone else. A person or team who developed a game now reports to someone else whom provided the money and wants to see a profit.
So how does this impact our games and the 'grinding' involved in it?
You can see that even if developers want to talk about something coming up, they are trapped by Marketing saying "If you tell the players about it you're going to lose money". They want money to keep making their game better. Even when it comes to loot, marketing figures out how fast it should take. Yes the guys in the suits determine how fast players should level, and how many ice-rods of uberness should drop. Amazing isn't it?
Yet very few people even consider how much impact marketing has on the decisions of the developers. The devil on the shoulder says "We have numbers that indicate players don't mind grinding, so we can stretch it out by 5% and gain a 10% boost to population and revenue." That 5% is the next week that you're going to be hunting for crystals for armor.
It's easy to look at this and say "Marketing is evil" but keep in mind that marketing does a good job trying to hook us onto games, they use the best videos, or even videos that do not really show what the game is like. Such is the case however when the gaming world doesn't have ethical laws in place to protect the players. It's the bell and food experiments. Everytime they ring the bell we drool. You need marketing to sell games. The real question is 'how much is too much'?
It seems that everyone wants to overthrow blizzard, and I'm beginning to think it's much like wanting to be the strongest of demons. Developers head down a dark path of owing a lot of money and hand over control so that they can 'live the dream job and try to take down the biggest game there is". They're players at heart though, so it's natural to want to compete. Only instead of trying to get that uber armor like we do, they're trying to hit that 500,000 subscriber mark.
Every game still wants to profit, and so you're not really going to see 'FREE to play' games. Furthermore there's nothing wrong with making a profit from a game. The ways it goes wrong is when Marketing is the Developers filter to everything. Communication with players. Loot system. Event System. Information about the game. Even changes to the system based on 'what the players want'.
There are better ways of making mmos without selling your soul to development companies, of this I am sure. It however is the fastest way of getting your game out there. Perhaps that's part of the problem. In the old days when mmos were still new everyone was trying something different to succeed. Now a days when there are hundreds if not thousands of mmos, there's less creativity involved with getting the money to make it. People start following the WoW business plan because it works. Even people who don't like WoW, use the same business models as WoW.
My suggestion to fix grinding and developers abusing players? Go after the marketing guys. Write complaint letters to marketing not the developers. Ask the development/community team to speak with Marketing members in a Q&A. I bet you the marketing guys know the answers to many of your questions. Examples like "when is X going to be added?", or "why something was changed". Other then that question things. Don't just accept a video of the new WoW expansion, get details, find out information.
We are all gamers.
We all care about the games we play.
We all have the abilities to rationalize, discuss, and gather information. It's why viral marketing works. Use the skills that you learned from Uncle Owen to be involved in your community and oppose things such as grinding and horrible loot. If you don't get involved, then likely no one else will. If no one speaks out, change doesn't happen. I'm not saying to be mean or insulting, but having facts and presenting them is the best way to fight something you don't like.
The problem MMO progress curves face is that you have different players playing with different intensity. No matter how many levels you include in the game, there will be some people who overdose in the first week and complete them all.
What you want is a progression that lets powergamers "preview" content/levels-of-power that will later become easier to attain. So at any given time, there are diminishing returns as you near the limit of the published content, but the difficulty/cost of advancing also slowly drops over time (prices drop, easier ways to gain exp/skill, higher level cap, etc). So to experience any given tier of content, you can either grind hard or just play at your comfortable speed and it will come down within your comfort range.
Should be we are all hunting rats.. heh
...
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Hot pocket!
i wish there had been a MMO where all dramatic content, challenge, ingame economy, geography, politics, conflict, advancement, crafting, territorial boundaries, were created and promoted solely by the players.
OH YEAH, SHADOWBANE.
too bad so many people got put off by a soggy launch and few superficial reviews. the game did have its problems, but its still head and shoulders above any of the shiny and shinier gimmicks being excreted these days. that is, only if you prefer MMO's that arent just multiplayer single player games.
Shadowbane's launch wasn't as bad as Anarchy Onlines lol
You're right, you're not a rat. You're a sheep following the rats.
And EVE to an extent
good article, pretty much sums up whats wrong with the mmo genre. They want us to work for shiny gear, grinding our way up to the top, boring as hell but people still pay for it.
Its not just one company either, sure some mmos have more grind then others but every single mmo has one form of grind or another. When quests consist of go here kill 15x then you get a new one "go here kill 8" its just grind. Boring as hell so Il be all for more "fun" in mmos since well.. its a limited resource in this genre its all about progression, not entertainment.
This article hits the nail on the head, and it's because of people that continue to pay for exactly the same boring games over and over, that we are continually fed the same drivel over and over.
People are basically paying for games that have no substance at all, and the game publishers are laughing all the way to the bank with it. Same reason it's so rare that you get to watch a movie that actually is worth watching. People keep on paying to see all the stuff with no substance, so why on earth would the people putting this rubbish out want to spend any time or thought on giving us something else?
I feel that games are not written by people that enjoy games, they're written by dullards that do ( as someone above mentioned) what the marketing department tell them. A fortune is spent on some shiny graphics, then with 3 days left before launch, a bunch of crap is added (some boring quest and some boring characters with some boring skills and really nothing in the way of any coherent reason as to why you're doing what you're doing, not that that's needed, since you'll do it anyway) and a game is born. Takes far fewer idiots with more money than sense to pretend to themselves that they like it than you might think in order for it to pay off. When the playerbase becomes pointless to sustain, release next game exactly like the one it's replacing, but a bit shinier to attract the same fools back again.
Until people stop buying the same game over and over, they're gonna keep giving us the same game over and over. If you're feeding farm animals the cheapest nastiest food you can find, and they are continuing to eat it without question, get fat and make you money, what possible reason would you have to spend time and effort changing your recipe to give them something better?
Game makers need not use any imagination or thought in making a game, so long as there are enough players without any imagination or thought lapping it up.
I'm just wondering how many more years the article's author will continue paying for something he already did a thousand times before. Will you ever actually get bored enough to say "No more"? How many of the thousands of hours wasted, actually were genuinely entertaining?
Rats no. Sheep yes.
Please do NOT bring up hunting rats... I still twitch when I think of that... ^^
The point is to have fun, but that means different things to different people. The MMO industry seems to be stuck between the Dev''s who want to make fun games(those who know what it is...) and the marketing suits(backed by the investor types) who only really care about money. The trick would be to convince the powers that be, that there is more money to be made longer term, with more fun designs.
It wasn't only that that eventually killed SB. The fact is that SB was pointed at a player demographic that is really narrow in the western markets these days. The time of the FFA gankfest has passed. Games with that design have a really limited appeal in the west these days.
I normally dont post comments to articles on this site, but I feel I must on this topic.
You people have way too much time on your hands to be talking about this load of crap including the author of the article. Play the games for what they are for or don't play it at all. It's that simple. We all know companies need the money they charge us to keep the game up and running, ESPECIALLY WoW because of it's stupidly large player base across the world. So shut up and enjoy the games you play for once.
By the way I wont be reading any replies to my post.
The problem is that when developers actually try to remove the grind and make the game only 100% fun (Lets say global agenda or APB), people play for a month and then get bored and leave.
MMOs are really special. I do not agree with it, but you have to admit that adding grind to a game is VERY effective at making your players spend more time and money on it.
Great article, I've been saying the same thing myself about both the subscription model and the potential of ANet's model.
To add to it though I think part of the reason why developers are becoming so focussed on creating ways to keep players playing is because players are actually running out of decent reasons to do so without being lured into it. I actually think the biggest thing that will keep an MMO gamer playing is the community, whether that be the server community or just their own small group of friends or guild. As games are becoming so solo friendly the strength of MMO communities is faltering and individual players are not engaging with them as much which means that the primary reason people played MMOs is no longer valid. Devs have no choice but to come up with other methods of keeping the community playing... :(
Absolutely. Nice article.
The grind for radiance gear in LOTRO was such a blatant move by Turbine to treat us like rats. I refused to do it. Raiding with my casual kin was no longer possible. I quit.
Now I do the same for any game that has me repeating content beyond what I will happily and naturally do (e.g. same content with a different class).
Really, players need to take more pride in themselves. Don't let yourself be treated like this!
First of all, we don't have "too much time on our hands." We're passionate about games, MMOs mainly, and this article was just asking for discussion. Go onto every forum about anything having to do with sports, music, movies, politics, and tell them they have too much time on their hands because forum posting doesn't contribute anything.
Blizzard may need that $15/month from those 11 million people, I don't manage their server bills. What we don't need is Blizzard shovelling the same recycled and re-skinned content over to us, or making an extra 5 million on a stupid Magical Pony. If people are stupid enough to keep paying for the same stuff over and over again, along with a whole GAME worth of money for a stupid horsey, then by all means, let the stock holders have their money.
Good article. Could have been a review of Funcoms new expansion for all the repetition and grind that offers. The holy grail is a solid endgame that keeps people coming back for more and the only game that came close to that was DAoC, but even Mythic themselves didn't learn their own lessons and screwed it up with WAR.
Endgame at the moment boils down to three major camps, raids for epic gear, faction grinds for epic gear and PvP. The first two by definition are repetitious grindfests and the third hasn't been done well since Mythics aforementioned classic, which was close to brilliant but still missed the mark slightly. I say it missed the mark because at the core it was still a repetitious grind, just a grind that was slightly different evening by evening because people play differently, different players turn up etc.
Sadly we are doomed for the forseable future to the same thing as inovation and originality dried up some time ago. The article mentioned GW2, a game that I haven't read much info on but I will watch with interest to see if it lives up to the hype. Oddly enough there have been games released in the past that could offer something to the MMO genre as a whole; Some which contained dungeon crawls but that generated a unique layout for each excursion ( old technology and todays machines could develop something much more complex and rewarding ). Trading card games that have had people hooked for years ( not saying that trading cards should appear in MMO's although SoE have tried it with EQ2, but the thing that makes those games fun and addictive needs to be looked at). Management and city building games, Wargames that rival tabletop in complexity etc. I think that there is a lot to be learned from these if some developer just takes the time.
As a last note to developers intending to put PvP as an endgame, 3 sides ffs because 2 doesn't sodding work. It isn't rocket science guys.
Terrible Article.
I wont go into the over used pseudo-psychology link that you base your 'rats' argument on as a few of the comments above already go into detail on that. Your article gives rise to the notion that past MMO's were of a nature that didn't rely heavily on grinding, and that time spent playing didn't give others an advantage. You act like current MMO's are somehow more of a grindfest than their early predessessors. Considering in todays age how many more people are enamoured by the MMO experience and are aware it exists and have the technology available to partake in it than a decade ago, isn't it interesting to see how poorly most MMO's do. Perhaps they SHOULD return to the formulas that worked so well for the behemoths that began the revolution.
The fact is that the MMO model is one that mirrors life in a lot of ways. The key obviously being time spent and repetitious action (in a variety of forms) reap the greatest rewards. MMO's were created as sandbox environments filled with an imaginative game world stuffed with Lore and other titbits which acted as the motivating catalyst for the player to give a damn and compete in the repetitious environment set. Gear, advances in progression, and / or PvE – PvP bragging rights were the key hooks designed to bring both fun, frustration and most importantly longevity to the game.
You want an MMO that doesn't have a grind? Where time spent playing doesn't reward players? Sick of being a rat? Then.. GO PLAY A SINGLE PLAYER GAME THAT HAS A BLOODY MULTIPLAYER OPTION BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR.
My hat goes off to MMO designers these days as they have a tough road ahead. They have to balance listening to these and other ideas from the general public which ask for 'non-grind', 'less-difficult', easier to traverse games versus the idea that if they do remove these features then all of a sudden the giant, sprawling, epic world they created will have become a very small single player tour with chat options.
The grind is an integral part of the MMO world. Make the grind more challenging, more interesting and more varied but the pursuit of the 'Shiny”, “The Ding”, “The Pwnzor” in some form of another is what makes MMO's -the gaming psychological achievement complex- what they are.
Since I'm ranting and as I imagine this will be my first and last post here...
While a lot of these are stock standard, some are not and some I know the vocal ever so ready to complain majority will yell at me for, but I strongly believe every MMO needs the following:
An epic open world saturated with lore both serious, and entertaining.
In depth class – speciality customisation which does not allow the player to come even close at maximum level to having all the abilities/spells/etc of your class / speciality.
Class / Race / Speciality system that requires the need for many different types of character to complete certain objectives.
In depth quests.
Multiple types of quests beyond that of single player and group.. beyond that of kill big boss X or kill 20 of Y.
Factional PvP that allows players to remain unmolested within certain areas that aren't just starting zones, cities or towns
Real cities.. not just make-shift, half-assed towns scattering the landscape.
Detailed Melee, ranged and spell combat options.
Professions such as those in crafting that require a multi-professional effort (thus multi-player) at higher levels.
A skill or level or whatever system that takes a decent amount of time to reach maximum possible attainment.
A PvE death penalty that actually means something whether it be xp loss that increases as you level / skill up, or attribute losses that do the same or even a chance to loss a item drawn at random or a mix. SOMETHING THAT MEANS DIEING IN PvE IS A BAD THING.
No PvP death penalty besides re spawning at the fringe or outside of the PvP area (s)
LESS bind points.
LESS modes of transport. MMO creators are undercutting the scale of their own worlds by giving far too many multiple instant modes of transport.
A map system that is a map showing found geographical locations which expands as the player uncovers more of the world. NOT maps that act as some advanced form of radar.
A questing system that requires some effort to fully uncover. NPC's should shout at the player if the player comes within range if they have a quest to give that they are comfortable sharing with any strangers. If the quest is a private matter the player should have to initiate dialogue then prompt the right conversation quest (And there should be real options here!!). NPCs should NOT... NOT be telegraphing every quest with giant punctuation marks above there head or being shown as types of sonar blinks on the SUPERRADARMAP
PvE should be detailed and varied with mobs being strong and weak to different things with different mobs having different AI mentalities.
PvE zones should be designed so that an element of danger exists from the medium – high level range that can actually give players a thrill. Zones should not only contain mobs differing in level / skill-type by minuscule amounts.
PvE zones should be open with multiple directional options.
If a designer is intent of having instances (Arg!!) then they should be few and far between. Large, real challenging dungeons should be at the very least on equal numbering as instances.
There are many other aspects I believe are staples but none come to mind this instant.
Being someone who was fortunate enough to have been gaming since before MMO's conception and someone who instantly fell in love with the very idea of MMO's. Where even in PvE you were competing with and against the same people in different aspects all the time. The modern MMO's shift to some single player / MMO on-easy hybrid which is tasting like mixing pavlova, scrabbled eggs and a steak sandwich together... all are great on their own and awesome at certain times but together they taste like dirt.
Don't like grinding? Don't play the massive multilayer online role playing games which hold on to that formula. Play those online games which are a blast to enjoy yet hold no real longevity.
Z
I completely agree with the above poster...
MMORPGs always were about the grind... remember DAoC? huge ass grind to reach lvl 50... questing was pretty much non existent... the best (and only for some classes) way to level was get a group together, sit down near a place where 6-10 lvl higher mobs spawn, pull some, kill them, reg, repeat. Then it was off to RvR, which ( if you cared for RRs) was an even bigger grind...
how dare people back then put up with that??? how dare they feel comfortable in their little rat lives???
well I guess they had fun.... I sure know I did... and I'm still having fun with that exact same type of game... because that is what MMOs are. The only thing that has changed since the old days is that nowadays developers try to cater to more playstyles. Especially - Casuals... back then nobody gave a submarining phoque about people who only wanted to play 2 hrs a week... nowadays they're the most important part of the crowd apparently...
anyway - I'm getting kind of tired of all this banter... "I love MMOs to bits but this and this and this and this and this is wrong and stupid" - guess what: if that is how you feel - you don't really like MMOs anymore... try other stuff... you might become happy again ^^
so good mmos need grind? Are you fuckin stupid? Grind is input for the sole purpose of winning more time, our time, its pointless in every and all meanings of the word, its not fun/entertaining its dull. If developers just took some time making decent quests/missions/pvp missions or what ever grind wouldnt be needed.
Also why would you be rewarded mostly by being roboticly retarded, games should be about skills, experience and cunning. Some work for yer grey cells to advance forward, its not like anyone wants to work when they get home in a virtual world were the only reward is some shiny item that raises your stats by 2%.
But hey thats why most gamers dont play mmos, its playerbase mostly consist of old RPG players that have simply gotten used to carrying out boring tasks on an "entertaining" platform, its pathetic.
The fun for me is in open world factionless pvp. Yes, I'm talking about Shadowbane, and I miss it and seriously wish it was re-released with a better engine. It has everything I enjoy:
Fast leveling (one day of powerleveling puts you at the cap)
Gear that's close to perfect easily, with perfect pieces not requiring hideous investment of personal time, though not readily available to all.
Challanging pvp
The possibility of making a gimpy character. This seems difficult these days in many games, and remedied with a simple gear-swap. I enjoy crafting my character, not being 100% the same except gear as the next guy over, and learning the ins and outs of building a good character that people want to emulate.
There's more, but I'm not going to take all night writing it out. The point being, the fun at end game is certainly possible, without being a challange of "stand here, spam your dps rotation, move there at cue X, etc". That's crap, and unfortunately it's the modern MMO plan. There's no fun in doing precisely the same thing over and over, dammit, so quit making players do exactly the same thing a billion times hoping for the ultra-rare gear drop. I want my character geared and ready for the fun, it's not fun to waste time over and over seeing nothing I need drop/
Great article and its along the lines of my thoughts these days.
Holy Crap! Here I thought I was the Lone Ranger regarding this subject. The constant grind for the shiny trinket, the small surge of brain juice when I hit the jackpot, it just isn't enough for me any more. Once it was but like all things, we change, we mature, our perceptions and motivations undergo change and I think that is what has happened to many folks. It's like a maturing process and we require more, more depth and definitely more fun. Enjoyed the article immensly....
Wow, what a joke of an article. By the way, B. F. Skinner developed a human psychology profile, not video games. lol
If we do as the article says, then we should all never ever come to this or any gaming site ever again. So, this article is designed to destroy the MMORPG.com advertising revenue? Interesting concept.
I love this example. What you said, Trogdorn, proves the addiction that is gaming, and you have basically stated that the current MMO drug isn't strong enough anymore. Time to move on to heroin... oops, I meant a better game (a stronger drug.)
WoW is a gateway drug. :P
Brilliant article!
Monthly subscription fees are bullshit. They encourage quantity over quality. Unfortunately people have become brainwashed into accepting monthly subscription fees. It has become a standard thing for mmos to have them even when they arent really needed. Many people even defend them with daft claims that these fees contribute to making their favourite mmos into good quality games. You only have to look at the majority of modern mmos to see that this isnt true. They suck!
ArenaNet is going to stick its fingers up at this crap and prove that mmos should be good quality games that you can buy for a single one-off price (like any other game) and then play at your leisure whenever you like (like any other game). They will prove that monthly fees were never a neccessity and were only ever being charged because people were stupid enough to pay. If all mmos did this then people would not feel obliged to commit themselves to a single game for years as though it is some kind of serious endeavour. They are just games and they should be treated as such.
Also I really like the way ArenaNet release expansions as seperate games. It means that I can pay a single price for a chunk of content and spend however long I like to get through it, pretty much like any other computer game. Of course other mmos use peoples subscription fees to make expansions, charge them an extra one off fee to buy what they have already been paying for for months and then continue taking their subscription money to play what they already paid for multiple times. Its bollocks. It's hardly surprising that so many companies are turning to making mmos.
Good article,exactly my thoughts William.
Guys, while reading comments like 'mmos all are about grind etc.' - I agree BUT it shouldn't be about the grind, it should be about fun (unless grind=fun, sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's not)!
One important thing, we as a gamers evolve, we expect different things so mmos should evolve with us.
I don't like giving examples including WoW (because it usually starts a flame war) but it's the most valid game to compare to since it's so popular - think for a second about all those players that played it, and quit, they've moved on. Now what do they expect from their next mmo? Same 'carrot model'? Some do, but some don't. What's with players that want diffrent approach? They wait, and wait, meanwhile subbing and resubbing and bunny hopping onto game after game after game.
My point is, unless majority of people won't decide with their wallets that they want something different we will have the same crap over and over again. Money rules, and right now, why change it (carrot model) while it works? If I was into erning money from this, hell no I wouldn't change it.
http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?feature=4318&val=1&uh=28105C0E692966A1F1A514DE1B71088F
I agree completely with this. That is also the reason the only game I am actually looking forward to is Guildwars 2 at the moment, simply because they are the only developers I have seen thus far that actually listen to the players, stop with the grind, and are willing to go the extra mile to make sure they are putting out quality without trying to gouge their players for substandard work. I do hope this rattles the MMORPG industry and sets a new standard to what players will and will not accept from them.
I hear people saying it is overhyped, but I disagree, they are actually giving players something to get excited about in a stale industry. I remember when they had me fill out a survey years ago, and I was really surprised when they actually included much of that content requested by players in their new game and more than I ever could have imagined.
I have no desire to do the same ol crap in a different game. I have done that over and over and over again.. I want something interesting, fresh and most of all... FUN! If it isn;t fun why do it? I am not impressed with accumulating pixel crap on a game to dress my toon up like princess barbie and run around sayin "loo0key meh imma sup3rno0b!" - I want to PLAY! I want to have fun and entertaining things to do, and doing the same thing over and over again isn;t fun it is mindless repetition that serves no purpose other than to waste my time and money.
I want good, challenging PVP that actually takes thought, not something I could do blindfolded with one hand tied behind my back just because i gotz the uber gear and 1337 levels. Level and gear based combat bores me to tears- it takes no thought no real skill and I do not even see that as PVP, I see that as I beat you down because I wasted more time than you did- it doesn;t even feel like I earned it.
Arena Net's PVP design mechanics took much of that away. They leveled the playing field and allowed you to actually feel like you were competing again. It was a nice change, I hope they keep that feeling with Guild wars 2, but from what I have seen from them thus far, they have given me no reason to doubt them. They come through when they say they will and then some.
Modern "MMOs" are trying to blend single player elements into a genre that originally was meant to escape the single-player enviroment. In the beginning, "MMORPGs" were created as virtual worlds where players were expected to create their own stories, and whatever tasks they undertook in that existence were in pursuance of that end. So, for example if you wanted to be an armorsmith, you would probably be spending alot of time mining ore. If you followed a magical profession, you probably spent quite a bit of time searching for ingredients for potions. The point is, in MMORPGSs repetative tasks are necessary otherwise they aren't MMORPGs at all.
Now, what repetative tasks have evolved into in modern "MMOs" is the "Quest for Shiny", everything the player does is to obtain the shiny. Now, here's where the distinction needs to be made. Instead of doing a repetative task in order to develop your character (the essence of role-playing), the endeavour has become motivated entirely around endgame and obtaining loot. Now in that system, wherein all the player does is endlessy kill the same creatures or boss to acquire the loot, where is the fun? Who would enjoy that? Therefore, the question actually is, which repetative task is least fun? Obvioulsy the opinions will varry, but I think it is simply that MMOs have stopped being about character progression and more about endgame loot.
Now with all that said, why did this evolution of repetative tasks occur? Because as the genre progressed developers who in all reality are in business to make money after all, wanted to increase their earning potential. They did notice that there were alot more people playing single player games, both on PC and consoles. So, in order to draw these people into MMOs, they removed the sandbox virtual world, and added linear story mechanics to it. Single player games are linear creations, wherein the player is the "hero", the "chosen one", the "savior of the world", and etc. These games are all about uber combat, and very simplistic and "fast" character progression. Very little grind or repetative tasks. The ultimate objective is not so much to enjoy the game, but rather to "beat the game". So, since MMOs now cater to this playstyle, the same elements are visible in modern MMOs. But, because the character progression that existed previously and took a large amount of time no longer exists, developers are now replacing that necessity of time with endless raids for gear or achievements.
I ask you, which repetative task is worse?
So, in a nutshell, MMOs require repetative tasks. The point is what repetative tasks are more fun to you? If you remove those elemets from the MMO, it is no longer an MMO, but a single player game. If you argue against grind, then you are in fact arguing against MMOs all together.
I strongly disagree that repeatitive = mmorpg. Lets say you want to be a blacksmith.. and you do not have to mine all the ore yourself, say making the armor doesn't require a ton of the same thing so you are left to do fun and creative blacksmithing works. Rather than focus the game on the repetitive tasks, you instead allow for more player creativity. You can smith many different types of armor, weapons, and other useful items in game without the need to make the same thing over and over again. Instead, allow for players to cutomize each piece of armor with style, trims, embellisments socketing abilities to creat their own unique itmes in game. Now for me that would be what being a blcksmith or crafter would be about rather than mindlessly repeating the same task.
You could have blacksmithing contests where players could compete with their works. The devs could add content by adding more options to what you can customize in game making it much more interesting rather than the same ol same ol crap.
You could instead of gaining the same things over and over have a variety of materials that can be used. Having all items in game player made, highly customizable, tradable, and salvageable would open up alot of content options.
I will concede the point about having miners to mine for you, but even so when, "You can smith many different types of armor, weapons, and other useful items in game without the need to make the same thing over and over again.", isn't that a form of instant gratification? But also still a repetative act?
The reason I say it's instant gratification, is that it doesn't seem logical to me that you can smith items without learning how do it in the first place. Is the character istantly created with that knowledge? I think that based on a time vs reward system you should have to produce crap before you can produce quality items.
But I would go even further, a good crafting system doesn't requrie you to craft the same thing over and over again. It would rather, allow you to manipulate your creations trading durability for damage migitagtion, or charge amount for range, and etc. So, no two items are identical, but you would still have to proudce alot of them before you can produce something of quality. In real life, that's called learning.
For the most part Deviliscious I agree with you, but what you describe is still a repetative act.
Not exactly instant gratification. You see, if we think about how things are done in the real world and try to incorporate a little bit of that into the game as well. Like for example in order to learn to make different types of armor , weapons and such, you would have to travel to the region where they are created, learn from the masters there and gain your supplies for those type of items from that region. For example, you want to make a super cool carved samurai sword.. so you would have to travel to the orient, overcoming the obstalces presented and find the skills and materials to do so there prior to even figuring out what designs you wished to incorporate into your sword. say you wanted to put a dragon on it with ruby eyes. First you would have to find which dragon design you wished to put on it through exploration, locate the rubies, and also be taught the skill to create it. Now if you wished to create more of the same swords, you could do so, but you would not be required to in order to advance. it would make the game repetition optional.
Oh and of course you would not be able to create the best items instantly, but it does not need to be repetitious. If ALL items in game are player made, salvageable, and highly customizable, you would also have to make many simple tools and such you use as well. If you need a shovel - you make it. but you have to obtain the materials and expertise to do so. Mindless repetition isn't necessary. There are other ways to " learn" skills.
I have to agree to a large part with what the author said about MMOs. They are full of grind rather than fun, which is what keeps us paying. I play MMOs very much like the author though. I avoid anything repititious that doesn't involve some kind of fun. That's why I prettymuch only pvp on WoW and don't raid at all. I enjoy playing different classes and going against other players and you can level up almost completely through battlegrounds and pvp now. It is what I enjoy, so it is what I do.
Some people might enjoy rep farming or 4 hour raids filled with swearing and bickering just so you can have a slight hope of a piece of loot dropping for you, but to me that isn't fun at all. It is just another grind, but with more swearing.
I have high hopes for SWTOR because it sounds like Bioware is really trying to innovate. They are the best gaming company out there right now in my opinion and with the huge loads of cash that EA brings to the table, I know they will make an absolutely amazing game. To some degree though, I wonder how much they can break away from the grind model and still keep people hooked for as long as WoW has done. I can't wait to see.
I love grinding. It's fun!
For real. It's mindless entertainment, and with moderate effort it's also easy progression.
Sure beats killing 85 things which are hard to find, just to collect 10 yack noses that when turned into the quest giver returns meaningless XP bonus (I could have done it faster) and a lame piece of gear that's useless.
Quest on bros. I'll be out in the woods.
Unoriginal and uninspired. As mentioned before this is just regurgitated almost verbatim from hundreds of other posts and articles. I'd like my five minutes back.
I'd say the opposite is true actually.
I think some of the haters of the article are yes men for different MMOs. I wouldn't be surprised if they had some people who went around bashing any article that attacks their "cheddar" operation of getting people to play boring ass grind games. Agree with the article writer. It's boring to grind something again and again for mere pitance most of the time.
Great article. I have played single player games for well over 200 hours. If the game has good replayability, then it's even more of a value, in my opinion. With regards to MMORPGs, specifically World of Warcraft, the replayability stops once I have to start running heroics for badges or tokens. I don't mind running the dungeons on normal a few times, but I'm not going to run the same dungeon on hard mode 10 times just to get one item upgrade. I've been to this dungeon 3 or more times already. I've seen the sights and got a few lucky rolls on item drops and it's time to move on. I'm not going to go back just for loot.
I have one max level character and I still play on him once in awhile, mostly farming items to sell on the Auction Hall. I still enjoy playing him, and will even occaisionally go and solo a lower level dungeon just for nostalgia or to help a friend out, but I've never run a heroic instance, and feel absolutely no need to. The endgame is where the replayability stops for me.
Either that or they are still stuck in the skinner box, pissed off at the other lab rats who decided to escape!
I agree with the article but I blame the players just as much as the developers. People are happy doing that crap (I guess they like the cheese) and if any developer tried to change it up then they would spew tears of blood about how all MMOs are supposed to be traditional. The truth is the Skinner box shapes behavior. Not only are the developers taking advantage of the addictive nature of players, they are also adapting the players expectations to these systems - making the players feel that this is the only way to do it. What other gaming genre has evolved so little in 10 years?
Very profound and insightful comment..........I agree
One can't help but to note the sharp rise of articles of this type that take on the appearance of defending free to play ever since Lord of the Rings went all turbine on us. In this case, not so much defending, but by implying the alternative of subscription based gaming is somehow a more disingenuious, less viable alternative. The sad irony of the article is that every point made by the author in this piece, all of it likewise applies to micro transactional gaming... Like somehow those developers don't have to keep gamers interested so that eyeballs eventially come to rest on their cash shop, thereby keeping them in business either.
Even if defending the website cash cow wasn't the intent of the article, I'd think more care needs to be taken to avoid the appearance of partiality, because frankly, this piece is sloppy, poorly executed and ill-timed considering the last few pieces that did fall solidly under the "in defense of free to play" header. As flimsy as the substantiation is with this particular story, one could easily argue that a subscription has more incentive to keep you hooked since they recieve a constant income; also having more up front cash resources to keep expansions and your interest in them apace.
Am I looking to argue the point? No. Just that viewing this piece on its own merits is literary fail.
But we LOVE the grind. Star Wars Galaxies was a sand-box MMO, of sorts. Because you had only one character per server but you could respec that character anyway you wanted, you really didn't have an end game. And there was no end-game content for a long time anyway.
This was the ultimate game to explore, to seek to change your character to suit your playing style, to play Star Wars, to have fun events.
Some did, but most grinded. Oh they had excuses like "needing" to grind Jedi. The same people that said they wanted to play Han Solo or Bobba Fett just had a need to grind Jedi. And so they grinded.
Doing something intresting in a game is hard. There is only so much ready made content that anyone can create or indeed shiny prices that one can hand out. The question when someone, either a gamer or a game, does something just for fun often becomes "what is in it for me".
You can create a MMO with the best story line and the best open ended gaming but if you place next to it the most boring dungeon in the world that has to be grinded for 1000 hours but you then get a sword of awesome, I know where the queue is going to form.
And I can't really blame them either. To be honest, often when I am playing a game I just want to have some mindless fun. I just want to kill a few monsters, get a bit of XP and loot and not have to think all that hard. Sure, sometimes I organize an event and have a lot of fun doing it, but every other weekend or so is enough. It is just so much effort.
Rest of the time, let me grind a bit. I know what I am doing, i know what I am going to get out of it. It is just what the doctor ordered after a hard day at the office.
No, I don't do the legendary item or radiance gear grind in Lotro. That is not for me, neither do I really bother with traits. Sometimes I do 30 or so critters because I happen to be in the area and then I move on. But I know that the fast majority of gamers are not like me. And so do the people who fund MMO development.
Complain about the grind all you want, it is where they money comes from as far as game companies are concerned. 99% of the Lotro players who complain about the radiance grind are in their every single night paying and grinding.
It is like me complaining McD burgers are vile while I am buying them by the truckload. We vote on company policy with our dollars/euros. And every MMO develop can count the votes Blizzard gets.
I never understood what was so bad about the slow progression method form the early days. I rather have that then get to max level in 2 weeks and then forced to grind 1 or 2 instances 30 hours a week for the next 6 months before some one bather to add some new content.
With the slow progression method you have so mush to look forward to, fantasise about all the fun things that was ahead of you. All the zones you had not seen. And you thought it was good invested time to all the content between mini and max level. Now a days I don't even see the point with having a levelling system almost. It takes no time to level up so you can skip make content for lv 1-80 and just concentrate on the lv 80 content only.
I think it would be a good idea if MMOs started to go back to the roots of MUDs. And I think the LP MUD rules would be the best way forward.
I agree with the article wholeheartedly. I wrote a quick article about it myself to express my personal opinion about this sad situation.
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/joeballs/052010/6185_The-mosscovered-genre
I guess if we want to take the grind out of MMO's we'd have to know what sort of content we could replace it with to keep us paying and playing.
I know EVE's grind is in ISK (but even that can be avoided) and with its real time skill training it really doesn't feel much like a grind at all to me so I guess that's why its the only game that really appeals to me at the moment.
Originally posted by Deviliscious:
"If ALL items in game are player made, salvageable, and highly customizable, you would also have to make many simple tools [emphasis added] and such you use as well. If you need a shovel - you make it. but you have to obtain the materials and expertise to do so. Mindless repetition isn't necessary. There are other ways to " learn" skills. , First you would have to find which dragon design you wished to put on it through exploration, locate the rubies, and also be taught [emphasis added] the skill to create it."
Your ideas about a crafting system I agree with whole-heartedly, but it is still a repetative task. Is it a mind-numbingly repetative task? Well, that depends on what you think it is fun in an MMO. But by searching, foraging, or salvaging for the ingredients and materials necessary to create the item (chances are the item would require multiple items or inredients) you would have to do this repeatedly to gain the items necessary to do so. But also, I can't agree with your concept of learning a skill by "watching" someone else do it, or to simply "be taught" the skill. There is alot of things that go into "being taught" a skill. By taking out the "work" involved in being taught a skill, you remove the value of it in the first place. This is the time vs reward that is so important in MMOs. The exmaple you point to, forging a samurai sword, requires "years" of practice (folding metal, metalurgy, forge techniques, and yes creating lots of swords, which for the majority of that time are not good). The point is, learning that skill requires you to make many many swords, before you can produce a quality end result. I know that you aren't directly advocating for a system that has instant wonderwaffen (wonder weapons), but I still think someone should have to invest a great amount of time to produce quality items. However, I am in total favor of allowing the weapons that you must create in order to improve to be useful in some way. Perhaps allowing them to be broken down, recycled. But if being taught a skill only entales talking to an NPC for a few minutes, that is a total devaluation of the time vs reward mechanic, and does not belong in an MMO. For those who don't like that, maybe you should go back to your PS3.
Sage thinking that is what this article is. I'm of the same opinion. Shoot, I pretty much burned out on all my MMOs and I'm not really an alt kind of guy. Fortunately I always buy LtS if possible so I dont feel any pressure to play but still....
I have to agree.
There<s not a single MMOPRG out there that keeps me coming back. I ended up going back to DAoC last week, and i realised this game has what it needs to be popular. It has depth a huge variety of classes to play with, the best RvR ever. With all its flaws back then, DAoC was ahead of his time, and at first it was clear it was BY rpg players FOR rpg players. Mythic made mistakes, yup, can't deny that, but its when i tried many mmos after that, and then finally went back to DAoC that i realised how good it was/is.
What makes DAoC step up compared to other mmos is of course the rvr, but i have to admit, i think even the pve is better then my recent experience, WAR.
The game isnt "oooo Shiny" as more recent mmos, but the game itself is amazing.
About 10 years ago there was a company that was in alpha stage of development for a mmo that sounded REALLY promising...Ok it ended up being nothing more than talk, but i was more excited just to discuss the game on the forums than actually play most other mmos since then. I have to admit they had some "utopic" views for a mmo, wich many of them would probably never work, or they would have to be a gigantic team to make it work. Here's the link to their never-updated website ( now i think it was probably more a window to publicise their little browser game, but anyways) http://www.glitchless.com/dawn.html
I even kept somewhere one topic with all the replies (173 if i recall) from players, and it was great to participate to that.
If a company out there really want to make a different mmo and need some fresh, different ideas, instead of trying to copy others, this topic had MANY very interesting points. contact me and i'll gladly send it to you.
EA and other companies that are aiming for THE next MMO also has to think about something...those teenage WOW players that started many years ago will grow up eventually, and will want more depth, more fun, more strategy, more many things than just "oooh Shiny" games. if they dont realise that, we'll keep ending up w/o good mmos to play, or return to old ones we loved, true mmos.
I'll be 41 next month, played tabletop rpgs since i was 13, switched to MMORPG at around 30, and will probably be playing when i'll be 60, as long as there are some good stuff out there.
Stop thinking about making money like the author of this post said, think about giving PLAYERS fun, so hire PLAYERS to create the game, from the programmers to the guy in charge. Make different kind of servers like DAoC (PvP, RP, classic etc).
and damn i would even go as far as making "mature servers" and "kids/teens" servers. Part of what makes a good MMO is its community, a place to make online friends, etc. so try to regroup people that fits together, think human factor, not money factor, and the money will flow.
i agree it would be amazing if the developers could keep a continuousstream of new content every day but the would have to practically be computers themselves for that to happen. Lets face it,we need the grind for the shinies to be there for new content to arrive. Its the time it takes for players to get the shiny that allows the developers the time to make new quest and develop new gameplay. Basically its a double edged sword and we as gamers are precariously perched in the middle.
Wow 100% correct in my mind this is how i have always seen it WE ARE RATS....HAMSTERS....wotever u wanna call us were the ones that come to a game and we run around trying to level, quest, kill epic monsters and we have to pay to get that little bit of fun.
I cn tell u wen im a high level and it takes me at least a whole day to level up i get a buzz but when i find out i need to pay another $15 to continue i think wow i giv up.....but always....ALWAYS come bak because i know its worth it im like u William I LOVE SHINEY STUFF, glowing stuff ect....I just love walking round a city showing of the new armour i got from this super hard quest and then another $15 i dont want to do it but i just sucks me in......LET ME GOO!!
Toughtful article.
Made me want to look after Guildwars 2 a little more.. even though i wasn't fan of the first at all.
Excelent article. I agree although I don't think it's recent at all. It comes with the territory with MMOs. I remember the original EQ and it's horrible grind. In fact, I think devs try to do things to ease the grind but they're in a no-win situation which is the following:
1. A person playing an MMO regularly can go through hundreds of hours of content in a year. Some people go through thousands of hours a year.
2. There is no way with existing technology that any of the game companies out there can generate that much original content.
Therefore, they're pretty much FORCED to generate grinds. Whether it's redoing the same dungeon a hundred times, or killing the same monsters a thousand times, or redoing some battleground a hundred times. In some way or another devs are being forced to get players to do stuff over and over because they cannot create the huge amount of content needed to avoid that problem.
Maybe the solution is to change the business model as this writer seemed to imply -- if a game company's revenue is not tied to how long people play the game but just how many copies are sold (which has ALWAYS been the Guild Wars approach even in the original -- it was always buy the game and play for free). If they don't feel forced to keep people subscribed they might relax and just do a lot of content and not worry when people use it up and go on to something else (the company will get them again for the sequel).
Or maybe there's another approach. Whatever.
Until a solution is found, the people who like mind numbing repetitiveness will play MMOs and others will leave. Or they'll log on occasionally because something about the game attracts them but they won't play much because they can't stand the grind. Which makes me wonder if many so-called casual gamers are just people who can only stomach so much grind. It appears enough people are willing to put up with the situation and pay their monthly fees to keep MMOs going strong.
Some people LIKE doing the same task over and over thousands of times.
As for me, I'm starting to get fed up with the MMO genre.
Originally posted by: Kerix
"Maybe the solution is to change the business model as this writer seemed to imply -- if a game company's revenue is not tied to how long people play the game but just how many copies are sold (which has ALWAYS been the Guild Wars approach even in the original -- it was always buy the game and play for free). If they don't feel forced to keep people subscribed they might relax and just do a lot of content and not worry when people use it up and go on to something else (the company will get them again for the sequel)."
I agree with you in part, especially about developers not being able to generate tons of content. Originally MMOs were created as sandboxes to get around that problem. They were created in such a way that players were the masters of their own destiny. Because of that design philosophy (giving the players the tools to create their own world, and only stepping in when necessary) it allowed them more opportunity to make the game better and release better content, rather than trying to rush out content that players will run through in no time at all. I see that as the problem with modern themepark MMOs, the players depend on developer generated content, which is unpractical. They want the "heroic" single player game style of content, and that just doesn't work in an MMO. Eventually the content runs out and people will be forced to raid or endlessly kill the same creatures repeatedly.
But, if the developers changed the revenue model as you suggest, isn't that a single player game? Also, by paying that $15 per month you get constant updates and a persistent world. So far ArenaNet has pulled this off, but most people don't realize it has an item shop as well. It's not as robust as other games, but it does exist. So, they are generating revenue from other sources in addition to box sales. My point is that by changing the revenue model, you are essentially enforcing the single player game system of play. Because there is no need for people to subscribe, there is no incentive for them to publish those updates, and maintain the persistent world.
Either we have MMOs and pay the monthly subscription, or we can have single player games with the only associated cost being the purchase of the box or download. You can't have it both ways.
Now personally, I do agree that charging people for a box or download (including expansions), and then charging a monthly fee is inherently greedy. I prefer the free download and expansions with a monthly fee, or if you buy the box, the largest majority of that cost should incorporate the monthly subscription.
Thank goodness this article came about. I cannot recall anyone ever writing about why or what could have caused MMO's to become "unfun-anized".
I remember being a young buck at 16-17 years old (fuzzy memories from those ages) playing Asheron's Call. My oh my did this game get me hooked. At the time it wasn't about the graphics, or the "OH JEEZ HE HAS A HUGE SWORD PVP KILL RAID!" moments that made my want to play the game, rather the actual "COMMUNITY" and the developers who they themselves played alongside us that made it fun.
MMO's, and not trying to be biased here, should take a page from Asheron's Call and script something new from there. Why do we have to farm for "TIER 10 ARMOR" ? Could it be perhaps there really isn't anything out there that could be much better for your own type of playstyle? or perhaps that's the ONLY option one has? What I'm trying to say here is I still believe whole heartedly that a "skill" based MMO where one can pretty much create they're own character be it warmage, lifemage, anything warrior, archer-thing-a-ma-bob, is light years ahead of a pre-set with some customization type of character selection. This is simply because of the several options and choices one can make for their own gear. Do you need that special item that gives you +10 life but +5 magic? or perhaps you need more ATTACK but not that much defense? Whatever the need there are bountless of items you can choose from. You don't have to be funneled into just one armor/weapon that seems to cover all the bases for your character or anyone in general, that is BORING. I'd also like to mention a "collection of sets" that ultimately lead to an exciting type of weapon or armor, where one has to scour the world to collect small pieces and ultimately have it forged into something large and in charge. THAT's exciting!! Atleast for me it was.
Several factors play into the dumbing down of the MMO. How about make dying somewhat "FEARFUL", yes that's right, that it would actually be a 100 on the suckage to die instead of what it is nowadays where you simply get a negative tick that can be removed in one kill, this would actually spice things up a bit. Remove easy world travel? it IS rather "convenient" to travel from point A to point B, but hey come on, remember when you used to have to run for an hour to where you wanted to go to? Yes, it was long but you got to see so much more of the game and world, perhaps even discover something new on the way there! Questing that requires you to A+B=Cows x Spear of ultimate death. How simple and clear cut is that? Make questing as difficult as it used to be, make us THINK as to what it is needed for me to accomplish my deed, I want to feel like I EARNED IT ! LAstly, Crafting.
Crafting get's its own paragraph. Many a games tried to get it right, but failed and horribly so. In my humble opinion, the only game that got it right was SWG (Pre-anything). Yes, SWG had it perfectly done. I remember walking into someones weapons factory and waiting in a line to get my Scatter Blaster that was "Hand Made". This guy actually had factories set up, as well as collection points scattered across the world harvesting materials. I felt like this was actually a homemade weapon, an ORIGINAL. It also had "Made by so and so "quote". Genunie crafting that is always slightly better than the easy-to-get questing weapon, made crafting FUN, UNIQUE, and was available for those who wanted to wait a bit more just to get that weapon/armor (you had to wait a day for it to be fully completed by a player). Not only does the consumer get something out of this crafting style, but the prosumer as well. All I can say is, these guys although no on the battlefield killing killing killing, were building up their own playstyle and just all around rich rich rich.
In the end, I say bring back the "skill" based customization, bring back ACTUAL player driven economy and crafting (not the dumb downed crap we get, i hate that shit), bring back meaningfull questing and somewhat non existent convenient travel. MMO's have always had the same pattern of being dumb downed and turned into a kiddy game, for that I'll play Wizard School or whatever the hell that game is. I cannot recall when one of my friends didn't turn to me and say "Don't play so and so game because it has been turned into EASY MODE", and you can quote me quoting my friends on THAT!!
Thank you for your time and patience, bless you all and Happy Father's Day!
Gah, Where's Waldo?!?! Waldo being the right link =p Oh and Happy Father's day!!
And Jlee, Extremely insightful. Good job, I admire you for your outlook on this.
Originally posted by Jlee001:
"In the end, I say bring back the "skill" based customization, bring back ACTUAL player driven economy and crafting... , ...bring back meaningfull questing and somewhat non existent convenient travel."
I could not agree more.
/signed
Finding ways to keep player chained and paying rather than finding ways to entertaining him, sure sounds like most (if not all) mmos nowadays. Isnt there a single game which has something other than loot, party, exp? Games are simple, so that anyone can play them, my point is that it also leads to downfall. As you play some game with some character you learn how to win, get what you want, etc. This is where you meet endgame where your only objective is to be shinier than the other guy.
The only thing that can never be mastered is playing against other players is a thing, which is know to developers as PvP. Caged inside some zone, battling other prisoners for some lousy points so you can become shinier. You make no impact on the mmo world, you might be shinier than the other guys, but you can never do something gamebreaking, like gathering a few guilds and founding your own town over that cliff in the cave where the trolls lived (until your dwarven comrades wiped them out for good). We get battlegrounds, instances, PvP zones and other zones/rooms where you are limited to do one thing or another... And no for those sandbox games, they have freedom, yet they lack everything else.
So, rather than playing with thousand of people, you are playing with a group of people, you play minigames called questing, pvp, shopping, you play them all with your avatar, alone, with other people "running" around, like some background image. This isnt much different from server chat channel of games like rakion or gunz, where you battle inside player hosted roomsl And in their turn, they are similar to almost any singleplayer game with multiplayer option. This is mass multiplayer online roleplaying game, this is what they want us to believe and pay them money for...
I enjoyed the first couple of years of LOTRO and then with every expansion came major changes to crafting, questing, and instancing. Instead of enjoying the story, exploring the world, and being creative with crafting, a lot of time had to be spent reading up on the changes. Crafting required new special ingredients that were so hard to get that you either had to grind certain creatures or take part in difficult instances. Those difficult instances required the best gear, which required hours spent in other instances to obtain. And as soon as you would figure out how to actually get through those difficult instance, they would change it and make it harder. I already have a job and don't need a game that requires all of my free time to obtain one item so I can move on to obtaining the next item. The only game that never turned into a grind, even after playing it for many years, was Ultima Online. Just too bad the graphics are so bad. I still consider it the best MMO ever created and hope there will be one like it someday with updated graphics.
Well it just asimple point of perspective I guess. Nothing more than an advert for GW2!
Like this forum with it's white text on black
"@#$% MY EYES"
My first experience with LA2 (also my 1st mmo experience) ended at lv14 with a thought "No way I'm doing that any longer!" (this wasn't my last experience with LA2 though...)
While LA2 isn't known for it's generosity in shiny rewards, what made me left is the process itself.
I've always been hard on the whole "cool high level content after several months of grind" concept. After the process stops being fun there's only so little grind i can endure.
I dunno why would I want an ogre slaying great sword of awesomeness if slaying ogres with it is the same as slaying badgers with my badger slaying dagger of harmlessness.
And you know what? It's damn hard to find an mmorpg with a vision like mine.
Concusions:
- The switch is the only known way to keep sufficient number of cage occupied at one time to keep the Massive machine operational. {Research indicates that smaller machines can be maintained by other methods since they don't require so many rats at the same time.}
- The switch itself provides so much rats that any other cage enhancements are not required.
- The rats are happy, since the switch appeals to them more then the unlocked exit.
Anyone remember the absolutely epic events in WoW, when GM's turned Onyxia or some other world boss loose on an unsuspecting player base? The resulting chaos and epic battles, with even level ones able to jump in as they took a hit and died, was awesome fun.
How about before WOTLK, when Alliance raiding a Horde city or vice versa, was an epic event? Making it an achievement somehow took something away from it...no one did it for any reward, it was just plain FUN! And for PVE'ers, who hate PVP, it was usually the one type of PVP they did enjoy.
Having an ACTIVE and INVOLVED team of devs and GM's would go much further, IMO, in bringing game life to a game, than adding a month's worth of grind fest quests.
Lay out the world basics. Throw in twists and turns that are unpredictable in quests. If you have the money to invest in developing grind fest quests, why not take the road less travelled and choose instead to build a good team of GM's who are actively involved in helping create a pseudo living gaming environment, where at any moment the city you are in will be hit by an invasion of marauding NPC's, or a world boss has broken free of his dungeon and is wreaking havoc through the country side, or a section of a city wall collapses and everyone has to pitch in and get it back up before some NPC boss attacks?
The linear model is, I think, part of the problem, going from level one to level whatever, with the same kill ten rats type quest redressed over and over in different ways getting you there. We love the fantasy setting, we love the story lines, we love the rich environment...but we absolutely HATE LOATHE AND DESPISE the grind fest quests.
How about...level expansions, not just level up? Make each level so fun you almost hate to leave it to go to the next level, instead of a necessary evil you endure just to get to endgame.
How about...experience points rewarded for defending your city from a random boss attack?
How about...gear that levels up with you and becomes epic through solving game lore based riddles and puzzles that change randomly, so that no one gets a cheat sheet on it?
All of which would require the devs/GM's/company actually caring enough about their player base to be actively involved with them, rather than treating them like a bunch of well trained monkeys that they toss in a maze and forget, until the next payment is due...
Kinda sad, really, isn't it? I mean, really, this whole environment was birthed by people who were rebels with pocket protectors, blazing new frontiers electronically through crazy experiments with just how far computers could go in creating virtual worlds...but once Wall Street got involved, the creativity and outside the box thinking was crushed beneath the weight of the bottom line.
Changing the game world. I finally realized that's why I keep comparing games to old-school Planetside, even though it had terrible flaws. It's the only MMO I've ever played where the entire focus of the game was on getting together with your side to "move the map" for your side, and the leveling system really only let you decide what role you'd play in that. Kind of an interesting study on how simple could be better, actually - their technology limitations forced them to make the game that way, and it worked.
GW2 looks like their dynamic quest system will put some of the "move the map" out there, so although I'm REALLY not into another fantasy game, I will probably give it a shot just to see how my character's actions can change things in the world. I just hope it's not too gear-oriented though.
One of the key aspects involved in addiction is Denial. That point has been proven by some of the responses to this article. "Addiction the only mental disorder that convinces the afflicted that its everyone else who is ill, not himself. This is because of addictive denial. This is not a conscious act." <- http://www.csun.edu/~vcpsy00h/students/drugs.htm
There are plenty of other scientific studies about addiction but, this paper I found particularly interesting.
It's quite pointless to write articles like the OP because people are blinded to it. There are plenty of guides on how to break through this barrier. But, the truth is, only the person that has the problem can choose to help themselves. As for the people saying "it's a choice" to continue playing. The truth of the matter is that, in a lot of cases, there is no choice until they realize there's a problem. That's why it's so hard for a lot of people to stop drug addictions or obsessive behavior: It's not so much the chemical addiction as it is the mind unconciously denying there is any problem to begin with.
Do I blame the companies for this? Not at all. I would latch onto this piece of human nature as well if my business depended on it. I'd have to start attacking Fast Food and Cigarettes if I were going to rage about subscription gaming companies. Not to mention pretty much every other aspect of consumerism on the planet. Nearly everything today is built to keep use hooked. Medicine that only represses symptoms if you take it daily, computer parts designed to need constant upgrades or replacements, cars built to need constant maintenance, food that's built to make you hungrier, drinks designed to make you thirsty, other edibles designed to addict you to carbohydrates, rechargable batteries designed to only recharge for so long, video media designed to be fragile, light bulbs designed to burn out, etc. I could go on for months listing things. Let's face it, we live in a consumerism age where it's more economical to keep your customers paying than to worry about their long-term health or happiness.
Our economics are not sustainable without wear and tear products. Less jobs, less money, etc. We could not survive without killing ourselves. Funny how that works.