Wolfshead has two blog posts that really delve into this issue in great detail:
The Emasculation of MMOs: Part 1 – How Convenience Replaced Risk
The Emasculation of MMOs: Part 2 – Fun is for Children, Adventure is for Adults
Reading those posts, and the ones he links to from Keen’s blog, really made me miss some of my favorite features of MMOs that seem to be gone these days.
- Crowd control.
- Open dungeons with many teams in them, occasionally working together, helping each other, or accidentally training on each other.
- Death penalties that mattered.
- Pulling, mob camps, etc.
How about you all? What features do you miss from older MMOs compared to the newer, spoon fed style?
“The problem arises when such busy work becomes a barrier to doing something else you’d rather be doing instead.”
Precisely. I still do math problems in my head because I enjoy tinkering with numbers and it keeps my brain sharp. And yet, If I were forced to add up my own grocery tab before being able to pay for my items, I’d be more than a little peeved (unless, perhaps, I got a discount for doing my own math, but then, someone’s still checking it, so it’s *still* repeated work). It’s about choice.
Oh, and I *don’t like* failing. That’s enough “not liking” for me. I detest punishing time sinks. The former makes me try again. The latter makes me quit. I know, I know, some people like the risk and punishment. To each their own, but that sort of thing puts me off, that’s all.
Yeah, I -hate- failure, even when I’m not punished for it. Heck, you could give greater rewards for losing than winning, and I’d still hate it. Trying to play Alterac Valley from Horde side is proof of that. Everybody just let Alliance win as quickly as possible. The honor gain for losing AV was probably about twice as fast as actually winning in the other BGs. I managed to put up with that for about an hour, then I went back to slaughtering Alliance in WSG and AB and never played AV again.
Re: thrillseekers
Frankly, as a game designer, I don’t care if a gamer consider himself a thrill-seeker. I can’t be bothered with the personal mindset of a player when it comes to the integrity of my game world. If I want an activity to FEEL dangerous, then it darn well better feel dangerous. In an RPG, if an activity is clearly dangerous in the context of the game world (e.g. COMBAT), then it absolutely MUST feel dangerous. Otherwise, I am failing to do my job to elicit an emotional response in what I am creating. I don’t normally get into the whole “games as art” thing (though I do think games are an art), but I think any game at the complexity level of an MMO has failed if it doesn’t tape into the emotional response.
There are tons of games out there that are “just for fun.” That’s great. But anyone who makes a game as complex as an MMO with the goal of just “fun” is really disgracing the whole concept and the entire genre.
RE busywork:
“The problem arises when such busy work becomes a barrier to doing something else you’d rather be doing instead.”
Great point. That really is the key difference. Optional busy work that you can do on the side when you feel like it can be fun and relaxing. Busy work that is absolutely required in order to GET TO the “fun stuff” in the game sucks. I think you made that distinction very succinctly.
Yeah, I agree with you on emotional response. Games should trigger them, as they are a form of art. There’s room in the world for games that trigger the negative emotions as well as the positive ones, and there’s players that want that sort of game. I really don’t think all games(or all mmorpgs) should go out of their way to trigger negative emotions though. These days I try to keep as much negativity out of my life as I can, and I’m unlikely to embrace a game that brings it into my life. I do feel negative emotions when I get on a losing streak in Street Fighter or things like that. The thing is, if I start getting negative, I just quit and come back when I’m not so angry/frustrated. With a death penalty though, when I come back the source of my anger will still be there when I come back, immediately making me feel angry again. For me at least, that’s really not healthy. Very few games are good enough to make me tolerate that kind of thing.
I really don’t see how experiencing a variety of emotions brings negativity INTO one’s life.
Some of my favorite movies have had parts that made me intensely sad. I haven’t seen it yet, but Toy Story 3 is being praised for the fact that certain parts of it make almost everyone cry.
When the consequences are all virtual, I don’t think sadness, fear, etc. bring “negativity” into one’s life. Making people feel, and making people have an emotional experience is a good and powerful thing. If games only made you feel excitement and happiness, that would be a shallow experience. Deep games should endeavor to give people a wide range of emotional experiences.
Death without a penalty is meaningless, and any game feature that is meaningless shouldn’t exist in the first place. You might as well just be immortal if there isn’t going to be a penalty for dying. Because in the end, that’s basically what you are, and that’s pretty dull.
“Deep games should endeavor to give people a wide range of emotional experiences.”
Seems to me, then, that penalties should be similarly wide ranging. Perhaps certain activities that include permadeath, or others that have no death penalty whatsoever. Let the players choose the activities according to their own tolerances and tastes.
In a movie, you feel sad/angry/whatever that something bad happened to one of the characters. With a death penalty, it’s not that something bad has happened to your character, it’s that something bad has happened to -YOU-. You have lost X amount of hard work, and now you have to repeat it. That’s far more personal than what you get from a movie. A movie also only lasts a couple of hours. A good mmo will have you dedicating hundreds of hours. If a signifigant amount of that time you feel angry, depressed, sad, or whatever, that’s definitely adding alot of negativity into your life. And when the negativity comes for something as simple as losing, it will come up alot. Unless, of course, you combat it by simply not challenging yourself.
@Tesh: I agree that negative consequences should vary. And ideally, they should add their own interest level. I’ve always dreamed of developing some kind of entertaining (to the player) underworld experience when people die.
@Outsider: Actually, I’m pretty sure when my characters die in MMOs it happens to them, not me. Its the emotional reaction that I feel, same as in a movie, tv show, book, etc. All the hopes and dreams I had for that character (be it in the game, book, movie, etc.) suffer as a consequence.
I actually think it is a good thing to occasionally be angry, sad, or whatever at your MMO. That means it is actually striking a chord. Furthermore, I firmly believe that the peaks can only be as high as the valleys are low. If you raise those valleys, you also lower the peaks. That’s why modern MMOs like WoW deliver such a blunted “top end” of happiness and excitement compared to older MUDs or even early generation MMOs.
I think this is an example of players not knowing what’s best for them. Is that paternalistic? Hell yeah. But designing a virtual WORLD is inherently paternalistic. You have to know better than the player what is best for creating and overall, longterm, deep, meaningful experience.
Virtual worlds should be about more than just “fun.” There are tons of genres where “fun” is all you are hoping to achieve. Virtual worlds were supposed to be something different and special. Lets not lose sight of that. They aren’t just games, after all.
I think the disconnect is the “virtual world” angle. I actually agree with you as far as virtual worlds go. I just don’t consider mmos to be virtual worlds. When I’m looking for that, I play an RP mud, not a mainstream mmo. RP muds do it -far- better.
“I actually think it is a good thing to occasionally be angry, sad, or whatever at your MMO.”
I’d note that there’s a difference between being mad at the game mechanics as opposed to being mad at the gaming experience. If I’m fighting the UI, game design or controls all the time, I’m going to be differently mad at the game than if I screwed up on a mob pull. I think it’s healthy to be occasionally mad about something I’ve made a mistake with, as it helps me to get better. I don’t think it’s healthy to be frustrated with the game because it’s punishing me or wasting my time rather than challenging me.
I’ve always hated busywork, particularily in virtual worlds. I tend to regard it as “filler” for what should be real content. Good example, I want a castle…I should be doing risky and interesting things to get the king’s favor – then hiring NPC peons to do all the actual building. Not grinding thousands of gold then mining tons of rock. If both paths to getting a castle exists that’s fine too – the issue here is substituting busywork for a great risk/reward gameplay opportunity.
I also have to wonder what percentage of those who enjoy busywork will still enjoy it in an open PVP environment where they might (probably will) get killed while mining outside of towns. Seems that part of the enjoyability of busywork is half “zoning out” which doesn’t lend itself to staying alive in the wilds. I know I’ve never been able to zone out effectively while gathering due to this.
@Tesh: I agree. Being mad at the UI or game design is a different story. Being upset with something that happened (dying, losing a level, whatever) is an actual emotional experience though, and potentially a valuable one.
When I read this post I thought to myself, “Yes! I miss EverQuest!” and lately I realized that I am all about the immersive experience. The bottom line for me has always been this, EverQuest and Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind have always been my favorite games of all time for the same reason. I get lost.
The games themselves are fun (actually useful utility spells are present in both games (they’re two of the only games to ever have realistic darkness ever by my reckoning!)) and, for me, what makes them great is that they have such a deep immersive feel- that can be felt through any camping, pulling, and grinding that is present. Focus on the EverQuest here, though, since we’re talking about mmo’s (Morrowind is just here as a point of interest that you can see that these same principles work in a single player format).
Crowd Control – This still exists in WoW. Combat is paced so quickly, though, that the CC effects don’t need to last a really long time, and everyone has to be so hybrid-esque that a CC class would defeat the “Everyone-can-dps/solo” feel to the game (so they split up beast/undead/fear between a bunch of classes). I think a lot of games are trying to be like WoW, and that’s why the loss of a CC class is still out there.
Death Penalties – Ninja Gaiden. One of my favorite games of all time, and one I’m just BARELY twitchy enough to play. What does death mean in that game? Back to the check point. That’s about what WoW does also, and it works in both settings. I would say both are action-focused games. Yes, you get gear and levels in WoW, but what does a level really mean? You just switch the 5-level gap of content that’s appropriate for you. Every other creature/encounter is either too easy or impossible for you (with a rare exceptions). So I would say that WoW is at least an action-esque game, just like ninja gaiden. The important thing here is that there are some bosses in Ninja Gaiden I have spent hours dying at, honing my skills and learning their patterns in order to beat them, and it was a blast. I might have a similar experience in WoW.
When the world is immersive though, something WoW has never felt for me, death has to mean something. If death has no meaning then what is the meaning of your character’s life? Just to be another hero in another game? I would say yes, and then that’s exactly what your game is going to feel like. If that’s what you’re looking for (Tesh ;D) then that’s fantastic! But meaningful death is an important part of meaningful immersive life. Being lost in EverQuest and being afraid to wander through forests was completely engaging, and the safe feeling of being in the plains where you could see everything for hundred of yards was very comforting. (and the relaxing half an hour boat rides made the world feel as huge as it did as you ran slowly across the continent- oops! I digress). But I seriously think that death penalties make keeping your character alive a meaningful and rewarding experience. (DISCLAIMER: MEANINGFUL LIFE IS NOT FOR EVERYONE. IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, DON’T BUY OR PLAY GAMES WITH IT)
Open Dungeons – This is, from my perspective, the absolute biggest immersion killer in an MMO. In all of them you can endlessly kill a dungeon boss and here his “final” script play, but in open dungeons that means he actually dies with respect to the persistant world. Yes, in EQ sometimes you had to camp bosses- and let me tell you some of them needed their timers lowered… -but it kept the immersion going, which is something I can’t say happened for any MMO I’ve played since. Getting trained was also a huge fear- I don’t remember many games every making me genuinely worried about where I sit. Nothing gets more boring for me than being able to look at the game in a hyper-mathematical way (without even trying to) and seeing “safe zones,” hit point totals, etc.
I don’t know for sure though. I would just like to once again feel as immersed as EverQuest made me feel, even if it is a niche opinion and everyone wants games with more action. I feel like the immersion really highlights the way people play also. It means a lot more to me just where and how someone is camping/pulling mobs if that actually means something to my game world.
Great points on CC and Open Dungeons. I really, really miss open dungeons.
Interesting points. While I agree there definitely do need to be meaningful risks associated with adventure, like the significant death penalties mentioned, the problem lies in the unilateral application, not the theory.
As a player, I’m thrilled when I go off exploring dangerous places that keep me on edge. If I die to some new and hard encounter, while it’s a bummer to lose a level, I’m okay with it because the adrenaline rush and other emotions (excitement, sense of accomplishment/adventure for finding a new place/encounter), balance it out and keep me going. I can also be excited figuring out what went wrong and theorizing how I could do it better next time. This makes me enjoy the finer aspects of the game and gives me the drive to keep going and gain that level back.
However, the real problem with excessive death penalties is that it doesn’t only happen on risk taking adventures. Players are often just borging/grinding and then die to something they shouldn’t have, because they lagged out or did something stupid. Then they get hit with the same large death penalties, with none of the positive benefits that come along with the risk taking experience. This makes people rage quit and is just as detrimental to the virtual worlds of these adventure type MMOs everyone seems to be so nostalgic for.
How do you reconcile this? I don’t have any ideas, but it seems just as flawed a system to me, if not more so, to make your players feel extraordinary frustration with no positives, as it is to blast with them short bursts of awe and fun. The awe and fun style has proven capable of building large communities of friends. WoW’s staying power isn’t just in the attention, care, and large amounts of resources Blizzard puts into their game, it’s in the development of a huge interactive community they’ve fostered over the past 6 years. I’ve made more RL friends through huge irl guild gatherings than in any game I’ve ever played. That is powerful. Social networking is king in this age.
“Great point. That really is the key difference. Optional busy work that you can do on the side when you feel like it can be fun and relaxing. Busy work that is absolutely required in order to GET TO the “fun stuff” in the game sucks. I think you made that distinction very succinctly.”
I couldn’t help but think conjuring would fall directly in the busy work that is absolutely required category
DAoC is still the best MMO game imo
I am in total agreement bert.
(assuming you remove Trials of Atlantis, that is)
Thanks for revealing your ideas. I might also like to say that video games have been ever evolving. Modern tools and improvements have assisted create practical and enjoyable games. Most of these entertainment video games were not actually sensible when the actual concept was being experimented with. Just like other designs of technology, video games also have had to advance by many many years. This itself is testimony to the fast development of video games.