The squandered potential of MMOs
Wolfshead has started a really great discussion on his blog: Waiting for the Next MMO Revolution
The reason why I’m in a perpetual state of angst is that I feel that the MMO industry has squandered all of the great potential that was evident a scant 10 years ago during the first MMO revolution heralded by Ultima Online and EverQuest. Sadly, things seem to be paradoxically devolving instead of evolving. MMO after MMO has failed to inspire me. There’s a creeping sense of complacency and predictability infecting this genre right now that worries me.
I have a basic theory on how we got to where we are in the MMO industry. It basically goes like this:
In the beginning there was MUD1. The fact that it even got people together in one game world was amazing. It told stories, but it didn’t really care about having a perfectly crafted world where everything fit together just so. Telling stories at all to multiple people at the same time was amazing.
MUD1 had imitators. Eventually, these imitators split into two major camps:
DIKU was hard coded. You could add content without recompiling the game, but you couldn’t modify the code. As a result, “developers” (wizards) created tons of monsters, loot, and areas since that was easier to do. Code, systems, and intricate ways to interact with the world were much harder. So they were done rarely.
LP was more soft-coded. You had a gamedriver that interpreted “soft-code” at runtime. Creating systems and new ways to interact with the world was basically just as easy (or hard) as adding new content. Adding new content was actually a bit slower than adding new content in DIKU, because everything had to be hand coded. As a result, LPs were less about “the next raid dungeon”, or the next piece of loot, and more about the game world.
The first generation of mass market MMOs was basically EQ and UO. EQ was DIKU style. UO was LP style. Both were successful (EQ slightly more so, but UO came earlier). At that point, the two schools were still basically equal.
The second generation of mass market MMOs was WoW and SWG. WoW was DIKU style. SWG was LP style. We know how that turned out.
SWG’s epic failure basically chopped down the LP tree and nothing has yet revitalized it. As a result, we get more and more DIKU clone MMOs and nothing from the LP side. Perhaps SW:TOR will change this, but with EA overseeing things who knows. Go Bioware! Fight the power!
Second Life is probably the only bannerholder of LP tree now, and it can hardly be called a game. One problem with a shared world where people can come up with new mechanics was seen with City of Heroes/Villains and Little Big Planet: If you give the mouse the possibility to design how rewards are awarded, he’s going to award himself the maximum amount of cheese for the minimum amount of effort. If you have a system where content creators scale, then solving the conflicts of interest is going to be the key issue.
You are right that Second Life is pretty much all that is left of the LP tree. Sadly, it is not that much of a game, and the heavy porn/netsex elements really overshadow the rest of the virtual world.
Most people probably do not know DikuMUD / LP(Mud) and what the abbreviations actually mean nowadays. Maybe you will provide a Wiki link? You are right though, UO was or is more “LP”.
EverQuest and WoW started and cemented the rise to power of the DIKU-school, I absolutely agree to your observations.
The demise of “LP” makes me feel like a staunch communist who believed in the soviet system and saw it all fall apart.
Somewhat. It is a BAD comparison, as I think “LP” has and had more potential, which never has been fully realized so far. Oh, sounds again like communism. Sigh. 
I don’t see any connection between LP and communism. Communism is flawed both in concept AND practice (but please, lets not debate that here
). LP was a success in concept AND practice. One huge game failed along its path (SWG) and then risk averse ninnies didn’t even try to do something else along that route.
I added some Wiki links for DIKU and LP to the main post. I also added a link from MUD1 to Dr. Bartle’s web site. Good idea.
The LP system is making a bigtime comeback with independent publishers. CCP led the way with EVE online, there’s several more games in the pipe, most of which draw inspiration from UO. But even the best of these won’t be a “revolution” because the vast majority of MMO players want either WOW, or even more casual F2P style games.
The real “revolution” is going to be MMOs that part ways with the endless “progression ladder” gameplay model. You can’t have both that and a truly dynamic world, the need to keep adding more grind/content and make it “valuable” doesn’t really allow for much in the way of truly open world systems.
I don’t think Eve online is really LP style. You are not really acting in a living, breathing world. You have a huge map, and people fight over territory, but that’s pretty one dimensional.
Players do way more in EVE then fight over chunks of map space, the level of politics and possible roles is something you just don’t see elsewhere these days. Another good example to check out would be Wurm Online, that game lets players build cities from the ground up after clearing land for example.
But then I think the real emergeant “living world” type game is fully twitch based and departs with concepts like auto-attack altogether.
Serith, that is still a one dimensional game. It is all about the universe dominating politics. That’s cool and all, and the game does it well. But it really has one focus. That makes it a grand strategy game, but it is not a virtual world simulation. You don’t have people making food, raising families, playing with their pets, and all sorts of other things that might happen in a virtual world.
That sounds a little more like world simulation form Wurm Online. Building things, adding to the game world, etc.
“World Simulation” IMO is risk and reward, actions and consequences. In my mind if you can have kids or a farm and you can’t lose either without your “consent” then the game isn’t a living world it’s Animal Crossing. But then there’s alot of different opinions on what constitutes virtual worlds.
And odds are within the next few years there’ll be a game for whatever your preference is. I don’t think it will be an “AAA” rated game made by a known company however. World simulations and sandboxes in most flavors have a definite niche but one of limited size.
In the real world, I am not in constant risk of some dickhead driving by and blowing up my house for kicks. That’s basically what you have in Eve. Eve is a cool game, but it is not even close to a “virtual world.”
Star Wars Galaxies should have been a Diku, to be honest. I think there’s room for LPs in the mmo world, but Star Wars isn’t LP material. Who wants to be a part of the Star Wars universe and become a hair dresser? Some people do I’m sure, but I think it’s safe to say they are few enough that it’s waste of resources to cater to them. It’s Star Wars, people want to blow up Death Stars, collect bounties, and hack people up with lightsabers, and that’s what you should be putting your development time into. SoE tried to move that way and failed of course, but it was way too late. People already knew that SWG was the game you played if you wanted to do princess Leia’s hair for her, and weren’t going to consider it seriously even after the changes.
I’d consider SWG to be a FAR better game if it had nothing to do with Star Wars but was otherwise identical. I consider SWG to be a good mmo, but a terrible Star Wars game.
While I’m at it, here’s a couple examples of licenses that would make good LP style mmos. Lord of the Rings and Wheel of Time. Those are both licenses where the source material dedicates a huge amount of time to building their worlds into a living place, and I imagine fans of the license would welcome a game where they can become a true part of that world.
Outsider: Good points, personally I think starwars could be either (KOTOR had a good sense of living choices consequences ect and had nothing to do with hairdressing or raising children) Good examples on conversions as well.
Muckbeast: Yes there’s a griefer risk, but having something to lose also makes play vastly more visceral and intense. You can only go so far trying to convince yourself there’s actually danger and risk when you live in an indestructible house.
In the case of the examples Outsider gave, both Lord of the Rings and Wheel of Time would in the end be rather hollow and meaningless if the “dark threats” weren’t actually a real threat.
[...] Muckbeast re: MMO Types – “SWG’s epic failure basically chopped down the LP tree and nothing has yet revitalized it.” [...]
[...] Muckbeast says, In the real world, I am not in constant risk of some dickhead driving by and blowing up my house for kicks. [...]
‘Eve is a cool game, but it is not even close to a “virtual world.”’
I appreciate that your point is to advocate LP-style worlds, but I think your definition of ‘virtual world’ is far stricter than is necessary. For example, EVE is shared, persistent, represents players with individual avatars and has them affecting the world in real time according to in-world physics: I don’t think Dr. Bartle would agree with you.
My key point is that there’s plenty of value in online spaces (some that satisfy my definition of VW but perhaps not yours) even if they don’t have LP-style building. (I’d argue against what you say about EVE, but it would be mostly off-topic)
SWG didn’t have a user-accessible content generation layer of the kind that I feel really typifies LP games (as you describe them). I don’t expect that graphical worlds can even support that in the way that textual ones do; with the variety of developer-provided variety that pre-NGE SWG had perhaps makes it the closest thing, although I think CoX’s Mission Architect is progress, in a way.
Hmm, now you’ve got me wondering whether Metaplace counts as a virtual world.
I loved SWG (pre-NGE) and I miss it dearly. I also agree that the market is stagnating, but I think there’s hope: EVE is a good example of something that has a respectable audience but isn’t a WoW clone, and I’m a big fan of Puzzle Pirates for various design decisions (although their technical restraints are vicious).
I’m not holding my breath for any of the AAA titles in the near future to be the game we’re after though. It’ll have to come from someone prepared to take some risks, someone without their publisher breathing down their neck demanding the next big thing.
ALL MMOs are “virtual worlds” but they are not LP style virtual worlds. Neopets is a virtual world. That isn’t the point here.
Eve is not an LP style virtual world. It is a griefer game.
Maybe to distinguish terms better, I should say a “world simulation.” Because LP style games were more about simualting a world than DIKU style games were. And the same goes for their progeny.
[...] The problem is, the MMO community pretty much defines discontent; early MMO blogging took the form of “rant sites” that served as a central location to bitch about MMO games. So, sometimes it’s hard to separate out the snark from the real problems we’re facing. But, it does seem that there is some specific discontent people feel these days. Even game developers feel the discontent. [...]
Muckbeast, I think you’re denying yourself some the best, deepest most meaningful MMO-world gameplay experiences out there for fear of armies of “griefers” that don’t really exist. Plenty of PKers yes….but people who’s express purpose is to ruin your day aren’t actually all that common.
I can say this having played permadeath/full loot RP/LP for four years along with the likes of Darkfall, AOC, MO Beta ect. Now granted, you do want to try these games with a good clan.
I tried Eve. It was BOOOOOOOOORING as heck. I mean seriously. Set a waypoint and then do what for 20 minutes? Really?
And I’m sorry but grief play is a MAJOR part of the game. And people grief you for kicks not for any kind of “roleplay” or anything.
I am really glad the game exists, and I am glad 300,000+ people have the perfect game for them. I also think they have a great group of developers. That type of gameplay just isn’t for me.
Furthermore, the skill system the way it exists basically preserves the elite status of old timers, and that’s another thing that doesn’t interest me.