The Closing of Tabula Rasa – A Warning to the MMO Industry
The closing down of an MMO is a sad event. Thousands of players have just lost the core of their gaming community, and they really have no recourse. I recently wrote two articles about the development history of Tabula Rasa and its final event:
History, Timeline and Post Mortem of Tabula Rasa
The End of Tabula Rasa – Server Shutdown Event
This has to change. The industry is going to suffer, hugely, in the long run if we keep shutting down MMOs and denying people access to their favorite, beloved game.
Unlike non-MMO games, television shows, or most other forms of entertainment, if the creator stops supporting an MMO you completely lose access. For the long term health of the industry, that has to change. Once MMO gamers have had 1 or 2 beloved MMOs shut down on them – and in the fullness of time, that is almost inevitable for most people – they are going to sour on the whole concept.
MMO companies have a few choices available to them, and they need to figure out a way to pick one when they decide to stop running their MMO. This whole idea of shutting MMOs down and hoarding them for whatever “brilliant” business reasons they have is not sustainable.
1) Open source the server code. Let people run their own private servers. Include as part of the license that a server operator can never charge money for access.
2) Release a version of the server source code that allows single player and LAN. At least then people can play it by themselves or with friends.
3) Sell the game… always. Find a buyer, every single time. No matter how cheap you have to go, FIND A BUYER.
Players are going to get fed up eventually and figure it just isn’t worth their time or emotional investment to play a game that can be ripped away at the whims of some corporate bean counters.
At first, players will just refuse to patronize that specific company. This is already happening to NCSoft, as they now have two cancelled MMOs to their name: Auto Assault and Tabula Rasa.
Eventually, this sentiment will translate to the entire industry. How many times can we expect players to just grin and bear it when a game they love and a community they are emotionally tied to just goes up in smoke?
One more thought on the demise of MMOs. If we (whomever “we” are) decide that across the board, MMOs should stay alive because they are meant to be persistent, we are making a value decision I am most uncomfortable with. By suggesting such blanket perpetual approval of games, simply because of their format, we are effectively subsidizing those games that are inevitably just poorly designed.
Believe me, I am completely sympathetic to the notion of keeping access to games for the players, but if that’s live company support, not only is it a drain on company resources, but it’s a drain on the industry as a whole. It’s OK to move on to other games, and it’s OK to “finish” an MMO. It’s OK for an MMO to be “finished”. The only alternative is an ever-increasing backlog of zombie games on life support, and ever-increasingly egregious compromises to design decisions that are bent to the service of keeping the game alive and commercially viable. Companies aren’t going to keep games alive out of a sense of charity.
That’s why I talk about a clean break, a total divorce from the official server support. Go ahead and cut the ties, make the game offline or legitimize private servers. Let the players stay in the past if they so desire (they paid for the darn thing, after all, they should get to play it), but let the companies, devs and the industry move on to better work.
Tesh: “but if that’s live company support, not only is it a drain on company resources, but it’s a drain on the industry as a whole”
Of course, and companies are not, and should not, be held accountable for the continued enjoyment of their player base. I believe that’s the whole issue here- that companies cannot legitimately be expected to continue running their games, but players who have invested significant time and money in games should be able to have their work preserved, or at least be able to continue to play the game in some form.
And “finishing” an MMO is an interesting thing to bring up. You also mentioned this on the article I wrote recently about horizontal instead of vertical game design in MMOs and how the current pattern of adding content is unsustainable (here’s the link -> http://jedioftheshire.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/build-out-not-up/) so i’ll prob’ly cut and paste a response from here.
The only genre of game that has a definitive end is single-player RPGs. I have gone to great lengths to describe how I feel MMO’s are no longer really RPGs in the sense that there is no story base to the gameplay. (see another one of muckbeast’s articles here -> http://www.frogdice.com/muckbeast/game_design/quests-now-with-more-grind.html) Having said that think about the fact that there is no multiplayer game, except for MMO’s, where you can only play the game with other people for a certain amount of time, then there’s nothing to do. RTS, FPS, Action, even arcade games, all can be played until your player base disappears.
MMO’s DO have ends, that’s why we have “expansions.” A game that is sustainable, however, would not need an end- the game would be enough fun to keep players playing through the same content over and over- or playing in the same world with player-created content to keep things a little more interesting. Think of WC3 (ignore custom maps that are not RTS games) and see how just by playing the RTS people can STILL be having tons of fun with it as their primary game. When the official maps get old they can just create a new one to rejuvinate the experience.
In short, you’re right Tesh- there’s nothing wrong with “finishing” a game -but I believe it is a design flaw that there is an “end” to your MMO.
Maybe this is nuts, but I think it would be really interesting if an MMO was designed to have an end. You play, you progress, you enjoy – knowing that in a few months/years/whatever the world as it pertains to your character will end. Nuclear war, cosmic final battle, Year of Lavos, who knows.
Hell, maybe when the IC world ends it’s like a cleansing fire and the whole damn thing is reborn. Maybe you get credit for your achievements in World Incarnation 1, which allow new character opportunities for World Incarnation 2. That way the game keeps going, but the world doesn’t stagnate. For those of you who have played roleplay-enforced permadeath MUDs, you may have experienced something similar. On Shadows of Isildur, for instance, you accrue roleplay points based on your character’s actions. When your character dies/retires, roleplay points allow you to play a more prominent role with your next character. This allows for an end (to your character) without leaving you with nothing to show for your efforts.
Note that this is an off-the-cuff idea from a guy with very limited experience with graphical MMOs. That limited experience has left me feeling like there is a definite lack of story and creativity in those games, but maybe I just haven’t given them a fair shake.
Talsek: “Hell, maybe when the IC world ends it’s like a cleansing fire and the whole damn thing is reborn. Maybe you get credit for your achievements in World Incarnation 1, which allow new character opportunities for World Incarnation 2. That way the game keeps going, but the world doesn’t stagnate.”
That’s a perfect example of sustainable design. I’m talking about an “end” to the game entirely, as in there is nothing more- and never will be. WoW ends, LOTRO ends, EverQuest ends- in all of these games there is a point where you have the best gear in the game, there is no more reason for you to play. This is why they have to continue to release “expansions” (I prefer to call them extensions), it’s to keep the game from ending.
A cyclical game-world that destroys itself, and your characters, routinely could be a great way to facilitate enjoyable gameplay that doesn’t revolve around and depend on “expansions” to continue to thrive. Another great example of sustainable design is Shadowbane.
Well stated, Jedi. Perhaps I should have phrased it: MMORPGs should have an end, MMOs in general should be designed for sustainability.
…and should have an exit strategy for when the servers inevitably shut down. Like the private servers or single player offline.
Oh, and I wrote about such cyclic design a while back. It’s an appealing idea in my mind, and it’s something that I’ll be playing more with in the future. I’ve cobbled ideas from diverse sources such as Dinotopia, MTG (Shadowmoor’s worldshift), L5R, and thrown in a hefty dose of exploration. There’s a lot of promise there.
ATITD resets periodically. They are on the 4th ‘telling’. Anarchy Online’s story line was supposed to wrap up in 4 RL years with one side winning the war. They wimped out.
If Tabula Rasa had ended after a storyline completion, that would have been different as well. Either we return and reclaim earth or our species is wiped out by the Bane.
But I agree, some kind of private server, single player, LAN, or something should exist. It doesn’t make sense to me for an entire type of entertainment to simply cease to exist. Imagine if we couldn’t get clips of old tv shows and movies any more?
What pisses me off the most about TR shutting down is that there is no real alternative available. If Blizzard suddenly had a fit and took WoW offline, yeah the fans would be pissed, but there are thousands of games just like WoW waiting to rise up in its place. There are no really good games out there right now on par with TR, I’m talking SF/3rd-person shooter/RPGs.
As far as my opinion about why TR was ended, I did hear something about Garriott having a big fight with NcSoft. Though I think it was about revenue. The fan base was too small. Personally I think it was the subscriptions that was keeping the fan base down. With so many F2P MMOs out there it’s hard for any subscription game to compete. If they wanted revenue, they could have at least attempted a different strategy such as primium subcriptions or item shops. Who knows, that might have boosted the player community enough to keep it from shutting down.
That’s a good point about TR. There is no game out there really like TR. I wish I knew of some private server projects out there that were viable. I miss running the Earth mission duo with my wife. That was a great challenge.
I also agree that the subscription model is killing a lot of great games that could easily survive with a better business model.
I agree games should continue on, but the standard f2P business model isn’t the way to go. Problem is the micro-transactions always end up selling stuff that makes the game not a real game anymore aka amped up potions and the like.
“JediOfTheShire
The only genre of game that has a definitive end is single-player RPGs. I have gone to great lengths to describe how I feel MMO’s are no longer really RPGs in the sense that there is no story base to the gameplay”
Got to argue on that point, the original old school rpg, ie table top dungeon’s and dragons is the only real rpg out there at all, anything on the pc is just a copy and is just what i would call story based linear play, thats not an rpg. An RPG has no definitive end to think of, its a group of friends “Role Playing” there characters, DnD, just creates the back drop, “You” as the player creates the story with your personal “Adventures with friends” thats a true RPG
Aidan, I wouldn’t be so quick to pass off online games as viable or legitimate RPGs. The fact that WoW and the DIKU style of MMO has very little character development (beyond stats and gear) should not divert you from the fact that there are indeed some very RP oriented games out there. Of course I will plus Threshold here. The game mechanics of Threshold are decent, but what really makes the game special is the character development. In some ways it is even “better” than many table top games because the continuous, 24/7/365 world creates a very vibrant historical backdrop for people’s characters. There are characters on the game that have been actively RPed for over 10 years.
Also keep in mind that MUDs/MMORPGs and D&D are basically contemporaries rather than one having evolved from the other.
Dungeons and Dragons was first published by TSR in 1974.
MUD1 was released in 1978.
Muckbeast: “When your core gameplay is fun, you don’t need artificial treadmills. My wife and I could have taken and defended bases for years. And the Earth missions they were adding were great as well.”
Oh, I so absolutely agree! I loved the base invasions and the fact that one or two people could help the npcs keep or take a base….I *did* spend hours defending and taking the bases. It was perfect self perpetuating fun. Until the revamps on healing(broken healing/repair tools) and aggro fiascos, you couldn’t pry me away from it.
It doesn’t help NCsoft’s case that stores were still selling the game in stores, full price, the week it was closing. I remember hearing some very upset people in general chat.
I was really hoping that the revived interest at the end would inspire them to to release server code for private servers or for LAN play… LAN play would be perfect. I’ve been looking for a new game to catch my interest all summer and then it hit me that what I really wanted to play was Tabula Rasa.
Agreed. I’d like to hear details about what happened there. I like to hope that the retail stores had no idea and that NCSoft had no idea old boxes were being sold.
Does anyone know if there is a serious private server effort going on for Tabula Rasa?
I’d love to try out a private / pirate server for Tabula Rasa. I miss my Guardian and my Spy.