Brent posted a good question in his latest podcast regarding innovation in MMO’s today, and here’s the question:
Does the desire for truly significant innovation in MMOs actually mean that you’re looking for the invention of a new genre of games, or are you not looking for the innovation of the MMO genre as much as you’re looking for some small feature development that will add to the overall “cool factor” and immersion of the MMO genre without completely breaking down all of those afore mentioned design patterns that we’ve come to know and love…
Here’s my issue with innovation. I don’t think you can make something incredibly innovative and expect it to be widely successful because of people’s reluctance to change. Myself personally, I will probably die playing a Fantasy-themed MMO. I am reluctant to try anything sci-fi, steam punk, or any other variations of settings other than fantasy and its subgenres. I don’t see personally how much more innovation the MMORPG genre can get without taking it completely away from its RPG roots – but perhaps that’s because I’m interested more in the RPG part than the MMO part.
I think in our future we’re going to see little innovative baby steps. I don’t think an MMO is going to come out and be huge and successful if it completely reworks everything we’ve come to know and love about MMORPG’s. I think we have the general fundamentals of player progression, community, interaction, and combat – and I don’t think that we need to change all that. I do think that all the major games that have been released in the past ~2 years have done a decent job of coming up with new elements and building upon older concepts to create something original and fun. Things like diplomacy in VG, instancing on the fly like EQ2, battlegrounds in WoW, titles/deed system in LotRO….these things are all great steps in innovation. Like Darren stated – I’d rather see some more polished games that are doing current elements WELL rather than someone try to innovate and come up with an unturned, buggy, unpolished piece of shit game.
What would I like to see as far as innovation? I’d like to see an NPC AI that’s believable and ‘next-gen’. I’d like to see a game that really caters to the roleplaying crowd that does a lot more with server events daily (a la EQLive Stormhammer server). I’d like to see a dynamic weather system that effects the game – perhaps different quests are available because of a massive snowstorm. Perhaps environments that change due to weather – “Alas, I cannot cross this bridge because it is flooded! I must take the longer, more dangerous route!” Freeform building tools in player cities. Resources that actually deplete for good. The list goes on.
Bottom line, I don’t want to see somebody completely reinvent the wheel – but I like these baby steps towards making a better game. Hopefully this addresses the question accurately.
Tami Baribeau is the Associate Producer for Metaplace, Inc, currently working on Island Life. She is also the Lead Editor of feminist gaming blog The Border House, and the National Facebook Games Examiner for Examiner.com. She can be reached on Twitter or by email.
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See, I feel like there’s a big challenge to consider when introducing any kind of innovation: Does it enhance the game, or does it enhance the immersion? Which is more important, when, and is too much of one harmful to the other? One thing you mentioned illustrates that well.
“Perhaps environments that change due to weather – “Alas, I cannot cross this bridge because it is flooded! I must take the longer, more dangerous route!””
Granted, that would be pretty cool from an immersion perspective. But from a gameplay perspective? You’d get real tired of having to go the long way to get to your group’s instance run because the damn bridge is flooded again.
It’s a really tough line to walk. :/
I agree, which is why I feel there is a time and place and game for everything. Maybe not in one game, but in another I think that would fit well. The goal is to innovate and cause immersion without going over the top and putting in more than players want to deal with I guess.
I agree with just about everything there except about the fantasy theme. It’s my personal preference as well but I think other settings could be pulled off as well.
Regardless of what most people think, SWG did some things right and CoH/CoV did as well. I just don’t think we’ve seen an investment on the scale of EQ/WoW/VG in an MMO in a non-fantasy setting. Fallout and Fallout 2 were two of the more entertaining RPGs I’ve played, for their time. I hope to see an MMO in that setting at some point but I’m generally pessimistic about any new MMO in the works.
I definitely agree that NPC AI could do a lot to advance the genre. I just think it’s a hell of a lot harder to implement than it sounds. We saw how well AES worked out for Sigil.
The problem with innovation is that it’s a taboo word. As long as MMO publishers focus on sheer numbers, such as the current wanna be World of Warcraft killer mentality, there can be no innovation. Innovation implies risk, and risk and big budgets don’t go together.
Granted, some players like the current MMORPG model, I did myself until recently. But as LotRO rolled around, I found that myself, and many of my mates I’d been playing with since UO just didn’t care. Sure, alot has changed, but the fundamentals of the game are still the same.
True innovation doesn’t mean re-inventing the wheel, but it does mean a fundamental shift in how the games are played. Right now, games are PvE. Sure, there is PvP, but thats mostly as an afterthought. Even games built around PvP, there is no real interaction beyond hitting each other over the head with a hammer. In terms of PvE/PvP, I’d say EVE online is a truly, -truly- innovative game. It contains all the RPG elements, but the way the players interact with the world and each other is truly unique.
I’m getting side tracked. Yeah, innovation is going to happen in baby steps, and (Tabula Rasa asides) it’s pissing me off. I’ve been playing the same game, just different settings, for the past 10 years now.
Innovation is not about small tweaks, it’s about fundamentally changing how players interact with the game environment and themselves, and it’s severely lacking.
I’m low on coffee, and because I’m a link whore in love with myself, a quick linkie to
my xhtml sucks, was meant to link to why innovation is forced to happen only in baby steps.
feel free to treat this as viagra spam and delete
http://www.mmodig.com/mmodig/why-mmogs-are-doomed-to-continue-sucking/
Hmmm. Here is Brent making me lose another hour of work thinking about this.
Good question. Tough answer.
Im not waiting for a particular genre more or less, just enhancements to make it easier to enjoy myself.
The reason most of us play MMO’s is because we like to experience another world with other people. While my affinity to those worlds is relevent(genre), I can enjoy myself in a strange world as long as the fundamental mechanics are functional. Removing roadblocks to communication and the sharing of knowledge in game only enchance this experience for me and I believe there has been an evolution in this regard. Some examples of this evolution are voice chat integration and in-game forums. (Turbine games and Saga of Ryzom respectively)
Its dissappointing when a developer makes a great title and fails to integrate tried and true systems. Its even worse when they do and do it very poorly. While there may be reasons to withold elements from a game for immersion, there is no excuse to include poor methods for your players to communicate with each other.(Vanguard LFG)
To me, innovation in welcomed as long as the foundation of the system being changed is not lost in the process.
Great points Brent. I really don’t quite understand why current and future MMO’s don’t take full advantage of the fact the games are multiplayer and totally exploit that. Things like integrated voice chat, in game browser, robust LFG systems, player housing, auction houses, and other community-enhancing features should be the standard. I don’t think those things are next-gen at all, I think they’re essential.
It just doesn’t feel to me like current developers are putting enough emphasis on community enhancement. That’s the highlight of playing an MMO vs. playing a single player RPG. Puzzling really.
I can do without major innovations in MMORPGs. Few aspects of our leisure-lives rely on innovation; sports retain the same basic rules for decades, centuries even; movies aren’t fundementally different now from how they were in the 1930s; popular fiction is even less changed. Lots and lots of new forms and approaches are tried, but few stick.
NPC AI is an interesting one. I’ve heard it said a few times that there is no major technical problem with implementing much more sophisticated AI models; the issue, apparently, is that even a small improvement in the AI of an opponent generates discontent among players, and I would be one of the most discontented.
One of the key attractions of MMORPGs for me is precisely their extreme predictability. That’s exactly why I avoid PvP and prefer PvE. I like to learn the AI of creatures and learn how to counter it so that when my character fights them, he wins. A small amount of variation is pleasant, but if the AI ever even approached genuine unpredictability, I would have to find some other way to spend my evenings and weekends.
I would like to see more convincing weather systems and more coherent ecologies. Any innovation in that direction would be welcome. Similarly, innovation in the range of activities available to player characters – why can’t we be artists as well as craftsmen, for example, or architects instead of just builders?
But in the end, the MMORPG has already found its form. It will be elaborated on forever, but the fundementals are unlikely to change.
medal of honor