Something has changed about the MMO experience in the past six years. Chances are you probably haven’t even noticed it but you can probably feel it just the same. MMO critics and veteran players all suspect there is something amiss with today’s MMOs but can’t quite put their finger on it.
Part of the answer to this riddle may be that the intentions, goals and objectives of MMO companies have changed from being primarily about creating a world of adventure to creating an amusement park. MMOs have become all about delivering short bursts of “fun”. Making sure you the player is entertained at every moment has become the holy grail of game design.
Design based on delivering instant gratification for the masses has replaced a philosophy of hard won satisfaction gleaned from the rigors and challenges of survival in a dangerous virtual world. This change of design focus has fundamentally altered the MMO experience for the worse.
So how did this happen?
From Fun to Adventure and Back Again
To learn the answer and to establish a point of reference, we need to take a time machine back to eleven years ago when MMOs like Ultima Online and EverQuest rocked the video game industry to its core. These new multi-player online games unexpectedly raised the stakes to new levels. No longer was a video game all about having fun and amusement. It was something deeper, visceral, engaging and transcendent; an experience within a world.
As I look back on my 4 year stint with EverQuest it is clear to me now that was never about the pursuit of fun. It became my passion and my hobby. It took every skill I had to survive and advance in a world beset with danger, mystery and hardship. The rewards of adventure is adventure itself. And that was enough for me.
Adventure is for Adults
First we need to rediscover why we are here and why we even care about MMOs and virtual worlds.
But, let’s examine what adventure means. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the word adventure as:
1 a : an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks b : the encountering of risks <the spirit of adventure>
2 : an exciting or remarkable experience <an adventure in exotic dining>
I daresay the majority of people who enter MMOs today would prefer to be immersed in a virtual world of adventure than deposited into a theme park of amusement and fun if offered the choice. Sadly, that choice is not available in today’s market. Instead the player just follows along the predetermined storyline that the quest designers lay out in front of them. Never questioning, never deviating from the golden path.
Real adventure is not scripted, nor is real heroism. When you really stop to think about it, there is something noble and worthwhile about adventure as great deeds and experiences beyond our imagination are possible even if experienced virtually. More importantly, these accomplishments and experiences are our own — not the property of the quest designer.
When one thinks of the memorable feats throughout history, mythology and literature it’s hard to think that any of those heroes had were motivated by the desire for self-gratification otherwise known as “fun”. To heed the call of adventure means to put oneself at great risk and to make sacrifices for some greater good or cause. Frodo and Sam’s quest to destroy the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom was not motivated by fun. Instead they were motivated and inspired by a selfless sense of duty and honor.
Fun is For Children
My problem with using fun as a criteria for designing MMOs is that unlike adventure it lacks the potential to transport the player to a place beyond mere self-gratification. Experiencing fun for its own sake is shallow, meaningless and lacks purpose and possibility.
The production of fun in a video game is all about inducing a sense of unearned euphoria and delight within the player. It’s all about creating highs but with no commensurate lows. It’s a violation of the basic law of the universe that says there can be no pleasure without pain, no light without darkness, no harvest without planting, no reward without risk.
So let’s look at a definition for the word fun:
1 : what provides amusement or enjoyment; specifically : playful often boisterous action or speech <full of fun>
2 : a mood for finding or making amusement <all in fun>
There is a chasm of difference between the definition of fun and the definition of adventure. Once you consider the full impact of both words you start to get hints at why things have gone terribly wrong for those of us that desire a deeper, more mature MMO experience.
Both pursuits seem to be characteristic of different levels of maturity. While fun can be experienced by grown adults, it’s something that is more appropriately aimed at children and teenagers. Contrast that with the notion of adventure which is often thrust upon both willing and unwilling adults.
There’s also big gap in the level of seriousness of both pursuits. Fun is seen as lighthearted amusement while adventure is seen as more sober and solemn endeavor fraught with danger and risk. Even the idea of a quest which has become a major building block of today’s MMOs seems more at home with the concept of adventure than fun. Nobody goes on a quest to amuse themselves.
How Adventure Got Replaced by Fun
The MMO experience that kept us playing for hours on the edge of our chairs got replaced in a bait and switch scheme concocted by a new breed of MMO companies like Blizzard. We showed up in worlds like Azeroth looking for adventure and instead were fed a banquet of mechanics designed to appeal to a wider demographic. MMOs at their inception were much more then just a series of fun mechanics haphazardly sewn together; they were created by people with a consistent and cohesive vision for a world — not a game.
Eventually the notion of a world gave way to the game and the sense of adventure gave way to simplistic fun as the quest for more subscribers and more profits became the overriding design philosophy.
Despite the fact that Blizzard could not have made WoW if there was no EverQuest (their own words from the EverCracked documentary) WoW is in no way a spiritual successor to EverQuest.
Hannibal Lecter Deconstructs Blizzard
The key to understanding why MMOs are they way there are today is to understand Blizzard itself. In the film the Silence of the Lambs Hannibal Lecter quotes the great Roman patrician Marcus Aurelius and provides us some insight:
Lecter: “First principles, Clarice. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing, ask: What is it in itself? What is its nature? What does he do this creature you seek?
Blizzard has a clear track record of making successful video games. This is their true nature. The battle plan for the World of Warcraft was to make a fun game disguised as a MMO. Let’s be honest here, the “world” part of World of Warcraft is window dressing and was never taken seriously or given proper respect.
Making a game is far less lofty process than making a virtual world. When you create a game it absolves the creators of the higher responsibility inherent in creating a world. Tolkien created a world, Blizzard created a game.
Blizzard uses an internal design philosophy called concentrated coolness. Everything must be larger than life and have the capacity to amuse and enthrall the player. Everything that Blizzard puts into WoW must pass this “fun” test. Instead of focusing on long term goals of what’s best for a MMO, the concentrated coolness process becomes the goal unto itself. WoW has essentially become a patchwork collection of cool and fun mechanics instead of a coherent virtual world. In applying this theory they have missed the point entirely and eviscerated the MMO experience.
The Goal Determines the End User Experience
Words have meaning. The terminology you use can’t help but influence your final product. When your design vocabulary is constantly punctuated with words like “fun” and “coolness” as a recent Cataclysm Press Event interview with Blizzard Lead Designer Cory Stockton demonstrated, then you have an insight into the heart of the problem.
If your intent is to amuse and titillate players with constant injections of fun and rewards (with little tangible risk) the result will be far different than a MMO that has adventure and survival as its ultimate goal. The mission statement of the MMO whether it be fun or adventure or variants of each is the final determinant of the end user experience.
This is precisely why WoW is completely different than EverQuest. Both were designed with vastly different goals in mind by people with different visions, outlooks and backgrounds.
Welcome to WoWville
But let’s accept that many adults today are chasing the dragon of fun; at least they have thousands of video game titles from which to satiate their hunger. Yet for those of us that seek high stakes online adventure there are barely any choices.
For me this is boils down to the failure of broadly targeted MMOs to appeal to mature adults. Those of us that aspire to higher notions of adventure and challenge have been starved out by the dominant Disney kiddie culture more recently epitomized by FarmVille and Free Realms. (Things have gotten so bad that even Brad McQuaid of EverQuest fame has decided to make a social/casual game.)
Even worse, we have come to accept and delight in sub-standard MMO content and mechanics. Real virtual adventurers have few if any niche based options that appeal to them that are created with a WoW budget. All they are left with is a one size fits all MMO model that is designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator of player. Somehow every other form of entertainment including broadcasting and publishing has expanded by offering a myriad of choices and niches for people to explore — all except the MMO industry. Welcome to WoWville.
Video Games Have Helped Create A Culture of Perpetual Adolescence
I’ve thought a lot about what has happened to MMOs lately. Some of the conclusions I’ve arrived at are not pleasant to consider.
There is something unseemly about the pursuit of fun by grown adults. As a MMO veteran of 11 years, this is not what I signed up for. Part this problem is societal and a reflection of the pervasiveness of our youth culture where people today just refuse to grow up — aided and abetted by their enablers in the entertainment industry. Somehow the purpose of life has been reduced to finding ways to endlessly amuse oneself. Regrettably, our generation seems to be trapped in a culture of perpetual adolescence.
Thirty years ago people used to be ashamed of “playing video games” and being a gamer. When I see what MMOs have degenerated into and the current scourge of mindless “social” gaming on Facebook, I’m starting to wonder if that sense of societal shame was well placed.
Regarding My Personal MMO Journey
When I was a young adult I recall a few films that literally changed my life. Those films were defining moments for me and my world would never be the same. As I walked out of the theater I felt a sense of enlightenment and empowerment; a feeling that anything and everything is possible. I’m not ashamed to admit that MMOs changed my life in a similar way.
As MMOs have continued to deteriorate over the years my articles have reflected the sense of gloominess and despair I feel about the state of things. At one point I used to really believe in MMOs — that was before the money people who control today’s MMO production took over. Perhaps I was naive and foolish as I once used to see MMOs as places of awe and wonder. The illusion is gone and the veil lifted. I now see the soulless money making machinery that is behind the curtain. The potential for greatness this genre once had is but a fading memory of what could have been.
I believe in a product design philosophy where you focus on creating a great product and then success follows. Anomalous companies like Apple operate like this; they create quality products they believe in and the public follows. Today, it’s all backwards in the MMO game industry. MMOs are primarily designed to appeal to wide demographics with the goal of making money first and making a masterpiece second. I’m sorry but I don’t find a mass market McDonald’s hamburger appealing when what I really want is filet mignon.
Concluding Thoughts
I am under no illusions that that many may fail to appreciate the subtle and not so subtle distinctions between the notions of fun and adventure. I understand too that the average MMO player has quite different expectations than what was typical 10 years ago.
Players today want to log on and experience a concentrated blast of shock and awe in their limited play session time. They want it all and they want it now. Everyone expects to be treated like hero without having done anything heroic and companies like Blizzard are only too happy to placate them.
While I was a video game designer, I always held the creation of fun (for the player) as the highest virtue. Keeping children and teenagers amused by my scripting was the number one priority of my craft. But fun should not be the exclusive mission statement for all MMOs. Instead of A Theory of Fun for Game Design we need A Theory of Adventure for MMO Design.
MMOs like WoW are more game than they are a virtual world. The World part of “World of Warcraft” has been more of a marketing gimmick than a legitimate passion of the Blizzard developers. It’s clear these guys are gamers first and foremost. They see MMOs through the primitive prism of fun and coolness. Virtual worlds are too experimental and metaphysical for them as Blizzard Lead Designer Jeff Kaplan has stated on numerous occasions.
The true culprit that blocks the pathway leading to real adventure via MMOs is the confining notion of a “game”. Since the highest virtue in a video game is the production of fun, the end result will always be World of Warcraft. The intrinsic limitations inherent in video games are not expansive enough to allow for the greater virtues of virtual worlds such as freedom, ownership, community and of course adventure to blossom. This is why I am so unceasingly critical of Blizzard; they have single-handedly gutted the meaning, purpose and end goals of the MMO experience. Instead of going forward, we’ve gone backwards.
Until the Blizzard design and goal philosophies are exposed, ridiculed and made obsolete by an innovative MMO company who is serious about creating a genuine platform for virtual adventure, we will be forever stuck spinning our wheels playing mere games.
-Wolfshead
You and I need to make a game together, Wolf 😉 We share the same ideas about the deterioration of gaming and I too long for a world where adventure is the key.
I tried throwing around ideas for an MMO, but pretty much everyone responded the same way: It’s not WoW so it won’t work. Just because my game required effort and the rewards weren’t shiny oversized shoulderpads, it’s bound to fail?
God I wish I had the money to start my own MMO 😛 I’m doing the next best thing though: Designing a table top version, heh heh. That’s actually going pretty well.
For the last few years I’ve been doing a similar thing. Every time I have/read an excellent idea for an MMO, I write it down in my notebook and then transfer to my computer.
With some organisation I could easily turn this into an MMO brief outlining the fundamentals of every game system.
I hope to see the day where the philosophies we’re discussing are adopted by a studio with the skill and vision to pull it off.
I whole heartedly agree with you. My first MMO was Asheron’s Call. First of all, the world was seamless (no zones). The combination of danger and the unexplored nature of this world blended beautifully together to create a real sense of adventure. Quests were, you know, ACTUAL quests. Not tasks. Players would often band together in fellowships (not kidding, that was the name for groups) and just go adventuring out into the wild, looking for undiscovered hunting grounds, quests, heck even some towns. We didn’t discover the existence of some towns in the northern mountains for a long time. These elements contributed greatly to fostering one of the best online communities I’ve ever been a part of. I’m getting nostalgic nerd chills just thinking about it…or maybe I should put on some damn socks =]
Good read, definitely a lot to think about here. I believe that if a company were to target this adventure niche, a lot more players than they think would flock to this game. Provided other essential elements were done well.
Superb blog post, sir, simply superb.
Obviously I’m going to agree with you, since I’ve said the same thing before: we’re missing our sense of adventure in games that we’ve seen in so many other great works in other media.
A few other comments:
For me this is boils down to the failure of broadly targeted MMOs to appeal to mature adults.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure adventure is what “mature adults” really want. As you point out, Farmville (and the dozens of other farm-themed games with identical gameplay) and WoW have completely dominated. While there are some malcontents (seemingly mostly people nearing or past a decade of MMO experience) that wish there were more, others are happy with the big offerings. I don’t necessarily think they’re less mature, but perhaps they have less refined tastes. It used to be the bookish geeks that took to reading The Lord of the Rings after all, not the majority.
…that was before the money people who control today’s MMO production took over.
Here’s a secret: they’ve always been in control. People looking to maximize profit have always had a hand in every business. Most of the time when you had people doing art for the sake of art, you either had a dead-end project or you had oblivious developers. The history of Meridian 59 started as brothers wanting to make a game in their garage. Eventually a “business” guy came on board and helped run the company. The company got acquired by 3DO, which caused a huge issue when some of the people felt ripped off when the biz guy walked away much better off than others. Sadly, history repeats itself as one of the former victims has become the victimizer in a sad turn of events.
As I’ve said before, the reason why I wrote a book about business and legal issues isn’t from an undying love of business, but from the realization that creative people have to know about business if they don’t want to get screwed over.
I’m sorry but I don’t find a mass market McDonald’s hamburger appealing when what I really want is filet mignon.
The problem here is that the current audience balks at paying filet mignon prices. It’s silly to go to McDonald’s and ask for filet mignon just as it’s silly to go to a fine steakhouse and demand the filet mignon at McDonald’s prices. Yet, that seems to be the situation we’re in. One of the reasons I’m a fan of business models beyond the subscription is that it elimiantes the need to appeal to the least common denominator, plus it allows some people who want a truly terrific experience to pay filet mignon prices. (Of course, there are some companies who want to charge filet mignon prices but try to pass off Sizzler level quality….)
We’ll see. I’m not ready to give up hope yet, but things certainly aren’t as rosy as they could be, especially for us old timers.
Pretty much spot on.
I’d love to playing something adventurous, but that hasn’t really happened in MMOs (as you note). Adventure, to me, isn’t about PVP otherwise I might be playing something like Darkfall or Eve – both have been tempting.
For me, adventure is dungeon delving, exploring hostile areas with the risk of losing your way and possibly all your gear. It’s also dodging the mistakes others have made or stepping in to turn the tides of a failing battle deep down in a dungeon.
I’ve taken a good look at dungeons in MMOs lately and they simply don’t compare. They’re all very linear with no chance of getting lost. And they’re terribly small.
So sad.
I understand this post is mainly against the easy-mode of WoW, but psychologicaly speaking, humans are pleasure seeking creatures that don’t typically engage activities they don’t enjoy (unless it’s for money). As you definition above says, fun is the state of enjoying an activity. If it is only for children, then I should stop knitting, snorkling, hiking and rock climbing as those are for children. I would even describe higher levels of math as “fun”.
Even a masochist finds his/her spankings/floggings/torture as “fun”, otherwise they wouldn’t allow it.
There’s a fundamental, psychological distinction between fun and rewarding. Fun isn’t always rewarding, though likewise being rewarded isn’t always fun. Both, however, can have the same motivating factor on people’s actions and desires.
People are often more attracted to the ‘fun’ options–as outlined in the blog they’re easier and contain less risk–but that doesn’t mean a mmorpg design can’t be designed and successful based on a reward-based model.
And no, speaking psychologically, we can’t simply reduce a masochist’s desire and motivation to be tortured to an argument that it IS their brand of fun. We have to go on some standardized definitions for these terms, or they mean nothing. One could just as easily [and foolishly] counter this blog-post by saying that for WoW players the ‘fun’ IS their idea of adventure. I mean, WoW is MY idea of failure, so they’re obviously not successful, right?
A masochist seeks pain because they’re rewarded with pleasure.
And people seek fun because they’re awarded pleasure.
Note the distinction, which is a huge difference in in potential mmorpg models.
I agree, but I don’t think that the distinction between ‘adventure’ and ‘fun’ is helpful. Even an adventure has to be fun at some point (e.g. in retrospect); otherwise nobody would want to be part of it.
Point is how much people want to invest before the fun comes along. It’s all about time and investment.
About 50% of the people in the western world could work for 30 years without ever spending more than they absolutely needed and then be a millionaire. For the rest of their lifes they and their heirs could life a life of interest rates. How many people do it? Only a handful.
Alternatively, people could just live in the ‘here and now’ and why should you even go to work for one day? It’s no instant fun, mostly, is it?
Most people do something in between.
What happened with modern AAA-MMOs is that they focus on the kind of guy who wants to come back home after a long day of work, drink a beer and wait for the night in front of the TV. Just that they are now supposed to wait in front of the MMO.
Actually, I do enjoy a game of chess after work. And only rarely spend my time in front of TV. I also enjoy a MMO as a form of alternative world. That’s sometimes called escapism; similar to going to a theatre; in the past.
Over the years I’ve spent a lot of time on turn-based email strategy games where one game usually lasted for half a year, but sometimes up to a whole year.
All I want is a game(!) that puts me into a credible, immersive and consistent world(!) that is actually ‘interesting’ and lasts for a while. I still want it to be a game, but not ‘just a game’.
I don’t want the ‘battleground’ to last for 20 minutes only. I want it to last for many, many hours. If I leave before it is won/lost, there should me a machanism to handle that.
I don’t want all dungeons to be designed for a 30 minutes distraction. At least a few dungeons should feel epic and I think there are ways to make them ‘interesting’ without instancing them.
I want more unpredictability in the game. I want to scout, I want to chose the fights I am going to engage in in some way. I want risk and reward. I don’t think balance is as important as the Counterstrike generation thinks.
Blizzard actually takes some good, but tiny, steps with the coming expansion. I think the trend has stopped. Call me an optimist, but I don’t think a MMO can be even easier or even less time intensive than WoW is today (exeption: ‘heroic’ raids .. which would be worth a blog post for why I don’t like them).
What I don’t understand at all, however, is why there is no market segmentation in MMOs. Blizzard could use the basic engine and graphics etc. and then make 10 or more MMOs. All could be similar at start, but they would evolve in different ways. Give the market a choice. If you don’t, a competitor will, eventually.
This pretty much sums up my thoughts on the matter. I wish there were more virtual worlds which you could explore and adventure in. EVE is pretty close, and I hope to someday give Darkfall a try.
The first online RPG I ever played was *fun* because it was dangerous. Most of the map didn’t allow PvP, but if you wanted to get to the good XP mobs or loot you had to travel through a zone which had PvP enabled. When you died, you would lose a sizable chunk of experience and 1 random item. What was scary is that the item you lost could be picked up immediately by anyone (most likely your killer) and you could lose *any* item, including your best gear. For me at least, this created some of the most intense and fun moments I have ever experienced in a game. When you entered a PvP zone, you had to sneak around for fear of PvPers. When the exit to the zone was in sight, you had to ask yourself: “Should I make a run for it? Is there a player hiding over there and just waiting for me to break cover?”.
This is what I expect from an MMORPG, but sadly, few games are like this anymore. Even the second MMORPG I ever played, which was even better than the first (it had a hunger and stamina system, you could cut down trees…) has now been dulled down and no longer sports the hunger or stamina system which made it so intense and fun to play.
An underlying cause of things like lack of niche products or market segmentation is simply cost.
This may be true for smaller MMOs with 50k and less subscribers. But looking at 11 mio players of World of Warcraft: If EVE with 300k subscribers makes a profit, why would 10 MMOs with 300k each not make a profit?
This is especially true as these MMOs could share technological competence and maybe even graphics/sound. There can be a lot of synergy.
Rules are cheap and the server architecture of MMOs already is perfect for market segmentation. My guess is that it is not costs, but lack of competition that prevents the companies from covering the whole market, instead of the current lowest common denominator.
Nils, I wish the economics were that simple. They aren’t. Examples:
– There’s no way that a WoW is going to dilute their brand by offering multiple worlds that use the same art. That brand costs a lot of money.
– Rules are not cheap.
– Neither is running the service.
– Opportunity cost is a big factor.
Thanks for the elaboration! Here are a few thoughts about your points:
– There’s no way that a WoW is going to dilute their brand by offering multiple worlds that use the same art. That brand costs a lot of money.
This is a matter of tradition, in my opinon. If market segmentation inceased revenue this argument were meaningless. So, let’s look at your other points.
– Rules are not cheap.
To think come up with rules is cheap. To implement them flawlessly is not. More importantly, good rules are one of those problems that you cannot trow money at to solve. There are always just a few designers for the games rules and you can pay them only so much. Employing more designers to think about rules is meaningless and doesn’t make better rules.
– Neither is running the service.
That’s true, of course. The costs to serve 11 mio players with one game are lower than to server 11mio on 10 games. But here come the opportunity costs in:
– Opportunity cost is a big factor.
There also are the opportunity costs of not covering the whole market. How big is the whole MMO market? How many people would like to play something of the quality of WoW, but with more immersion, less concentrated coolness, harsher death penalthies etc. ? How many people have quit WoW, but would love to play something similar.
I won’t throw a number into the room here. Some market research would have to be made.
Eventually, market segmentation will come through competition. I see no reason why Blizzard should support that.
My obscenely long reply, which started in your comment box here, but grew way too large:
http://systemicbabble.com/videogames/of-mcds-burger…ercooked-steak/
Synopsis: Sorry, but I think you miss the mark. I want adventure too, but not rammed down my throat. And fun isn’t as bad as you make it out to be.
I totally agree with your view on Blizzard´s position, strategy and impact on future MMOGs. They are driven by financial investors and their money is coming from people that think, they have just discovered a new market for making greater profits than with the old economy businesses. An “Adventure” does not sound like a good idea in a world where margins, revenue streams and maxed-out Return-on-Investment play the most important role.
But…
There is at least one example in the current MMO world with a different approach. CCP Games from Iceland. They started with a dozen people around 10 years ago; CEO´s mother was cooking lunch, CEO´s girlfriend was doing the customer support telephone hotline. They started small, little money, little player base. Little office. The game had less than 10k subscribers, around 4-5k online at peaks in the first years. They continuously developed their game and listened to their customers. Step by step with very small steps but on the longer run their game has become really successful and their player base has reached 50k simultaneously online at this point.
My proposal to everyone having the right ideas, capability of designing a good MMO and enough endurance to survive a few cold winters, start from scratch and create something new, a true Next-Gen-MMO. There will be enough players in the future that find out what Wolfshead just described so accurate. They will prefer adventure over fun and immersion over short-sighted scripting models. Analyzing the current status is important and essential, but lamenting is not getting us anywhere. Visions are sometimes getting reality, but without a mission they won´t. I would be more than happy to participate.
An interesting discussion started on Twitter focusing on two key points:
1. “Fun” and “Adventure” and 2. what the mature player wants.
The assumptions are that fun and adventure are opposite, basically adventures are not fun and that mature players are near dead after hard work and only have time to play for less than one hour per week.
(Maybe there was also a third, which is actually not a game design argument for the sake of the game, but an important commercial/business aspect: Trying to cater to everyone and piss nobody off. =Aiming for the very lowest common denominator. And then wonder why the product is rather shallow. Interestingly, no other form of entertainment seems to follow this tenet as slavishly MMO game designers do or are urged to nowadays. Not even Hollywood and TV.)
It is almost splitting hairs over semantics, unfortunately some argued that adventure in this article is apparently only about hardship and having no fun.
Fun is watching a kitty riding a turtle. Fun is having a spaghetti ice-cream (if you don’t know spaghetti ice-cream check Wikipedia). Fun is watching TV.
But should MMOs really become semi-interactive movies where I as the hero ride of a virtual path on rails to glory, like everyone else?
This is not the appeal of a MMO to me. Immersion in such a guided bus tour will never inspire devotion and loyality of a player to his “world”. And this is what MMOs should be better at than other genres, as they are pretty shallow and weak in their game mechanics in comparison.
Fun is also overcoming hardship and failing! To gain back a little after you lost a lot. Victory is sweeter if it is not guaranteed. Fighting mobs is more engaging if they actually have a decent chance to kill you. Now think of modern MMOs. Everything below max level is not only easy, but just embarrassing. We only have light, but never shadow.
An adventure is fun. And this is what a virtual world should deliver. Adventure. A not so shallow and more enduring form of fun comes with adventure! At least in my opinion, it is unfortunately true that by far too many players nowadays are content with the theme park Disneyland Online.
The 2. point mentioned by Stropp on his blog is unfortunately true. There are lots of players who are content with the current state of MMOs. As long as they are exclusively catered to, things will be dire for more demanding players.
The upcoming MMOs of 2010/2011 (I exclude/don’t talk about FFXIV, the benchmark told me I should not bother at all) are nothing else but the generic theme park reloaded:
SWTOR – the “OLD” in Star Wars: The Old Republic is to be taken literally. Good news for all WoW players, it is another derivate/clone, just in space in the SW universe. Bad news for anyone hoping for a change of ages old formulas.
Guild Wars 2 will do a lot of things different, and while I am a total Guild Wars fanboy, I am afraid it will rather disappoint me and please the masses.
Both games are build on the same tenet: Theme park full of fun activities! For casuals! For grandmas! Easy fun for everyone. Safe and secure. On a railway to max level.
MMORPGs have evolved to something at its core very different from the early beginnings and lost their original core. Pardo and Tigole probably enjoyed the world, too, but they were gamers by heart and created a game but they never really got into that “virtual world thing”. This is also why there is no housing in WoW, it eludes the bigheads thinking there, it’s just not their cup of tea.
There are people who are still playing EverQuest, Ultima Online and DAOC. I still claim Ultima Online was the closest to a virtual world yet, and that kept me playing and paying for years.
P.S. maybe it rather requires a state of perpetual adolescence to play MMOs, I think I kept my online adventurer streak from my youth, while other really grown up adults apparently log in for easy virtual placification? 😉
Obviously, this two-part topic could spawn a long reply from me, as it has in other commentors, but I’ll keep it brief. One of the most interesting parts in this was the following quote:
“It’s a violation of the basic law of the universe that says there can be no… light without darkness…” (slightly chopped, in the interest of specificty).
I say interesting, not out of a dissent in agreement, or opposition in idea, but merely in the use of the subjects in this analogy, and how the further reinforce the topic at hand when probed more deeply. Darkness is the absence of light. Just as cold is the absence of heat. These things exist when the other is removed. To take the analogy a step further, when the adventure is removed, the fun goes with it. At least, the long-term, worthwhile fun.
Current MMOs provide topical, fleeting fun, and guise it in trappings of reward. I feel like Dagny Taggert talking to her mother about parties. Why do people celebrate when nothing worthwile has been accomplished or deserve celebration? In the same way, MMOs do not provide measured and appropriate returns.
When everything is epic, nothing is.
Both part 1 and 2 sums up my feelings on the mmo universe. The reasons you mentioned here are the exact feelings I have garnered while playing WoW and why I have become disenchanted
with the genre. Considering that there is very limited options that offer more than a streamlined experience in a virtual world has only compounded my dismay.
Great article Wolf, as always. I’m pretty confident that you and I are in the same MMO boat so to speak. I derive fun from your definition of adventure. Everything that is offered now as fun equates to boredom to me.
I cannot grasp a constant stream of incremental rewards for not doing work. In life I have only seen gains from hard work and risk taking. It feels strange to have both stripped way and yet be rewarded.
I didn’t play EQ1 for just fun or entertainment. I played it because it let me have an experience not unlike real life but in a fantasy setting. I took great risk and was greatly rewarded. My character was truly powerful. Wins were great and losses were terrible. I crave that.
Someone mentioned Eve Online as an example of this and it is pretty spot on. Eve is about as virtual world as you get. I just wish there was a fantasy MMO like that. My assumption is the rise of EQ1 emulators is a reaction to the industry. We might not be the majority but I truly think there would be enough players to make a niche game profitable.
That might be why I’ve been playing EVE more and more of late. Given it’s true sense of adventure, loss, and reward combined with my uber-geeky love of Sci-fi, and…yeah. Once my goals in Warhammer are done, I may see major shift in where my play-time is spent.
“A Tale in the Desert” is an interesting example in the ‘Fun’ vs ‘Adventure’ argument. It barely had any ‘fun’ in it at all. Even the ‘fun’ parts were a lot of work and preparation and investment.
However, with that investment came an incredible sense of accomplishment.
Interestingly enough though, it had almost absolutely zero ‘Risk.’ (I guess if you tried to plant too much flax at once, you risked not being able to harvest it all in time.) The adventure came from expanding your capabilities and seeing what you could accomplish.
It should be criminal to design an MMO without having fully studied ATITD and understanding the pro’s and con’s of that ground-breaking and innovative game.
I’ve been waiting for part 2, thank you for posting this.
I want to make a few points here.
You guys are thinking as MMO designers/players and neglecting considering the business/marketing side of the company.
The reason these game are the way they are is because of their current target demographic.
The problem isn’t that these games are horrible and bad and wrong, it’s they’re designed for KIDS to play. I consider this to be a good thing in the way that they are opening up an entirely new player base that will one day mature and be ready for a much more challenging and intelligent game.
We can’t expect current companies to change any of their current games to be more what we’d like them to be we can only hope that The market allows for some companies to realize our demographic segment and make a game for us. (check out my blog 😉 )
I completely disagree with part one and two, this notion that WoW has somehow ruined the MMO genre. If you were to argue that WoW has taken the challenge out of getting to the end game and that it’s too easy to max a character with epic gear, along with the fact that the dungeon design has become lazy, then I would agree with you.
You have mentioned more than once about your four years of Everquest; what I can’t understand is if it is the pinnacle of MMO design then why are you not still playing the game today?
Steep level grinds and horrible death penalties doesn’t seem to be a great adventure to me, and certainly isn’t fun.
Unfortunately the only way you can play EQ the way we all remember it is if you play on a private server (which I do, and thoroughly enjoy). EQ has been dumbed down over the years as well, to make it more in-line with the other MMOs. It’s nothing like it once was and therefore, not a place us who miss that type of gameplay can return to.
Brilliant work as usual. No additions or commentary; just a simple statement and an encouragement to keep up the thoughtful posts.
I just wanted to thank the readers of this blog for their comments and feedback on my articles. I really appreciate both agreements and disagreements.
I’ve been busy on another project so I haven’t had the time to comment on many of the excellent replies. I hope to find some time this weekend to do so.
Thanks 🙂
You can still have an adventure in a theme park, you just have to play the game according to your own rules.
You can delete your character or throw away everything you have on you if you ever die.
I play Lotro, but i spend 95% of that playing my pacifist – who has never killed any living creature. This means I have to get very creative to complete any quests, i think it is a lot of fun as well as hardwork. So far he is lvl26 and well past the easy pie quests in the shire!
Play EVE. That will cure you of every one of those grand ideas you have about MMOs and adventure. Play Darkfall, or any other hardcore game seriously. Stop looking at games via the past and go and play games which try and make adventures happen: then you’ll realize that your reaction is glossing over the boring tedium that occupies 80% of the “adventure” experience.
Then you can write about the relation between adventure and fun, and you will have much more power because you are looking at it realistically. People quit EQ. They quit UO. Find out why they did.
Right now this is not a design manifesto, its a romantic view of what at heart, are dice rolls.
People quit EQ in large part because of Planes of Powers and it’s trivialization of travel.
People quit UO in large part of Trammel, and it’s segmenting of the palyer base, and removal of the sandbox.
In some ways, the points you make enhance the argument that the removal of risk and adventure are what drove people away. It’s also partially why we see EVE continuing to grow and expand. Until CCP does something ill recieved, that trend is still moving upward. I believe that Darkfall is as well (but I’m less certain).
EVE doesn’t grow and expand because of risk. Most of it’s growth is from empire citizens and alt accounts. And in EVE you see players move to hobble risk through huge blobs of ships and mismatches, or avoid it entirely by living in empire.
And EVE is a superhumanly boring game, for all that risk. That’s why I asked him to play it. He needs to spend 3 hours jumping from gate to gate with no sign of any fights, or get his frigate killed in seconds from a gate camp he had no chance of fighting.
Let me preface this by saying I almost always agree with pretty much everything you have to say about the current MMO market. I just found it curious that you once said the following about MMO gaming:
“Somehow EQ stopped being fun. Everyone has said this over and over. EQ needs a serious dose of fun injected into its lifeless body. The problem is that there are so many pressing issues that need to be addressed the fun/cool factor of EQ has long been neglected due to inadequate staffing and resources.”
That’s a quote from your letter to SoE in 2004…
Now don’t get me wrong. I agree wholeheartedly that the difference between ADVENTURE and FUN are two totally different beasts when used as a core concept of a game. For example, a game developed around fun (WoW) will be totally different than one developed around adventure (EQ).
What I would like to embellish on however is the fact that ADVENTURE IS FUN for most older MMO gamers. I think this is what you were trying to convey in your 2004 letter. This important concept has long since been forgotten about when developing a new MMO. That sense of nervousness that we all got when we finally killed something when we ourselves were on the brink of death just isn’t present in MMO’s anymore. I feel it’s vitally important for game designers to finally realize this, instead of the vomiting out the Blizzard Business Model that simply injects new, frivolous content when the game gets stagnant. The beauty of EQ was that you could do whatever you wanted at any given time and still feel a sense of accomplishment. Because of the steep death penalties and open-world dungeons, everyone was free to do as they pleased, albeit encouraged to group. ADVENTURE WAS WHAT YOU MADE OF IT. This resulted in a game that was FUN for everyone, regardless of play style. Fun was then measured in the amount of adventure you took. This allowed the richness of the world and its history to be, first and foremost, a developers job. Sadly, this is no longer the case.
Fair point about my previous comments about fun back in 2004. My opinion has changed over the years and today I have a more precise vocabulary with regard to MMOs.
I saw this and thought I’d add on…
the concept of adventure you bring up is mainly a difference between “risk vs. reward” and the newer “time vs. reward”. Modern MMO’s increasingly focus on a “time vs. reward” scheme.
I am a little too young to have gotten into EQ, but I remember getting this sensation of adventure in Shadowbane to some extent. Sure the game wasn’t great but the open PvP based gameplay allowed for a lot of adventure. Dieing made you worry whether your corpse would get looted. Soloing was a dangerous prospect at any level but also very profitable. It forced you to get involved in a guild or group in someway because the world was truly a dangerous place. Leveling wasn’t especially difficult and gear wasn’t super important (your pvp gear was worse than your normal gear because you knew you would lose it eventually), but what kept you playing was the interaction between guilds.
That sense of danger is completely gone in more modern MMO’s. The most aggravating part about WoW, as well as other recent MMOs, was that everything was based around time sinks. The worst part about dieing was the time it took to walk back to your corpse, quests being glorified grinding, grinding being an important aspect of gameplay, etc. Another important part is that you will never run into something you can’t handle by yourself without seeking out group oriented content.
I think many of the changes are caused by game design becoming more gear based rather than character based. The growth in a character is caused by getting shinier and rarer gear rather than much growth in a character itself. The result is that the game is centered around grinding for exponentially more powerful gear instead of the interaction between players that a MMO allows.
You hit the nail on the head like usual. Thanks for yet another great post. Some may call it a niche, but i also believe their is a huge demand for as you deem it the ‘adventure’ focused MMO. But sadly imo the golden days are already behind us, and the MMO industry is a state of rancid decay. With the advent of cash shops and “free to play” i only see this trend continuing.
I find the notion that adults shouldn’t waste their time having fun to be misguided at best, and contemptible at worst.
Not all adults want to have fun in their spare time. Not everyone sees the purpose of life to fill every waking moment with distractions and amusement.
Sorry I’m late to the party, but I had to say that I found this article to be quite insightful and informative.
I have to point out though, that fun and adventure are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Activities can certainly be fun and entertaining, while still being interesting, challenging and fullfilling. Many of the things that I do, that I consider “adventure” — exploring unknown canyons or summiting mountain peaks, for example — those have definitely been fun for me.
But you are 100% correct: The current crop of MMOs is all about fun — mostly shallow, meaningless fun — and little else. There is certainly not much adventure any more.
Wow.. I thought I would never find another person , not to mention group of people that agrees with me modern mmorpgs are lacking in depth , risk and addictive qualities of the past.
Im glad I chanced upon this blog. Knowing that there are still surviving veterans out there. I hope one day you would create your own blockbuster mmorpg and I ‘ll be one of the first to play in it.
As a hardcore pk’er in olden mmorpgs, i find the modern mmorpgs’ like a school with tight discipline, you cannot run amock and be the bad guys, pkers are dealt with harsh penalties and stuff. End-game content is usually more raids for weapons that no one would ever use in a duel cept to kill harder , tougher AI controlled bosses.
You mean, you’re a sadistic bastard and you’re *annoyed* because modern MMOs stop you going out and griefing other players.
Christ, if that’s all that made the game for you that’s not depth, that’s just shallow, FPS-like enjoyment.
mmo vet here myself. I agree with just about everything. Do you guys remember the days when there was a sense of camaraderie in mmos? Just because you and your friends did an adventure online doesnt mean it didnt happen in real life, you still got the sense of you and your “brothers” took on a mighty dragon together. MMO memories are just as real as everyday memories. The days when you could log on and all your friend were fired up to go out and grind for hours looking for loot? I miss the days of grinding for hours while talking to my friends online in the game or with voice chat. But sadly today people are selfish and greedy in the gaming community . They want what they want and they want it now, it doesnt matter who they step on to get it. They login to a “multiplayer” online game and play it like it was a solo player game. What happend to the camaraderie? Where did the sense of just “forgetting what your doing and lets go explore”? Most of all, where did the huge negative attitude wave come from? Where did all the harsh and rude comments come from? Noob this, moron that. When did people stop remembering that at one time they too didn’t know something about the game? I love online gaming as an adult, but sadly this new generation of gamers with their foul mouths, rude gestures, selfishness and just pure meanness really can ruin any good game you do find.