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Curtis's Thesis on the MMO
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Hey Jake. Sorry for the length of this letter, but I have a lot of thoughts on MMOs.
I want to provide my own personal viewpoint on the MMO scene, as a whole, as I feel that we keep getting fed the same game over and over again as MMO players and wanted to point out some things. First off, if you spent any time in Star Wars Galaxies, pre-NGE, you would remember what a living and breathing world it was. Sure, it wasn't the best MMO, the most vibrant, the most fun, or anything like that. But it was alive! Rather than having 30 combat classes, you had a social classes, you had crafting classes, you had diplomatic classes, you had space classes, and your ever popular combat classes. While I don't believe SOE hit the nail on the head with their skill system, as I feel that limiting your combat ability just because you want to play an instrument, learn a dance, or become a shopkeeper in game is just stupid, I do feel like SOE was the first to expose a huge possibility for revolution in MMOs. They made it fun to be in town. I can clearly remember how much of my time was spent in the Theed cantina for the first year of my SWG experience. I got the game on release and pretty much lived in the Cantina. I loved it. There was something exhilarating about hanging out in the cantinas, chatting with other players, and just meeting people as they come in and out. This was a huge time sink for me, but it didn't feel like that. No longer did I feel like I was grinding (like it did when I used SWG's combat system), I was having fun standing there and selecting out of a choice of eight flourishes (fills or licks, as the common person would know them). Then as I matured as a player, getting deeper into the Musician class, I opened my own cantina in our player city, Sanctum Malleus. This was absolutely one of the most exciting things in a video game for me, still to this day, owning my own cantina. I spent hours upon hours in here. I put on many theatre nights, gambling contests, dinner socials, etc. within this cantina. And while the system for placing items was clunky, I had to use street lights as stage lights, and the sitting bug was STILL present almost a year after launch, I still put tons of hours into this one facet of the game. I bypassed tons of PVP and PVE possibilities, tons of crafting possibilities, tons of space flights (once JTL came out) just for this one piece of the entire SWG puzzle.
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Jake
Wow, this letter is a doozy. I'm going to take it a paragraph at a time.
As for SWG, I never got into it. The prospect of never being a Jedi initially turned me off. Your experience sounds like it was a great time, though. I like to hear about people having fun in a non-violent way. I'm not against violence in games, I just like to hear about MMORPGamers that don't just kill stuff while logged in. After all, the massiveness of these games can't be enjoyed alone.
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And here is where the real basis of my email comes. I feel like there is a need for an MMO revolution. To this day, social classes, crafting classes, etc are put to the wayside for the combat classes. Why? I feel like SOE took such a huge step forward by allowing gamers a glimpse into the possibilities of social classes, or of political classes, or sales classes. All SOE did was put a few instruments in the game, a total of 20 bars of looping music per song (typical songs go for about 200-300 bars, 20 bars is pretty much nothing), and about 9 songs. This was the extent of their musician and dancer class. However, people spent hundreds upon hundreds of time in cantinas using this almost archaic system. Can you imagine a game that takes this idea and runs with it? What about having one combat class, one social class per character, with equal focus on both? Sure, it would take more development time, but why do we want to play MMOs in the first reason? It's certainly not because of it's revolutionary combat system (more on that later), it's because of the social aspect. I sure wouldn't be wanting to beta Vanguard if I was the only player. I play because others are playing, it makes the world come alive. Doesn't it make sense to fully implement social classes? I think it's amazing SOE was able to implement such a rudimentary system and yet have numerous people spend countless hours using it. It shows there is a huge need for more design options like this.
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Jake
I understand the compulsion to want to do something new and innovative in MMOs, especially social or crafting classes. However, I know that I stick mostly to combat because it is a great escape, something that sane people would never take part in RL.
I understand that many people love virtual economies, entertainments like your music experience, and political systems. The market for this is small, but needs to be nurtured. On that point, I agree with you. Until this can be done without excluding combat players, I'm afraid it won't be.
I'd encourage you to try out Lord of the Rings Online. I'm sure you'll appreciate the music system there. The combat is still omnipresent, but you'll have more than 20 bars of music.
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Onto my second thought, combat. This is where MMOs have been since they were first introduced way back when. People spent hundreds of hours grinding with a very boring combat system, just to level up, or gear up. In the ten plus years that MMOs have had to develop, this is where we still are. We still point, click, and wait until monster is finished to rinse and repeat.Ê Sure, we might throw a fire spell in here and there, but the system is pretty much the same, we really haven't changed anything. This is where I feel MMOs need the most help. Like I was stating earlier, I sure wouldn't play a game like Vanguard or WoW for it's awesome combat system or deep intricate crafting if I was the only person in the entire game world, and yet this is where we spend a majority of our time in MMOs. I feel that combat needs a huge overhaul in MMOs, and we need to look at single player RPGs for inspiration. Take for instance a game like Secret of Mana for the Super Nintendo. This game is simply awesome. I love the action RPG combat system, and while simple, it's a blast to play from start to finish; add two friends and it's an absolute blast. Now take this idea and apply it to MMOs. Why couldn't we have a combat system, basic but so fun, that players actually enjoy combat rather than simply deal with it. Often when I propose this idea, I'm countered with bandwidth concerns. While valid, I feel like a majority of stable MMOs are pretty lag free (especially Guild Wars), and shouldn't have too many problems. Phantasy Star Online is a great example of this design philosophy. As you and I are both aware, Phantasy Star Online was HUGE. I spent a good three hundred hours playing till about level 90. Combat was simple, but refreshing. Loot was extremely fun to hunt for. People put up with a measly 4 dungeons and 1 town because of this addictive nature of combat. The game would not have survived had it had a point and click type gameplay. So why can't we merge the two gametypes? Why can't we have a PSO type game, set in the ever popular fantasy setting, as an MMO? Don't you think this would pretty much revolutionize the MMO industry as we know it? (as a sidenote, Conan looks to be doing something outside the norm, and I look forward to it)
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Jake
I also can't wait for Age of Conan to come out.
I'm so glad that I got to feature this letter in this column. If you haven't looked up, do so now. Champions Online looks like it'll be the game that can actually do what you're wanting in this letter. The control system looks similar to that of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, which I played until the end and then some. It'll be extremely easy to use and intuitive.
I agree with you on the archaic systems we currently use to fight each other and the baddies of the MMO universe. Some people enjoy these systems because they can min/max with them, getting their crits, hits, and whatever else to be the highest. I'm not entertained by it at all. Out with the old, in with the Champions Online.
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My last thought is a great tie in from Phantasy Star Online. This game was overall, pretty simple. We didn't have to manage thousands of spells with 30+ status effects to worry about, different builds to counter, certain spells to cast at the right time or else the whole party would die. You could play at a pace you wanted too, not have to constantly be alert and aware of what is going on, and yet still be able to keep track of your party members. I don't know about you, but I don't like having to deal with 13 different enchantments or debuffs on me, figuring out which magic spell takes care of which debuff, figuring out this offensive spell gets rid of one of my enchants, so on and so forth, much like Guild Wars or World of Warcraft is. It's just not fun to micromanage all these different spell types and enchants and debuffs and so on. I find it extremely tedious, and annoying, since you have to have toolbars for all these items in order to be effective. This is the main reason I feel PSO succeeded as well as it did, it's simple fun. There were status effects, but A) they came pretty slowly, so you had a chance to figure out how to deal with it and B) there were several ways to alert you with what you have been afflicted with so you didn't spend time having to look at each individual debuff icon trying to figure out what you've just been afflicted with. This design applies across the board, as there are only three types of healing items, three types of MP restoration items, etc, unlike the practically hundreds of ways to do the same thing in WoW. Do I really need 30 different ways to heal 300 HP?
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Jake
Speaking as a healer, yes. I enjoy the myriad options that I have to heal, covering my party in case anything wrong should happen. I see your point, though. If the enemies didn't have 30 different ways to cause my party to die horrible, painful deaths, I wouldn't need the 30 different healing choices.
Again, I feel like the min/maxers love this aspect of MMOs. When looking at WoW, it's clear that the casuals will come to rule the MMO world. I don't see why games won't be getting simpler in the future, especially with Blizzard already wise to the virtues of the casual player.
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Again, sorry for the length of my letter, but I hope I've at least been able to highlight what I feel are some major, groundbreaking changes I feel the MMO industry could try to start looking at. I still feel like that end all be all MMO has yet to be developed, and feel implementing some of these game mechanics will put games one step closer to that end all.
Look forward to hearing from you!
Curtis
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Jake
Thanks for writing in, Curtis. You had a well written and passionate argument that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. Again, I'd like to hear your thoughts about Champions Online, so drop a line at your earliest convenience.
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