f13.net

note: this post started as a reply to Jamiko's discussion about the nature of Casual MMO guilds, but my writing kept getting longer and longer so I'm just gonna toss it out here. Here's a bit of background info, then onwards to the meat of the post.

My usual gaming cadre consists of myself and approximately 8 friends from RL, including my girlfriend. Most of us met each other back in grade school. We grew up playing videogames together, then moved on to Gemstone III (text MUD), UO, etc. into the vile addiction of the MMORPG genre.  In highschool, everything was fine because everybody had school at the exact time, the exact same schedule, etc.

Fast forward many years into the future. Now we're all at college. Some of us go to easy colleges, some of us go to hard colleges. Some of us are trying our hand at other interests (though still maintaining an interest in gaming), others are sticking with computers/gaming/geekdom.  We play FPS, RTS, fighting games, MMOs, whatever. With the FPS/RTS, playtime is not such a huge deal as natural talent at these genres is usually enough to guarantee victory. We can play as a clan and rank fairly high on ladders/tournaments/whatever. Playing together is easy, quick, doesn't require massive time commitments, and is immediately rewarding.

However, once you're addicted to the MMO genre, it's hard to drop the habit. Even after you're crusty, cynical, jaded MMO burnout such as the type that this site attracts. Playing MMOs together is complete hell. Nobody has the same schedule, some of my friends can sink 6-8hrs/day into gaming without batting an eye, others are lucky to squeeze in 1-2 hours per night with the combined workload of academics + working a fulltime job. Within a couple of weeks of starting an MMO, some will have given up in frustration either due to being outlevelled, never having anyone online/similarly levelled to play with, or just sheer frustration at the game.  Of all the MMOs played since the departure to college (1.5 yrs ago now), CoH has been the only 'friendly' one. The SK/Exemplar system is a huge step in the right direction towards allowing friends of disparate playtimes to still have a good time together.

None of the upcoming MMOs (WoW or EQ2) seem to offer any similar feature to bring people together. To make matters really ugly, my gang is(used to be) avid PvPers. Now, it's becoming glaringly obvious how PvP clashes with PvE in MMO.  Practically all modern MMOs favor playing time over personal skill as the main means of determining the winner of PvP combat. I know it's a topic that gets addressed on a weekly basis around here, so I won't start another rant about that. I guess it never seemed like a very big deal before because we were dorky highschool kids with nothing better to do on weeknights than play MMOs. UO wasn't too bad because if you know what you were doing, you could use macros to cut out most of the tedium in developing a character. EQ PvP server was surprisingly good due to the level restrictions; you could only attack/be attacked by people +/- 4 levels of you. This was a close enough level gap for player skill to overpower the difference in levels. With the latest generation of games, it has been pure hell. Playtime/level is more important than anything else. Not really my cup of tea. There's really not much point in addressing EQ2 with regards to PvP, as there are currently no plans to have a PvP server at launch or otherwise.

I want to believe that WoW is going to be the next Big Thing in terms of MMO PvP, but I'm certainly not without my doubts. Levelling seems a bit friendlier due to the lack of a harsh death penalty, and in general seems to move at a fair pace. The direction of players towards "contested zones" where PvP is possible seems nice, though much remains to be seen. Hopefully players will be spread out enough so that it can avoid DAOC's "omgzergrush kekela~~" that resulted from funnelling all PvP players into the same few zones. However, there is still the possibility of some uber catass guild (and I know they will do exactly this) who will hit the level cap within 2-3 weeks of release, and then proceed to completely own everyone else by sheer virtue of their level.

I'd be delighted if anyone can prove me wrong.  I'm currently holding it with mild anticipation, but not expecting too much to differ from my general expectations. Guild Wars is about the only thing on the horizon which looks extremely promising. I want to play games with my friends. I want to be able to enjoy an MMO without having to invest 100% of my free time into it. I'd really like to be able to PvP without needing to max out my character first. What makes it so damned hard to realize this, that MMO devs cannot seem to grasp the concept? Man, getting old sucks. I'm only 20. I don't even want to think about where it goes from here.

I'd like to go in depth with a reply, but it's my bed time and I'm tired.  So.. some quick responses that just stick out to me as the easiest:



It won't be.




Read my posts in the WoW PvP topic.  That's where you'll end up. Perhaps you'll not reach the point I have, but I just know too many folks like myself to think it won't happen to you too.

I can't actually get in games with my friends.  My history of playing online with people I know usually goes something like this:

Them: Hey, we are playing Game X, join us.

Me: Well, its not my cup of tea, but ok, I ll bite.

Result:  Maybe 5-10 hours of playing with them online a month, then they quit or take a break.  I try to press on, get bored and go to something else.  Try praisng whatever I went to in the hopes they will join me.  Naturally they do not.

It happened in Asheron's Call, which was a good game, and then with Star Wars Galaxies, which is not.  Sadly, my friends quit that, and instead of joining me in City of Heroes, they go to Final Fantasy 11.  Even after hearing me bitch and moan about how gawd awful it is.  Because one of their co workers offered them a world pass.  Even though the design of the game means they will almost NEVER be playing alongside these other people, and it happens to have some of the most unfun game design decisions ever.  CoH Sidekick/Exemplar?  AC's ease of twinking and buffing?  NAAH.  Im waiting to talk to my friend tomorrow to see if he has realized the game is a worse choice than FF11, or at best I offered to sell him my copy of the strategy guide for 10 bucks, making a little money back for me off of my worst videogame purchase of the last 6 months or so.

Its just too hard to get in online games with RL friends.  If you live locally to your friends you are gonna want to actually hang out with them most times and not sit in a videogame.  If you live some distance there is the problem of everyone playing the same game and having a schedule that meshes and a game that allows people of various levels to play together.

CoH, UO, and to a lesser degree SWG & AC are the only ones that even attempt this.  EQ & FF 11 certainly don't, nor does AO, AC2, Shadowbane, or DAOC from my experiences.  Its all level based and if you aren't within 2 or 3 levels of each other, its not even worthwhile.

The best solution to disparate play time is this technology called "making an alt". Pick a game with enough class differentiation that playing two characters won't feel like torment and you're good to go. Or you could hope that some game designer has a game with a short and soloable levelling curve but a great endgame. That way PvP and PvE imbalance is only a temporary phase.

WoW won't be the "ultimate" game, thank god. The whole point of game is as content to be consumed and discarded, postulating an ultimate uber-game sort of destroys that model. A better question is whether WoW will be a good entertainment. Or even better will it be the best MMORPG entertainment. I'm planning on playing WoW, and that's because I believe it's the best general focus MMORPG out there. If some genius comes out with a better game then great, i'll switch when it goes live. (I don't consider GW a MMORPG).

WoW PvP remains to be proven though, but given that the options are L2, DaoC and SB even if it sucks it still remains parity. And the idea of battlegrounds, as a potential population and power limiter (not to mention a non exploitable mode switch), is the right way to do popular PvP if they can pull it off.

On the other hand go the hairshirt approach. Play the most screwed up game you can find, perhaps horizons before it gets shut down, and that will give you a nice relative basis for comparison. That way no matter what you play you can say, "At least it's not as bad as Horizons!" and feel happy.

Just wait until you have a career, and then a family. Gaming time goes downhill from where you are. Enjoy it while you can.

I think time just moves faster.  I know my watch is broke.

Yup.  Twenty is a bit young to be sifting the dry sand of Eccelesiastes...  the way Gong was carrying on I thought for sure he must have just hit 30 or even 40.  ;-)

But to your topic Gong, I think you've nailed the future profit opportunities.  Seasoned vets like Raph and Jacobs may use prior experience to confirm why timesinks are the only appropriate design mode.  But you're underscoring why those past experiences now define a niche market.

CoH is a canary in the coalmine of today's first generation graphical MOGs.  And she's singing sweetly.

Exp-less, level-less games are the friendliest way to help people play together painlessly. Why is it so ignored by designers? In UO, a GM swordsman could play with a Journeyman Mage and both would benefit from playing together whether they were fighting orcs or ogre lords.

Why the fuck does every fucking MMOG have fucking levels?

Yes, but UO was a fucking bore of a game, too. So even though people could play together, it still lacked the ever elusive "fun". Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Not to start another UO debate, but to me it was very immersive and very fun. Best PvP eva, which to me equals fun. Very rare have I got the adrenaline rush that game provided me scores of times. Next best PvP after that was Neocron, then SB. AO was bleh and I couldnt grind enough to get into the SWG PvP.

Levels + unfun < no levels + unfun. A modern UO could play exactly the same way CoH does. Exactly. CoH being the best example of pure fun in an MMOG right now. Instead of the players and mobs having level-based powers and damage, powers would grow with use. Defenders that heal, would get better heals. Blasters that use electricity, would get more electricity powers. Scrappers would unlock different moves/combos as they improved. Get rid of tankers completely. Every mob would be worth a fixed influence amount which would be divided among anyone in the team + a grouping bonus.

Just because UO was the best skill-based system that got boring, doesn't mean that any skill-based system will be boring. Hell, EQ could have had identical gameplay without exp being a factor at all.

As I said, different strokes for different folks. I did enjoy Neocron PvP, but that doesn't mean it was a fun game. UO wasn't just PvP. But anyhow, I don't want to get into that debate either so, yeah, I'll leave it at that.

I'd have to say UO and SB's pvp were very nearly equal in the adrenaline factor but for very different reasons. UO was a one on one action packed battle of wits (at least when it was mage vs. mage or warrior vs. warrior) and Shadowbane was seeing 200 people line up on either side of a fence and then commence a massive slaughter. Both were great, but neither would qualfy as something I could play now that I'm married with a kid on the way.

The PvP versus PvE debate is one thing. And PvP can be just as boring, in addition to tending to be community destroying, as PvE.

But levelling a skill (UO/SWG) as opposed to levelling a general class really isn't fundamentally different. Indeed the class system tends to be less tedious because the experience can be generalized. The sub-skills of your class are automatically assumed to progress `off camera'. It also discourages people from mini-maxing.

Of course I guess both of those are also seperate from the question of how durable a "master" with thousands of hours invested should be from a "noobie" whos just strolled off the farm. Most stories like to have progression, tales of heroes who can do things the average person couldn't possibly acheive, which is what character power growth represents. Likewise you need something to offer the playerbase as a carrot, and they tend to be unmotivated by rewards that don't make any difference.

Well, it's good to see that I'm not alone.

I reactivated my CoH account 4 days ago, and have been thus far having an absolute blast with the latest content. I did the respec mission (actually quite an entertaining mission) to breathe some new life into my main guy, a 24 defender. I took a few of my alts to the new low level zone, which was also very fun. I think the CoH dev team really deserves to be commended for adding new content for low/mid-level ranges. Most games, if they ever add new content at all, tends to be strictly to appease the maxed catassers.

I don't really expect it to hold my interest for much more than a month, but I'm glad that it's the sort of game that you can pick up every now and then for some solid fun.  Though there hasn't been much in the way of concrete info about the City of Villains expansion, I think they might be onto something huge with their plans for integrating PvP into gameplay. Who knows whether any of it will ever see the light of day, but the CoH team has done nothing to cause me to doubt them.

I think we'll probably be officially picking up WoW to give it a shot, at the very least give us something to do until City of Villains or Guild Wars (these are the only two MMOs which I believe might be able to successfully pull off a working PvP system). After re-reading the WoW comments here and elsewhere on this forum, I've definitely lowered my expectations by quite a bit. Hopefully it will at least be good enough to justify throwing down $50 for the box.

The critical difference between UO and all other games (even SWG for the most part) is that UO was truly use-based advancement. You used a skill, and you'd be advancing it, whether you kill a mob or not. Instead of wacking rats all day long for months, you could spend a couple nights sparring with friends and gain all the skills you'd need. You could gain exp even if you had to retreat from the fight. In reality, people learn from their mistakes.

This is a fundamental diffference, and one of many ways UO was superior to every other mmog offering.

Why is GW not on your list of upcoming alternatives? It might not be a "true" mmorpg, but from the reports I've heard, it might be right up your ally in terms of what you seem to be looking for.

It is.

**Edit**  Anyone here going to be participating in the GW Beta weekends?

Correct.  Plus, you were not barred from entering anyplace by not having a certain level (except for Wind.)  You could immediately experience any part of the game if you wanted to.  You just had different levels of risk of dieing.

My ultimate skill/level system would be to use UO's for overall skills, but keep a counter on number of kills for a certain type of MOB.  The higher your count the more efficient you are at killing that particular MOB.  I think that would have a lot of potential and still have the advantages that the UO skill systems has.

Dren - my aforementioned friends and I will all be trying out the GW 'open house' event next weekend, and depending on how it goes, may also pre-order the game so we can play for the Beta Weekend events as well.

I love the way we tend to romanticize things from the past.  I played UO and looking back on it, it wasn't all that great a game.  It had its time and place in the evolution of online gaming, that's for certain. When it was new, it was a great game for that reason.  Let's not forget how many people macroed the shit out of UO because much of it was painfully boring.  Let's not forget the fact that even with all of the pk asshats that pc's still weren't all that available to the masses (meaning that the lowlifes then are nothing even close to the level of lowlifes we are able to find now).  

What I'm saying is that class or skill based systems will still be fun or suck based on their implementation, not based on the system itself.  UO was a start... going back to it to learn from its mistakes is a good idea, trying to recapture its magic is a hopeless endeavor.

with regards to UO, I actually did have quite a bit of fun on the IPY UO server (player run server, was run by the infamous wtfmen) for the first two months of its existence, before the corrupt GM/admin guy fucked everything up.

I mean, the server practically made it's name by attracting the general scum of the MMO population, and I still had a total blast playing it again. I just couldn't muster the willpower to start all over again when they wiped the server. Probably had something to do with the timing that me and my friends had just gotten a large house after busting our ass for a few weeks straight, only to get it wiped. I understand why the wipe was necessary, and agree with their course of action - I tried to play again post-wipe, but I had burned myself out by hitting it a little bit too hard the first time around.

Advance by use sucks. And I say this as someone who's spent over 12 real time hours clicking on a door in befallen to raise a skill. It leads to a dilution of character diversity because some skills end up being much easier to train (read: fighting) than others. And you still need to put some artificial limits in to stop jack of all trades characters. A level system, indicating over all progression, with some skill points to indicate exceptional focus is much better.

My character can do the boring bits of advancing his skills, like spending hours poring over tomes in a dusty library, without my active intervention.

I'd love to see someone make a game where your character is "finished" as soon as you complete the generation process.  Then you just go out and have fun.  They would need ways to keep a player attached to the character to prevent constant deletion/creation, but I think it could be done.

As far as use based systems go, a variant of SP RoT is the best.  RoT was great because you could just play and gain skill at the same time.  You didn't have to use a skill 999999 times for a gain; when the appropriate amount of time passed, you used the skill once and gained.  

The problem with the original RoT system was that it was too slow.  Stat gains were particularly hash on new players, and the daily caps on skills over 70 were too low.  Later on, they tweaked it to make it better for new players, but I didn't like when they rolled resource based skills (magery, smithing, etc) into the RoT system.

Well if you think that community is important levels are really necessary.  In Shadowbane you could level character so damn fast - you could change your identity every week from griefer to good guy.  Makes it hard to trust anyone, get to know anyone or enact any concept of player justice.  

Leveling is one way of giving identity.  No identity = no community.  

Going to Schild's spheres of MMORGs:

1.  Combat
2.  Social
3.  Economy

Numbers #2 and #3 are impacted big time by lack of enduring identity for players.

Economy.  Hard to contract tradeskill folks to make gear if either the crafter or the avatar contracting the goods can be created in a few days.   In contrast to EQ where the avatars interacting may take years to level.  It gives you confidence that the player vendor or player customer - has someing to "lose" by reneging on a deal.

Social.  You meet a player you like in Shadowbane but you have not logged on in a few weeks.  Who knows what character he has moved on to?  The EQ concept of a 'friends list" fails utterly here - you can't keep track of anyone.

Ya sure levels create false cheap content for a game - good business.  I know - but the absence of leveling is crippling to a community.  Perhaps the question you mean to ask is why is so much leveling performed with so little content to support it? (engaging quests etc.)

This man speaks truth. With a full time job, wife, 5 year old and 2 month old, gaming time is definitely at a premium. Thankfully my wife is understanding and realizes that I need my escape time with the PC/console, so I still manage. But the days when I could play every game that came down the pipe that appealed to me are long gone.

I guess this can serve to introduce New Guy, I've lurked here for a couple months, enjoyed the discourse, figured I'd throw my hat in the ring.

Okay, make with the hat. We like hats.

It has a spinning propeller on top, hope that helps.

Does it spin when you get angry?

I've been doing my best to keep my gaming options mobile lately. Handhelds seem to be the way to go when I'm commuting or standing in line at a bank. I can't really catass like I used to, but I can still get a few hours of gaming per week between helping the wife with morning sickness and keeping the boss happy at work.

You have Totoro for an avatar, you can't be all bad.

As far as the time thing goes, yes, after I got married, time available to game went to very little, even with no kids.  With kids, I doubt I'd have time to play at all.

--
Alkiera

After I started working at a gaming company, I have one hour a weekday to game....Something is wrong with that, though I can't put my finger on it.

Speak for yourself.  I was pulling my hair out, while screaming, "THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A FUCKING PVP GAME!!!!! WHY THE FUCK DO I HAVE TO FUCKING CAMP THIS FUCKING SHIT JUST SO I CAN FUCKING LEVEL SO I CAN FUCKING PVP???? FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK IT!  I FUCKING QUIT!"

I made it to level 20.  I only made it that far because I got into a party in the newbie lands and then went to bed, while they bashed monsters all night long.  I actively leveled to about 10 and that's all I could handle.

It may not seem like much, but I wasn't expecting to play a session of Everquest.

Hey! Now you know how I feel and can actually see the true meaning of casual gaming. It fucking sucks.

Sorry I had to read the whole post before I got to that laughable line. Hard to reconcile a title of "Aging gamer..." and reconcile it with only a score of years. Even though you had some good points, being twenty does not pay the entrance fees toward balancing work, kids, outside responsibilities like elder care and interest in an MMO. Homework just doesn't cut it. What I would like to see is for you to save this post and then re-read and post again when you are 40. Those would be interesting confessions of an aging gamer.

Sheesh, I was out of college well before you were born. Yeah, and I walked uphill both ways while doing it too. So there, now get off my lawn.

hey, I didn't title it without a fair deal of sarcasm :p

I made it to 52. But yeah, the PVE requirements sucked, especially in the beginning days when that was the only way you could pay for a city. Farmalot.

A time-intensive treadmill may help individual identity, but it isn't the only way to do it. I still think having every character on an account use the same last name would not only help with that, but add accountability as a whole to the game. Not perfect, but better than what we have now.

Here's a cheery thought for you; as you keep aging your disposable income will increase as you watch your disposable time melt away like a snowball in hell.  Plenty of money to spend; no time to enjoy it.  Catch-22

I'll throw in my "damned kids" thoughts too.  No question the older you get the less time you have for any kind of entertainment, be it watching 3 movies a week or playing mmorpg's.  Since gaming is my choice #1 for personal entertainment, I try to squeeze in 1-2 hrs prob 4 nights a week just to keep my sanity.  I'm not alone in this habit, but in many ways I feel ignored.  I'm a great customer to have; pay regulary with a true CC (no game cards you have to save your allowance for) and consume low bandwidth a month.  So why aren't shops actively trying to market to me?  Only think I can figure is there don't know how to design a game that fits that market...  

Games that pretty much require a large amount of time invested are self limiting population wise. The market of people with that much disposable TIME is just not that huge and it's a more of less constant number.  People age out of it and are replaced by youngin's but I just dont' see the overall market expanding that much for games like EQ2/L2/WOW short of a new baby boom.

Which is why IMHO games that can capture the essence of the fun online multiplayer experience in short play sessions are the golden path to tread to large subscription numbers.  Make a game EASY to stay subscribed to.
Which is also why I am only playing CoH and MTGO at the moment.  You crazy whippersnapper kids.

Xilren

Unless you're married.  In that case, your wife will be more than happy to get rid of all that disposable income for you.  Typically by spending it on useless crap for other people, while complaining at you if you should foolishly go buy some useless crap for yourself :)

Yes, being single is definitely a plus for casual gaming time.

But don't worry, all you married/kids folk. You'll be enjoying your elder years with all your loved ones while I die embittered and alone with nothing but memories of catassery to keep me warm as death swallows me forever.

Heck, I've been saying that for years now. But game companies continue to pay heed to the morons who play the game endlessly, only taking a break to vent their personal gripes about how much the game they just played for 72 hours without a break completely sucks ass on a message board before sinking back into the game for another couple days.

Instead of sweating to push out enough content to keep the rabid upper minority appeased, they could relax and release content on a much easier schedule to people who won't devour it as if it were their lifeblood.

Game cards in particular are a sore spot with me, since one of my pet hopes is accountability in mmogs, game cards remove one very tangible source of accountability, the one with the money attached to it.

I have credit cards (and a wonderful credit rating) but I prefer paying via game-card when possible.  I find it's way too easy for me to just let monthly charges continue for games even when I've lost interest in playing them.  I think UO holds my personal record with over a year of unplayed paid time.  

This way, I have to consciously decide to give the company my money on a regular basis.  If a company wants my dollars, then their game should be interesting enough for me to actually be playing it.