LOTRO TAXI to victory lasted two weeks

[Nebu]

Seems pretty arbitrary to me. What defines the "next generation"? If you base it upon significant innovation, shadowbane, SWG, DDO, tabula rasa, EVE online, ATITD, and conan could all be considered next-gen. Does a game have to be successful to be next-gen? Does it have to be new, even? If WoW ran on the PS3, would it be next-gen? Or are these all meaningless distinctions because there's no clear demarcation in the first place?

Strip any of today's MMO's to their core gameplay elements and what are you left with?  It's some shinier version of EQ or UO in 3D.  While the backdrops have changed, the core gameplay elements haven't really been altered much.  Even WoW is little more than a streamlined EQ.  Planetside or WWIIOL came close to what I'd consider "Next Gen" but they're really just FPS hybrids.  Of course, opinions vary.

[Pendan]

Some clues to real sales number. http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/790/790122p1.html LotRO released on April 24th. The gross for the regular version was $2,973,385. I think you could divide that by $49 to get unit sales but not sure. The special addition version was number 4 but no gross given. Would be between $2,025,275 for number 2 and $546,000 for number 9.

These are US numbers only. Some info has indicated that European sales were more than US. Third weak after release and HRose posts showed it was still at number 4 in the US. Second weak after release they were number 3 http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/790/790642p1.html Vanguard had dropped to number 6 in its third week and did not have a new release above it besides WOW:BC unlike LotRO. By the fourth week it was out of the top 10.

[sam, an eggplant]

Yes, most MMOs can be broken down into shinier copies of EQ or UO, because EQ and UO are archetypical game philosophies, game vs. living world. Hell, even ATITD was just the same old crafting mechanic minus the monsters.

I have a great deal of difficulty extrapolating what a "real" next-gen MMO (by your ambiguous definition) would play like. Ever since the LtM days I've been heavily talking up player-created content and advancement based upon player skill and/or community standing rather than time played, but even those massive innovations probably wouldn't meet your standards.

Can you briefly armchair design what you'd consider to be a next-gen MMO? You're great at eliminating games that you don't feel qualifies, but you don't really talk about what would. How would it actually play?

[HaemishM]

The more I think about it, Second Life qualifies to me as a 1.5 gen MMO. Player-created content is a big part of that, as well as a robust economy (not in the sense of stability so much as in amount of useage). But it still to get to a second generation MMO needs to have a different gameplay mechanic than what we are used to. It may require some kind of change in the input device, such as the Wiimote (the reason I'm so excited about the Wii), or the touchscreen/game table interface linked to in the Microsoft Surface thread. Shifting platforms away from PCs onto consoles is a good start.

It may be one of those things that "I'll know it when I see it" but I can't exactly describe it.

What we've seen of MMO's so far is tweaks on the same old shell. Shinier graphics, more personalized experiences (instancing), more emphasis on directed individual play (quest-based grinding/story modes), more PVP with less punitive penalties. But it's all just been smallish iteration instead of innovation.

[Furiously]

How many years have people been waiting for chess 2.0? I've got news... It's not coming.

[Sky]

2.0 is the new 'new millenium'. I want to stab all the pseudo-technical shitbags that lurk in the corners of the library world who are fixated on web 2.0, library 2.0, reference 2.0.

Shut the Fuck Up 1.9, bitch.

[HaemishM]

How many years have people been waiting for chess 2.0? I've got news... It's not coming.

Checkers, bitch.  :-D

There have been an inordinate amount of board-based games that are not chess, do not resemble chess and feel nothing like chess that have been created since chess. I don't think "This shit is just like chess only with X" when I'm playing Chutes and Ladders.

Meanwhile, we've gotten exactly 3 models of MMOG. EQ, UO and Planetside. /sadf

[sam, an eggplant]

So EQ with a wiimote would be nextgen? Nah. And second life is just a graphical MOO/MUSH.

"Next-gen" is an artificial demarcation which doesn't really apply to a constantly evolving genre. It's easy to trace WoW's mechanics back to EQ and then to sojourn MUD, but each iteration added some pretty cool stuff. With various games exploring different aspects of that original game, eventually they'll iterate themselves into entirely new experiences.

On a different note, personally I find the diku mechanics pretty satisfying so long as there's tons of new content to consume. What I really want is a MMO with no raiding, no endgame at all, a MMO that plays like WOW's levels 1-69 forever. New dungeons and quests and lands and loot and levels to explore and conquer always just ahead, all hand-crafted and compelling. And how could you possibly sustain that level of content and advancement indefinitely? Why, player-created content and advancement through player skill, of course!

[Furiously]

My point is every MMOG out there is chess with different color pieces or a different colored board. Ok - ATiTD might be checkers and Planetside might be Risk.

But if you are looking for Nethack 3.645, guess what. It's still nethack. And a version number isn't going to suddenly turn it into something it isn't.

[HaemishM]

So EQ with a wiimote would be nextgen?

No. It would suck mightily. But an EQ world with a Wiimote for combat mechanics that had nothing whatsoever to do with hotkey specials, with various combos of swings and button mashing making for different special powers combos would be. Magic-users/ranged classes and skills would use an FPS style interface while melee would more closely resemble Red Steel with a bit more oomph to the interface.

Now THAT would be shit hot. Maybe on Wii 2.0.

[Furiously]

On a different note, personally I find the diku mechanics pretty satisfying so long as there's tons of new content to consume. What I really want is a MMO with no raiding, no endgame at all, a MMO that plays like WOW's levels 1-69 forever. New dungeons and quests and lands and loot and levels to explore and conquer always just ahead, all hand-crafted and compelling. And how could you possible sustain that level of content and advancement indefinitely? Why, player-created content and advancement through player skill, of course!

Other then the player-created I like this vision.

[Morat20]

How many years have people been waiting for chess 2.0? I've got news... It's not coming.

Nightmare chess can be pretty fun, though.

Back to the point -- there isn't going to be a "second-gen" MMORPGs. There's just going to be iterative development of MMORPGs, cannabilizing the previous generation's selling points in some places and innovating (ranging from the occasional 'brand new' approach, to new variations on an old approach, to simply getting an old approach to actually work for once). At some point, in the future, someone will draw a bright line on this fuzzy process and declaim "Everything before this is 1st Generation! Everything after is second!".

[sam, an eggplant]

There's a real justification for leveraging players to generate content. It's impossible to create an endlessly extending game without it. Look at TBC. That expansion only provides around 40 hours of play before you hit 70 and start repeating dungeons, raiding, and farming. You know, the sucky stuff. And it took two years to create. It's not uncommon for MMO players to play 40 hours per week. Reasonably speaking though, I'd say that adding content equivalent to TBC once a month would easily suffice. Can any dev house do that? No way.

[Nebu]

Can you briefly armchair design what you'd consider to be a next-gen MMO? You're great at eliminating games that you don't feel qualifies, but you don't really talk about what would. How would it actually play?

While you're correct about the core gameplay issue, here are a few things I'd need to consider it a reasonably new version of the original iteration.  Since I get to do this from my armchair with no burden of having to implement anything, here's where I'd start.

1) Combat that plays out in real time and isn't turn-based.  Defense should be as valuable as offense. Archery should be more than spells with arrows.

2) Actions that have a tangible effect on the world.  If I slay 10,000 orcs, I expect that has some effect on the orc tribes in the game.  

3) Mobs that level.  If I can gain experience, mobs should be able to as well.  

4) Avatars that react to the world.  Age effects, languages, learning.  

5) Weather

6) Proper scale that effects geography, horticulture, zoology, economics, etc.  If you're going to call it a world it should be more than a zone populated with static npc's.  Regions of the world should have regional flavor (Atitd anyone?)

7) Appropriate risk reward.  All reward is boring and all risk is penal.  

8 ) Meaningful specialization.

9) Skill-based play.  A skilled level 10 player will have a chance to beat an unskilled level 50 player.  Equipment should NEVER determine outcomes but serve to enhance play.

10) Large degree of customization.  I should know who a toon is by their look, not the name over their head.  

11) Living NPC's.  

12) Intelligent monsters.  If I'm killing one of your comrades, you should do something about it.  

13) Adaptive questing.  

14) Adaptive merchants.

15) Meaningful (and purposeful) PvP.

16) Customizable player housing and land ownership.

17) Player controled legal system (i.e. sandbox style Atitd)

18) Player accountibility.  

While I admit that many of these are simply features or rules tweaks, some require more.  Many of these have appeared in games already... none to the degree that I think are posssible.  Of course feasibility and cost are a huge part of the equation, but if I get to say what I want, then I don't have to wrry about being practical.

[Furiously]

Can you briefly armchair design what you'd consider to be a next-gen MMO? You're great at eliminating games that you don't feel qualifies, but you don't really talk about what would. How would it actually play?

9) Skill-based play.  A skilled level 10 player will have a chance to beat an unskilled level 50 player.  Equipment ONLY should NEVER determine outcomes but serve to enhance play.

I added only there, because if you bring a knife to a gunfight, you are likely going down. Then again if you sneak behind me and stab me. My bad.

[sam, an eggplant]

I added only there, because if you bring a knife to a gunfight, you are likely going down. Then again if you sneak behind me and stab me. My bad.

Well exactly, player skill is the equalizer. Knives should be just as effective as guns, they just play differently. Guild wars has an effective approach to this, treating abilities like cards in a collectible card game. EVE online supposedly does something similar too, where older players have a LOT more options open to them but aren't inherently more powerful than newbies.

[Slayerik]

What the hell ever happened to Seers and such (UO) ? That type of content can be great.

[Calandryll]

What the hell ever happened to Seers and such (UO) ? That type of content can be great.

Lawyers.

Plus it doesn't scale unless you are willing to really commit a lot of resources, money, and tools. As an industry, we don't spend enough effort building our own tools, let alone those for something like a Seer program.

[DraconianOne]

9) Skill-based play.  A skilled level 10 player will have a chance to beat an unskilled level 50 player.  Equipment should NEVER determine outcomes but serve to enhance play.

I agree with this except I think that levels should be history.  Levels imply a gaining of hitpoints/mana/stat increases etc.  Get rid of them.  The thing that differentiates a new player from an older player is reputation and experience and (if it's a system something along the lines of EVE - for want of a better example), more skills to choose from.

[Numtini]

What the hell ever happened to Seers and such (UO) ? That type of content can be great.

Lawyers.

I'm not sure that's ever been really tested. The UO suit was about volunteers as customer support, not game mastering. Game mastering is a part of the game, or at least it has been in Pen and Paper for decades. But after the CSR thing, everyone just fled.

If it isn't, TSR and The Chaosium owe me a TON of money.

[HRose]

Haven't you seen that the MMO genre is basically stuck at 3 years ago in 1998?

Fixed that for you. The MMO MEDIUM (not genre, goddamnit) has been stuck in a rut since Everquest was released. No matter what anyone tells you, there are no second generation MMOG's. WoW is the penultimate first-gen MMO and yet no one has pushed past that first gen. Warhammer will be first gen. Conan maybe MAYBE a second gen if only because of its release on the 360, but that's really only if it breaks the hotkey mash gameplay paradigm. If it's just class + level + mouse gestures, it'll be another shiny first gen MMO.

Okay, I agree. WoW moves on the same line but it has brought A LOT onto that model. So many things that now we don't even notice anymore because they became standard.

LOTRO doesn't. It doesn't advance the genre or the specific game model in any way. There are titles and other interesting gimmicks, okay. But it doesn't innovate NOR improve the model we had.

That's what I meant. WoW was just the same stuff, but it brought a lot to the table (argue with this, but don't expect me to reply). LOTRO is again the same stuff, but it brings nearly nothing.

[sam, an eggplant]

It wasn't really about volunteers as customer support, it was about volunteers being treated like paid employees and not being compensated accordingly. They were given strict shift schedules and supervisors then expected to do essentially the same job as paid lower level game masters, and all they got in return was a free play account. Sadly, that horrible lawsuit killed off all community involvement for years to come and substantially hurt the genre as a whole.

How can you get volunteers to work on your game without leaving yourself open to legal action? That's easy, don't give them anything with a monetary value in compensation and don't treat them like employees.

[Arthur_Parker]

BBC2 money programme tonight spent 30 minutes on online games, mostly 2nd life.  They also toured codemasters hq and said lotro had 100,000 subs in europe.

Found a link.

[HaemishM]

LOTRO doesn't. It doesn't advance the genre or the specific game model in any way. There are titles and other interesting gimmicks, okay. But it doesn't innovate NOR improve the model we had.

Nope, it sure doesn't. The gameplay is bland as dishwater.

[Venkman]

With that, I agree.

But, please, "generations" discussion again? There's simply too much breadth to this platform to talk about generations. Lineage 1 is gen 1 but Maplestory is gen 3 but Everquest 2 is gen 2 even though it is one UI-shift away from EQ1, which WoW is even closer to in spirit with some major casualization tweaks but came out later. Meanwhile Runescape's been handing everyone their shirt but isn't too far from UO but played in a browser with a 3D client but was much more expensive and years prior to much lighter stuff that's also clocking everyone like Club Penguin and Webkinz.

Come on.

You can only have generations when you have a clear dilineation laterally, across an entire industry. It's the main reason that only consoles can really have generations. And what with the Xbox360 launching a full year before the other two, even that's becoming hazy.

Leave generations to the marketing folks.

The dreaded (?) quest chains aren't all the burden some of you are trying to make them look. They are smarter than it seems, cause even in 5 or 6 stepped quests, there are usually (not always, but usually, like in most of the times) 75% of the steps that are solo.

No, the point is that multi-steps at all and the inevitability that a PUG or non-dedicated group of friends are at different steps along the way. They still need to catch up, which is a time requirement spent before one can hang out with their friends, and which is more prevalent in LoTRO than in WoW.

In fact what matters is the perspective of Turbine and Codemaster. Because their expectations were set that high.

You don't know what their expectations are. We don't know what anyone's is, numerically. From what we do know though, Turbine did not spend what WoW did (it was closer to 30-35mil, hard to assess since they have infrastructure to leverage), and has not launched as WoW did, and yet is hitting the exact same target audience that WoW did in a more condensed launch. No way they thought they were hitting multiple millions of accounts. LoTR is a strong IP, but it's been iterated so much it's like "Xerox" to "copy machines". The brand has become the verb. "Oh, you're making yet another tolkien-esque fantasy game? Oh, and it's a DIKU? Great! We haven't seen a dozen of those already! Bring it on!"

Blizzard can get away with that because of the 8 different success factors they have nobody else does, including collective expectations.

And because the REST OF THE INDUSTRY is watching this in the hope to see the genre still flourish so that they can get more funds.

No. The rest of the industry watched Blizzard and says "ok, that's it. That's the cap." They're wrong of course, but only because of the same myopia others have in thinking it's all about the flat-fee DIKU and not about the millions being made by those who do different things.

And no, I couldn't care any less who here likes what. I don't play Club Penguin or Webkinz. I prefer DIKU, or virtual lifestyle experiences that don't have sucky UIs or crappy code, and am quite comfortable with that. But the changes are already happening, all around us.

[hal]

LOTROL brings story. your in the books. If this is meanfull to you you are hooked.. It is the most compelling story ever. i am not playing it, I am playing EQ2 to the extent that I am playing at all. But i have played it and understood it. it is the best story ever. Very well done. It does what it set out to do.And well.

[Phred]

"Which is more fun" is not the purpose of this thread :)

/fakemoderator off

Take a group of friends or guild mates of a similar level who get together to do some quests. Guaranteed the first half of your evening is going to be catching up people in the group to where the rest of the group is so you end up spending half your time not getting quest experience at all.

This is the core problem with multi-step quests. WoW has the same problem, but has less multi-step quests. EQ2 has more of a problem, closer to LoTRO. Basically, multi-steps are designed for a more dedicated group of friends who stick to playing together (D&D style), for momentary pickup groups, or for soloers. It's not for the casual group of friends who occasionally like to group for common goals.

Talk about design for a narrow range of play styles. This is way worse than doing raid content IMO, because this fucks with people's leveling and I'd bet the number of people who fit in this narrow category is even smaller than raiders. Stupid design decision assuming they even noticed it while developing and/or intentionally targeted this tiny group of players.

I don't think it's the issue affecting LoTRO though. Rather, I think LoTRO is well-executed and fun, there's two core issues:

    * The general UI is more muddy than WoW. There's a disconnect between triggering an action and that action actually happening. It's like the game is run by an overt pendulum. Most MMORPGs are in fact, but others, particularly CoX and WoW do a much better job of hiding this.

Exactly. One really annoying example is the self haste on my champion. It's on a 20 sec timer but is spammable with 0 cool down. With the crappy feel of the interface, I need some visual timer to hint when to recast it. If the spell was on a 20 sec cool down I could just look at the button to see if the cool down was up and hit it again but no, I have to try to spot it's icon out of a bunch of similar, tinier buff icons on the opposite side of the screen from where I have the button set up.

    * A good percentage of Lotro  players came from WoW, and there's a good chance that was their first MMO. So not only is LoTRO their rebound game or just a raw curiousity, they're still probably feeling the pull of the friends and virtual goods they left behind. Add that to the superior polish of WoW in general (though different aesthetic), and it's not so hard to see the trend

Yup it's the little things that get you in the end, and while WoW wasn't my first MMO it was the most recent and the lack of polish gets really annoying.

[Phred]

11) Living NPC's. 

12) Intelligent monsters.  If I'm killing one of your comrades, you should do something about it. 

There rest of the list was the usual tired pie in the sky wishes but this struck me as the perfect solution to Blizzard's problem with gold farmers. They should hire all the farmers to play npc's and monsters. I'm sure even paying slightly more than the gold farming sweatshops it would be cheap. heh.

[Hound]

That's what I meant. WoW was just the same stuff, but it brought a lot to the table (argue with this, but don't expect me to reply). LOTRO is again the same stuff, but it brings nearly nothing.

Not expecting a reply here but just what new things  did WoW bring to the table? I cannot for the life of me think of a single thing, unlless the fact that it was soloable to 60 and had quest oriented game play could be considered innovative.

[Nebu]

There rest of the list was the usual tired pie in the sky wishes ...

You catch on quick.  If I'm going to suggest what I want in a "Next Generation MMO" they had better be "pie in the sky".  You're welcome to provide a better list... though I'm sure that belittleing the list of someone else is less work.

[Venkman]

Not expecting a reply here but just what new things  did WoW bring to the table? I cannot for the life of me think of a single thing, unlless the fact that it was soloable to 60 and had quest oriented game play could be considered innovative

Speed and engagement of gameplay, total soloability, content completeness through to the end, and the ability for a heck of a lot more people to actually achieve that end (only to be left with the unfortunate question of just what they should do once they get there).

This was ground breaking, though we could argue whether in a good way ;) No MMORPG before it except GW had such an accessible endgame, and GW's was mostly because you were there to PvP. Every other game with some sort of linear progression to an repetitious endgame filtered people out along the way through laborious grind requirements or general lack of content. But WoW lets almost anyone with a pulse hit the cap.

They just don't have anything to do for anyone when they get there but raid, alt or PvP grind.

LoTRO brings nothing new but a much more immersive story for the relatively fewer people who care, a more realistic ambient setting (which I rather like over WoW), and a messier experience that allows people to find their own way through then game, feeling like they're "cheating" or "hacking" (WoW feels more on rails by comparison).

[Merusk]

While I admit that many of these are simply features or rules tweaks, some require more.  Many of these have appeared in games already... none to the degree that I think are posssible.  Of course feasibility and cost are a huge part of the equation, but if I get to say what I want, then I don't have to wrry about being practical.

Single player games, or MMOs?  Some of that stuff tosses virtual economies right out the window.. others requires Holodecks or some kind of adaptive AI before we're even close to seeing it in games.

I like the mobs that level idea.  Of course, i also like the idea of limited resources, and mobs pick-up the stuff that previous 'dead' players dropped... which links into some sort of Permadeth and mobs as strong as players.   

At that point, it becomes a lot less fun to play, though.. so I don't bring that thought out very often.

 - Ed: You know, this whole line of discussion should probably be split out to the game design forum.

[Nebu]

- Ed: You know, this whole line of discussion should probably be split out to the game design forum.

There's really no point to it at all to be honest.  I just did it because someone asked for a list of features that I'd consider "Next Gen".  I apologize for the derail. 

[tkinnun0]

Not expecting a reply here but just what new things  did WoW bring to the table? I cannot for the life of me think of a single thing, unlless the fact that it was soloable to 60 and had quest oriented game play could be considered innovative.

Rest exp.

[tkinnun0]

Look at TBC. That expansion only provides around 40 hours of play before you hit 70 and start repeating dungeons, raiding, and farming. You know, the sucky stuff. And it took two years to create.

Let's say the two new races and the sucky parts account for about half of the expansion. Data goes in, management comes out: just hire 50 more expansion teams!

Seem like a big number?

Eliminate redundancies and develop better tools: 25 more teams needed.
Put a hard limit on the consumption of the very latest content at 20h/week: 13 more teams needed.