The MMOG landscape - unchanging and eternal (since 2004)

[Xerapis]

Seriously, trying to argue that D&D was more about roleplaying and less about combat?
 

Well, that depended entirely on your group and your DM. That's the joy and pain of PNP.

I'm sure some of us did it quite differently. Yeah, D&D pretty much always encouraged you to have a neat little 4-person party with a fighter, a cleric, a mage, a rogue. But lots of us didn't do that. Now, you didn't usually see a level one mage soloing because 1d4 doesn't really support that. But you could if you wanted to and your DM agreed. Your party could be anything. I can't be the only one who ran with a bizarro group even back in 2nd ed. Even back then we had people turning the Monstrous Manual into the Player's Handbook when it came to race and ability selection.

tldr: A detached clinical look at the basic tenets of D&D would support the origin of tank, healer, dps. But that sure as fuck isn't how I played it.

[Slyfeind]

Origin, sure. But it wasn't until 3rd edition that skill-monkey crappy-damage thieves were replaced by DippyYessing rogues, and fighters started wanting to be hurt. 1st and 2nd ed D&D led to MUDs where tanks and DPS started. Tanks and DPS led to 3rd and 4th ed D&D.

[Lantyssa]

A balanced party helped cover all the possible situations they might encounter.  It was never required, and almost no group I ran with had one.  Usually we had a band of misfits and we always managed.  The game was, ideally about having fun playing in a fantasy realm and not about making sure you dotted every 't' and crossed every 'i' in balancing your party.

That was EQ, and that was the origin of the term, "Holy Trinity".  Why?  Because it wasn't needed until then.

That's the argument y'all are dancing around.  Of course having one of everything makes the most balanced party.  Duh.  Riddle me this, Batman:  When was it required, and at the expense of fun?

[Xerapis]

It was, of course, only required once a computer had to make the fucking call instead of a human. (GOOD) DMs adjust the campaign to the players. MMOs make the players adjust to the campaign. For the computer, we have to fit in neatly balanced categories. The DM doesn't care if I want to be a Thri-Kreen Diviner. The MMO can't even begin to allow that kind of stuff, or it turns into Vanguard.

It's the same reason why we don't get any of the fun utility spells. Or truly nifty wondrous items. Because while it can handle the number-crunching a lot better, the fucking MMOcomputer can't respond on the fly to your party's decision to join the BBEG instead of fighting her.

Yes, I know, Holy Rhetorical Answer. But I'm grumpy and bored, and venting is fun. Now for a cigarette ^^

[Bzalthek]

Did clerics even have ranged healing?  If I recall it was all touch, and generally it wasn't a good idea to get in touching distance of the guy swinging his sword about (or the guy who was trying to kill him, who would love to swing at you too).

Healing was mostly done after the fact.  The only threat meter was  the whim of the DM.  (Oh sure, he had a logic on his side, but you knew he really just felt like it.)  Balanced parties rarely happened.  This is why you had a DM screen, so the DM could lie about the die rolls so the party didn't die 30 minutes into the session.  And generally, there was no running back to your corpse to rez.

[Nebu]

You guys really glamorize D&D.  THIS is a lot more like the way I remember it.  Lots of nerd fights, control freaks, and backstabbing.

[Lantyssa]

Yes, I know, Holy Rhetorical Answer. But I'm grumpy and bored, and venting is fun. Now for a cigarette ^^

No problem.  If it takes a clue-by-four +5 for someone to get it, I don't mind rhetorical answers emphasizing the point.

[Montague]

Did clerics even have ranged healing?  If I recall it was all touch, and generally it wasn't a good idea to get in touching distance of the guy swinging his sword about (or the guy who was trying to kill him, who would love to swing at you too).

Healing was mostly done after the fact.  The only threat meter was  the whim of the DM.  (Oh sure, he had a logic on his side, but you knew he really just felt like it.)  Balanced parties rarely happened.  This is why you had a DM screen, so the DM could lie about the die rolls so the party didn't die 30 minutes into the session.  And generally, there was no running back to your corpse to rez.

Clerics did not have ranged healing until 3rd edition, correct. (Discounting any splat book voodoo that I dont remember). Clerics also wore plate armor and shields, "tanked" almost as well as a fighter and could bring the heat if they felt like it and prayed for the right spells.

Lantyssa has it right. Tanking, healing, and dealing damage were otherwise known as common sense when playing D&D. The notion that you needed "A TANK", "A HEALER" and "DAMAGE DEALERS" is a MUD/Everquest invention.

[Wasted]

Lantyssa has it right. Tanking, healing, and dealing damage were otherwise known as common sense when playing D&D. The notion that you needed "A TANK", "A HEALER" and "DAMAGE DEALERS" is a MUD/Everquest invention.

I'm pretty sure you needed reasonably balanced parties in most DnD single player games, Pools of Radiance, Baldurs Gate etc.  There was always the concept that you needed a variety of roles. 

The taunting mechanic really is just to compensate for the fact that there isn't any collision detection in most MMO's whereas party placement/formation was a big tactical component of old party based computer games and DnD combat.  Fights are also larger on a scale of the numbers, you generally wouldn't have too many fights that were too healing intensive in a tabletop campaign (At least I don't remember planning too many that way) recovery was an after fight thing, if someone got near death it was a 'oh shit' moment and heals weren't just spammed out of hand.

It is mainly that because the numbers are larger they exagerate the roles of Tank Healer and DPS, and whilst there is some special tactics especially for boss fights, its the numbers which are the main way of making creatures 'harder' rather than all the theatrical elements you could use in a tabletop battle, as well as the fact that fights were long enought simply because of all the time people took to decide what they wanted to do, roll iniative and all that stuff which isn't present in MMO's.  You also fight less in tabletop DnD, a whole session might only have a few well done battles rather than the constant pulling and respawning MMO environment.  So when you increase the amount of combat (even though DnD and most roleplaying rulesets are combat simulators, you don't really need a lot of rules for the rest of the roleplaying aspects), increase the scale and focus of the numbers you make much more visible the roles that where always there.

[schild]

You guys really glamorize D&D.  THIS is a lot more like the way I remember it.  Lots of nerd fights, control freaks, and backstabbing.

This.

[Wasted]

You guys really glamorize D&D.  THIS is a lot more like the way I remember it.  Lots of nerd fights, control freaks, and backstabbing.

This.

I think most people know tabletopping is only ever good with close friends that follow the 'don't be a douche' homerules and respect each other.  I played for years with a close group and it was almost always just fun.  When I went to Uni and and joined some groups there yeah, I saw the other side.  It was less the fights and more them using the game as an outlet for all their pent-up nerd sexual frustrations that made me really hate the idea of ever playing with strangers again.

[ashrik]

From all that I can gather, DnD laid the obvious framework for the so-called "holy trinity", without necessating it. Similar to the way in which the musical slave traditions led to Jazz, so too did the notions of "I'm in the monster's face and you shouldn't be" led to the archtypes of tank, ranged etc. The earlier roots clearly inspired it, and are obviously very similar to it- but they are not the same.

Whether you thought of it that way while playing on the tabletop or Baldur's Gate was really entirely up to you and your group wasn't it? Let's put it to rest, eh?

[Slyfeind]

You guys really glamorize D&D.  THIS is a lot more like the way I remember it.  Lots of nerd fights, control freaks, and backstabbing.

That pretty much describes this whole thread.

[Ratman_tf]

You guys really glamorize D&D.  THIS is a lot more like the way I remember it.  Lots of nerd fights, control freaks, and backstabbing.

That pretty much describes this whole thread website.

Amirite? High-five!

[UnSub]

You guys really glamorize D&D.  THIS is a lot more like the way I remember it.  Lots of nerd fights, control freaks, and backstabbing.

That pretty much describes this whole thread website.

Amirite? High-five!

I would, but my rogue is currently pickpocketing your paladin's magical items.

[eldaec]

We're on page 8. I'm still waiting for someone to name a mmog that might displace WoW, EVE, CoH, or PS. Just saying.

[sidereal]

You're the only person that plays PlanetSide.  PlanetSide was displaced by Battlefield 1942, which is impressive given that Battlefield came out a year earlier.

As far as displacing WoW, about eleventy hundred billion dollars have been wasted trying to climb that mountain in the last 5 years.  Anyone who could confidently and correctly name a game that could displace it is instantly eligible for 50 million in startup cash.

[Ratman_tf]

You're the only person that plays PlanetSide.  PlanetSide was displaced by Battlefield 1942, which is impressive given that Battlefield came out a year earlier.

As far as displacing WoW, about eleventy hundred billion dollars have been wasted trying to climb that mountain in the last 5 years.  Anyone who could confidently and correctly name a game that could displace it is instantly eligible for 50 million in startup cash.

Halo Online. As in massivley multiplayer FPS with co-op and versus. Well, I don't think it would displace WoW, but I bet it could break the multi-million sub barrier.
I'll bet fake money that they haven't abandoned the concept.

[Venkman]

We're on page 8. I'm still waiting for someone to name a mmog that might displace WoW, EVE, CoH, or PS. Just saying.

Said before, saying again: Starcraft MMO.

Second place chance: Halo MMO, but only if it's on the Xbox 360 as well as PC.

Third place chance: Call of Duty MMO. But only because in 2007 I thought COD5 was going to be MMO. They were so damned close.

• 2004-2008 rules: Gamer-centric IP, gamer-respective autonomous developer, hands-off publisher, $75mil minimum, global launch (not just U.S. and some random EU country).
• 2008 rules addendum: wait until 2010 when the economy rebounds before pitching to VC. You guys though 2008 was a dead year for MMOs...
  
• 2012 rules future-dendum: browser based, even if it's thinclient full screen but lightweight graphics. Because the rest of us will be married off or parents so they need to hit the Gen Net Web 3.0 attention-deficit mtx crowd.

[Trippy]

We're on page 8. I'm still waiting for someone to name a mmog that might displace WoW, EVE, CoH, or PS. Just saying.

Said before, saying again: Starcraft MMO.

Maybe.

Second place chance: Halo MMO, but only if it's on the Xbox 360 as well as PC.

Third place chance: Call of Duty MMO. But only because in 2007 I thought COD5 was going to be MMO. They were so damned close.

No and no. You only have to look at the concurrency numbers for the most popular online shooters to realize that audience is much much MUCH smaller than the one for MMORPGs. E.g. if you add up the peak concurrency numbers for Counter-Strike (both versions) that's still more than an order of magnitude smaller than the PCU for WoW.

[DraconianOne]

No and no. You only have to look at the concurrency numbers for the most popular online shooters to realize that audience is much much MUCH smaller than the one for MMORPGs. E.g. if you add up the peak concurrency numbers for Counter-Strike (both versions) that's still more than an order of magnitude smaller than the PCU for WoW.

Bet if you looked at the concurrency whatevers back in 2004 for RTS games and Warcraft in particular, they would have given absolutely no indication of the subscription numbers WoW would/has got.

[Trippy]

No and no. You only have to look at the concurrency numbers for the most popular online shooters to realize that audience is much much MUCH smaller than the one for MMORPGs. E.g. if you add up the peak concurrency numbers for Counter-Strike (both versions) that's still more than an order of magnitude smaller than the PCU for WoW.

Bet if you looked at the concurrency whatevers back in 2004 for RTS games and Warcraft in particular, they would have given absolutely no indication of the subscription numbers WoW would/has got.

Doesn't matter, unless Darniaq was actually talking about doing a non-FPS Halo/CoD MMORPG.

[Venkman]

Nah, I was talking about an MMOFPS for Halo or Call of Duty. Only ever just for the  effect would I recommend a Halo MMORPG ;-) So you're right to point out the concurrency numbers.

But then I need to wonder about what those numbers were for Warcraft III when WoW was concepted. And yes, while even Blizzard was surprised by their success, they did still launched with more servers than EQ1 had at its peak, and that just in the U.S. I assume they took a measure of their entire Battle.net server instead of just the Warcraft crowd, but without the numbers to go by I don't know how much they padded it or were taking a shot in the dark.

At the same time, the reason I think Halo and CoD is because those brands have a higher awareness and greater respect with gamers than so many others. "Done right this could work!!1/1" Where "done right" means not making a generic and bland world for an RPG with twitch that ends up not appealing to either crowd.

[Ratman_tf]

Halo 3 sold about 8 million units. I don't have the numbers for how many people are online playing Halo multiplayer right now versus those who prefer the single player experience, but if you consider that a lot of people play MMORPGs as single player online games, then one might think that putting a PvE solo and co-op experience into a Halo MMOG may bring those players online.

The ones who are playing Halo3 PvP online are a shoe-in.

I definitley think a Halo MMOG would have much better sub numbers than AoC or WAR. It just makes more sense, considering the fans and the size of the audience.

And yeah. Making it cross-platform is important. So it probably would be an RPG-Lite, like Planetside or PS Online in design.

[Malakili]

Halo 3 sold about 8 million units. I don't have the numbers for how many people are online playing Halo multiplayer right now versus those who prefer the single player experience, but if you consider that a lot of people play MMORPGs as single player online games, then one might think that putting a PvE solo and co-op experience into a Halo MMOG may bring those players online.

The ones who are playing Halo3 PvP online are a shoe-in.

I definitley think a Halo MMOG would have much better sub numbers than AoC or WAR. It just makes more sense, considering the fans and the size of the audience.

And yeah. Making it cross-platform is important. So it probably would be an RPG-Lite, like Planetside or PS Online in design.

I think they'd just have to market it not as an MMO, even though for all intents and purposes it would be.  Most people I know that play Halo on a regular basis would just be like, oh cool, more halo with my friends, I'm in, and I can go anywhere and shoot stuff all the time!    If it was marketed as an MMO, i think it would actually get less players than if it was marketed as Halo 4

[eldaec]

And yeah. Making it cross-platform is important. So it probably would be an RPG-Lite, like Planetside or PS Online in design.

Is there a console MMOG yet? I'd have ignored if there was because, meh, console, and I guess it would have been simple enough not to overexcite this forum, but have I missed one along the way? Or are there any console mmogs in the works that people are taking seriously?

Is EQOA still running?

People keep threatening the damn things, but they all seem to disappear along the way somewhere. I'm really shocked SOE aren't into this, because buying shiny things with RL transactions is the perfect model when the client machines aren't sophisticated enough to drive it through complex game play.

[Jack9]

http://www.pso-world.com/

What's left of the Phantasy Star Online community. Private servers still exist, it seems.

Phatasy Star Zero is a DS title that has both an online and offline mode. I didn't look into it beyond that.

// always wanted to try PSO on the Dreamcast

[Ratman_tf]

Is there a console MMOG yet? I'd have ignored if there was because, meh, console, and I guess it would have been simple enough not to overexcite this forum, but have I missed one along the way? Or are there any console mmogs in the works that people are taking seriously?

Is EQOA still running?

People keep threatening the damn things, but they all seem to disappear along the way somewhere. I'm really shocked SOE aren't into this, because buying shiny things with RL transactions is the perfect model when the client machines aren't sophisticated enough to drive it through complex game play.

[UnSub]

Ratman beat me to it.

FFXI is on the PC, PS2 and Xbox 360.

[schild]

To be fair, FFXI played unlike any console RPG. It suffered from the opposite of consolization. Neckbeard syndrome or something. Playing it on a console is a laughable task.

If we're being technical, no there is not a console MMOG that actually plays like a console MMOG should play. Yet.

Upcoming is Blade & Soul, The Agency, Champions/STO (maybe, not likely) and a handful of other things that haven't been announced as being made for the console (or announced at all).

[Ratman_tf]

Yet.

Upcoming is Blade & Soul, The Agency, Champions/STO (maybe, not likely) and a handful of other things that haven't been announced as being made for the console (or announced at all).

Haaaaaaalo Oooooooonline.

[schild]

Yet.

Upcoming is Blade & Soul, The Agency, Champions/STO (maybe, not likely) and a handful of other things that haven't been announced as being made for the console (or announced at all).

Haaaaaaalo Oooooooonline.

Halo Online from Ensemble was very obviously a PC game that was going to be shoehorned onto the 360, much like FFXI and that's probably why it was dumped. Also, Ensemble knew exactly fuckall about what they were doing and look where that got them. :(

[Venkman]

Yea, FFXI always felt to me like PC MMO designed for a PS2 and then ported back (crappy UI and all) to the PC in some whack-a-do game of telephone.

[Senses]

Isn't it just possible, that the nature of MMORPGs is much like that of Highlander, in that there can be only one?  Unlike single player games where you play, are satisfied or dissatisfied, but reach some sort of conclusion to playtime one way or the other, the nature of these games is to keep you for as long as possible.  So you have a business model where players are retained, and even if a contender is good, if it is "considered" to be too empty, new players will never jump in.  Even when players become bored with the popular product they are reluctant to join the competitors for more than a month because once the arcade like instant gratification of the first few levels are over with, they simply don't feel invested enough in a secondary world to endure realistic grinds, level curves, or loot tables.

I think it is human nature to want to be in the most populated world, even if a better world exists, and while the users of this forum may disagree, they make up the small percentage of people that do in fact join secondary online worlds.  But even they know that its secondary, they simply rationalize it by playing for a month or two while scouting the horizon for the next *big* thing.  So, either this is an anomaly, and the death of WoW will bring about a great age of MMORPG production, or we will simply have to accept that our hobby can only generate one world per decade.  Whether or not its Blizzard that designs it is really unimportant.

[Yoru]

Metcalfe's Law still applies? Shocked, I say. Shocked.

When your product is essentially undifferentiated from your competition, then yes, the tidal influence of social networks makes the job of attracting and retaining players from the same pool very difficult. What's being said now of WoW is precisely what we said at the beginning of the decade about EverQuest, and the same still applies. Differentiate your product on the basis of fundamental features in an attempt to capture a "blue ocean" market, or pour in effort, time and money (for development and marketing) an order of magnitude above the existing genre king.

Games are not special animals in many regards; this is but one of them.