The Five Sins of MMO's

[Mrbloodworth]

This is not my work, the original is here, i stumbled across it in my forum whoring. I thought it worthy of discussion.

INTRODUCTORY ANCEDOTE (MAY BE SKIPPED)
My experiences with MMO’s are mediocre. Each one has given me a reason to quit, despite the initial fun. Eventually the fun wore off and I began to ponder the question: Why does the fun die out in these MMO’s? I consider MMO’s to be a superior genre of games because of the opportunities for socialization on a massive scale. MMO’s allow us to form new friendships and cooperate with each other to overcome obstacles. Sounds fun, right? Well it should be.

Admittedly, I never made it far in MMO’s. I never reached max level in any of them, I never became rich, I never had good gear, nor have I ever made too many friends. Why you ask? You see, I would usually play a MMO with somebody I know in real life. However, a trend began to develop in my gaming. It always turned out that that somebody, whom I will call Jon, always got better gear and had more money. Despite my discontent, I would have to sometimes survive on his hand-me-downs. This trend was concerning and I initially assumed my gaming incompetence. To test that assumption, I began to compare my gaming with Jon.

I found myself to be underachieved because I would become disinterested with some content of the MMO. Jon would usually out-quest me because most quests in MMO’s did not fulfill my lust for adventure. The quests were repetitive, especially when I had to redo them with an alt, and I would be discouraged to finish quests. I would always be poor because the crafting systems in some MMO’s were not engaging enough and farming was a meaningless time-waste. Likewise, grinding, if it did not seem to have any purpose in the game besides buy your time, was stressful, especially when the combat system is not too interactive. Simply, I found these MMO’s to be dissatisfying. My expectations for fun, grand adventure were ruined and I would eventually give up.

But I came to an epiphany. It was not I who was incompetent! It was the game’s fault. MMO’s tried to make me give in to it’s allure by seeking to trade-off my expectations. But I stuck with my expectation that MMO’s should be fun. Therefore, superior-than-me players may think they feel accomplished by continuing to play these MMO’s, but that can’t be further from the truth. That’s right Jon, the last laugh is on you.

FIVE SINS
Well, what makes MMO’s not fun anymore? I’m glad you asked. One day, sitting on my chair in front of my computer while watching TV, it dawned on me, as if directed by God/Jesus/Zeus/Xenu himself, that there are five ways a MMO can be ruined. It also dawned on me to call them sins. Thus, I present to you, the Five Sins of MMO’s:

1. Cookie-cutter outfits: Technically, a lack of customization which ruins gameplay. By this I mean there is isn’t a large variety of items of benefit available to players. This usually occurs with outfits, hence the name of the sin, instead of weapons or spells. These items benefit the player in some way by helping the player along the game such as piece of armor for protection. With a lack of variety, all players can expect to go through consistently similar paths as other players. In other words, the game becomes too predetermined by the items. This is best illustrated with Final Fantasy XI. I’ve heard FFXI players say they felt like they were ‘pushing a picture around’ instead of playing their own character. As an ex-FFXI player, I understand this feeling of predetermination. A counter-example is pre-endgame World of Warcraft with its larger selection of items for characters to adorn.
NOTE: Only those customization options which affect gameplay are accounted for. Selecting skin or hair color in most MMO’s will not ruin the game; therefore, they do not count. It follows that if there is no customization selection at all (all players are forced to look the same) this would not count as a sin because it does not affect the gameplay.

2. Overabundance of Filibuster Quests: We are all familiar with the ‘fed-ex’ quest. They are those quests where one is assigned to deliver an item. Filibuster quests also include grinding quests, where one is expected to kill a number of mobs, or drop quests, where one is expected to kill mobs for a number of items they drop. I will allow that a MMO, or any game, can have these quests but if there exists an overabundance such that it ruins the game, then the game has committed this sin. The quests do not further any meaningful aspect of the game, are not well incorporated into the game, and only a few become rewarding. These quests become ‘filler’ content, hence filibuster, by being an excuse to buy your time unnecessarily. This is especially obvious when the quests are simplified by being stripped down to handing the player arbitrary assignments. The type of quests may repeat itself which is mindlessly tedious, especially when one redoes them with an alt. Many MMO’s commit this sin, such as World of Warcraft. As an ex-WoW player, I remember many moments when I felt like I was ‘grinding quests’. Eventually, I just stopped caring about my fellow NPCs’ needs.

3. Pointless Grind: The key word in this sin is ‘pointless’. A grind can be good fun but if it’s not well incorporated into the theme of the game, such that it is obvious filler content out to buy your time or there is lack of an interactive combat system, then it has committed a sin. Progression through the game becomes monotonous. Killing hordes of creatures in the wild, for no meaningful reason, eliminates the fantasy of the game. A counter-example is FFXI. It is my opinion that the grind in FFXI was very well incorporated into the mechanics of the game. To me, that game was about working as team, relying on each other’s abilities to face many dangers.

4. Unbalanced pvp: This occurs when the classes of a MMO have a ’rock-paper-scissors’ dynamic. By class I mean that which we can consider as tanks, castors, healers, warriors, rogues …etc. One class is made to be superior over another class, but is purposely made to be weaker against another. The imbalance can come from a class having insufficient abilities (spells or special powers) or having inferior attribute stats to handle another class. The degree of skill allowed in pvp is part of this sin because imbalances would not be an issue if players could use their skills to compensate. But if the MMO’s combat system does not allow enough interactivity, then players are forced into another form of predetermination. In this case, pvp is pointless. Only the easily amused could enjoy such mindless stimulation. WoW suffers from this sin. A counter-example is Guild Wars’ pvp system which allows for more skill, diversity in abilities, and diversity in attributes.

5. High Inflation: Ridiculously high prices not only toughen the game for new comers but it can allow aspects of the game to be exploited. In the latter case, most MMO’s are created with a certain amount of game credit in mind, and prices for items and services are based upon that initial amount. In most, if not all MMO’s, prices for items and services always remain the same and do not account for the inflation produced ridiculously, rich players. These players are king. If prices for ingame services are no problem then why even slap a price on them? You might as well make all services free and have a completely free open market. A contributor to inflation includes those that we know as ‘Chinese farmers’, whether they be Chinese or not. In short, if developers neglect to deal with the forces which cause inflation, then this sin is inevitable.

Woa! You probably didn’t read any of the above, but wait, I’m not done yet. The label of a sin is only applied to that aspect of the gameplay mechanics itself which ruins the MMO. By this concept, a sin would not include non-gameplay related issues such as players who misbehave because they do not affect the actual gameplay mechanics. True, a misbehaving player may ruin your day, but it doesn’t change that the gameplay mechanics could be set up to have the potential for fun. I argue that an MMO that has at least one of the Five Sins is one whose gameplay was not made to have the potential for fun.

WASTED EFFORT
Using those sins, we can identify those MMO’s which are no longer fun, but what’s that you say? You say you’re still having fun playing those MMO’s despite the sins? Yes, we are aware of those who spend countless hours persevering in these games. They state that they are enjoying themselves and retort those who claim the contrary as being ill-informed. We’ll see about that.

Some gamers can stick with it. How can they enjoy such mindless insanity? That is something I do no absolutely understand but I have my theories:

1. Perhaps those gamers have a greater constitution than I. They can endure the harshest, most repetitive grinds or quests and still keep going. Maybe their metabolism is such that they do not feel stress or boredom. Maybe their lives are so mundane that a ruined MMO is somehow their only solution for escape. Whatever the case, to those strong willed people, I salute them. Brave men all.

2. Perhaps they are easily amused. They may be new to gaming or they may be children. They may also have a mental condition.

3. Perhaps they have invested too much. They are veterans who played the game for years and refuse to admit their game’s inadequacy and that they spend their efforts for nothing.

4. Perhaps they are pressured or have false hope. Media hype or social influence, in real life such as friends or in-game such as a guild, may give one a reason to continue playing despite issues. The solution could be to move to another MMO. The dedication of ‘fan boys’ can be enough to persevere. Examples include those blizzard fan boys who ardently hold WoW highly or, more generally, an anime fan boy who holds a MMO highly because it has an anime art style.

I suspect theory 4 to be the majority of the cases, if not the sole one. I included theories 1, 2, and 3 just to give people the benefit of a doubt.

Now these theories only apply if the MMO has been determined to be not fun due to the existence of at least one sin. If the MMO was truly good (it commits none of the sins), then it wouldn’t matter if people were easily amused or gave in to media hype. A player must honestly ask himself/herself if they would find any satisfaction playing the game without any of the theories listed above. If this is not the case then that player must admit the MMO’s inadequacy.

EVALUATION
To finalize, the sequence of MMO evaluation is:
1. Detect for any of the five sins in a MMO, if a sin is detected then the MMO is not made to be truly for fun
2. If a sin is detected and people still play, then it is because of one of the four theories
3. Laugh at their wasted effort

IN CONCLUSION
So there you have it, my crackpot idea. Will this bring light onto the issues of MMO’s and revolutionize gaming for years to come? Will I become king? Am I simply not cut out for MMO’s? What would Ashton Crawford do? The world may never know. But it has come to my understanding that there are three types of people in this world: Those who can count and those who can’t.

[schild]

In b4 "lol codemasters forum poster."

[schild]

lol codemasters forum poster

[Mrbloodworth]

In b4 "lol codemasters forum poster."

Hay now, there are some good points in there that i have seen echoed many times here.

[schild]

In b4 "lol codemasters forum poster."

Hay now, there are some good points in there that i have seen echoed many times here.

Fair point, so what the hell made you think it needed repeating from some guy off in the middle of fucking nowhere making a treatise on a forum that no one who actually cares about MMOG should even be reading?

[Draegan]

I glanced over the thing and I just went "duh". 

Now who's going to order me chinese food?

[Mrbloodworth]

In b4 "lol codemasters forum poster."

Hay now, there are some good points in there that i have seen echoed many times here.

Fair point, so what the hell made you think it needed repeating from some guy off in the middle of fucking nowhere making a treatise on a forum that no one who actually cares about MMOG should even be reading?

Its my last day at this job, and i am bored at work and thought it would make a good conversation piece? 

[schild]

In b4 "lol codemasters forum poster."

Hay now, there are some good points in there that i have seen echoed many times here.

Fair point, so what the hell made you think it needed repeating from some guy off in the middle of fucking nowhere making a treatise on a forum that no one who actually cares about MMOG should even be reading?

Its my last day at this job, and i am bored at work and thought it would make a good conversation piece? 

You were wrong.

[SnakeCharmer]

1. Cookie cutter - Art is expensive.
2. Content - Costs money (art, programming, writers, etc).  And no we can't make procedural content generation on the fly.  Yet.  But we're working on it, and should be put in live next month.  
3. Grind - need to keep you around (i.e. keep paying us), during which time we hope you make friends that you'll feel a certain amount of guilt and/or miss them if you quit (paying us)
4. Lack of balance - We'll fix it next month, we promise.  Just pay us.
5. High inflation - We can't properly code The Lorena Bobbit Sword of Doom correctly, and you want us building a proper working economy?  The fuck?  We'll fix it next quarter.  We promise.  Don't cancel.

[Draegan]

*Ahem*

Chinese food.

[Mrbloodworth]

lol FINE!

[SnakeCharmer]

Its my last day at this job, and i am bored at work and thought it would make a good conversation piece? 

Don't forget your miniDHD replica.

[Mrbloodworth]

Its my last day at this job, and i am bored at work and thought it would make a good conversation piece? 

Don't forget your miniDHD replica.

Already put all my do-dads in the box. No DHD replica however.

[Yoru]

Someone clearly didn't lurk enough.

[Slayerik]

About the cookie cutter outfits thing....Some people played UO just for the dress up (houses and paperdoll). Why such a lack of customization in today's games? Seems like a fairly easy option to have implimented.

[mutantmagnet]

I don't know. Ask the Spellborn team for insight. One of their goals was variety of outfits and they had years to do it, yet they couldn't be arsed to give players something as obvious as cloaks and robes.

[kildorn]

It's pretty brutal on system specs to have every one of the hundred people in the nearby hub area to have entirely unique art assets in addition to any cost of having an artist make them.

I'd prefer if the bank didn't take 15 minutes to finish loading, personally.

[Xurtan]

About the cookie cutter outfits thing....Some people played UO just for the dress up (houses and paperdoll). Why such a lack of customization in today's games? Seems like a fairly easy option to have implimented.

Didn't UO only have the one race, and limited model animations?  I would imagine it's much harder and time consuming now. Creating an item so it works for each race, and then each gender of said race. Any and all animations, dye jobs, etc. *shrug* Not to mention people expect texture instead of just plain colored robes these days.

[mutantmagnet]

I argue that an MMO that has at least one of the Five Sins is one whose gameplay was not made to have the potential for fun.

Overall I think this was a great read but I fail to grasp why the underlying point of this statement is important.

As much as I would prefer these sins are avoided I question how this relates to the main theme of this topic which is "games with these deadly sins force people to quit."


The reason I question it is that the MMOs that have continued to grow since I last checked this past summer had atleast one of these sins. If an MMO is overwhelmingly entertaining in one aspect then it serves the needs of the people who want to focus on that aspect of the game.

WoW typifies this point I'm making. It is successful, because the devs listen to their players, but the playerbase is so varied and fractured in tastes anything they do to fix one aspect of the game leads to them dissatisfying another group. They can't cater to all tastes at once. For all the flak I and others have given them for dropping the ball in making the game more fun, they deserve credit for making the game more fun for others.

[SnakeCharmer]

It's pretty brutal on system specs to have every one of the hundred people in the nearby hub area to have entirely unique art assets in addition to any cost of having an artist make them.

I'd prefer if the bank didn't take 15 minutes to finish loading, personally.

I've heard that before, but never really bought it.  Admittedly, that might be my game development ignorance speaking.

What does it matter if it's 100 red shirts with short sleeves versus 100 mixed?  It's still 100 shirts regardless.

Now, I can see where it's time consuming for an artist to rough them out on a piece of paper, then draw it up using whatever tools they have at their disposal.

[Nevermore]

About the cookie cutter outfits thing....Some people played UO just for the dress up (houses and paperdoll). Why such a lack of customization in today's games? Seems like a fairly easy option to have implimented.

I'm convinced that the only reason CoX is able to stay a moderately successful niche game is because of the enormous amount of player customization is has.

It's pretty brutal on system specs to have every one of the hundred people in the nearby hub area to have entirely unique art assets in addition to any cost of having an artist make them.

I'd prefer if the bank didn't take 15 minutes to finish loading, personally.

Get an SSD, noob!

[Slayerik]

oh so a chest-piece colored with the following hues that are yellow and shaded:

Hue 1: 223
Hue 2: 245
Hue 3: 247

You are saying they would have to redo more than changing the hues to the blue range?

Hue 1: 423
Hue 2: 445
Hue 3: 447



I'm no coder, but there has to be an easier way than manually changing the color of something 100 times.

[Yoru]

It's pretty brutal on system specs to have every one of the hundred people in the nearby hub area to have entirely unique art assets in addition to any cost of having an artist make them.

I'd prefer if the bank didn't take 15 minutes to finish loading, personally.

I've heard that before, but never really bought it.  Admittedly, that might be my game development ignorance speaking.

What does it matter if it's 100 red shirts with short sleeves versus 100 mixed?  It's still 100 shirts regardless.

Now, I can see where it's time consuming for an artist to rough them out on a piece of paper, then draw it up using whatever tools they have at their disposal.

If you have shitty engineers, it's the same. If you don't, then your engineers will employ something akin to the Flyweight Pattern, so each model is only loaded into memory once. Otherwise, you have to put a copy of every single fucking shirt into RAM (and potentially video RAM, which is even more dear).

If everyone has a different shirt model, two different boot models, a different cloak model, a different hood model, a different beard model, a different face model... well, you're getting the idea now, aren't you? There are ways to achieve customization effects without loading a different object into memory each time it's used, but that's more detail than is warranted for this discussion.

[Ard]

oh so a chest-piece colored with the following hues that are yellow and shaded:

Hue 1: 223
Hue 2: 245
Hue 3: 247

You are saying they would have to redo more than changing the hues to the blue range?

Hue 1: 423
Hue 2: 445
Hue 3: 447



I'm no coder, but there has to be an easier way than manually changing the color of something 100 times.

I'm a coder, but not a graphics coder, so I might very well be speaking out my ass here, but isn't the primary limitation draw time and memory allocation, and the fact that non-unique items can just be copied and cloned, versus having to redraw new unique items for everything on screen?

edit:  beaten like a hooker in times square because I didn't stop to read the new messages

[Mrbloodworth]

Memory foot print.

[Yoru]

You're also wrong in that you still have to draw and texture and light the triangles for every single shirt, regardless. You can't just "clone and copy" them. What customization via unique models/textures does is bloat up memory usage, and some CPU (or GPU) time by applying unique transformations.

There's also network bandwidth to take into account. If everyone has twenty sliders that affect their body shape, then you're transmitting twenty more variables across the wire for each person. And then those twenty sliders have to be used to calculate slightly different variations on your base object when applying your transforms.

[Goreschach]

No, what he's talking about is basically palette swapping. But most MMO's already have some form of that, be it reusing basic armor designs or allowing people to dye their stuff.

[Fordel]

I'm convinced that the only reason CoX is able to stay a moderately successful niche game is because of the enormous amount of player customization is has.

Absolutely. It's pretty much the only reason I ever played it at all. That and flying.

[TheCastle]

The logic boat was missed on many of those points. Its also funny to see someone comment on FFXI grind being integrated in the game because of teamwork while the basic trend shown by square themselves is to reduce that very thing and go more into faster more rewarding solo experience points.

As far as memory limitations and color of armor Slayerik was dead on correct. Color shifting on gear is viable system to save lots on memory.
Also keep in mind that one of the main ways to deal with memory limitations has always been to simply not draw anymore people once the limit was hit. Imagine the PS2 being able to fully handle 700 player battles with nearly every type of weapon and armor present with an additional 100+ monsters roaming freely through the zone raping peoples faces.... Only problem is that you are walking around sometimes wondering why that monster is flipping out like he walked into a spiderweb.

[sidereal]

Stumbled onto this on a forum, too.  Thought we might want to discuss it:

I never liked to PVP from early '99 when I started playing UO. It added an element of excitement and real danger to UO, and that I liked. I learned how to defend myself, joined a good guild, and learned not to behave stupidly. What made Trammel necessary was the gank squads running around res killing newbies. This behavior made the non-pvp interested players bitter and angry. My wife spent her early days around Moonglow killing bunnies then hinds to build skill and earn her way in the world. She had nothing and got murdered numerous times. There was no profit in killing her. She was killed simply because her murderer wanted to have a negative impact on her life. Some people that are red and into PvP love competetion. Those people are probably the remaining PvPers in UO. If you want a fight someone on equal terms you can find it in the game. If you want the perverted thrill of killing someone at a great disadvantage who does not consent, those times are gone. Everyone says they were around but they don't act like the remember. UO was full of 13 year old jerks who got off on blood lust. I miss the trill of real danger. I loved those times! That being said, I don't want to go back. That world was a society without law inforcement. The consequences for murder were mild and most people found ways around them. It was the wild west and it couldn't last. Look back fondly. Remember the good times. But be real. There were real reasons for Trammel. It had to be.

No, Trammel didnt have to be. Its called, those would couldnt handle getting PK'd should have left the game or learned to deal with it and survive. You got PK'd, boo hoo. Run to town, rez, re-gear, then hunt down the SOB who killed you, cut off his head, then lock it down on the front steps of your house. I got PK'd plenty when I was a newbie. But at least I had the brains to NOT GO BACK TO MY BODY, because logic told me, gee, that person probably picked the corpse clean, best to just forget about it and get some new stuff.

Your wife got rez killed by a red? The only way that could have happened is if she rezed outside of town near the PK OR she was stupid enough to let the red rez her then kill her over again. Otherwise, she would have ran back to town and rezed there where she would have been safe. I mean, for F'ks sake, it was freak'n' Moonglow! The town wasn't that far away!

And heres a little blast from the past for you, Reds couldnt enter town and if anyone attacked her there, the guards would have killed them. And PS, running back to your corpse and getting killed by it again isnt getting rez killed, its called your dumb noob ass was stupid enough to think that a PK would leave anything on it to retrieve. So obviously you have no idea of what rez killing was or you're just lying and exagerating in general to justify the carebearization of UO.

There was law enforcement. I couldnt count how many times I went PK hunting with a group of Anti's that lived near me. As a matter of fact, there were a good number of anti PK guilds around who went to dungeons for the sole purpose of killing Reds. It was good fame and karma gains, plus the gold didnt hurt none either.

Its players like you who need their hand held for everything that ruined UO.

[Soln]

tl;dr


I just discovered that acronym.  It needs an emoticon.  WALL-o-TEXTS

but yeah, otherwise, obvious. 

[Mrbloodworth]

Stumbled onto this on a forum, too.  Thought we might want to discuss it:

Stuff

See, i wouldn't have even posted that.

[Soln]

well struck

[Ratman_tf]

In b4 "lol codemasters forum poster."

Hay now, there are some good points in there that i have seen echoed many times here.

Fair point, so what the hell made you think it needed repeating from some guy off in the middle of fucking nowhere making a treatise on a forum that no one who actually cares about MMOG should even be reading?

Its my last day at this job, and i am bored at work and thought it would make a good conversation piece? 

You were wrong.

We could talk about SWG! I hear hologrinding wasn't a very good idea.

[Slyfeind]

Stumbled onto this on a forum, too.  Thought we might want to discuss it:

Wah wah.

Wah wah wah.

As a counselor the day Trammel/Felucca happened, I can say pretty confidently that it was the PKs that ruined PvP, not the victims. (False Edit) Oh you were being sarcastic!