MMOs made giant leaps to get us to where we are today but now we have stopped. We have fallen into a business model that either keeps the game the same or drives a hype engine that leaves us wanting what is not being offered. We need a game changer. We need something to break free and send us to the next generation. Let's start with a quick ride through MMO history which will bring us up to where we are today and what needs to be done to get us to the future.
History Lesson
MMOs were credited with being created nearly 40 years ago in 1973 with the game Mazewar. The game was little more than blips which players could control over the precursor to the internet.. A few years later MUDs and D&Ds were released which sparked the tender for the build up to what we have today.
The first generation started with Neverwinter Nights by AOL was released in 1991 and included a full graphics interface along with a massive subscription fee of 6 dollars an hour. Ultima Online bested it by giving us full 3D environments with a fixed camera. It also brought the fees down to a reasonable level. The first gen ended with EverQuest which standardized the way MMORPGs are played today. It brought in a fully rendered 3D world, 3rd or 1st person view, set the bar for the graphical UI, and structured the game exactly as we see them today.
The second generation brought us games built around PVP like Dark Age of Camelot and a well deserved upgrade in graphics and gameplay. The genre also expanded to Sci-Fi games with Eve Online and Anarchy Online. The Asian market started to expand and come to life with Lineage II and Final Fantasy XI. Closing out the second generation was City of Heroes which brought us major innovations in gameplay and included the most robust character creation to that day.
The current generation of MMORPGs started with an enormous leap in complexity and graphics upgrades with EverQuest II and World of Warcraft. Both games were highly successful at launch but World of Warcraft ended up blowing everyone's expectations away in terms of subscriptions. Guild Wars was released a few months later with a free sub plan and received moderate attention. The MMORPG world came to a halt after 6 months of excitement. The next 3 years was very uneventful and was flooded with "quick buck" MMOs that were cheaply made to lure players in with great expectations only to leave them with a sour taste in their mouth and minus a few bucks for 3 months subs plus the cost of the retail box.
The next wave of big-budget MMOs included The Lord of the Rings, Age of Conan, and Warhammer Online. All had high expectations but only one had a bug free launch. Both Age of Conan and Warhammer launched to massive hype but ended up not living up to what was expected and currently they are both trying to reinvent themselves to stay afloat.
The Attack of the Clones
This brings me to where we are at today. The big MMO in the room has a good thing going for it financially. The userbase of WoW is 11.5 million strong and Blizzard seems to not want to mess with a good money maker. The game was very innovative and different when it came out but its age lines are starting to show. Blizzard wants to stick to WoW for the long term and I don't see them making enormous changes any time soon. A new expansion here and there for the next 5 years is all that is to be expected.
What is sad is the glutton of "quick buck" MMORPGs which continue to flood the market. The developers throw together a game within a year or so, hype it up as a wow killer or something very innovative and unique then put it up for sale far before those promises are realized. They make money from the retail box and perhaps get a few months of sub fees then they are on to the next game to hype up. Rinse and repeat. It is a lot easier to make a crap game and hype it than to spend years on a big budget game which may or may not be well received. A prime example is Vanguard Sage of Heroes. The game's budget was well over 40 million but it was launched broken and was quickly reduced to a bargain bin game. It is easier, less risky, and more profitable to make a subpar game on a small budget and milk the fans then move on.
Sadly this business model leaves us gamers in a bad position. We now only have to choose from successful but older games or over hyped low budget games that may or may not be worth our time. No longer do we see massive innovations or huge changes from the norm. We see clones of older games with a slightly new twist.
The Next Frontier
What we need is something game changing. The graphics have been updated, the gameplay is fine, the quests could use some work but are decent, and lag is practically a non-issue. However the environments and the way players interact with them needs to change. The developers need to work on a game that uses a simulation engine. By this I mean they put all the rules in place and the game generates the content using the rules established by the devs. This gives it a realistic feel and nothing is copied. Diablo did this in a VERY basic way. Generated dungeons, armor, etc but it uses simplistic prefix/suffix rules to do it. I mean set up the world, natural laws, material specs, and add a bit of chaos in there then let the game and the players make itself. Every server would be a completely different experience.With a simulation type engine they could also disrupt the worlds by having catastrophic events take place that change the landscape, like earth quakes, tornadoes, fissures opening, weather changes, etc. These would come about through the natural laws governing the game. People could learn what conditions set these off to better prepare for them and perhaps sell that service. The possibilities are endless. The best part is that we have the mathematics, physics, etc to build an engine like this. It might even take less time in the long run since the dev doesn't have to build every single thing into the game. Set up the natural rules and let the game work itself out.
We also need to get away from super easy games. We don't need quest helpers. We don't need our hand held. We want to explore, conquer, and be rewarded for our curious spirit. To make a game rewarding it must also be somewhat punishing as well. The higher the risk the better the rewards feel. I'm tired of seeing myself coming and going, we need uniqueness in the games and we need skill recognized.
The MMO arena is stagnant. We wait for expansion packs that keep us busy for a few months or a hyped up game that might leave us 100 dollars poorer only to have wasted our time. We need a game changer. We need something so radically different that it brings us directly into the next generation of MMOs. I am waiting and see nothing on the horizon that will do that.