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Yazi

Recently, I’ve thought a lot about the world of MMOs and, like everyone, I always wonder why someone doesn’t do this, or wish someone would do that. In my head, my requests don’t seem unreasonable, and while I’m sure that there is any number of technical, financial or other reasons that no one has come through, it is fun to examine each.

#1: I wish there was a six month phase between beta and launch
It is becoming more and more obvious as time goes on that no MMORPG can be fully considered to be “launch quality” until at least six months into its life, sometimes a year. Look at Age of Conan, which launched without some of the key features even listed on the box. Look at Warhammer Online that was forced to cut four careers pre-launch that made their way into the game over the course of the next year. Look at any MMO that has launched with bugs, missing content, unbalanced systems, etc. and it’s easy to see that “launch quality” and “launched” are not the same thing with MMOs.
My wish is simple. I wish that studios would recognize this gap between development and launch quality and do something about it. I am not, however, without a suggestion:
Here are the sticking points to keep in mind:
From the studio or publisher’s perspective, the game needs to start making money as soon as is possible. Investors need to start seeing a return on their money and the team has most likely just spent 3-5 years working on the game where money was running out way… out. That’s only sustainable for so long so the game has to launch.
From the player’s perspective, games are being rushed out the door and we, as consumers, end up having to pay full price while the dev team works as hard as they can to get the game into the shape that it should have been at launch. Why should we pay full price for an unfinished product?
The solution is simple: Offer players a severely discounted rate between beta and a launch-ready date six months to a year after beta. While players balk at the idea of paying $15 a month for a pre-launch quality product, they might be more willing to accept a fee of $7 to play it in its current state.
Here’s the important part: Dev companies would have to refrain from dialling back the quality of the pre-launch quality product. The post-beta quality would have to stay the same as it is today. Players would also have to accept the fact that while near-fully functional, the game is not launch-ready. They would also have to accept the idea that after six months, their subscriptions would have to go from $7 to $15.
It might seem unreasonable, but that is my wish


#2: I wish MMO expectations were better managed
I touched on this a little bit in wish three, but it’s important enough to devote an entire wish to:

No caption necessary
Why does it feel like every single game that is launched these days fails to live up to the massive hype that surrounded their development? The answer is simple: unmanaged expectations.
MMO PR and Marketing departments have become very good at manufacturing a great deal of hype and excitement about their games. So good, in fact, that by the time a game launches, there’s no way that it can live up to the monster that was created by the Marketing department and the word of mouth campaign. The trend recently has been for games to launch with stellar box sales (AoC and WAR) and then fail to retain a vital portion of those players when it comes time to renew subscriptions.
This problem stems from the fact that the first rule of marketing a video game is that nothing negative must ever be publicly said about the game. Because of this, every word that comes from the developers, while not lies, can be quite misleading.
Marketing, however, isn’t completely to blame for unmanaged expectations. There are also word of mouth campaigns started and perpetuated by over-enthusiastic followers of the game in question. These are groups of players who write post upon post in MMO and video game forums raving about the best features of a game without ever mentioning the problems, no matter how small.
The solutions are simple: Developers should be allowed to be honest about their game’s progress, whether it is positive or negative. “Ya know, at launch our PvE system is stellar, but that PvP system we talked about still need some balance. Heavy PvPers may want to wait and pick this game up in 3-6 months.”
Players are going to figure it out eventually anyway, and while managing expectations might seem counter intuitive, it might actually help to retain more players over the long run.
The same can be said for the over-enthusiastic players out there. It’s fine to talk about the best aspects of your favourite upcoming game, but for the sake of those who might follow behind you, be honest and open about concerns that you might have or aspects of the game that might not be so shiny.

#3: I wish that there was a more obvious distinction between Big Studio and Indy MMOs

That little Indy Studio is just
lucky EA's a plant eater
An independent movie known as The Blair Witch Project cost $22,000 to make, but grossed just under 250 million dollars. It was a rare exception to a general rule: Everyone notices the big shiny studio-made blockbusters while anything made by an independent crew has to jump through many, many hoops just to get noticed. The same is true for MMOs. Often, independent MMOs come and go unnoticed by the general public.
Unlike in movies, it seems as though an independent MMO that garners the attentions of the mainstream audience isn’t destined for a multi-hundred million dollar profit and is instead doomed to over-harsh criticism. You see, the problem is that as soon as an upcoming MMO is brought into the greater public consciousness it is treated like and compared to its multi-million dollar big studio made counterparts. It just isn’t fair and it isn’t accurate.
By and large, independent MMOs are built by much smaller, less experienced development teams working on budgets that are powers of ten lower than the studios get. They are often prone to more bugs, less content, lower quality graphics and a host of other issues that make them seem inferior, but it is in the independent MMO movement that the largest possibilities for real industry innovation reside. While high price tags and large, experienced dev teams are nice, being small and self operated means that you don’t have large investors breathing down your neck, looking for a return on their investment. You don’t have a host of benefactors pointing to the 600lb gorilla that is WoW saying, “they make money. Why change a money making formula?”

The truth is that, just like in films, Independent MMOs and Studio MMOs are entirely different beasts. The problem is that they often aren’t treated that way. The press tends to either ignore indies, or put them in the same pile as all other MMOs, the public does the same and often independent developers who get any interest generated will present their game as though it were Studio built without managing any expectations. Be honest about your dev abilities, and charge a lower fee. Show people that there is a viable alternative and they’re likely to try it out.

#4: I wish they would stop making IP MMOs
It feels like every second MMO these days is carrying some kind of external IP with it. I mean, look at the upcoming titles: Star Trek Online, Champions Online, World of Darkness, Star Wars, Stargate (assuming it’s even still in development), heck, even World of Cars and Hello Kitty Online. We’ve even seen announcements stating that Firefly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer were getting MMOs (though I’m pretty sure both projects are dead). Last year, the big releases where Age of Conan and Warhammer Online. Then of course there are Turbine’s offerings of Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online. Let’s look even further back at SoE’s Star Wars Galaxies and The Matrix Online. The list goes on.

Stop stealing from Hollywood,
use your own ideas!
All of the above games, with very few exceptions, have one thing in common: They failed to meet their own hype and player expectation. Hype and expectation brought on in no small part by the strength of the IP that the game is based on.
That fact aside, making an IP MMO makes it hard for players to know who to blame when they’re disappointed. See, the initial instinct is to blame the developers, but the truth is that there is an intricate dance happening behind the scenes of an IP MMO between the IP holder and the developers and most of the time, it’s the IP holder that’s doing the leading if you catch my drift.
Generally speaking, the IP holder gets final say on pretty much everything about their MMO, sometimes that’s a good thing, sometimes it’s a very bad thing, but in the end it’s really just one more cook in an already crowded kitchen and the diners are left wondering why the meal tastes so thrown together.
Yes, IP MMOs look good to an investor. Something familiar that already has a built in fan base looks like it should be in a position to make money. Does that mean that churning them out one after the other is a good idea? No, probably not.

#5: I wish I could make me
Every year, I have a tradition. It’s a bit sadistic, but for some reason, I keep doing it. I go out and buy the newest version of THQ’s Smackdown vs. RAW annual wrestling game. I don’t do it because they’re stellar games. In fact, I believe they’ve allowed both gameplay and story quality to steadily decline each year. I don’t do it because I’m a huge wrestling fan, I’m not. While I do watch casually, I’m just not that into it, fact is that the only piece of WWE merchandise I own are these damned games. I don’t do it because I have a secret crush on the girl who works at GameStop, I’m happily married and my wife says I can’t do that anymore. So, why do I drop $60 every year?

Jon Wood and his crew in The Agency
The answer is simple: I can make myself. If I have the time and the inclination, I can sit in front of that character creator for hours and create a very reasonable Jon, all 5’6” of densely concentrated awesome, kicking ass and taking names. Plus, I’ve always wanted my own theme music.
Catchy tunes that are too cool for me aside, I want to know why I can’t have the same experience in a role playing game. Sure, this all might be an exercise in ego, but it’s my $15 a month and I want to watch a virtual me cut down some virtual boars. It’s how I’d like to play.

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/3235/Five-MMO-Wishes.html
http://www.mmokolik.com/?p=406