MMORPG's and content

[Gnome Eater]

There are two main approaches to how MMORPG's create content. The loosely called 'Koster' school of design believes in creating open ended mechanics and largely barren worlds, and letting players create their own politics/reasons to play, while the 'Pardo' school of design creates content that has its own reason for existing and offers a relatively straight-forward experience.

An example of a 'Koster game' done right would be a game like EvE online, where all the politics/wars in the game are determined by the actions the players take, and the main job of the developers is to keep the game balance sensible and add new innovations that give new twists between the player interactions. An example of a 'Koster game' done wrong would be anything done by Koster himself. (I don't like the guy, sue me)

An example of a 'Pardo game' would be of course World of Warcraft, where there are lots of beatifully handcrafted instances, a complex pre-determined storyline, and some of the most complex raid fights that require incredibly coordinations. An example of a horrible 'Pardo game' would be the entire LDoN expansion with the exception of the raids.

I am interested mostly discussing 'developer driven' games like World of Warcraft, and what content in those games means and what effect it has on the players. Even the most hardcore cynical MMORPG gamer absolutely loved levelling up in WoW the first time. The instances are amazing. Some of the quests were absolutely beatiful, and they did a great job of fitting into the storyline. The zones in WoW almost without exception (desolace) were really colorful, meaningful, chockfull of interesting details and never really boring.

EverQuest had some absolutely stunning content as well. Guk and Sebilis were some of the best dungeons ever made in an MMORPG, and several of its underused dungeons were also incredible, Kaesora was an absolutely stunning dungeon plagued by a completely horrible difficulty curve, and crawling through dragon necropolis at level 60 was incredibly fun and very very difficult.

The downside of developer created content is that players will always 'consume' content much faster than developers can create it. Even the best content grows stale very quickly when you run it multiple times. Developers thus try to use different techniques to keep players interested in running the content multiple times:

Different difficulty modes for instances that offer different rewards is one method: Heroic instances/Hard LDoN adventures. Items that require multiple runs to attain - LDoN adventure points/DoN tokens/Heroic Badges. Rare drops that require multiple farming runs to obtain (Atlesh (good), Warglaives(bad, fuck you piece of shit guild who gets a warglaive pair in 2 kills)).

Even with these incentives, hardcore players eventually will max out their character long before new content is created.

One of the great intuitions of Pardo was that you cannot and should not try to keep up with the pace hardcore players consume the content, but that the game should be balanced around the rate that the average player consumes content. This is a fine assumption, but players at the high end tend to be disproportionally vocal, and they tend to mostly relate to each other in an echo chamber. If you have been clearing black temple for 6 months and you don't need any other drops, eventually people will start bitching and quitting en mass out of sheer boredom. Several guilds fell apart between Black Temple and Sunwell simply because there was nothing to do PvE wise.

EverQuest tried adressing the problem of boredom at the high end by releasing expansions very quickly, which is why the quality of their expansions varied so wildly. Kunark, Velious, Planes of Power, DoDH were all amazing expansions, while Luclin, LDoN, Ykesha were pretty much utter trash. Blizzard instead tries to release further content in extra patches, and adds some serious PvP competitions that have eventually turned into a serious esport, albeit with some fairly serious balance flaws.

A common misconception is that with all the money Blizzard is making, they could simply hire a milion developers and crank out new content nonstop. This doesn't work for a few reasons: Blizzard has several key people who are in charge of content, and that's quite a serious bottleneck. Part of the reason why Blizzard's content is so good, is that a few key people are always overseeing the process - even if you take some enthusiastic young talent and make them work 100 hours a week, you will get utter crap unless they are properly supervised by actually experienced developers (think Vanguard).

What is the solution then? What do gamers want? Gamers like myself want something completely unrealistic: A huge amount of content with very high quality and polish, that is constantly released at a very rapid pace. Is there any way that developers can keep releasing awesome content at a fast rate? Can you have expansions at the rate that EQ released them with the quality Blizzard has if you throw enough money at the problem?

[Tyen]

ibtr

[kuldiin]

For some reason I was expecting to see a join date of August 2008

[Gnome Eater]

Originally Posted by Tyen

ibtr

I suppose it is a bit TL;DRish. QQ version is wtb more content that doesn't suck faster.

[Larion]

What really gets me is that back then when these boards where not flodded by the wow idiots that things like this where actually discussed............

But i guess things change.

[Wilfan]

Originally Posted by Gnome Eater

QQ version is wtb more content that doesn't suck faster.

Nothing more to say.
/thread

[Gnome Eater]

Originally Posted by Larion

What really gets me is that back then when these boards where not flodded by the wow idiots that things like this where actually discussed............

But i guess things change.

Ooops, missed what you were saying. Thanks I guess.

[kuldiin]

Does anyone actually stick with an MMO like they used to back with EQ?

I constantly go from one to another. 3-4 months in WoW, then EQ2, then whatever the latest is for a few months (ie AoC/LoTRO, then back to EQ2 for a few months, then back to WoW (and so on)

[Gnome Eater]

Originally Posted by kuldiin

Does anyone actually stick with an MMO like they used to back with EQ?

I constantly go from one to another. 3-4 months in WoW, then EQ2, then whatever the latest is for a few months (ie AoC/LoTRO, then back to EQ2 for a few months, then back to WoW (and so on)

Arena is pretty much what keeps me interested in WoW.

[Siddar]

Koster camp has lost this arguement because haveing allot of content in game doesnt preclude player interaction. The whole sandbox argument just seems to be a excuse to not actualy build content.

I also wouldnt credit the Pardo camp with being ones that understood first that the hardcore were allways going to burn through content faster then it could be created. I think both camps have understood that basic fact sense atleast PoP when raid guilds burned through lower levels of PoP before devs had time to finish the highend.

[SlyyDaugg]

Originally Posted by kuldiin

Does anyone actually stick with an MMO like they used to back with EQ?

I constantly go from one to another. 3-4 months in WoW, then EQ2, then whatever the latest is for a few months (ie AoC/LoTRO, then back to EQ2 for a few months, then back to WoW (and so on)

Same story here.

Some might say guys like us are just sick of MMO's but keep playing out of habit.

Me, I say there's things that are just missing from MMO's now, mainly forced social interaction.

In EQ, you were pretty much forced to be a part of the community. You had to be polite or the next thing you needed from class x,y or z might not be given.

Now all the rewards you would get for complying with those old rules are handed out on silver platters to anyone willing to log on and fart around ala morrowind. MMO's are mostly solo games now, and "grouping up" isn't really enough.

Once upon a time, an MMO was so incredibly compelling that you would literally beg a random player to travel 10 minutes to get your corpse out of the depths of hell at 3am (one of many examples).

Now you don't have to.

zzzzzzz

[Zarcath]

The thing about Koster's design philosophy is that, as I interpret it, he tries to create sandbox systems that allow the player to make their own content.

Pardo, I don't know what his philosophy is, but Blizzard isn't known for outside the box thinking. I would guess they follow something like "if it's not broken don't fix it".

Nothing is wrong with Koster's ideas, it's just that he's so far removed from players, there's a difference in what Koster thinks the players think is cool and what actual players thinks is cool. And in Koster's case, it seems like he tries to tell players what to think is cool. SWG was at one point on the road to becoming a really great game.

IMO, the design problem with WoW is that it there really isn't any open-end content that players can advance freely. There are a lot of bandaids in place that are designed to keep you playing. These come in the form of dailies, rep grinds, arenas and new seasons.

Case in point, Player Housing. It's a very "Koster-esque" concept, and at one point Blizzard did say we would have some form of it (of course this was in Beta when we were promised jetpacks and cool laser swords). Where it is now is anybodies guess. But I guarantee you, the day that player housing goes in, with a full range of player-made furniture and boss drop furnishing available, the player counts will skyrocket.

Think I'm full of shit? Just look at non-combat pets. Who would have thought little shit pets like that would catch on? They're the new carrots now. One day soon there will be non-combat pets dropping from end-game bosses or from the Arena.

[SlyyDaugg]

Originally Posted by Zarcath

But I guarantee you, the day that player housing goes in, with a full range of player-made furniture and boss drop furnishing available, the player counts will skyrocket.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. Housing quickly comes to mean exactly squat diddly doo-doo to anyone with a brain, just the moment they realize, "hey, there's no reason for anyone to come to my house."

When EQ2 first started, housing was all the rage. Woo-hoo, "Hey, come check out my house!" Everyone running around looking at each other's houses.

Before you knew it, it amounted to "Hey, inspect me - I'm uber!" No thanks, show off.

Cox does guild housing right, for sure. There's all kinds of reasons to be at your guild's base often.

What general housing needs to be a real honest-to god mechanic in MMO's, though, is in-house gaming. Poker, Chess, TCG's, whatever. Minigames that can only be played in a house. Give people a reason to gather at LegolasX's pad, ya know?

[Tancred]

I think Koster's model seems to create much stronger but smaller communities. Look at the crazy fools who stuck with SWG long LONG after the hordes had departed. And they still mourn the broken crap it was simply because of the freedom that was afforded in the areas of the game that were actually complete.

The WoW model has broader appeal. Larger, looser communities. WoW allows you to drop in and out more easily. It also has a significantly lower CS requirement as flexible, sandbox rulesets tend to allow more exploiting/griefing. Yes it's part of their appeal but it's also a double-edged sword.

I guess at the end of the day the relative popularity reflects humanity at large:
- Most people prefer a straightforward form of entertainment.
- If you let people express themselves you'll find out most of them are arseholes.

As for the content question? There will never be a game that makes content fast enough to satisfy the hardcore. Ever. Their entire goal is to "beat" is ASAP and check the "done" box. Devs could build content intended to be savoured over a longer period. They probably all ready do this. But the vocal hardcore are too busy wanting to tear through it quickly and start shouting "NEXT!".

[Warrik]

EQ had a strong community due to its design, but that was also due to the fact that it was pretty much the best in town at the moment and there were not many other places to go. Not because it was a beacon of stellar game design that pulled you back.

Most people forget all the advances that have been made since EQ and attribute alot to just WoW, but the fact is, Mythic brought ALOT to the table long before Blizzard.

DAoC introduced alot of 'new' concepts that the rest of the industry quickly began to adopt:

1. Player modified armor/weapons
2. Modes of transport between cities and waypoints accessable to all players
3. Removal of painful CR's
4. Meaningful PvP
5. A crafting system that was actually meaningful
6. Talent-like skill trees
7. Designated PvP and PvE areas
8. Quest logs
9. loot tier identification
10. The ability to Dye and customize your armor
11. PvP based public instances
12. Stealth
13. Quests for XP as the norm (99% of players in Everquest just grinded. There was no real emphasis on quests for XP.)
14. The ability to solo

This is not to say DAoC was a god among games, but I think it would be a shame to overlook what Mark Jacobs and Co. contributed to the MMO genre. It was shortly after this that Sony began to include many of the concepts found in DAoC into Everquest.

I am also fairly certain that the folks at Blizzard would tell you that DAoC had its influence on the design of WoW as they had their roundtables.

The reason it took a blockbuster to dethrone Everquest is not because Everquest was this monolith of gaming nirvana that had its community gathered at the foot of its throne staring at it with doe eyed affection. It took ppl a long time to build up their epeens in Everquest, and frankly, most were unwilling to walk away from that without real good reason.

Everquest had a strong community becuase it HAD to have a strong community. Mobs at the end game were taking upwards of 80+ players to kill, and there were no instances. Your guild had had to be able to mobilize and get to the prime mobs before anyone else, or your shit out of luck and have to wait the usually 7+ day respawn. Guild hopping wasnt an option, because frankly, there werent enough guilds that had the ability to function in the end game to afford ppl the luxury of burning bridges. Key quests were often long, painful and boring.

It was not fun arguing with another guild over a spawn. It was not fun spending hours farming mobs that droppped NOTHING of value in hopes that one will drop the necessary piece to a key quest that just one of your guild of 100 members can now have.

You couldnt really solo in Everquest unless you were a Hybrid class that could quad kite, the majority of players woudl have to seek out a good group and find a spot with a high spawn rate and good xp return. You would then sit there for any number of hours and kill the same Mobs over, and over, and over, and over...with no real loot to speak of. Just xp. And when you found a good group...you remembered their names. Why? Because dieing not cost you time you could be spending earning more xp, it cost you time you had ALREADY spent xping...a double whammy.

This is why Everquest had community. Hours of sitting at the computer doing nothing of interest left only one thing to do. Chat. Loooonnnggg chats.

So while most players miss the strong community found in Everquest, the means that Sony used to create this community were terrible and could hardly be called a viable form a game design any more. This would simply not work now. Players have matured and the Gamescape has changed.

Waxing nostalgic about the Koster system of game design is equivalent to a group of battered wives reminiscing about the good times they had.