Come to Gaze Upon Me, Have You?

It's out today.

The game structure is basically just Diablo 2, but with an in-game lobby for finding groups, conducting business, etc. You get a group together (or get some NPC hirelings) and go into an instanced zone to fight. Like Diablo 2, it's more of a persistent-character game that you can play with a group of other people than a massively multiplayer game.

I didn't find anything in the game that appealed to me -- didn't like the look, didn't enjoy the gameplay of any of the classes, didn't find the PvP compelling, didn't think much of the loot system, didn't fight any particularly interesting enemies.

But hey, there's no monthy fee. I think a lot of MMO-newbies will go for this game for that reason ("hey, it's World of Warcraft with no subscription cost!"), but it probably won't have much staying power.

SOE recently banned several hundred accounts for "botting," the use of programs that play the game for you.

Mythic followed suit, banning several hundred accounts for using a "radar" program that let you find and kill other players that you normally wouldn't be able to see.

This situation reminds me of politicians when an election is getting close. They all try to show how tough they are on criminals--shrinking their food portions, taking away their TVs, demanding longer sentences, etc. And the primary purpose of this exercise is not to cut down on crime, but to score points in a popularity contest.

SOE could have introduced Station Exchange with a lot less controversy if they'd been smart about it.

First, the initial information they released suggested that it could be implemented on existing servers. Even someone who, like me, is in favor of the Exchange can recognize a stupid idea like that a mile away. The fact that you could move OFF the server if you didn't like it is just adding insult to injury. If they had put out a clear, consistent message from the beginning, it would be much easier to take Sony at their word that this system will not affect the economy of servers where anti-Exchange people play. Instead, they caused confusion, consternation and an initial hostile attitude that "Oops! That isn't what we really meant!" won't dispel.

Second, if the system had been part of the game from the start, it would be much easier for people to accept. There would have been concern about it, but people wouldn't feel like SOE was trying to pull a fast one on them.

Mark Jacobs of Dark Age of Camelot weighs in on the Exchange:

http://biz.gamedaily.com/features.asp?article_id=9464

Cynics might dismiss this as just a potshot from a competitor whose subscription numbers are waning, but it is worth looking at.

Here is a quote that summarizes the article:

"One, it will lead to frustrated players if their items get deleted or SOE has to make server changes; and two, it will also encourage the secondary market, which is exactly the opposite of what SOE is trying to do. "

The first concern is true regardless, and the second concern and the accompanying assertion aren't necessarily true.

It will encourage for-cash trading on Exchange servers, no doubt. However, SOE has been surprisingly clever in its approach to this, setting it up with a pre-emptive maneuver. They banned a large number of accounts owned by companies that sell virtual items and money. This move gives these companies a huge incentive to conduct business primarily on the Exchange instead of on all servers.

Well, wouldn't it keep them off the normal servers without Exchange, anyway? No, they would not give up such a large source of income; they would simply charge higher prices as risk to their capital investment went up. They may still do that...but when prices go up, the equilibrium point intersects at a lower point on the demand curve. In other words, the higher the price of platinum, the less people will be willing to buy. On top of that, the ready availability and enticing legality of far cheaper items on Exchange servers will shift the huge majority of these sales to those servers.

The assertion that Sony wants to prevent the secondary market is probably false. My personal guess is that SOE doesn't care one way or the other about the secondary market except in terms of whether it is good or bad for their profits. At one point they did, because the opponents of it were so vocal, and SOE wanted to make their customers happy in order to maximize subscriptions. However, as with most sensible businesses, money speaks even louder than the most prolific forum ranter. If there were no acceptance and high demand for these types of transactions, companies that offer them would not be taking in millions of dollars in revenue. Clearly, many players support the idea, but because of the stigma and potential "blacklisting" in game (or 1-star posts on the EQ2 forums) by the self-proclaimed judges of MMO ethics, they keep quiet. And being a sensible business, SOE came up with a way to keep everybody happy, except for the people who are rarely happy anyway, and make money in the process.

For a company that is so unwilling to advance in terms of actual gameplay, SOE has come up with some great features outside the game itself.
- First MMO to release an expansion pack
- First MMO to offer a premium monthly service (EQ Legends)
- First MMO to offer extensive player stats and accomplishments on the web (beginning with EQ Legends, now a separate and larger system)
- First MMO to sanction the sale of virtual items/characters

Oh, hold on a second. I'm not so sure about that last one. No, that one is definitely wrong. Let's see...
- 10six (now Project Visitor) sold "jitter packs", which were basically booster packs of random items, for cash
- Ultima Online sells built-up characters through its "Advanced Character Program"
- Project Entropia exchanges real and virtual money for a fee
- Second Life and There both sell virtual currency directly, as well as participating in and allowing other types of real-money transactions

I'm not aware of how well-received these systems were when they were implemented, but the fact that they still exist must mean that the companies behind them are satisfied that the money made from them (and possibly customers attracted/maintained because of them) outweighs the dissatisfaction/attrition of customers against them.

Of course, if designers would make these games more about skill and less about stats, this issue would be far less important.

Alternative title: Nerds Gone Aggro.

SOE's latest common-sense addition to the game has riled up a few people.

Bring on the lawsuits. Cancel those accounts, but be sure to give the world your Station account name first so that it can be hacked.

It's even worse than when Adventure Packs were announced (I should post on those next).

So what horrible crime against the player base did SOE commit this time? They've announced that they will be putting up new servers with a secure buy/sell mechanism that allows players to exchange virtual items and real money. There will be no effect on existing servers, except that players there get a small window to move to an "exchange-enabled" server when it goes live.

This idea makes a lot of sense to me, and it is something that I included in a game concept I did two years ago. You make the people who want to advance quickly happy, you make the people who want to sell stuff happy, and you make Sony happy because they get a % of the transaction and have fewer customer service problems.

The argument against it is that it is cheating, illegal, and morally wrong. Well, it was against the rules when there were rules against it, but now it is not, at least on the servers where it is enabled. And even when it was illegal, there was a thriving black market that Sony was essentially helpless to fight. For the player who doesn't like his game "polluted," this change will have practically no effect...aside from shunting away the undesirables to other servers.

I see this issue as being similar to the "War on Drugs." In both cases, you have a group of people who want to legislate moral behavior, even if no one is being hurt. "But this will increase bot farming!" is the equivalent of "But drugs make people do bad things!" If you do something that negatively effects someone else and is against the law, you should be punished for that, not for whatever someone claims led up to that.

The anti-exchange crowd seems to think that your motives for playing a MMO must be "pure" for you to be allowed to play. Even though farming is allowed by the rules, you're WRONG for doing it, according to them. If you decide that the sole reason you want to play is to buy and resell items on the market ("tunnel rat" was the EQ1 term), something that the rules allow, people will whine incessantly that it's WRONG. If I decide that I want to put a group together that spends 24 hours a day hitting all the raid-level monsters in the game and then putting the loot up for sale (or giving it to people who didn't "earn" it), the anti-exchange bunch would rail against me and talk about how I wasn't playing the game right, etc. Or maybe I could charge real money for admission to that guild (which has been done, and is within the rules as well--or more accurately, is outside SOE's domain).

All these actions have the same effect as selling in-game items for money; they let people who "didn't earn it" advance faster than people who put in the requisite time and effort and who formed "legitimate" uber-guilds (i.e., guilds that exist to get loot for themselves only). And all these actions are perfectly legal. And the anti-exchange group hates them all.

Why is their reaction so hostile, escpecially in cases where it does not affect them personally in the least? It's because they play the game primarily for the feeling of accomplishment it gives, not because it is fun to play or because they like roleplaying or whatever. When they see other people with much more virtual wealth/status and putting in far less effort, it doesn't seem fair to them and they get upset. The MMO mentality can be summed up in this equation:

Success = time spent + guild quality

When people see others succeeding without putting in the "work" and/or joining the right guild, it makes them angry...because it cheapens the days upon days of "work" they've done to improve their character and get into/put together that elite guild. You see the same attitude from members of top guilds, who resent "zerg guilds" that can accomplish all the same feats without having the great equipment, superior planning, etc. You can't tell them, "it's just a game" because when people derive feelings of self-worth and accomplishment from anything, it is important to them. (This is another problem that results when you make a game to appeal to hardcore players.)

The item buyers and the anti-item-buyers are the same in this regard; one group buys virtual status/wealth with money, the other with time and effort. Pouring extensive amounts of real resources into playing a game doesn't seem like a healthy or well-adjusted way to live, in the first place...and getting upset because someone has a richer/more powerful character than you (on another server, no less) without "earning" it is going to be an exercise in frustration, because it is going to happen regardless of what SOE does.

If you don't like it, there's another game where success = time spent.

Getting loot without having to kill anything first is heresy.

The article doesn't say anything about the AC or stat bonuses.

Maybe it's just taken me a while to notice, but there's been some work done on making solo loot more interesting. Previously, it was limited it to useless "vendor trash," or items that are useless aside from the money NPC vendors will give you for them. There were also a few quest-starting items, which were worth even less because of their minimal rewards.

I've seen some items with actual stat bonuses and such dropping now, even if they are still not items that anyone would use. It's a step in the right direction.

However, the typical solo loot is still very dull, especially the normal monster drops. You get the same 2 or 3 junk items from every monster of a given type, plus the "lore and legend" items. These items are the same from level 1 to level 50...the higher level ones are worth more than lower level ones, but they have the same looks, the same names, the same drop rates, etc. For example, every skeleton in the game drops "a skeletal hand" as its common drop and "a femur" as its rare drop.

This is bad for two reasons. First, in a game where you do and see the same things over and over for hundreds of hours, you need as much variety as you can get. The loot system is one opportunity to add variety (and at a very low development cost, too). Second, there is no feeling of progression derived from the loot system. You get more powerful, you should be getting better/more interesting loot. In EQ2, though, the high level "common" stuff looks exactly like the low level "common" loot, except in the Sell Item interface, where the NPC vendor will offer different amounts of money based on the item's level (which is otherwise invisible to the user).

Because EQ2 and games like it rely so heavily on the appeal of character advancement, all the game systems that are related to character advancement (such as loot) need to be done right. Diablo 2, for example, succeeded almost solely on the strength of its loot system alone, as the rest of the game was average. My guess is that most of the problems with the loot system (there are some more mentioned here) are a result of the game being shipped before it was done. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say that a lot of the items just had stats generated randomly, and the intent was to go back and fix them later...which of course never happened. If not, then they were certainly designed to be balanced, rather than interesting.

You shouldn't create balanced systems with the intent of adding the fun later. You should make fun systems and then balance them afterwards.

To quote the Reverend: "Short answer: yes, with an 'if'. Long answer: no, with a 'but'."

Let's look at the mainstream MMOs that use existing IP (intellectual property):
- World of Warcraft (Warcraft games)
- Sims Online (Sims games)
- Matrix Online (Matrix movies)
- Everquest II (Everquest)
- Lineage II (Lineage)
- Asheron's Call 2 (Asheron's Call)

Three of these games are sequels to existing MMOs. All three of them failed to attract many people other than those playing the original. When Lineage II came out, for example, Lineage lost about as many subscribers as Lineage II gained. The same is true of Asheron's Call 2 and Everquest 2. This seems to be a fairly simple and logical sequence. The lesson? Don't make MMO sequels. Or don't make dull MMO sequels that change little about the original game besides the graphics, at least.

My guess is that the numbers for Matrix Online are pretty weak, probably comparable to the Sims Online or worse. Both these games are based on successful non-MMOs; if TMO and TSO were not MMOs, they could probably sell pretty well even though they are not very good games (as Enter the Matrix did), just because of their names. What it is that makes people willing to buy bad non-MMOs but not bad MMOs? Is it because people are pickier when they potentially have to pay more money in the form of monthy fees? Is it because some people consciously avoid MMOs? Is it because MMOs aren't advertised as much as other games and rely on a hardcore, plugged-in segment of the market? I'm curious.

That brings us to Warcraft. It, too, is based on a successful non-MMO. However, there are some key differences between it and TMO/TSO. First, Warcraft already had a large, devoted online player base, so the jump to MMO was not as drastic. The big problem with the Sims IP is that it is not suited for a MMO, as the Warcraft IP is. The Sims is just a well-known name for playing with virtual dolls; there is no background story or reason for the world to exist. There are no familiar characters or places, just a bunch of user-created content that is simply not compelling for pretty much anyone but the users who created it. Warcraft has (relatively) well-developed characters, story, settings, etc. The Matrix has these things, but critical disdain for Enter the Matrix and the last two Matrix movies hurt the appeal of the Matrix IP. Plus, World of Warcraft is simply a much better game than TSO and TMO, especially in terms of how easy it is to get into.

Here's what I would conclude: When you make a MMO based on existing IP, the IP only benefits you if your game is good and the IP suits your game. There's no doubt that WoW is more popular because it's Warcraft and not just some patchwork of fantasy cliches (sorry, Everquest). But I think if it were as dull and unwelcoming as TMO, the IP wouldn't save it--a big difference from non-MMOs.

Lots of changes, as has been the case with every "big patch" that comes out about once a month nowadays.

Some good stuff that caught my attention:
- Quest Paths: there are some new quests that are set up in a progression. You finish the first quest in a series, and then you're able to get a second, related quest (possibly from a different NPC). This is a suggestion I made [EQ2 forums access required] a few weeks ago. Was it my suggestion that prompted this addition? Not likely, but it's nice having things you want put into the game regardless.

- More Accessible Instanced Zones: Artificial restrictions are always a bad thing; designers should work around them as much as possible, using other methods to ensure game balance. From what I am reading, there are a bunch of places that now only require one group member to be "flagged" for the whole group to get in. This change definitely makes it easier to get people together for one of these excursions; previously, you had to run through the quest all over again for your groupmates who hadn't done it yet (or just go somewhere else, which is what happened 99% of the time).

- The Plague event: I don't know much about this, but it looks like a serverwide quest. Apparently, a plague is affecting everyone (including NPCs), and there is some way of eradicating it. I remember Horizons had something similar, where you would catch it from anyone you got near that had it, and only Dragon PCs could cure it. It was annoying, but maybe EQ2's handled it better (by not draining your stats horribly, for instance).

There are also some additions to the trade skill system, but at this point, any effort put into the existing system is pretty much a waste. The sooner it's scrapped and redone, the better.

It's 16.99 at Outpost. I imagine that they make far more money off subscriptions, per user, than retail sales. Add in adventure pack sales, web extras and word-of-mouth sales, and it's not hard to see why SOE is taking a hit at retail to get more people playing.

My guess is that the only people who bite are the ones who are already playing an EQ-like MMO (FFXI, EQ, AC, AC2, DAOC) and now have an excuse to try a different game (it's cheap, 30 days free). I don't think a lot of people who never played an MMO before will buy it.

They aren't powering through the content, that's true. They come with another problem, though. They get bored easily. They move on to the latest and greatest game with nary a look back. Instead of whining for months on your message boards (and keeping their accounts active the entire time), they just stop playing and move on to greener pastures.

What can you do to hold their interest (and keep collecting their money through subscription fees and expansions)?

The most effective solution may be to offer varied types of gameplay. If you've made a game that offers nothing but combat, and that combat does not even appeal to regular gamers, you'll have a hard time attracting a large player base. Add sub-games or other unique content that offers the player a different experience but the same feeling of advancement as the main game. These additions can attract players who get bored with the main game or who aren't particularly enthusiastic about it in the first place. (If they are poorly designed or implemented, however, they are a waste of resources.)

Let's say your main game is all about real-time combat. Have secondary games that focus on strategy, management, social interaction, etc. Each game should still help the player advance in some way; you shouldn't make players have to choose between having fun and advancing.

EQ2-specific examples:
- A full-featured virtual pet system. The pets themselves are already in the game, but they are just decoration right now. In this sub-game players would have the ability to train, feed, discipline, etc. their pets. The pets would grow and advance, and players could take them to the local pet track & field center and compete against other players' pets in multiple types of competitions. Spectators could place bets, and other designated players could act as the bookies. There could be special "pet dungeons" and quests where your pet does all the fighting, and you give commands. In addition to getting pet-specific loot and other rewards, your pet could get experience/loot for you as well.

- The ability to own a specialized business. Instead of merely setting up shop in your inn room, you could open a casino, a racetrack (see above), or any number of potentially fun ventures. You'd have to pay various startup and upkeep fees, rent, etc. and would need to bring in a decent amount of business to stay profitable, or you could just do it as a hobby and fund it with your loot from adventuring. There are plenty of great spots already existing in the cities to put these businesses.

- Arena battles. You face off against a semi-random NPC or NPCs, and your win/loss stats are kept. You could fight through Mortal Kombat-like ladders, winning prizes if you reach the top, and perhaps gain status points as you would for doing guild quests. There could be special items sold only to players who are successful in arena battles. This system would provide "instant action" and allow player to advance in a way they don't with the main game

- A Magic-like strategy game. You find the "cards" (or whatever you want them to be) either as the normal "collectibles" lying around, in stores, as loot, as prizes for arena battles or petcompetitions, etc. There could be unofficial and official tournaments with prizes, rankings, etc. You could have special businesses players can open that can host these games or sell official packs/decks (obtained from NPCs, which will sell to you if you have the right business license).

These are just a few examples of additions to gameplay that would attract a different sort of people to the game, or that would maintain the interest of people for whom the combat-centric main game has gotten stale.

Traditionally, MMOs have appealed mostly to the people who can play them dozens of hours every week. This is not an optimal business model.

Here's the pattern: first you spend years making a MMO and filling it with content. Within weeks, the hardcore gamers have powered through the content it took you years to make, and they're loudly complaining and clamoring for more.

When the genre was not as competitive, you could just release an overpriced expansion pack and make big bucks off these people. Now, however, the industry standard is to provide continuous "free" updates; if you don't, you look bad (WoW). Expansions have to make significant gameplay changes/improvemnts; if they just add new content, people aren't happy.

The most obvious solution is to build a game that appeals to the kind of person who won't "win" the game so quickly. The ideal situation for a MMO is to have lots of happy subscribers and to have nobody online. Of course, this situation is about as real as the ol' frictionless pulley of negligible mass. The closest you can get is having a bunch of subscribers who are pleased with the game but who play only a few hours a week--casual gamers.

Why is this good?
- Lower server/bandwidth/maintainance costs
- Content lasts longer
- Bigger potential market
- Less complaining/bad word-of-mouth

WoW is somewhat appealing to casual gamers, at least compared to other games in the genre, and this (in my estimation) a large reason for its eye-popping subscription numbers. The Sims Online attempted to appeal to this group, but it lacks the necessary instant gratification and arcade action.

EQ2 is starting to try to appeal to this group, but it strikes me that they simply do not understand how. They've been focusing on pleasing the hardcore people for so long that all their experts are not of much use in this area. They need good video game designers, not experienced MMO designers. And the "Everquest" name probably hurts more than it helps among the casual crowd, who know the franchise primarily as something that causes fat, pale-faced geeks to disappear into their rooms for weeks, breaks up marriages, and kills Koreans who play too long.

The upcoming update to EQ2 will change most/all quest reward items to no-trade. This is exactly what WoW does; quest items in WoW are "Binds when picked up".

There are good reasons for doing this: it lets the quest designer give people good items as rewards without making it so that anyone can walk up to the broker and pick one up for a few silver (which makes other items of the same type useless, dropping demand for crafted and looted items). It also encourages people to do quests for the items they want instead of just buying them.

It's an idea that works well in WoW, but it will have some disadvantages in EQ2. EQ2 is basically copying one part of WoW's overall system exactly, but without the rest of the system it doesn't work nearly as well. Here's why:

- Unlike in WoW, quests in EQ2 typically don't give good rewards right now. And given the work it would take to update all of them to be worthwhile, we can safely assume that 99% of crappy quest rewards will still be crappy after this update. And now you can't sell them on the broker, either.

- This wouldn't be so bad if NPC vendors would pay reasonable amounts of money for these items. They don't (unlike WoW).

- As a result, people won't want to do quests, unless they know for sure what they are getting at the end. In WoW you are almost always told ahead of time what the quest reward is, so it isn't a problem there. EQ2 players will instead flock to spoiler web sites to find the reward to see if the quest is a waste of time or not...and while they are there, they'll look up the spoiler for all the quest steps, too.

- If people approach quests this way, not only are you breaking immersion by encouraging them to stop playing and go do research, you're also defeating the whole point of quests. Instead of venturing into something unknown and exciting, people are going to look at quests (even more) as a series of tedious chores they must complete, because they were (essentially) forced to look up the quest/reward and already know what happens in each stage of the quest. They are also much less likely to appreciate any story elements, NPC personality, etc. when they do quests like this.

This is why I am concerned about EQ2 copying things from other games wholesale. Some things, like the mentoring system, are well-executed and have huge upsides and almost no downsides. Other things, like the solo instances and this upcoming change, should be refined and thought out more before they are implemented.