Exploring the design process. What makes a successful MMO?

[cyscott]

I’ve been in the process of trying to break down the important elements of MMO design. I’d appreciate any comments on the list below and any additions anyone may think of.

Exploring the design process. What makes a successful MMO?

Defining Successful:

Monetary Goals
Artistic achievement / satisfaction

Draw (getting customers):
Visuals/Sounds
Wow factor
Story Line
Fantasy factor
Combat
Endorphin factor
Exploration/Discovery
Adventure factor
Crafting
Builder factor


Net (keeping customers):
Social
Friends
Chat
See and be seen
Ownership (real worth)
House(s)
Character
Items/Collecting
Money
Achievement/Advancement
Character development
Serial content (also adds to draw)
Periodic new content


Defining player types:

Ego/Power
Social/Entertainer
Adventurer/Discoverer
Crafter/Merchant
Helper/Healer
(How do these overlap?)

UI:
GUI
Look
Controls
Feel
Communication
Text Chat
Voice
Emote animations
Feedback
Visual
Audio
Touch

Social Structures:
Couples
Groups
Guilds
Alliances

Defining MMO:

Lastly and perhaps most important. Should a MMO be PVE, GVE, PVP, GVG? I think the idea of a MMO is playing with and against others. If the idea is to take on the AI with your buddies then why not LAN based games or games with lobbies and I.Z.’s like guild wars? MMO should be just that PVP and all variations of it economics, combat whatever?

[monjardin]

PVE, GVE, PVP, GVG
I get player versus player, but what are the E's and G's? Sorry, I'm not up on the lingo these days...

[cyscott]

Player vs Enviroment
Group vs Enviroment
Group vs Group
etc.

Also sorry I guess the formating got lost I cut and pasted this list from a word doc items where listed better with indents.

[Methulah]

http://www.mmorpg.com define MMO as a game that has a visual reprisentation of 500 or more people playing in the same server. Or something to that effect. I can find the actual wording if someone wants.

[Axehilt]

One big factor in all the hugely-successful MMOs is brand recognition - either the game is produced from a company with a large existing fan-base, or the game is about a licensed game world with a large existing fan-base. Anytime you can draw from an existing fan-base, you're going to attract more people.

The concept of "familiarity" also applies to the overall theming of your game. Some people just don't like futuristic games; others dislike medieval ones. A popular setting will improve your game's chance of success, whereas an unpopular one may doom your game to obscurity.

I bring this up because at least a few of the design books I've read have stated that sci-fi and fantasy are actually pretty unpopular genres in the grand scheme of things. Kinda blew my mind, considering (a) most videogames fall under those two themes and (b) they're probably my personal favorite themes. This is likely because gamers and non-gamer demographics have distinct tastes.

Appealing to the non-gamer demographic with something they're more familiar with than sci-fi and fantasy could potentially bring wild success if marketed right, but it's something you'd want to be extremely ambitious about. The safer road would definitely be to appeal to the existing demographic of gamers. I never tried The Sims Online, but that's the sort of concept that seems like it would appeal the most to the non-gamer demographic. And from what I've heard, Sims Online was a phenomonal flop.

[cyscott]

I don't think gamers or non-gamers for that matter enter an MMO thinking they want it to be like RL. Rather I think they look for a fantasy world. Weather that is old world or si-fi or whatever. One idea thats being toyed with is fantasy futuristic. This would be a dark age after the colapse of a highly developed society where you'd find both elements of si-fi and traditional fantasy. Still not really ground breaking.

I agree with drawing from existing fan bases but for a unique idea this could be done by using similarity rather than exact use of existing fiction.

Another idea being explored is serial fiction where the game world and story grows as time passes. Starting small then growing bit by bit rather than releasing everything at once.

[Axehilt]

I agree with drawing from existing fan bases but for a unique idea this could be done by using similarity rather than exact use of existing fiction.

Hmm, check this list out: (http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=8655) Notice how many of those games are sequels? (link found by Googling "best-selling videogames of all time", so I wouldn't be too confident of its accuracy, but the point still remains.)

Sorry to continue to press this point, I'm really not trying to say a game cannot be successful w/o brand recognition. I'm merely trying to point out that it's an important aspect of achieving success.

I'm fairly certain casual gamers do want games about real life. My evidence would be the extreme popularity of The Sims and Sports/Racing titles (http://www.gametab.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-354.html). Driving, sports, and life are things people connect with even if they don't play many games. All the games do is push reality a little bit. Instead of driving in traffic like in real life, you're racing away from the cops, dueling for pink slips, or racing against the best pro drivers around. They're grounded in familiar territory.

Don't get me wrong, I hate sports games, I'm not a big fan of The Sims, and only occasionally will I touch racing games. I'm not saying I enjoy those games, I'm just trying to point out what makes them popular with a more mainstream non-gamer audience; and therefore successful.

As for your post-apocolyptic idea, that's one of my favorite atmospheres for gaming/movies/books. Probably the one piece of advice I have for any producer of sci-fi is to make things gritty and imperfect; there's nothing as unenjoyable as a Star Wars Episode 1-style universe where everything is shiny and clean. The universes people enjoy are the dark, gritty ones Aliens, Bladerunner, The Matrix, or the game Fallout. Whenever I think on this subject I'm reminded of the line from Matrix, "Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be..happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program, entire crops were lost."

Part of the reason Han Solo was such an enjoyable character was that his ship was such a piece of crap.

[cyscott]

I'm not diputing your point. I agree, however you can only rehash so many times before it gets old. There was a time when no ever heard of Mario. So if we must do something new, whats the best way?

[Octavius]

I decided to start educating myself on how games actually worked. This site is a valuable resource in my past and future research on this subject. I am not a programmer, nor am I a game developer by any means. I would like to change this in the future. What I am is a guy that likes to play games.... mainly mmorpg's. I have found some very intersting articles on what makes an mmo successful. Up to date now my favorite games have been UO(Ultima Online) and Conquer Online. These games have been somewhat successful in their endeavers. But the main problem I see is balance. What I mean is this...most mmo's that I have played or read about(to think about playing) have always ended up unbalanced. You go to the forums of said games and see endless threads of people complaining about unbalance. This class of char is too powerfull or this in game economy is out of wack and so on and so on. Another thing I have come to notice in my years of playing mmo's is that if more than one person is playing there will be a way to make macro's and bots. Every commercial game on the market today has been hacked to the point that people wont play because of this. As I have said before I am not a programmer or a developer. I just thought that maybe you could use the perspective of an actual player of games that does not have any programming or developing skills. SO to make this reply a little bit longer... here are some observations and some suggestions.(I apologise for the wordy post.)
#1. In the games I enjoy playing.... leveling your character is an arduous task.in order to compete with everyone else on the server you have to put in a lot of time to be able to compete. A lot of time is spent on redundant tasks of clicking 80 million times to level a skill or like function. This is ok for a few months but when the months turn into years it gets rather boring so people then search out avenues for automating the process. When this happens it defeats the whole purpose of playing the game. My suggestion for developers in this case is a few.

a:Take the numbers of lvling out of the game. Maybe make it random as to when someone levels a skill or a character. I am sure there are algorithims<sp> to do this somewhere. If it is a variable then my thinking is maybe people wont keep on doing the redundant task over and over and do nothing else in the game.

b.Have a way for a player to be compensated when they are not online in the game. For instance a way to set up your char before you exit game to be working on a skill or a making of something and then when you log back into the server the game does a check of whatever it is you were working on and gives you credit for what ever it is you were working on. I have thought about this quite a bit. In my thinking it would help with a few things... 1. deter, not necessarily prevent macroing. also it would help with server bandwidth because people wouldnt need to stay logged into game to make advances.

c: Economy structure...I have given so much thought to this my head hurts. I really dont think any of the top game making companies has figured out a way to make a balanced economy. Players find bugs in the game and abuse them to become bazillionaires over night in every game that is commercially available. For a developer this has to send them to the looney bin. I have seen so many patches for money sinks that it isnt even funny and it wears on you as a player of the game. The only suggestion that I have for this is a vague one at best. Make items and money a secondary or lesser point of the game.

d: PVP v PVE v PVM v GVG.... In my last 5 years of playing mmo's the 2 mentioned above mainly, I have come to find out a few things about my personal preferences. When starting a new game hunting monsters for loot and monies is all fine and dandy but after a while becomes very boring. You figure out the AI for the monsters and you figure out the spawns and then it just becomes repititous. Most mmorpg's are this way log in go find monster hunt monster get loot yadda yadda yadda. It is fun in the beginning but gets dull very quickly. I am thinking that personally I play mmo's to be involved with and play against other people. So pvp has to be in the game for me to be involved. Monsters or other things to kill other than other players is probably somewhat of a necessary evil in the types of games I enjoy playing.

I really dont know if any of my long and ongoing rambling here has helped in any way. Maybe I am just a frustrated gamer looking to get into a project to help all of the problems I mention rather than complaining about them.

Thanks for reading my reply
Oct

[Methulah]

I think a group of experienced developers with time to spare should get together and code a social experiment/design experiment/MMORPG that solves the issues at hand. However, I beg to differ with a few above points.

Economy. This has to be central to the game. It has to be dynamic and player driven, it has to also be un-hackable. This is hard, but we can only take a look at the economy we have now. A stock market (however rudementary it may be to suit the game theme), currency exchange, fluctuating prices (depending on demand and supply), trading (again, the method and quantity based on the game theme), supply and demand, elimination of illigitemate system abusers, currency speculation, and all the things that make up the economy we thrive off. This system caters for itself - it "self-fixes" any issues and abuses will not last for so long. One issue is that few people end up with lots and many end up with little, but at the end of the day, is that a bad thing?

Making leveling random is not the way to combat grinding. Dynamic spawns (and resources that do not spawn) are the ways I see it. Also, rewarding variation and group work over simple grinding. Making solo work less profitable in experience and wealth as group work is unpopular, but allows for more grouping. Grouping needs to be a focus, as without it we may aswell play SPRPGs.

I agree with your automation of tasks, but I do not feel that a player should be able to indefinatly work whilst offline, as the character would not be able to survive such an experience. What is a good idea however, is to provide NPCs or indeed PCs who are employable to perform mundane and repetitive tasks like mining and tradeskills.

I also agree that PvP is important, and a good lesson can be learn from World of Warcraft about opposing sides. The storyline is well set for PvP conflict. I also implore designers not to forget PvE or indeed GvE, GvG, GvP, RvR, PvR and any other combination of the letters G, P, E, R seperated with a v. =).

What is important however, is dynamic storyline. If a dragon lives in a cave full of its minions and a group of brave adventurers go in and kill it, then it is dead. it isn't going to respawn, and it ought to be the responsibility of the developers to complete as many new areas and dungeons as possible. They are quick to make, and I'm sure they could employ volunteers seeking experience in such a task.

Also, the storyline must invlove high places. Players should be able to rule kingdoms, and gain power by several means. Many people think this is impossible, but several people (including myself) have documented various systems to allow this to work. This makes for very interesting gameplay and takes away from the notion of MMORPGs being multiplayer CRPGs with good AI and a persitstant world. It really helps immersion and allows the virtual world to become something to care about and think about realistically.

That is the key to success in MMORPG development. I would love for a team of dedicated developers to come along and create something as a sort of experiment along these lines. I would be more than happy to contribute my design (and indeed I have documented several issues already arising).

I don't see it happening though, so in the meantime, the rest of us can just whine.

Thats my 2 cents. My long 2 cents.

[Axehilt]

Well people will complain about balance in a MMORPG regardless of its true balance. Here's why:

1. Unskilled players will always blame game balance before examining their own level of competancy.

2. Due to the extreme amounts of time you must spend playing a class in order to max out its level and know its quirks, very few players have an accurate view of the big balance picture.

3. Often there are many factors involved in balance which get overlooked by players. A specific example being the importance of equipment in WOW: if someone stomps a casual gamer in PVP, they're not going to rationally analyze their equipment vs. their opponent's, they're going to assume the class they faced was just drastically overpowered. That's just one "hidden factor"; each game has many such factors. Another might be that the Warrior someone was fighting against was receiving heals from his teammate during the battle: the defeated player goes onto the forum and his whining post makes it look like Warriors are drastically overpowered in straight up 1v1 fights.

Economy
Personally I feel WOW has hit upon the best economy I've seen in a MMORPG. There is tremendous complexity to it and tons of tradeskills to influence the economy. Prices have definite fluxuations based on supply and demand, and inflation has remained fairly low due to lots of high end money sinks (a slight downside being that some high end dungeons can actually lose you money if you're not careful.)

Easily the best aspect of WOW's economy is its EBay-like auction system, which allows players to buy/sell without having to clunkily arrange it through the game's chat system.

The "stock market" that Methulah suggests is essentially present in WOW, in the form of commodity trading. Personally I have made a lot of gold in WOW simply through buying low and selling high.

I don't think an economy has to be central to a MMORPG to make it fun, but it's an easy way to add some depth to the game without adding a huge amount of complexity. It reminds me of the game design behind Chess: each individual "rule" to the game is pretty simple (bishops move diagonal, rooks move straight, etc) but when all these simple rules are combined that's when the complexity and depth shows up. With economies, the concepts of buying and selling are simple, but within the context of the game's other rules (such as the time it takes to "mine" the resources, currency included) it creates a nice sort of depth.

"a:Take the numbers of lvling out of the game."
I sort of agree. I do wish that MMORPGs focused a bit more on the fun, rather than the numbers crunching. For me, Planetside (MMOFPS) and City of Heroes/Villains have come closest to achieving this; mainly because combat itself is just so fun. Planetside in particular, because (a) it's PVP only and (b) being high level isn't a critical requirement to be competitive. Both of these games, to me, seemed more about the game and less about the grind.

Personally I see a lot of advantages to keeping the hard XP numbers: it gives people very clear goals in front of them, and keeps precise track of their progress towards that goal so they know how well they're performing. Really the only problem arises when advancement becomes more important than fun. Though from a business standpoint it could be argued that advancement-centric games like WOW and EQ1 are obviously highly successful at keeping people hooked and paying: with a carrot always dangling in front of them, just out of reach.

"b.Have a way for a player to be compensated when they are not online in the game."
Keeping the same train of thought, EVE Online removes the "grind" by having character development be purely time-based. Whether you're online or not, your character will gradually learn the next skill you've chosen - and it's a timed thing totally independant of any "XP" concept.

Also, A Tale in the Desert has some serious offline compensation. While offline you accumulate travel time, at the same rate as if you were in-game moving around still: while online you can spend it to instantly travel places. Also, ATITD is very economy-centric, so another thing they have is automated tradeskill production while you're offline. If you make Item X enough times, you'll have the option to produce Item X at a set rate while you're offline, provided you have enough materials.

These sorts of systems reward good planning, and help gamers who can't be online 24/7 compete with those who can. I suppose it helps to eliminate the 'grind' of these games, without eliminating the "carrot on a stick" aspect (where there's always something you can do to improve your character.)

"d: PVP v PVE v PVM v GVG...."
Definitely agree that human opponents are more interesting in the longterm than AI ones. That's why my favorite MMO isn't a MMORPG at all, but rather the aforementioned MMOFPS, Planetside. 100% PVP, with no PVE mobs to have to deal with before you can "get to the fun part". While I've put in my two full years and gotten myself bored of Planetside, I am incredibly eager to try out whatever new MMOFPSes come out in future years - especially if they're as focused on action, fun, and PVP as Planetside was.

Doesn't even have to be a FPS necessarily: Guild Wars' concept of instant PVP action would've worked awesome, had the game been a little deeper or more playerskill-centric. Heck, take Shadowbane's idea of player-run kingdoms with perpetual PVP warfare and sieges, make the combat system not suck, remove all elements of PVE, and wham: you'd have a really fun MMORPG that offered epic PVP battles just like Planetside does.

[Octavius]

Interesting thoughts there Axehilt. I definately do not have all hehe if any of the answers in making a successful mmo. All I have done is thought about it from my perspective which is rather a very small box. As said in earlier replies in this thread... a team of people that are thinking outside the box will definately be able to come up with something. I would love to be part of such a team however my abilities atm are next to nothing....ie hardly any programming exp, same with graphics design, same with developing games. But still I would love to be a fly on the wall in the process and be able to throw out stupid noob questions and ideas.

[cyscott]

Some good ideas here. I agree with the balance issue being impossible to fix since people are not balanced. There will always be someone just a little smarter than you. The main thing is to keep actual cheating at bay by making the game as hack proof as possible. If a player can become alpha by being smart and staying within the game mechanics then good for them. Regardless there will always be those who cry foul simply because they don't understand. For example I can't figure out why Bill gates should have all those billions and I don't. The game of life must surly be unbalanced. :angry:

Grinding is unavoidable so far as I can see. It makes little sense for a character to advance without any work being done. Also the time invested in ones character ties them to it and gives it value to them. One solution to this might be to require one to do many different things in order to level at all. Some games are using quest based leveling to control macro grinding but even this seems like a bad idea since the player is forced to play the game in single player like mode. A better idea might be to require the action performed to be change on a regular basis and even the location in the world. For example if you stay at one spawn to long or use the same attack over and over you stop advancing.

I'd like to hear a bit on the idea of ownership. How important is it for players to own/control parts of the world? This could be anything from a house to kingdom or anything in between.

Also which is better, simple or complex systems? Seems alot of players get overwhelmed and give up prematurely becase a game is hard to learn.

[Methulah]

There are some great ideas being thrown up here. This seems to be one of the more successful threads of this nature that has surfaced in a while.

Balance:
Balance can be an issue regardless, but it is an issue the developers of the game can fix easily. Games like StarCraft (although they belong to a different genre) have few balance issue. There are several strategies developers can employ to ensure there are few actual balance issues, however, the aforementioned players will still seek out imaginary issues and whine. A good example of the can be seen in Counter-Strike where often when players die or miss they will blame the games mechanics, when in reality their opponant was merely more skilled.

Owership:This is probably my second point of interest (after economy/trading). I think it is entirely possible for players to own and manage everything from a tent, to an inn to a kingdom. I recently documented a method of allowing this which tied in nicely with the questing and factional systems I was using. It involved social experience, reputation and player skills and experience. These are all aspects that change with time and require work to become of a high enough level.

The core premise was that there was an existing infrastructure. Players could become any part of that infrastructure through many way inclduing the conventional way of the faction (be it election, blood relation, assisnation whatever) or be new ways such as bribery or murder. Players would be responsible for their part of the infrastructure and would be lead by the leader, who in turn reprisented the people. The system is ver complex and hard to explain, and thus so was almost impossible to document. It is partially documented and if anyone is interested I can try to make the effort to completely document it and put it online.

Simple or Complex:
Complex all the way. Complex but with many simple espects. Like chess. Simple rules like bishops move diagonal etc. Many simple rules to create a complex and comprehensive system. Complex system must also have simple tutorials.

Anyway, I have to dash. But this is a very intersting thread, and I look forward to seeing it advance.

[Scuppy]

Firstly, I'd like to mention the customisability of City of Villians. Being able to make your character like that makes that game really fun. I dont want to go back to being one of 100 orcs sitting around orgrimmar in the same armour again. The problem is I want to change occasionally and dont want to have to start all over again to do it.

Someone said that balance was easily fixed in MMO's. This is not true. If you read game forums 'developers' are constantly under fire for nerfing for balance. The linear scale of sameness versus variation is constantly being scrutinised. Also how situational characters are is a key component.

Most people in my opinion want to play in varying ways, ie a bit of pvp, a bit of pve etc. This lessens the amount of 'situationalness' that can be applied to character builds. Why this matters is in a complex system it is only a matter of time until the best builds are discovered for a class and this creates a monoculture.

The human outcry factor comes in to play as well. For example a stealthing assassin type who pwns everyone pvp 1v1 will cause outrage, where as a character that pwns in certain pve situations wont generate as much complaint.

[Mattias Gustavsson]

The universes people enjoy are the dark, gritty ones Aliens, Bladerunner, The Matrix, or the game Fallout.

I disagree. I hate dark and gritty ones, especially in games. It's boring and overused. Maybe it is more difficult to create a good atmosphere without the dark and gritty, but some people certainly succeed.

Anyway, there's room for both, and no need to say that one is "better" than the other or that more people prefer one or the other. It's a question of personal preference