SOE President: "Content-driven" MMOs have become unsustainable

[Infinitron]

http://smedsblog.com/2014/02/11/the-sandbox-mmo/

The Sandbox MMO

A lot has been made about how much we’re pushing this concept of “Sandbox” mmos being the future. Not a lot has been said about what that means.

To date most MMOs have been what I would call “content driven” mmos. What that specifically means is we have made things for the players to explicitly do either by themselves or as a group. This can come in a lot of forms including things like Dungeons, expansion packs, quests… or things as simple as a large area with wandering monsters in it that drop loot from some kind of fixed table. There have been a lot of innovations over the years.. things like Battlegrounds, or public quests… but by and large this idea of the MMO company making stuff for the players to do has become the defacto.

My belief is simple – the content driven model is not where we should be aiming as an industry. Why? It’s unsustainable. When we first began making these kinds of games 18 years ago (I mean no disrespect to the Muds and other games out before Everquest) there was nothing to compare our games to. Players were so excited about being able to be a part of these virtual worlds that just about any content was exciting. Over the years the quality has really been steadily rising to the point where we have some brilliant narrative and exciting storylines in many MMOs today. We still thrill at completing a quest to kill the dragon or save some poor townsperson who was unlucky enough to get kidnapped by orcs. The real issue is a simple one – our ability to consume that content as players has gotten to the point that most content is done by the players nearly immediately after it’s released. It’s also laid out for all to see on any number of websites that contain complete spoilers up to and including the loot drop percentages.

I won’t argue why I think that part sucks. It’s too subjective. The thing that is tough as a game maker is that players are going through the content we make so much faster then we can make it that we’re constantly in a state where our players are looking for stuff to do.

A great example of this happened with SWTOR. I happen to think it’s a very well done game and the team at Bioware should be proud. However people that played the game went through the content so quickly that they became bored a whole lot sooner than the developers wanted them to.

This is a problem we all face. We all as game makers have to deal with the fact that we’re not just competing the content of WoW at launch. We’re dealing with 9 years of it. That’s a very daunting task and it makes the genre unapproachable if people try and fight that fight. Don’t get me wrong.. someone with deep pockets can still pull it off. TESO looks like it’s going to follow the content model and it’s going to have a lot of players. I’m willing to bet that it hits the same problem that SWTOR did. Just not enough to do.

So if that’s the problem what’s the solution?

In my opinion the solution is focusing a lot more on letting players make and be content for each other. Battlegrounds are an excellent example of an Evergreen style of content where it’s the players themselves that actually create the content. Auction houses are another example. So are things like storytelling tools in SWG.. or the brilliant music system in LOTRO. Building systems into the games that let the players interact with each other in new and unique ways gives us the ability to watch as the players do stuff we never anticipated. We’ll see a lot more creativity in action if the players are at the center of it. Imagine an MMORPG of a massive city.. and the Rogue’s guild is entirely run by players. Where the city has an entire political system that is populated by players who were elected by the playerbase.

There’s a great example of this today with Eve Online. It’s a brilliantly executed system where the players are pretty much in charge of the entire game. Sure there is a lot of content for players to do, but anything that’s important in the game is done by the players. This is a shining example of how this kind of system can thrive.

Our belief at SOE is that it’s smarter to head in this direction now rather than waiting. We want to innovate and let players be a part of everything we do including make the game in the first place. We’re going to take the idea of sandbox gaming and we’re putting it at the core of everything we’re doing. We’ll obviously still be making awesome stuff for players to do, but we’re going to aim very high in terms of letting players be a part of the game systems. The more emergent sandbox style content we can make the less predictable the experience will be.

Smed

 

[felipepepe]

Humm... I wish I could understand what's behind such decision...

 

[Angthoron]

Eh, wasn't there a huge fallout with Incarna? Somehow that graph doesn't reflect that. Plus, most corps don't look at a product for a low but steady stream of income. What you see in WoW's case even on this chart is still most MMO devs' wet dream.

Now, what a proper sandbox MMO should have is giving "design" power to players. Either elected or conquering, there should be a group of people that could be able to influence the game world with more than just their presence - this is too human-dependent, as soon as I can't log in, I won't provide my part to the community, and while in a content-based MMO this is noticeable, in a sandbox MMO this is potentially drastic. So, what could work is that some people could create simple (or complex) quests that could stay in game world for a while and then disappear. Players would have some sort of Quest Points to spend, and possibly assign rewards to NPCs out of their own pocket, but hey - a large guild could put out a dragon raid in a remote location, while a small guild could organize scavenger hunts or Kill 10 Rats stuff. Put a set of difficulty/participant number caps onto the stuff, as well as quest limit/zone, and you have something that can unite both sandboxers and content MMO players.

Obviously, such a toolset should be easy to use. Plop down NPCs, set zone limits, add flavour texts, set rewards. Stuff like that.

 

[felipepepe]

Neverwinter does sort of that. There's the developer's content, but also quests and dungeons made by the community... that are like 10x better than the official ones:

 

[Angthoron]

Argh. Is Neverwinter solo-friendly? I guess I'll crack and give it a shot, but since I have a funny schedule already, grouping up is a shit option.

 

[Ranselknulf]

The concept sounds decent but I'm sure any implementation of this idea will be terrible.

I would also like to point out an assumption a lot of mmo dev's make that is completely unfounded. The idea that 95% of the mmo population is even worth interacting with.

 

[Angthoron]

The concept sounds decent but I'm sure any implementation of this idea will be terrible.

I would also like to point out an assumption a lot of mmo dev's make that is completely unfounded. The idea that 95% of the mmo population is even worth interacting with.

Yes, this.

And the fact that TOR is referred to as a "Good MMO". It's not. It's just a competently made clone of WoW. Did people call C&C and Warcraft clones back then "good games"? No. Competent at best. And TOR wasn't even particularly competent - it's just that it takes a real genius to fuck up the Holy Trinity WoW clone, and Bio didn't quite have that level of brainiacs employed.

 

[Ulminati]

RIP City of Heroes/Villains. The mission architect they had was the first of its kind IIRC. Some really good player-created stuff there too.

 

[SuicideBunny]

RIP City of Heroes/Villains. The mission architect they had was the first of its kind IIRC. Some really good player-created stuff there too.

wasn't ryzom's quest designer first?
either way, both were good.... and sandbox stuff like uo is better than both.

 

[Xor]

I'd love to see more sandbox MMOs. But not if SoE is making them.

 

[Lhynn]

RIP City of Heroes/Villains. The mission architect they had was the first of its kind IIRC. Some really good player-created stuff there too.

Loved that game, it had something for every kind of player. Was there when they shut it down.

 

[anus_pounder]

Argh. Is Neverwinter solo-friendly? I guess I'll crack and give it a shot, but since I have a funny schedule already, grouping up is a shit option.

Cryptic MMO. Unless they specifically mark a mission as group, its pretty much all solo-friendly - Star Trek Online, Champions Online, Neverwinter. (100% true for the 'main' story missions at least) Ofc, the story missions more or less exist to get you to level max and start the end-game party&guild grind.

 

[Norfleet]

Let's be serious: The real use of "Foundry" is to create clickies and farms: One-button missions where you talk to an NPC or click a thing and get your paycheck, or Napalming Fish In A Barrel missions. Anything else is a waste of both the creator's time and your time. We have grinding to be doing, we are far too busy to wade through someone's pretentious fanfic masturbatorium. The beauty of user-created content is the ability to design it more efficiently than the developers would ever be willing to do. To simply make it a lame imitation of existing content is to squander it.

 

[set]

Yeah, that's why user-created dungeons suck, people just want to grind and user-created dungeons will always be devoid of any substance or challenge - the highest xp/loot for the most minimal effort.

Good user-created content is fun for its own reward - EVE has territory control and Ultima/SWG had other social junk to enjoy.

 

[Norfleet]

Well, you say "Suck", I say "Efficient and well-designed", and it's official "content" which sucks. Because ultimately, the point of all content is to grind it so you can be rich and have the best stuff with which to crush your enemies.

 

[Ranselknulf]

The most popular player made dungeons are always the ones that provide the fastest leveling for the least amount of effort.

I don't mind the grind, I just don't think the purpose of a game should be to grind to max level before the real game begins. Although most (all?) mmo's sell exp boosts and many have started to sell max level characters (or close to max level) so you don't have to grind through all the levels which have no content relevant to "the game".

 

[Lhynn]

I don't mind the grind, I just don't think the purpose of a game should be to grind to max level before the real game begins.

One of the reasons this happens is as a consequence of high level players not being able to affect low level players and viceversa.
Another big factor is the xp -> lvl direct conversion, there should be something to limit its pace.

 

[set]

Well, you say "Suck", I say "Efficient and well-designed", and it's official "content" which sucks. Because ultimately, the point of all content is to grind it so you can be rich and have the best stuff with which to crush your enemies.

You don't want to play an RPG, you want to run on a virtual treadmill.

 

[Xenich]

Smed, the problem is not that content driven games are unsustainable, but rather the market you are fucking catering to is unsustainable. You can't churn out easy flashy moronic content with tons of hand holding and expect it to last to any extent. I am kind of at a loss with your stupidity here. Your very comments seem to deny the existence of EQ/EQ2 to which have had more expansions than any MMO out there all the while holding respectable subscriptions. Apparently, when EQ was pulling in 350k subs a 9 bucks a month, it was a fantastic success, but these days a game that isn't pulling millions of subs is a failure? You moved the goal post and you are peddling bullshit.

Smed, you aren't fooling anyone. You are cashing in on a gimmick, nothing more. I just wish fucking idiots like you would have the integrity to admit you aren't game developers, but entertainment investors looking for the next fad to cash in on.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Strange that the article doesn't mention Star Trek Online, the MMO game that probably demonstrates this best and was probably the first one with a decent editor. (Unless Champs Online has something similar, I never played it because comicfaggotry leads down a slippery slope and before you know it you're watching anime, like some worthless animal). The foundry missions are on average at least eleventy times more interesting than the story missions and also a lot more like actual Star Trek episodes. Official story missions are pretty much: Blast through massive armada of enemy ships like swatting flies, beam down to planet/asteroid/stupid annoying pitch dark time-distorting spacestationgodihateitssmellybitchfacesomuch; walk through miles and miles of corridors mowing down armies of aliens and solve laughably easy "puzzles", press buttan, receive loot and beam back to ship. Then repeat.

Because ultimately, the point of all content is to grind it so you can be rich and have the best stuff with which to crush your enemies.

You get better gear to crush enemies to get more gear. Same as Diablo and its clones only it never, ever ends. Of course some asspies like to get more money/gear just to have an insane amount of money or gear. That's why I like the user-created content. Although that probably depends on the type of users you get in the game. I can't imagine Mass Effect Online would have terribly great user designed missions.

 

[Kane]

I'd love to see more sandbox MMOs. But not if SoE is making them.

except that SOE made the best sandbox MMOs to date.

 

[Mangoose]

Strange that the article doesn't mention Star Trek Online, the MMO game that probably demonstrates this best and was probably the first one with a decent editor. (Unless Champs Online has something similar, I never played it because comicfaggotry leads down a slippery slope and before you know it you're watching anime, like some worthless animal). The foundry missions are on average at least eleventy times more interesting than the story missions and also a lot more like actual Star Trek episodes. Official story missions are pretty much: Blast through massive armada of enemy ships like swatting flies, beam down to planet/asteroid/stupid annoying pitch dark time-distorting spacestationgodihateitssmellybitchfacesomuch; walk through miles and miles of corridors mowing down armies of aliens and solve laughably easy "puzzles", press buttan, receive loot and beam back to ship. Then repeat.

Is it possible to level through those? Because I've played a few Neverwinter foundry missions, don't remember getting much XP. I wasn't paying complete attention though, I may be wrong.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Is it possible to level through those? Because I've played a few Neverwinter foundry missions, don't remember getting much XP. I wasn't paying complete attention though, I may be wrong.

You don't get much xp, or other rewards for that matter in foundry missions (unless there's some daily event going), but in STO it's pretty easy to hit the level cap without doing too many of the story missions anyway. Special Task Force (PvE) missions get you the best stuff and xp, and the most money in one of the game's many, many currencies so that's best for levelling up, and foundry is the most fun even though you don't get much other than an interesting story and sometimes a challenge. But also random drops do occur during those too.

 

[Ranselknulf]

I'd love to see more sandbox MMOs. But not if SoE is making them.

except that SOE made the best sandbox MMOs to date.

SoE has no interest in gameplay, as has been shown by what they did with it. They are interested in creating time sinks, currency / token farming, and gear treadmills; all of which can be shortened with micro-transactions.

 

[Kane]

I'd love to see more sandbox MMOs. But not if SoE is making them.

except that SOE made the best sandbox MMOs to date.

SoE has no interest in gameplay, as has been shown by what they did with it. They are interested in creating time sinks, currency / token farming, and gear treadmills; all of which can be shortened with micro-transactions.

thats still 100% more than the competition offers, which is probably because the competition doesn't exist.