Free 2 play is actually a much better business model for the companies than for the players. It allows them to collect as much money from the game's addicts as those addicts are willing to pay - and people who play these games are willing to pay an awful lot. This financial model though, has a detrimental effect on the game itself, adding yet one more dividing line between players. Not only do you have to be the same level to party with someone, but you have to output the same amount of cash they do. And these games are littered with so many new players that it can introduce exceptional lag or crowding issues which hurt the experience. But the upside is that since players pay only what they are willing/can afford to, the audience is much higher.

Also in defense of mmorpg's, a lot of the most fun I have had playing any rpg has been had playing an mmo, so no, I don't think they are lower quality games. What they lack in some areas, they make up for in others. Instead of giving you 20 hours of enjoyment in one chunk, they give you several hours of mediocre content and then several hours of enjoyment spread out. The length of time you play and the attachment you (can) make to your character, guild, how the world is evolving, etc, is their defining feature, and no other type of game really has this.

I think the only thing that can save MMO's is to come up with better time sinks. Travel time does make the world feel big, but I don't think a big feeling world is a huge requirement for an mmo. The mentioned problems with too much warping do exist, but I think a better balance could be found. I recall a quest chain in LOTRO that forcs to you go from Bree to the Lone Lands (20 minutes or more if you pay for horses, longer if you walk) 3 or 4 times, if I recall. And this chain is a requirement for a group quest. It is these kinds of stunts that cause the travel time sink to be a problem, no the travel time itself. The NEED to travel, and often for stupid reasons.

That game has mostly fixed this problem though, by having numerous warps. It's annoying enough (warps are pretty spread out) without being too annoying when you need to get somewhere, although it depends on where you are and where you are going. (In other words, they are on to something, but the implementation is still unbalanced).

Ultimately, time sinks are necessary, but the key to improving the genre will be to, not necessarily hide the time sinks, but to make them serve some purpose other than just to make it take longer. It's the perception that, "oh, the game is now slow only to prevent me from going to fast" that makes players irritated.

Quote:

Original post by Bravepower Quote: Secondly, I don't buy the company expenses excuse. Not to say MMORPG isn't costly but, see how many free MMORPGS are online? The cost to maintain these games are grossly overestimated. The initial and continuous development is the expensive part! The majority of costs come from keeping the server and websites alive, paying for bandwidth, staff wages and other operational costs. The bigger the game is, the higher the cost since the operation to run it is larger. There's a big one-off cost in development before release of course, but the aim is to keep the game alive long enough to recoup your costs to some degree. Continuous development is an optional choice they make, so they bring that cost upon themselves. As for F2P MMOGs, they make their money through microtransactions and investment or sponsorship. It's not like they're actually doing it for free, or even at a low running cost. The only really free MMOGs are private servers, which are run by hobbyists - and then they don't provide anywhere near the immersion (in terms of numbers of active players) and service you get from the real deal.

This is very true. There are a lot of people who don't pay anything to play on a F2P MMO, but there are also players paying upwards of $50 a month on perks. There are even a couple of games that have players who have paid thousands of dollars on their characters. That is many times more than an average WoW player will spend on monthly fees through their entire playing career.

F2P games are big business, not a sign that MMOs are cheap to run. They *are* the most expensive games to create, and to maintain. It is not a myth.

I think this whole issue is a combination of three things:

1. Money. The game company wants to get as much money from you as they can. All the marketing hype is a just a distraction around this fact. To get as much money from you as they can they need to tease you along and keep your interest level just barely above the quitting level. To low and you quit. To high and they are wasting money. Players consistently fail to appreciate that the answer to pretty much any question is "more money for the company".

2. Designer egos. I've worked with a number of game designers. The thing that they all had in common is a failure to appreciate that just about anything is fun the first time but not fun the 100th. Things like watching WoW's flight path probably ended up in the game because the designer thought it would be a cool part of the newbie experience, not to mention it would show off all the cool stuff they had designed. And they were right, for a while. This same phenomon also gives you stuff like unskippable cut scenes.

3. Players. The same bit about being fun the first time but not the 100th applies to players too, but from the other direction. Players really really want to keep that newbie excitement but it always wears off eventually. The grind can never be eliminated because *everything* is a grind if you do it enough. Players also are constantly engaging in actions that *increase* thier grind such as the rush to max out thier level/attributes/whatever can be min/maxed. This causes frustrations that lead to threads like this one :)

Quote:

Original post by Anon Mike I think this whole issue is a combination of three things: 1. Money. The game company wants to get as much money from you as they can. All the marketing hype is a just a distraction around this fact. To get as much money from you as they can they need to tease you along and keep your interest level just barely above the quitting level. To low and you quit. To high and they are wasting money. Players consistently fail to appreciate that the answer to pretty much any question is "more money for the company".

Of course that is the case, but what game company does not make decisions based on making more money for the company? When single-player games sell DLC that is nothing more than an extra costume for your character, I tend to get a little bit more frustrated about that then MMORPG developers trying to lengthen the hamster wheel. Extra outfits used to come in games for free, but MMORPG service never did.

Quote:

Original post by Anon Mike2. Designer egos. I've worked with a number of game designers. The thing that they all had in common is a failure to appreciate that just about anything is fun the first time but not fun the 100th. Things like watching WoW's flight path probably ended up in the game because the designer thought it would be a cool part of the newbie experience, not to mention it would show off all the cool stuff they had designed. And they were right, for a while. This same phenomon also gives you stuff like unskippable cut scenes.

Again, WoW's unskippable flights are not just the designers wanting you to see the pretty view. Well, they do want you to see it, but the intention is to show you how large the world is. MMORPG developers have to show that their world is in fact a world, and not just a small region. Instant travel is one of the fastest ways to make players feel that your game world is tiny.

I agree with you, though on the cutscenes. There really is no explanation besides the developers thinking that they are so cool that the player needs to watch them every time. It is particularly silly considering how much of the playerbase has multiple characters, and how many times some of them have to watch it.

Quote:

Original post by Anon Mike3. Players. The same bit about being fun the first time but not the 100th applies to players too, but from the other direction. Players really really want to keep that newbie excitement but it always wears off eventually. The grind can never be eliminated because *everything* is a grind if you do it enough. Players also are constantly engaging in actions that *increase* thier grind such as the rush to max out thier level/attributes/whatever can be min/maxed. This causes frustrations that lead to threads like this one :)

I agree. When WoW first hit, players and critics alike heralded quest-based MMORPGs as "the end of the MMO grind". Now it is just looked at as quest grinding, with players accepting quests as fast as they can without reading them so they can follow the map markers and get it done. There really will be no end of a "grind" in MMORPGs unless one comes out that lets you hit maximum level in 20 hours or so (aka about the same length as a single-player game). Players are always going to be chasing the rewards at the end of the rainbow, and the activities to reach them will always turn into a grind.

Quote:

Original post by jackolantern1 the intention is to show you how large the world is.

Every single time you need to travel anywhere, you need to see again that you are traveling a great distance? Is that not the point of the flight to begin with, because you know to walk that distance would take too much time?

As was already mentioned though, why is it necessary to feel as though you are in a large world? I can see it as a plus, but not an end-all required aspect. Especially not something so demanding to waste hours upon hours of a players experience simply traveling (note, traveling, not exploring).

Quote:

Original post by jackolantern1There really will be no end of a "grind" in MMORPGs unless one comes out that lets you hit maximum level in 20 hours or so (aka about the same length as a single-player game). Players are always going to be chasing the rewards at the end of the rainbow, and the activities to reach them will always turn into a grind.

You might want to consider a game like Guild Wars. They have levels, where you can easily reach max level within 12 hours or so of gameplay, yet they also have skill acquisition that goes on throughout the entire game. That skill acquisition aspect is kind of like leveling, but skills aren't necessarily tiered in such a way that you acquire skill a before skill b, and skill b before skill c. Skills are also not necessarily balanced based on every other skill, but skills of same types are balanced with each other as well as combination between skills are balanced in comparison to other skill combinations.

Travel from one location you are at to any location you've already been to is instantaneous in GW. They indeed removed a large portion of the grind from the game, however, there are a lot of other very lacking aspects of the game that are limited through the design of the engine (hence, guild wars 2 rather than a 4th full chapter for guild wars 1).

Guild wars is also free to play once purchased, but each chapter was originally priced at that of a typical full game.



I understand the necessity to keep a player playing for as long as you can, to ensure the financial stability needed to keep the game running and to line the company's pockets. I don't, however, understand the desire to make tons of needless waiting times within the game where the player does absolutely nothing at all. The number of players that get pushed away from a game because of these things versus the number of players that stay longer because of them.. I just can't help but think they (they = most mmorpg companies) chose the wrong route to make the larger profit.

Another benefit of the seemingly slow and boring aspects is that MMOs need to vary the tempo of the game. Many players will spend hours in the game daily. An MMO needs to have slow tempo activities (travel times is just one example) to support that long play sessions that many MMO players want. If the entire game were at a fast tempo, then it's much harder for the players to be in the game as long. I think the OP's perspective is that he wants to efficiently use his time so he doesn't have to play the game as long, but many MMO players are playing AND hanging out/killing time and so the tempo changes work to support their long play sessions.

Quote:

Original post by Anon Mike 2. Designer egos. I've worked with a number of game designers. The thing that they all had in common is a failure to appreciate that just about anything is fun the first time but not fun the 100th. Things like watching WoW's flight path probably ended up in the game because the designer thought it would be a cool part of the newbie experience, not to mention it would show off all the cool stuff they had designed. And they were right, for a while. This same phenomon also gives you stuff like unskippable cut scenes.

Unskippable cut-scenes are the Laugh-Track of the video game industry. Like the director who must hear the audience laugh at his jokes, so installs a canned audience. Why bother watching? It has all it needs without me.

IMO, A good use for cut-scenes is a reward for mission completion, and a bad use for cut-scenes is setting the stage. The old saying Show-Don't-Tell needs an upgrade to apply to interactive media: Play-Don't-Show.

Quote:

Original post by NateDog Another benefit of the seemingly slow and boring aspects is that MMOs need to vary the tempo of the game. Many players will spend hours in the game daily. An MMO needs to have slow tempo activities (travel times is just one example) to support that long play sessions that many MMO players want. If the entire game were at a fast tempo, then it's much harder for the players to be in the game as long. I think the OP's perspective is that he wants to efficiently use his time so he doesn't have to play the game as long, but many MMO players are playing AND hanging out/killing time and so the tempo changes work to support their long play sessions.

So, if you don't have the opportunity to play 4-8 hours a day and/or if you can't tolerate not accomplishing anything in the game you play within any semblance of a reasonable amount of time, don't bother with MMOs?

That's the best large financially well off companies like Blizzard can come up with?

I'm a casual player, and I want to fork over a lot of money every month to a company that's willing to take out all the pointless waiting that apparently keeps players playing for years. I want to pay monthly for a game and I'll keep playing/paying, because there's enough actual content that makes it worth it. Not to mention, massively multiplayer game have a lot of other benefits outside of just playable content. Simply being able to play with others makes it pretty nice, but the quality of the game (outside of the bs) is immensely better imo than your typical single/multiplayer player game.

Where can I find such a company? lol..

Quote:

Original post by Mythics Travel from one location you are at to any location you've already been to is instantaneous in GW. They indeed removed a large portion of the grind from the game, however, there are a lot of other very lacking aspects of the game that are limited through the design of the engine (hence, guild wars 2 rather than a 4th full chapter for guild wars 1). Guild wars is also free to play once purchased, but each chapter was originally priced at that of a typical full game.

Honestly, it is debatable whether or not Guild Wars is an MMORPG because it is not a persistent world, which, depending on who you ask, is a necessity to be characterized as one. Guild Wars is actually more of an Action-RPG, similar to Diablo II if you combined the Battle.net lobby with the Diablo II towns. The entire world outside of the "lobby" is instanced with no persistence, just like D2. You mainly enter the Lobby to find other players to play a session with, and that session can be exited at any time.

NCSoft is claiming that Guild Wars 2 is going to have a fully-persistent, shared game world with no monthly fees, so it will be interesting to see how they pull it off.

Quote:

Original post by Mythics I'm a casual player, and I want to fork over a lot of money every month to a company that's willing to take out all the pointless waiting that apparently keeps players playing for years.

It is really kind of silly to say that Blizzard simply has flights to keep players playing longer. When I played WoW, I played it pretty much like a semi-casual player (maybe a bit above casual, but not hardcore), and perhaps had about 10 minutes of flight per 5 hours or more of playtime. Only on rare occasions would I have to take one of the "747 flights" that could be 15+ minutes long from one side of a continent to the other. I just think players notice flights and the time out more because they stick out like a sore thumb compared to the action of the game.

I am not necessarily defending WoW's flight system. There are other ways they could have gone about the flight system. The goal of the system was to ensure that players can get from point A to point B without becoming lost. I think a better system would have players more active on the flight. What if players had a crossbow mounted on the griffin/zeppelin and had to kill enemies swarming around in the skies, of which they could get a few xp points and maybe some small items to sell. Or players could do Outland-style bombing missions at certain points during the travel. Instead Blizzard still has the players taking a completely inactive role during flight.

I agree that flight should not be instant teleportation (it is pretty important for players to feel like the world is large. Read some of Bartle's writings on the subject), but I also feel that players think they are in flight a lot more often than they really are. However, Blizzard could have made it more active for the players and avoided the issue altogether.

Quote:

Original post by Anon Mike ... 2. Designer egos. I've worked with a number of game designers. The thing that they all had in common is a failure to appreciate that just about anything is fun the first time but not fun the 100th. Things like watching WoW's flight path probably ended up in the game because the designer thought it would be a cool part of the newbie experience, not to mention it would show off all the cool stuff they had designed. And they were right, for a while. This same phenomon also gives you stuff like unskippable cut scenes. ...

This is an excellent point. One reason I love Disgaea 3 (arguably a huge time-waster, but I enjoy playing for 30 minutes while I exercise on a stationary bike) is I can turn off so many animations. Every once in awhile, I enjoy seeing the characters perform 10-20 attack animations, but I love that I can turn off the animations and just chug through the numbers.