The new year is finally upon us and a variety of new MMOGs are set to
go live later in 2009. With this influx of new challenges at our
doorstep, I'm curious about how smooth or steep a learning curve these
games will have for the masses. Back in the early days, when the
majority of us were playing
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/38"
target="_blank">Everquest
and/or
target="_blank">Ultima
Online, that curve
was so steep it often felt as though you were the leader of your own
pack of lemmings as you dove head first off a cliff.
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src="/image/view/60347/preview"
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It never
looked this good when we played.
There's no arguing that the landing could be more painful than watching
a 24-hour Lawrence Welk marathon (Google it, you whippersnappers!). No
one should have to suffer through that kind of pain while learning the
ins and outs of their favorite game, but back then, we had little
choice, so we sucked up more deaths than you can count and carried on.
And do you know what? We liked it that way! Ok... some of us liked it
that way, but those were also the days when those of us that played had
more time on our hands, so it wasn't a big deal.
Fast forward ten years, and the MMO landscape has
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/60341" target="_blank">gone
through
some
drastic changes, sometimes to the point that it's barely
recognizable.
Where there used to be open fields as far as the eye could see in the
MMOG market, there are now cities and roadways cluttering the view no
matter what direction you look in. One of the things that has changed
the most is the amount of hassle gamers are willing to put up with from
a game. If it's too hard or confusing early on, chances are they'll
walk away from it in short order, no matter how cool they've heard
things get near the end of the game. Despite what the majority of
numbers tell us, I don't think this concept is as written in stone as
people like to believe it is.
The undisputed king in the MMOG ring is obviously
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/60343" target="_blank">World
of
Warcraft.
Even if they didn't currently have over 11.5 million subscribers, it's
the one game that everyone in the modern world knows about, even if
they don't play it. From the upheaval over pixelated torture to the
William Shatner commercials on TV, the game has become a household
name. While I know the original team didn't know how explosive their
population would become (Everquest held the title back then with
500,000 subscribers), the game's success was not purely an accident.
The biggest change they made in the established MMOG formula was to
make it easily accessible from the moment you logged in to create your
character. There were a myriad of other tweaks to the standard gameplay
of the day as well, but in my mind, this was the most important.
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Here's a
napkin for your chin. Try to quit drooling!
Since then, other games have begun adopting the Warcraft approach as
they make their way into the market. None have been remotely as
successful as WoW has been (and I still don't think anyone will be for
years), but some have been profitable and that's really all that
matters when it's all said and done. If a game can support the
developers and their families while still making a profit for the
company itself, that's all they really need in order to continue
following their dreams.
Vanguard:
Saga of Heroes, while near and dear to my heart, went in a
different direction and though I applaud them for it, things just
haven't worked out for them. Innumerable issues have been a factor in
Vanguard's struggle, but the initial learning curve played no small
part. Assuming your gaming rig was capable of running the game
smoothly, any old school Everquest player immediately felt right at
home. This was due in large part to the immense depth of the world and
the systems within it.
For new players, especially those that picked up Vanguard as their
first MMOG, the learning curve was far steeper than that of its
competitors. Add in the fact that a lot of those early lessons were
never readily explained until the community started creating guides on
them (
target="_blank">Weaknesses,
target="_blank">The
Riftways, and
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/60259" target="_blank">Renting
Flying
Mounts ring a bell
anyone?), they were too in depth and mystical for many player's
patience.
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src="/image/view/60348/preview"
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Great
graphics can be a double-edged sword.
The current trend in MMOG's appears to be make the game so easy and
interest-grabbing right out of the gate that even a person with the
attention span of a monkey chewing on a flyswatter will be able to keep
up and get into the swing of things. Depth of game mechanics is still
possible with a system like this, but it needs to be introduced not
only clearly, but later in the game, after a player has played enough
to be hooked and is willing to put in some extra time to learn about
the more intricate game mechanics available to them.
But every rule has its own exceptions. I think anyone would be hard
pressed to find a successful MMOG in today's market that has a steeper
learning curve than
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/43"
target="_blank">EVE
Online. While they've made distinct and
purposeful progress in their attempts to make it friendlier to the
casual gamer, they still have systems and subsystems more in depth than
any other game out there. According to "The Rules" as they've been laid
out over the last few years, you'd think that would mean EVE should
barely be scraping by, if not saying its last hoorah. I'm glad to
report the exact opposite is true. EVE has continued to steadily
increase its subscription numbers over the years. The question to ask
is why? Could it be the idea of everyone playing in a single, open
universe? Perhaps it's the fact that the game's graphics are so
gorgeous they make Angelina Jolie look like a leper in comparison?
Whatever it is, there's one thing I know for sure. It gives me hope.
I don't want the games of tomorrow to be so hard no one plays them and
they crash and burn faster than the Hindenburg, but at the same time, I
also don't want them to be so easy that I can put my brain on autopilot
and play either. Both sides of the coin have proven they can be
successful, so the question becomes, which games do you think will have
both the ease of gameplay and the depth of mechanics to keep us all
hooked in the coming year? It should be an interesting ride and I can't
wait to see how it all plays out.
