by Karen Hertzberg on Nov 18, 2009
Loading... is the premier daily MMORPG news, coverage, and
commentary newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.
Most of us have been playing MMOGs for several years now, and
when it comes to our games we know exactly what we want. Or do we?
Developers have been delivering plenty of what gamers seem to be
demanding, and yet there's a growing restlessness in the MMOG community
as games launch to great fanfare only to have their popularity quickly
fade. If developers are delivering what we say we want, then why aren't
we satisfied? The answer lies in today's Loading... You Don't Know What
You Want.
You vote with what you view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the
result is the Ten Ton Pulse (
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/thepulse/" target="_blank">What
is The Pulse?).
Here are today's top 5 Pulse results:
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/41"Biggest movers today:
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1841">AlganonYou dont know what you want in a massively multiplayer online game.
No, seriously, youre clueless. Its okay, though
so am I.
You see, when it comes to MMOGs you and I have the attention spans of
fruit flies. Oh, well get starry-eyed while watching the development
of a new game, but once it launches well be losing interest
exponentially for every month we pay a subscription fee. And thats if
we havent already cancelled our subscriptions by the time our free 30
day trials run out. We may have even hit a wall during open beta when
we learned that the game we thought was The Second Coming of
href="http://tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/38">EverQuest
(or Ultima
Online, or
href="http://tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/39">Dark Age of
Camelot, or whatever our first MMOG
love was), the one we imagined would be the Next Great Game that wed
lose hours of our lives playing, has failed to impress us. Weve burned
out. And if were like many of todays gamers, weve burned out quickly.
But we shouldnt be too hard on ourselves. Its not our fault, really.
There are few surprises in the MMOG industry these days, and most
launches play out fairly predictably.
Theres a certain chain of events that happens when any new MMOG
emerges into the public eye, and that chain of events is, in part, what
leads to burnout, the almost inevitable conclusion. It starts with a
game announcement. Depending on the popularity of the developer, this
announcement may come quietly or with a tremendous flurry of
excitement. Then the slow trickle of information starts to feed out;
bit by bit, via interviews and press announcements, we learn more about
this game to pique our interest. Now that were sufficiently
intrigued, were starting to develop expectations. Our expectations may
be entirely fact-based--we may have done our homework and hung on every
word the developers have ever uttered--but already theyre becoming
unrealistic. Why? Because we cant possibly know what the reality of
the live game will bring. We can make our best guess based on all the
information we have at hand--interviews, screenshots, videos and the
like--but our perception of the game is still nothing more than a
guess.
And then, after anticipation has ratcheted up our expectation levels,
the game weve been looking forward to goes into open beta or launches.
And the minute we log in were measuring the game against our hopes and
dreams for it, and for every little thing that fails to satisfy, for
every disappointment, however minor, we begin slowly losing interest.
Unless were one of the fiercely loyal fans who cling to their chosen
game in small but steady numbers (and kudos to you if you are, because
youre one of the devoted ones sustaining our beloved MMOG industry),
were already on our way to unsubscribing.
Ill admit, all this sounds depressing. Will we ever find a game we
love again
that game that makes us want to keep playing until were
bleary-eyed? The game that, when we havent played it in a while, we
actually miss? I believe the answer is yes. And I believe the
answer isnt going to come in the form of what we want, but rather in
the form of what we dont expect.
This notion occurred to me when I was watching episode one of Jace
Halls documentary
href="http://video.ign.com/dor/articles/1044480/evercracked-the-phenomenon-of-everquest/videos/evercracked_prt_ep1_111209.html?cid=EM1805&_mid=1805&_rid=1805.1801.15973">EverCracked!
The Phenomenon of EverQuest. (See todays
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=47840">Epic
Thread.) While I was listening to John Smedley, President of
Sony Online Entertainment, talk about the genesis of EQ back in 1995, I
was reminded that its origins were by no means based on a tried and
true formula. There was no precedent for a game like EverQuest--it was
a gamble that Sony decided to take, hoping the public would buy into
the idea of something as yet unexplored. (Before some of
you jump on me and say Meridian 59 and Ultima Online came
first, remember that neither existed yet when
EQ was conceived.) The idea took root, and EQ grew until its subscriber
base numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Five years later, World of
Warcraft took what EverQuest and its compatriots did one step further
by making the MMOG more accessible, and soon millions were playing, not
just thousands.
And now were all a bunch of MMOG experts. We know the mechanics of
these games, and we know the features we like and dont like. We know
whether we want a game thats level-based or one thats skill-based. We
know how we like our PvP, or whether we like PvP at all. We have a
pretty clear idea of what constitutes the Perfect Game for us
an
elusive beast if ever there was.
But I contend the next truly great MMOG, while not necessarily
reinventing the
wheel or reinventing the genre, isnt going to be one carefully
designed to meet the majority of our so-called requirements. Its not
necessarily going to be about whats currently popular and trendy
because, as were learning through this process of MMOG evolution Ive
described, popularity and trendiness are usually short-lived. No, the
next great game is going to take us by surprise. Its going to change
things up in a way we werent expecting. It wont be a game that seeks
to bring a new setting and story to life on the exact same time-honored
platform that is the modern MMOG; itll be the game that takes a risk,
that kicks it up a notch and innovates in ways that might look like a
gamble.
So, Ill say it again: Im a gamer, and I dont know what I want. In
fact, I probably wont know what I want until I see it. Here
is my challenge to all you
MMOG developers out there--take a risk. Try to anticipate what I want
and then deliver it to me in a brand new way. Surprise me.
Do you know what you want, or do you like surprises? Will the next
great MMOG be an innovator, or have we merely not yet seen a developer
deliver what gamers want in a polished and satisfying way? Many have
tried; few have succeeded. Share your perspective in the
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=47856">Loading...
forum.
Shayalyn's Epic
Thread of
the Day
From our
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=3">Tavern
of the Ten Ton Hammer forum
style="font-weight: normal;">EverCracked! The Phenomenon of
EverQuest
You may have heard of EverCracked, a documentary about EverQuest,
around the time of SOE Fan Faire this year. According to the
propaganda, "The film, hosted by veteran video game industry developer
and personality Jace Hall, includes never-before-seen footage and
interviews with industry moguls and longtime players." Khalus provided
a link to the first episode in today's epic thread.
I don't know about you, but just hearing the EQ theme music
gets me a little misty. Ah, the good ol' days. Come
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=47840">reminisce
with us.
==============================
Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread
"I get that grandeur
feeling of classic epic times that will more than likely never be again
when I hear [the EQ theme music]. Memories of those past adventures
wash over me for a moment...."
- Khalus
==============================
Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums?
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=32559">Tell
us!
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in
2009!
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style="font-weight: bold;">Aion WeeklyNew Guides
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- Karen "Shayalyn" Hertzberg and the Ten Ton Hammer team