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Once upon a time there was a gamer named Shay, who had a wife named Laura. Though Shay liked the idea of playing games with his lovely wife, the only games Laura was interested in were 1) Dr. Mario, 2) Boggle online, 3) Scrabble online, and 4) more Dr. Mario. (In fact she could totally kick his butt at Dr. Mario 90% of the time; but that's not something Shay likes to dwell on.)
Then Shay began playing World of Warcraft, and a fuzzy little gnome named "Iquix" came into being. Iquix enjoyed pink hair, and questing - mostly on his own - and reached level 35 or so.
One night Shay introduced Laura to WoW, and a lovely night Elf named "Lara" came into being. At first she had a hard time learning the controls and didn't see what was fun about the game; but then she began accepting quests, going on little adventures, and completing those quests.
She found this highly enjoyable. And for a few days, the Level-35 Iquix gently helped the Level-1 Lara complete quest after quest, chuckling at her struggles with Level-3 boars that he could disintegrate with the press of a button.
It was relatively boring for Shay; but soon Lara had reached a level close to Iquix, and for a glorious couple of weeks (while Shay was on vacation), he was able to achieve one of his lifelong dreams, as he and Lara went on adventures together all across a fantasy world, completing quests, having hilarious encounters, and levelling up together.
But then vacation time ended for Shay; and before long, Iquix began to feel a bit... uncomfortable. Lara was now only two levels below him. The next day, she was 1 level above him. A week later, she was five levels higher - and Shay thought he heard Laura chuckling, as Lara disintegrated a particularly nasty space-boar that was about to kill Iquix.
And then the dream was over. Some days, Shay and Laura would both be online in the same room, and Iquix and Lara would both be on adventures... but not together. They were each on their own separate adventures, nowhere near each other; sadly, from that day on, Iquix and Lara lived in different worlds. (Literally - Outland is an entirely different planet, isn't it?)
In my last post I described how the biggest reason for WoW's continued success (and the failure of other MMOs to topple it) was: "stickiness"... and how stickiness could take the form of someone joining a game, and making friends with other people in the game.
But there's another very important form of stickiness: bringing your "real-world" friends into the game to play it with you! This is one of the most important ways that a strong in-game community can form. (It also happens to be the best and cheapest form of marketing your game could possibly get.)
Playing a game with someone you actually see often and can talk to face-to-face is an entirely different, and generally much stronger, social experience than making friends with random strangers online who you never knew before playing the game and who you may never meet. (Research has proven that playing with strangers is, psychologically, very different from playing with friends, or withat people we can see face-to-face.)
And here at last we find the Achilles heel I talked about. The single biggest flaw of WoW is: its level system. Again, WoW owes its long-term success to people playing together: and yet the level system has the inevitable result of separating players. How can I in good conscience recommend that a friend come join me and
my friends playing WoW, when I know that friend is going to have to toil in
obscurity for weeks or months before they can actually play as part of
our max-level guild? When it comes to stickiness, a level system is the worst feature that a game could possibly have - WoW is only sticky in spite of it... it would be hard to create a system that worked against stickiness more if you tried!
Of course this isn't only a flaw of WoW. Stickiness is a major factor in the success of every MMO; and yet every MMO I can think of (except Second Life) is built around a level system. WoW has levels because Everquest, and Ultima Online, and almost every text MUD, and almost every single-player RPG (both videogames and tabletops) all had levels.
The level system isn't easily removed from the game design, either; it affects almost every single system in the game, and everything you do in the game. And it's hard to imagine a level-less MMO; mostly just because they are so entrenched in the designs of these games, and it's hard to picture how one would play without that system.
Of course, I'm not the first one to point out that "levels suck": Raph Koster has used that exact phrase; and Brian "Psychochild" Green had an insightful three part series on this topic... all excellent reads.
Now, if you're reading these posts in order to try to figure out how you can shamelessly rip off one or more existing games to try to recreate their financial success without ever having to really innovate, or even think about game design or why your game is successful... then you're not finding the answer you want (and I'm glad I can't provide it to you in particular).
Even "MMO experts" like Koster and Psychochild don't have definitive answers to the question, "how a would an MMO without a level system, where everyone can play together, actually work? And still be fun??" How to replace levels is a game design challenge without a clear answer, which means it's possible that there is no answer... many will have to try, which means many will likely fail.
But, whether you're motivated by game design innovation and enabling people to play together (like me), or by crass commercial profit... it's worth trying. Both mindsets want their game to be successful. And if WoW is as successful as it is due to stickiness, even though it's built around a level system that actively works against that stickiness... can you imagine a more straightforward formula for "a WoW-killing MMO" than "an extremely fun MMO that doesn't have a level system"?
Of course as I said before, WoW is so entrenched that even if you do make a game more sticky, and even if it's slightly more fun than WoW... it would probably still fail to supercede WoW, simply because "slightly more fun" isn't enough to overcome the inertia that WoW's stickiness creates, and convince people to leave the place they're comfortable. To do that, your game would have to do one or more of the following:
- Be phenomenally more fun than WoW (Considering how WoW incredibly fun WoW is, this is quite a hurdle)... AND/OR:
- Be incredibly easy to start playing, and to continue playing.
It's clear to me that the formula for success must be to follow option #2: in short, to make a game that is comparably fun to WoW; that is at least as sticky as WoW; and that is much easier to get into than WoW.
But where could we possibly ever find a game platform that's already extremely sticky (say, one that already has about 30x the number of users WoW does, all of whom are socially connected to their friends)? Much less one where it's also easy to start playing multiplayer persistent games; easy to keep playing those games; and (almost too) easy to share those games with your friends and suggest that they join you in playing them?
I'm still trying to puzzle out the answer to that one. If you have any ideas, shoot me a message on Facebook - I usually see those faster than I see emails anyway.
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Seriously there have got to be at least a dozen game company execs whipping their employees deep into the night, demanding that they find a way to combine Farmville with WoW. They're all salivating at the idea of just saying the phrase, "It's like Farmville combined with World of Warcraft!" to their investors. "Farmville and World of Warcraft? Why, that would make eleventy-billion dollars!"
I think UO actually did the best to promote group play precisely because it used a skill based progression system rather than a level based system. As such, you could start a new melee character, skill him up to a reasonable state in a couple of days, and he could actually contribute in a group of much more advanced players. Over time, to be sure, his character would improve. Magic Resist (very hard to raise) would make a player less vulnerable, and by adding a bit of Magery (expensive to raise) would add more flexibility, but the fact remains that in UO a two day old player was far more useful than is possible in any current MMO. By way of comparison, try taking your level 6 warrior in WoW on a high level raid, assuming you could even survive getting to the front door without a high level escort.
I played UO for about 5 years, until EA/Origin 'improved' it to such a degree that it was no longer playable, in my opinion. I have also been in the same player guild for over 10 years. Unfortunately, after UO, each succeeeding MMO has been an exercise in frustration. With level based games, some players can always grind the levels faster than other, and as one of the older players in the guild, I don't have endless online time available due to family and job obligations. As such, I am always playing level catch up due to the penalties modern MMOs impose to level disparities. By the time I get to the upper levels, my guildies have maxed out, gotten bored, and moved on to the 'next big MMO'. Instead of promoting player community, current games serve to destroy it by separating gamers into level defined niches.
I've always felt that if EA were to develop a modern 3d version of UO with the original rule set (no trammel or felucia - Old School UO), and free for all PvP, at least on some servers, it would be an instant success. Probably not a WoW killer, but I think that would be neither necessary nor desireable. WoW is successful for a reason, but UO was successful for a reason as well. There are a lot of player just like me who would flock to it, and make EA a lot of money. As it is, EA sits on an otherwise valuable intellectual propery, and that is a true shame.
In a sand box game like UO, you were the master of your own destiny. You chose where you wanted to go, not some NPC with a glowing ! over their head.
Of course if as a new player you decided to poke your nose into Hythloth right off the bat, you would be in for a nasty surprise, but with the great power of self determination there also comes the great responsibility to employ common sense. As you gain in skill, you decide what your own quests are, even if it's something as simple as surviving a solo trip to the bottom of Destard. (The goal would be simple. Depending on your skill set, the achievement of that goal may not be).
With a sand box game, developers have an added advantage in that they are no longer on the hook to provide an never ending succesion of expansions to give players more quests to do as is common in current MMOs, since without quests there is nothing worthwhile to do in those games. Of course, that puts the monkey on the backs of the players, and if they sit around in a dumb stupor waiting for an NPC with a glowing '!' over his head to show up, it would make for a very slow game. Hopefully, the current generation of gamers haven't been rendered completely hopeless by WoW and it's imitators.
For example, on UO Siege Perilous, my guild, the Knights of Glory and Beer (KGB) encountered a rival guild that called itself the Imperium. Imperium players demanded, from a role playing point of view, that other players coming into their territory never wear plate armor, since that was in their view inherently provocative. Since the KGB also laid claim to same territory, and by no means were we willing to forgo the wearing of plate armor, the ensuing war lasted about 6 months. The tide of that war constantly shifted back and forth, and the conclusion was ever in doubt, right up to the end. (We won :) )
That was the best game play I've ever had in an MMO, and none of it was the result of developer effort beyond supplying the basic environment. It does require effort on the part of players, to be sure. If you want to be spoon fed, don't complain about the quality of your pablum.
One thing that made PvP problematic in Ultima Online for many people was the fact that escape for the player killer was so trivially easy. It made any sort of player justice difficult, at best. Even with the UO notoriety system, being a murderer was just too easy. There was pretty much no downside for players who wanted to adopt a style of play that consisted of inflicting grief on other players who didn't care for that sort of thing.
So, I suppose for game developers who really want to make their game serve both the PvP and PvE styles of game play without resorting to something as artificial as the WoW battle grounds, there are ways to do it. If you are going to have a game that includes magic, then for role playing purposes, in the PvE areas you could establish that the Elder Gods (or whatever fits your game back story) established a particular area such that good guys (elves, humans, whatever) were magically constrained from hostile acts against each other. In that area, if you must, then you could play out your canned story line, include quest arcs, fight npc monsters (which for some reason are NOT constrained), and players who want that sort of thing can have their WoW look a like.
Beyond this area, deep in the wilderness, however, there are no quests, there is no back story, no developer story line to further, and no constraints imposed by the gods, developer or otherwise. There are resources there to fight over, but if you go there, you are on your own. The only safety is in numbers, and if you die, your body can be looted down to the fillings in your teeth. No teleportation spells, though. If you are to escape certain death, you have to do it the old fashioned way and elude your enemies. Or kill them...
There are no quests, so the role players and those who want to follow whatever Epic Tale the developers have in mind have no reason to poke their nose out there. By the same token, the developers don't have to expend any effort in this area supplying content in the form of quests or story lines. Spawn raw materials for crafting in strategic areas for players to equip themselves and over which they can fight, and then walk away.
It would be an interesting experiment, at least, and development wise wouldn't add a lot to your budget. After all, it's just a big relatively empty area where players can go, if they choose, to fight amongst themselves.
The fun in Traveller wasn't in the leveling up; it was in building an interesting character in one marathon session, then meeting up with other interesting characters with complementary skills and going out into the wonderfully detailed science fiction universe of the Third Imperium.
What "leveling" there was was gear-oriented -- the occasional bit of improved weaponry or ship equipment. Most of the enjoyment of the Traveller experience, however, came from exploration: exploring new lifeforms such as plants, animals, and sophont cultures; exploring the interaction of skills with devices; and exploring all the stories that can be told when adventure calls us into the unknown.
I'm still waiting for someone to make Marc Miller (owner of Traveller) the right deal to build a full-scale MMORPG based on Traveller. Done right, I'd happily play that game. And I think a lot of other people who are equally tired of the cynical "keep giving us your money" leveling treadmill would enjoy that gameworld as well.
Until then, Traveller provides some evidence that it's possible to make a fun RPG that doesn't require arbitrary and artificial character (and mob) "levels." Some developer just needs to figure out how to duplicate that success in a MMORPG.
Piece of cake. :)
A WoW-killer, though? Doubtful, since I believe that there is *no* rational reason for WoW's success; there's no "killer app" in WoW that can be pointed to as the reason why so many people signed up to play it. In my mind, WoW is the beneficiary of the Hula Hoop Effect: a lot of people play it because they heard that a lot of people play it. And you can't duplicate that effect by design.
But it doesn't hurt to try.
Kill a mob? Get loot/XP. Complete a quest? Get loot/XP. Rinse/repeat? Gain a level. BIG doggie snack!!! With sound effects and flashing lights, no less.
WoW, at least until you get to the Raiding stage, is a very simple game. I think most competitors fall down because they try to over complicate things by adding new features that sound good in the preliminary design reviews, but which the majority of their potential customers don't want and won't use (consider the complicated crafting interface for Vanguard as an example of this).
If you want to compete with WoW as far as subscriptions rates go, you probably shouldn't get much more complex than the 'have a doggie snack' approach.
Combined with the social aspects (cantinas etc.) it was a really decent game (bugs aside). It is a shame so much time was spent (2x even) remaking the game rather than just fixing the bugs.
I agree Traveler would be a great MMO. Though it was one of the only games I had ever played where I had a character die during character creation.
Another fun one would be West End's Paranoia. That would be an awesome MMO. Characters are literally throw-aways.
It's interesting that the comments here have been as much talking about PvP systems and "PvP as content" as much as about level systems, the actual topic of the original post. My other pet peeve with MMOs is that I, also, would like to see PvE used as the "content" of the game much more - no fictional war in a story could ever engage me as much as a war between players where the outcome was truly unknown, where my friends are actually involved - in short, where the war is (for all intents and purposes) actually happening - within the game's simulation.
But if I start advocating that MMOs drop both level systems and PvE content, soon I might as well just say "My favorite game is TF2 and every game should be just like it." :) I think there are places for games with all these systems, regardless of my personal taste. I'm just trying to point out the phenomenon of Stickiness; its role in the success of any MMO; and the fact that Level Systems inherently work against that stickiness by creating barriers to playing with your friends.
Bart, your remark on the "Hula Hoop effect" seems to be, if not actually a facet of "Stickiness", then definitely related to it. The more people are playing the game, the more people are likely to join their friends in playing the game. I think that the amount which you're actually interacting and playing with other people is a factor even in this "viral spread" - there's no point in asking a friend to come play unless playing together is actually meaningful and interesting.
For what it's worth, I can't agree with comments that dismiss WoW as a totally mindless, bad, or otherwise non-fun game. Though I attribute a lot of its success to this social factor, the fact is that it's really fun (though of course "fun" is subjective). In fact, going against my own point about the importance of community, the game is very fun even if you play it completely alone... part of its strength is that it can be played in very different ways by many very different players.
Whether or not I personally still find it entertaining, and for whatever real flaws it may have, I can't regard its success as accidental or undeserved. WoW has entertained millions upon millions of players for hundreds of hours each, and enabled people to play together in ways they never have before. Any game developer who claims that it's somehow a bad game (or that this success is irrelevant) is either jealous, elitist, or has very different ideas from me as to what defines "success" in game development.
See write up at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-playing_game)
I've seen it modded to unlimited lives (much like every game we have out there without perma-death.
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Social stickiness is what games are all about.
Mechanics do play a large role.
I met a lot of people playing UO and EQ1. I still play with them today.
Indeed a lot of older MMO players are still playing with people they met 10 years ago.. and not up on PUGs and meeting new people.
Guilds tend to import themselves en mass to new games, creating leveling and raid groups.
Then there are the random guilds that invite anyone (aqnd try to invite you 3x a day).
Mechanics can also help or hurt socialization. The New WoW battlegroup dungeon feature (where you can LFG cross-server) helps you get work done (get into dungeons, do some quests (not always depending on group mood etc. ) but doesn't foster the same amount of social interaction as a same server group. Getting a good reputation and being a decent person can get you group (or guild if you want to go that far) invites. The cross-server random pairings doesn't foster local community. It rewards speed-running dungeons and quest skipping.
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Social aspects can really make or break a game. I play CoD MW2 nearly every night... not because it is a really good shooter (because it really isn't that special.. and is full of cheaters as well on the Xbox). I'm there because a big chunk of my friends have it, and we chat while playing the same 6 maps over and over. We aren't playing because of any value of MW2, but because we are all playing together.
In a free for all PvP environment like old school Ultima Online, the opposite was true, at least for me. That was a VERY sticky game, in my opinion, because I played a style of game that focused on guild vs guild conflict. That mode of play was not demanded by the game, of course. The PK - AntiPK wars were entirely a player invention, a product of the environment. Others went for a solo stealth mode of play, or a pure crafting game, or a strict role playing approach (ShadowClan Orcs, for example). But that was what made UO so sticky. It had a very large diverse player population, combining multiple distinct playing styles, and a fairly functional player economy that I haven't seen duplicated in any MMO since.
Maybe gamers don't want such flexibilty or freedom to make their own way in games any more, I don't know. There is a large comfort aspect to the fact that if a player just goes from one glowing quest icon to the next, you are playing the game 'right'. No thought required.
Sand box games aren't intrinsically 'better' than games like WoW. They are just different. I just happen to prefer a game like that. Unfortunately, my segment of the game market is not being very well served at the moment.
I've played Eve, by the way, and yes, 0.0 space in Eve does correspond well to the environment I described. For my part, I was never able to accept the 'ship' is the 'player' approach taken by Eve. That, and I have weakness for sword and shield warriors. Personal preference.
But it should be noted that Paranoia does have something like a level system, corresponding to the seven primary colors of the spectrum. (Theoretically there's also an Ultraviolet level -- not that I'd know anything about that! ;) It's interesting to speculate on whether the developer of a Paranoia MMORPG would interpret this level to mean that players who gain Ultraviolet status become able to alter game content, somewhat like wizzes in MUD.)
Again, though, I don't know whether a Traveller or Paranoia MMORPG would be different enough to exceed WoW. But I do agree that being perceived as different from WoW is a necessary condition for any MMORPG to have a shot at the title.
The people who can be attracted to something like WoW already have been. To attract other/more people, something else is required.
If and when it happens, I think it will be the result of something REALLY different, and not just another MMO.
In shorty... what motivates the player on a sub-consient way, is acquire rewards based on objectives, and thats a exchange, like any intrisical trade, money for something, on this case, fullfiled objectives.
also it seemed to me that the power system operated on a 2x or 10x system.
your security rank seemed to depend on there being between 2 to 10 times as many people below you.
and ther only 7(or 8 or 9 depending) levels.
there are many things that JUST DONT translate into creds in paranoia.
1)fame..do missions, really well and you get famos(people try to kill you)
2)be good and you get powerfull(people try to kill you)
3)be bad and your secsec(see guild)respect and rewards you(everyone else trys to kill you)
however a system for creating missions from players interactions would be great.