Innovation in big budget MMOs

After a great discussion with Armies, I ended up going through mental checklist of innovation in recent high profile, big budget MMOs (as I scootered home from work...likely not the best time to be day dreaming!). You can read Armies' comments below this post.

I originally posited that most big budget MMOs are not very innovative because publishers believe there isn't much market for them and, given how few innovative MMOs have done well, that they may be right. However, Armies points out that when it comes to innovative big budget MMOs, we have a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Most of them tanked, but most of them also had serious issues at launch that had nothing to do with whether they were innovative.

After giving it some thought, I think he is essentially correct. We haven't really had enough good test cases to know what kind of market there is for a big budget MMO that strays from the Diku MUD formula of Everquest. And that's a damn shame.

WoW, and more recently LoTRO and WAR hardly innovated at all, and all did fairly well. Well OK really insanely well in the case of WoW. However, two of them also lacked major issues at launch to hold them back. The exception, WoW, was unplayable for many users around the first month of launch. They didn't give out that free month of sub time for giggles.

So WoW, at least, did have a major issue at launch, didn't innovate much, and reset the bar for what can be achieved (in terms of subs) by an MMO. That does sort of support my "gamers are mindless sheep and publishers are right to not innovate" theory. Counter to that, the biggest issue WoW had at launch was that too many folks wanted to play. In terms of the basic design and mechanics.... once you were actually playing and lag free the game was nearly flawless (which, as Armies points out, could in itself be seen as an innovation for the time). So make of that example what you will.

Lets look at some of the counter examples. MxO, AoC, DDO, and TR strayed from the core Diku MuD design (at least in terms of the combat system), and all tanked. But all also had serious issues at launch. TR ran like ass on average gaming PCs of the day. Even the developers admitted a few months after launch that the bulk of users were using the lowest settings. AoC and MxO had too many issues to even list. Even DDO, while not particularly broken at launch, had a core design that to many of us looked a bit insane on paper (it turns out we were right).

Launch CoH had a lot of innovations in terms of character design (the mix and match power sets design remains a personal favorite among MMOs), but few in terms of actual gameplay. Unless you can call stripping an MMO down mostly to combat an innovation. Regardless, it had a smooth launch and did pretty well. Subsequent updates have made it one of the more innovative MMOs on the market. Day jobs, user generated content, oddball crafting system that lets you create temporary powers and costume pieces. However, these don't seem to be affecting subs much. It's been hanging in the "highly successful but not a WoW killer" territory with FFXI, EQ II, LOTRO, and WAR (and now EVE) pretty much since launch.

EVE had a fairly smooth launch (or so I understand, I wasn't there), and was highly innovative. Even daunting. However it also started off as a niche product. After several years it has slowly worked it's way up to the same territory as other moderately successful sub based MMOs. It now seems to be among the top five sub based MMOs in the western market. Very successful for something that started out as a niche product for the ultra hardcore. But perhaps not too enlightening about the overall market.

So where does that leave us? Is there a 200-500K market for a polished innovative MMO? Who can say. However, after the failure of so many high profile MMOs that strayed from the EQ/ WoW formula, I very much doubt that we are going to see a truly innovative MMO from a major publisher in the next few years. Maybe Bioware, or even Blizzard, is about to shock me. However, I have my doubts.

Innovation in MMOs

This paragraph over at Ardwulf's lair really got me thinking:

It’s funny that we hear so many complaints from the MMO pundit class (of which I myself am a member,) to the effect that almost all MMOs are basically the same, and then when titles which are different are pointed out, they’re dismissed for putative ‘barriers’ set up against fun. D&D Online and EVE Online are two examples of this – both titles varying from a much inveighed-against paradigm, and both criticized for not matching expectations.


I think he really hit the nail on the head. What big budget MMOs have come along recently that were well and truly innovative? I would argue that AoC, EVE, DDO, MxO, Tabula Rasa, and City of Heroes all contained at least some major innovations. And all but two of those MMOs fell flat on their faces in the marketplace soon after launch. In many cases the very factors that set them apart are the features that many players complained about (e.g., the "link system" combat in MxO, the boggling complexity of EVE, or the heavy use of instancing and reliance on teamwork to progress in DDO). The main reason that MMOs are so rarely innovative is that publishers believe that there is little market for experimental MMO designs. And based on the behavior of most MMO gamers I'd be forced to conclude that they are right.

What I find even more frustrating is that there are a ton of games that really push the MMO design envelope, and that get almost completely ignored. Many of the commentators whining about a "lack of innovation" in MMOs have likely never even tried one. Below is a rundown of some of the ones I'm aware of (and I'll happily add in more). I will allow that many of these games stray so far from the design of a standard MMO that it's debatable whether they should even be considered MMOs. However, all of them are online multiplayer games that have the ability to support hundreds of simultaneous users.

If you are currently playing Everquest, Everquest II, World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, or Lord of the Rings Online and aren't willing to try at least one or two of the following MMOs, you are part of the reason why big budget MMOs aren't generally innovative. You are therefore a giant hypocrite if you complain about it.

A Tale in the Desert: there is no combat. Players collaborate to "build a society." Myrmecology, raising ants, was recently added as a core system (no, really!).

Endless Forest: a social MMO where you are a deer. You can communicate with other deer only via sounds and body language.

Arden: the World of Willian Shakespeare: an MMO designed to teach you about the works of Shakespeare. Requires Never Winter Nights to play (designed with the NWN modding tools). Development was stopped because testers deemed it "not at all fun." But an interesting experiment nonetheless.

Wizard 101: it gets a lot of flack for being a semi FtP tween focused MMO. However the card based combat is like nothing I've seen in any other MMO, it has one of the better housing systems I've seen in an MMO, and the idea that you earn health/ mana potion refills by playing arcade and puzzle games is downright bizarre.

Cities XL: an upcoming MMO where you build cities. Entering closed beta in a few days, one to keep an eye on.

Puzzle Pirates: sword fights, crafting, ship to ship combat, and other systems are all resolved by playing puzzle mini games. Interesting "grouping" / social mechanics that many MMO designers would do well to examine.

Sports MMOs: there are way too many to list. The one I've spend some time in is Shot Online, which is based on golf. You play golf games with other players to gain levels and improve stats that affect things such as your accuracy or how far you can hit a ball. However, it's sufficiently skill based that a level one newbie can beat a vet if they are a better player. Others off the top of my head include Fantasy Tennis and Project Torque. You couldn't get any further from a swords and sorcery Diku MUD MMO than these games.

MANGBAND: a multiplayer version of Angband (a Tolkien themed rogulike). Rarely has more than three or four players on, but I've found the (minuscule) community to be quite friendly. The hard mode server is also the only perma-death MMO that I am aware of.

Planetside: the original, and currently only, MMO FPS. Still alive and kicking.

Asheron's Call: an older MMO that I personally have never gotten around to trying. However it still does a lot of things that few other MMOs have attempted, including ongoing updates that continually alter the world and push forward the game's narrative. This game is nearly as old as Everquest, and still more innovative than 95% of the MMOs on the market.

Those are all off the top of my head, I'm certain there are more that could go on that list. I didn't even get in to Diku MUD style MMOs that explore non fantasy settings, of which there are an increasing number. Innovative MMOs are out there. If you really want to see publishers take more risks with experimental MMO designs, seek these games out and at least try them.