Logan Westbrook said:
Modern MMOs "Barely Even Games," Says Former Guild Wars Dev
Self-confessed "console guy" Richard Foge thinks that MMOs get an easy ride, but none of them is even as good as Mario 64.
Richard Foge, who has worked on such diverse games as
Guild Wars [http://www.amazon.com/Guild-Wars-Trilogy-Pc/dp/B001DI6O6C/ref=sr_1_1?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1288877263&sr=1-1],
SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs - Fireteam Bravo [http://www.amazon.com/SOCOM-Seals-Fireteam-Bravo-Sony-PSP/dp/B00005A4X6/ref=sr_1_4?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1288877226&sr=1-4], and
God of War [http://www.amazon.com/God-War-Playstation-2/dp/B0002XL3BA/ref=sr_1_4?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1288877162&sr=1-4], has attacked MMOs, saying that they are nowhere close to keeping up with cutting edge games and have math where they should have action.
Writing on the Undead Labs website [http://undeadlabs.com/2010/11/zombies/the-way-you-make-me-feel/], the studio that he has recently joined, Foge said that he liked the
idea of MMOs, but couldn't stand the actual games themselves. Foge thought that MMOs should be able to go toe-to-toe with the biggest triple-A games, and thinks that making action-orientated MMOs for consoles is how that's going to happen.
He described the game that Undead Labs was working on, a persistent, online, console action game where players banded together to fight zombies, and their success or failure was down to their own skill, rather than "numbers and spreadsheets behind the scenes." Players would be able to set themselves significant and important goals as well, like capturing a power plant to get the communications network in their community up and running.
The game that Foge describes sounds like it could be a lot of fun, albeit very ambitious for a new studio like Undead Labs. It sounds like he's underestimating the challenge of getting a large-scale, persistent world to run smoothly however, especially one with reflex-orientated, action gameplay. That's going to be a significant hurdle to overcome if his game is actually going to be playable, let alone successful.
Source: Massively [http://www.massively.com/2010/11/03/undead-labs-current-mmos-are-barely-even-games/]
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WHERE I THINK THIS GUY IS WRONG:
It's the same apples-oranges mess. There is a difference between "action," "strategy," and "skill."
Action-oriented games tend to be about fast-paced movement (the classic "twitch" gameplay), and are nearly always exclusively focused on combat. This is because non-combat game elements tend not to be as frenetic or rushed as combat can be. The result is that combat is extremely in-the-moment, and is also usually quite short due to the pacing. This is something like raquetball.
Strategy-focused games tend to be about prior planning and out-thinking the opponent
before the encounter, while adjusting the plan as needed during combat. The encounter itself is about seeing the results of your prior planning pay off, and trying to adapt to changes forced by your opponent's strategy, which allows combat to be a bit longer and more theatrical, though it seems more "hands-off" than the alternative. This could be seen as something more like chess.
Skill is not owned by either of these two concepts. Skill is simply a measure of the player's decisions and input into the events. Neither of these require more or less skill, they simply require
different skills at
different points in the process. Action-based games require hand-eye reflexes (and are far more hardware-sensitive, due to lag issues), and they require them in-the-moment. Strategy-based games require planning and forward-thinking skills, and the skill demand tends to be front-loaded (mostly before combat begins).
MMOs have long-favored the strategy model over the action model, and it's for the following very convincing reasons:
1) MMOs require folks of all sorts of rigs and locations to connect to the same world. Connection speed is an issue, and the strategy-oriented structure is more friendly to folks with mid-range machines.
2) Strategy-oriented games tend to allow more focus on non-combat elements, because the mechanics for the entire game are a bit more uniform, and more accessible to a variety of players. MMOs are about participating in a world, not just killing ten rats of varying sizes, so allowing a game to focus on non-combat elements is important (or was, at one point).
3) MMOs tend to want to make combat feel "epic." This means having This usually means scripted animations for various moves, so the fight looks more polished and choreographed, rather than always coming down to circle-strafing or bunny-hopping. It also means allowing the player to enjoy that combat more by being able to at least partially
watch the action unfold and
watch their character perform these super-sweet moves (also explaining the preference for third-person view).
4) MMOs tend to want combat to last a certain length, which means the pace of combat needs to be fast enough to be exciting, but slow enough to allow the player a chance to
use all the epic abilities.
The length of combat also weighs
heavily on the pace of the game. If combat is too fast, leveling may be too fast, meaning the game is a throw-away. Or, if combat is fast and leveling is kept in check, it means the player has to engage in MORE of the same fights, making the game extremely boring and repetitive--remember, MMOs aren't about "10 hours of campaign mode," they're about looooong term play. What's "mildly repetitive" in a normal game is "downright tedious and infuriating" in an MMO.
WHERE I THINK THIS GUY IS ACCIDENTALLY RIGHT:
MMOs have been really losing something that
did once set them apart from other game experiences. They are losing the feeling of being virtual worlds in which a player was leasing some persistent property--and then
living in it. They are almost exclusively focused on a few gameplay elements that can easily be found (and done better) by single-serving games:
a) Combat and action
b) "Epic" storylines, in which every character is THE hero
c) Loot acquisition (via treadmill)
The result is that the following changes have made the game less "world-like," and more like paying a subscription to play a five-year-old single player game:
a) Heavy instancing, which reduces the feeling of persistence and continuity of the world.
b) Reduction or removal of non-combat elements--crafting, social gameplay, costuming.
c) Reduction in player ownership--armor sets are same-y among classes, fewer customization options that matter (it's all covered up by the same-y armor), no player housing or instanced player housing (which removes the feeling that the player owns a footprint in the world).
d) Simple things are bypassed, like sitting in chairs, or mounts that are more than just changes in run speed and animation.
With the removal of those key elements, it's correct to say that MMOs just aren't up to snuff. They offer the
same things as single-serving console and PC games, but they do it with less polish and demand more money. Rather than try to do the same things just as well (which just leads to the "But why pay a sub for the same stuff?" issue), they need to go back to doing
more to increase the feeling that this is a virtual world
worth paying rent to inhabit.
