Idle Musings of the Active Mind

What the hell happened?

I mean, from where I sit, MMO’s are under siege. The 800 pound gorilla in the room, World of Warcraft (WoW), came in and showed what kind of money could be made if the game were really, really successful. Unfortunately, what seems to also have happened is that it has be come the gold standard of what all games should be; that its game content is so far and away superior to anything else out ther that game development companies have a hard time getting financed to the extent necessary to put out a really, really good competing product.

Now, let’s be clear here. What I’m talking about is content, not popularity. And oddly, if you ask the veteran gamers who play MMO’s, many of them will tell you flat out that WoW is rife with its own share and flavor of problems. And topping the that list is the lack innovative content. Wrath of the Lich King, WoW’s latest expansion (I don’t count Ulduar, it was free) is the poster child for WoW’s no-innovation-here approach to marketing and development.

EverQuest, hands down and bar none, was the best game that was ever released. The nay-sayers on this point will say, “But WoW has 11 million or more subscribers. EQ never had that, so how can you say it was the best game?!” Remember, I’m not talking about popularity of the game. And if you want some insight into how that game rocketed to the top of the popularity charts, read “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell. It will give you a whole new perspective on how products gain popularity on the scale WoW has been able to achieve.

Don’t get me wrong. I like WoW. I’ve been playing that damn game since it was in open beta. *sigh* But I’d still be playing EQ if Sony hadn’t tried to market the crap out of it by introducing new content that ruined the ambiance of the game. Planes of Power was the final nail in the coffin. The expansion itself was pretty good, but adding the knowledge books that let level 1 characters go from one end of the world to the other without risk in a matter of just a couple minutes slit the game’s wrists soundly. The final cut across the jugular was adding the Bazaar and giving players an easy way to buy and sell stuff in a way that did not require social interaction. East Commonlands used to be BUZZING with activity and people, but once the bazaar went in, people no longer had a reason to be social outside of grouping for instance/dungeon runs.

It is a travesty against the Internet culture that WoW does not require any real social engagement. Many would argue this point, but I’d bet a parrot to a pirate those same people were not EQ players. EQ forced people to socialize, at least in the early days. You had to haggle face to face (well, avatar to avatar, at least) if you wanted to buy, sell, or trade things with another player. If you wanted to hunt monsters, complete quests, even work on acquiring items for tradeskills, you needed to seek out a companion or two to hunt, harvest, and quest with.

In WoW you can go from level 1 to level 80 without ever needing to group even once. You might not be able to see all of the content, but that much is no different than EQ. In both games if you want to see every zone and instance in the game, you need to join a raiding guild. If you don’t like to raid like its a second job, then you won’t see all of what either game has to see.

We’ve seen a few games come and go that had promise, but failed in their execution. Arguably, those failures are not entirely the fault of the company who developed the game. The games’ producers push like hell to get the game to market and seemingly never once realize that when the game fails it is largely due to their rush to get the game out the door. Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is an excellent example of this.

It had all of the pre-release marketing hype and popularity to be the next great game. The designers created the core of what could have become one helluva great game. But once again the producers and financiers of the game pushed to get the game on the shelves before it was ready. Gamers will not stick with a game that only has promise, it has to deliver. They might hang tough for a month or two–maybe even three–but if the game’s bugs, glitches, and overall game design doesn’t get worked out and meet the expectation set by all the pre-release hype, they will drop it altogether without any hesitation. People will not pay a monthly fee for a promise of something good to come. They’ll go play something that’s mediocre, but playable without glitches and bugs.

So we are stuck with the 800 pound gorilla and it’s lack of innovative content. Blizzard is doing themselves no favors by continuing to regurgitate the same old content over and over again. Oh sure, it might look a little prettier, but once you’ve done a quest in WoW, you’ve done a quest in WoW. The tradeskills have no real depth to them and can be maxed out with relative ease. There really isn’t much challenge to it. Leveling requires no assistance. Killing monsters can be done without any fear of getting punished with any substantive penalties. And unless you’re a complete dweeb, PvE combat is a guaranteed success in every battle. The only way my mage dies these days is if he tries to kill more than 4 mobs at once. Killing 1-4 at a time is guaranteed outcome. Killing 5 at a time is dicey at best, and usually ends badly.

So what’s the draw? Why play WoW?

Well, it’s combat “feel” is good. The game runs smoothly (most of the time). Customer service isn’t horrible. The world is asthetically pleasing to look at–lots of pretty colors and artistic detail. The quests are entertaining, if not especially challenging. And if you’re in a decent guild, you can sit in Stormwind (or Orgrimmar, if you prefer) and chat to your heart’s content with your buddies until something interesting to do presents itself.

Every few months or so I go back to the other games–EQ, EQ2, Vanguard, LOTR, DAoC, et al…and see what changes have been implemented. At this point, EQ2 is an extremely playable game. The challenge is a bit greater than WoW, but it is such a poor shadow of what its predecessor had that after a few hours (or days, if you’re really persistent) you find yourself waxing nostalgic for EQ (the original).

I keep waiting and hoping someone will create what EQ2 should have been–a challenging game that required social interaction and had good graphics, innovative content, tradeskills with depth, and a storyline that just kills.

*sigh*

I’ll just continue to dream…