MMO Rant #3: Retroactively “New” Features
It’s time for the third rant of Grouchy Gnome, the disgruntled MMO player persona of game developer Ryan Shwayder. As I refrained from pointing out in the last couple rants, I’m writing these as a player without regard to the fact that I know better. Meaning, I’ll rant about anything that annoys me, even if I know that it shouldn’t or can’t be implemented. Why? It’s nice to forget everything I’ve learned by making games, damnit.
Now to the brief, but pointed, rant. I hate it when a new MMO “introduces” a feature as a major selling point, often claiming that it’s a new feature (or even more likely, the fans of said game simply misconceive the feature as being new because they are freaking MMO noobs).
Need an example? Player-controlled boats. Guess what, they were in the first major MMO. Yes, the first one. Ultima Online. It had boats that you could sail around in. And speaking of UO, it had a crapload of little features that have recently been reintroduced as shiny new “next gen” features.
Player housing. Yes player housing went by the wayside after UO, and has slowly been returning ever since. We still don’t have a grip on in-world player housing–that is, player housing that actually exists in the game world where people can see it rather than in some instance somewhere. Horizons made a valiant effort to bring it back, but the game hasn’t done well enough to be recognized. Vanguard is pretty much taking the Horizons approach to housing, so perhaps that’s a feature that is officially back.
Capes and cloaks. Visible ones. Yeah, they’ve been back for a while now, but those disappeared for some time, came back in DAoC, disappeared, came back in CoH, disappeared, came back in WoW, and now EQII will have them in the next expansion.
Mounted combat. WTF? Why can’t I fight crap while I’m on my horse? Well, you can in EverQuest II, but you can’t in World of Warcraft right now. It was in, you guessed it, Ultima Online long ago, so why did it suddenly disappear? Because animations are hard? No excuse. Next.
Seamless worlds. Okay, I’ll admit that these never disappeared, but damnit I hate zones. Given, they did provide the temporary ability to create much more varied environments, but we’re beyond that limitation technologically. Don’t make me zone–I want to adventure and explore unhindered by some illogical technological barrier.
Layered clothing. Wait, this one is STILL GONE. Ah back in the day in UO I had a nice sash on and a sexy kilt? on top of my platemail. Yep, on top of it. Not in place of it, on top of it. Sometimes I would wear a jester outfit on top of my armor with a skirt over my legs and a jester hat (in place of my helm). And it was cool, because I could look unique even though I had the same standard set of plate armor as everyone else in the game. Bring it back.
The point of all this is that it pisses me off that certain cool features from older MMOs (namely Ultima Online) disappear even though they were great ideas, only to be resurrected and cited as a major selling point of a “next generation” title. I’d like to blame 3D for killing a lot of the coolest features, but we’ve been working with it for many years now and should be able to at least match the feature set of a 1997 2D “first gen” MMO.
Yay for rants! Rants are fun! One small inaccuracy to point out though, with player housing, SWG had a pretty decent in-world player housing system, which I rather enjoyed. It may STILL have it, but I haven’t played post-NE. Nonetheless, it was worthy of note.
That said, I couldn’t agree with you more! Player controlled boats would open up a great deal of possibility, especially in a PvP environment… I can just imagine a fleet of ships from Fires of Uberguild sailing up just off-shore of a major city where their arch-nemesis guild is hiding out, jaws dropped in “OMG!” TERROR as they watch wave after wave of small dingy boats filled with battle-ready players race towards shore to flush them out! THAT would be an exciting moment, but not in current-gen MMOs..
But that’s not really the point.. the point is that these are being touted as NEW features, when they’re really just OLD features re-hashed. I understand the giving people what they want, to a certain extent, and even with maintaining the status quo, but where’s the creativity? the INNOVATION?!
In regards to seamless worlds, I remember at the first E3 showing of EQ2 (when the game was merely an engine) there was talk about the world being seamless, but somewhere there was a change in direction on that… perhaps due to a technical limitation or perhaps to compromise for additional graphical functionality.. who knows.. This type of thing would actually be a REAL feature and I would consider it par for the course in a next-gen MMO. I mean we can already dynamically load art assets on the fly, why not the world geometry too? I would think that would scale alot better and add to the whole immersion level and general world cohesiveness. Not opening up a wooden door, hitting a load screen, then *poof* suddenly you’re in a new area that looks nothing like the previous. This simply will not do going forward.. not in my opinion.
Time to raise the bar I say! I’d be happy if these features didn’t make it back to MMO-gaming if it meant that newer, more exciting NEW features and mechanics would be added instead! Forget re-hashing “what works” or “what has worked in the past”.
In all honesty, the idea of allowing combat while mounted is largely pointless without having the mount itself participate and impact the outcome.
LotR BfME actually seemed to do pretty well with writing some collision features when sending mounted troops into combat. MMO’s need to take a page from this chapter. Eliminate the 24-54 players vs. 1 ultra mob, have 24-54 players fight a 24-54 NPC army and use appropriate tactics to win the fight (note: clearing endless yard trash 2-3 mobs at a time doesn’t count).
Aside from that though, some of the other features you mentioned shouldn’t really be “selling points”, they’re minor features that add a bit of immersion, and like anything else, become annoying if overused or overhyped ahead of time.
Perhaps, if I may suggest a topic for rant #4, let’s hear what you think of MMO marketing departments.
Player collision, I am sick of melee running threw my tanks like ghosts just to hit me, a poor unarmed nuker. DAoC made a decant attempt to try an allow melee to use their shields to mitigate damage on team mates, but yeah.
Taunts usless in PvP. Why can’t I as a tank taunt another player off some poor caster. How hard would it be to implement so a taunt would force a monentary target change?
Friendly fire: if a nuker drops a massive bomb into the melee, it should affect both sides! Just be sure to allow me to kill nukers who are on my own side }=)
MMO Rant #3: Retroactively ?New? Features
UO was 2d? I didn’t know that. No wonder I skipped it, was too busy flying around with a jetpack splatting co-workers with RPGs in a title by the name of Duke Nukem at that time. “It’s time to kick ass and chew bubblegum.” Forgive my irreverance but 2d 5 years after Wolf3d strikes me as a bit of weaksauce slackage. But I can see how people appreciate it if their entire focus is MMO. I did play another popular 2d game by the name of Warcraft during that period. But that was a fairly new concept, battle chess. I suppose also Tradewars had some features that Eve Online is lacking, too, eh?
The reason they did away with player collision is because some people actually enjoy blocking doorways to things like banks, city gates, etc…
As soon as someone makes a game that allows for players to collide in some places, but not in others, I agree they should bring it back.
This is one of my favorite pet peeves about the “new” games recently! Especially since we told one company before a certain beta started all about these various features so maybe they would expand upon them…you know, really be innovative…*le sigh* Next gen my…well, you know
Player-controlled boats - been there, done that, loved it (DAoC)
Underwater zones/combat - see above (DAoC)
Player Housing - DAoC, Horizons, SWG…
Capes/Cloaks (especially with hoods that can be up or down!) - DAoC, CoH, EQ2 expan.
Mounted combat - EQ2 & I hear DAoC will finally have it soon
Maybe 2008 will bring the next cool idea?
Back to the “everything old is new again” refrain, CoH also does layering to some degree. There are costume pieces whose purpose is to serve as an open jacket or short pants that you can put an entirely different costume piece underneath.
–GF
Yeah, cause, you know, that “Diablo” thing was lame.
BTW, Wolf3d was 2.5d. It was during the development of UO that Quake came out and thigns REALLY went 3d.
Seriously, the 2d is what made a lot of those things more possible.
SWG btw, has layered clothing too.
unbeliever: You’re playing the wrong game if they can’t make taunts do something in PVP, come to a real game like Everquest2 where Taunts and ALL spells/combat arts work in PVP… (Yes, including Charm).
Guess what, [boats] were in the first major MMO. Yes, the first one.
MUD1 had boats? I didn’t know that….
Oh, wait, you mean the first major graphical MMO.
Air Warrior was mostly planes, as far as I remember. The did try to make a submarine game based on that code….
Er, wait, do you mean the first graphical MMO available at retail?
Meridian 59 didn’t have boats, though…. You got to the island by crossing a set of underground tunnels.
Oh, you are referring to the first MMO you played. Gotcha.
You can be forgiven for not thinking about the dev side of things. But, ignoring your history? Otherwise you come across as ignorant as Will does above. Unacceptable, n00bler.
unbeliever, Jason: I’m all for player collision. However, you need to be able to push through someone after the immediate collision. So if you run into a PC or NPC object and keep running, you’ll push through slowly after a second. I like the strategic element it would bring to both PvP and PvE in games, without making it so people could stand in doorways like the assholes they are, preventing others from getting in or out of buildings.
Tenamdar, Raph: Apologies for skimming over SWG in my brief history of games that didn’t have things I love. I’ll admit that I never played the game before the NGE, and after it I only played for a brief period of time. So that’s not on my list of “I have any clue what’s in the game.”
No worries! Nitpicking the details aside, I think most of us (if not all) would agree that your overall points are legitimate. While the features you mentioned are cool and many should be either implemented for the first time or more commonly found in current or at the very least *upcoming* MMORPGs (speaking of 3D-Graphical MMORPGs for the purposes of this discussion… all MUDs step to the side please!), they’re not “new” features and if implemented should not be considered as “new” at all. They can be called “cool” because well.. they are.. but not “new”. I totally agree. Let’s not create a false sense of concept innovation. Perhaps there’s IMPLEMENTATION innovation, but that doesn’t make the feature itself “new”.
… and I can’t believe I just used two *tion words back-to-back in a coherent sentence. Hurray for the power of coffee! =)
* Tenamdar has increased his skill in wordplay! (2) *
Psycho, if you can argue any of the games you mentioned as “major,” I will concede the point. However, none of them were blockbuster hits until Ultima Online, hence it was the first major MMO, at least in North America. I played The Realm, M59, and some MUDs prior to UO, but not a one of them was a major commercial success until Ultima Online. Hence the “major” qualifier, noobler.
Anarchy Online had/has a seamless world. First game I remember doing it since UO, although there were plenty of games I never got a chance to play. Of course, they had instanced housing, and a few other things.
I think it’s kind of interesting that just about everything you mentioned is in SWG and has been for years
It even had partial mounted combat (for a while you could fire your gun from the back of a creature mount, but you couldn’t fight from vehicles which is what we all wanted). In fact, the only thing it really never had was boats, because the SWG engine didn’t do anything with open water/underwater at all.
Psycho, if you can argue any of the games you mentioned as ?major,? I will concede the point.
Oh, I can always argue.
Seriously, though, how do you define “major”? MUD1 was a huge commercial success. MUD1 still runs today at http://www.british-legends.com/. I’d consider that pretty major.
Air Warrior was an impressive achievement for its time. It made a lot of money over its lifespan as well. Kesmai, the makers of the game, only really stumbled when the business model changed radically and some people didn’t adjust.
Even humble M59 turned a profit while dealing with the new business model that spelled doom for companies like Kesmai. The game is still running in the black right now, which is major (and mind-boggling) if you know anything about business or independent game development.
The problem is that when you try to assign an arbitrary definition to “major”, you are always going to be called on it. Yes, UO was bigger than the other games , but that doesn’t really mean much. If I want to define “major” as having over 1,000,000 subscribers in North America, then WoW is the only major MMO that we’ve ever had. But, honestly, that’s not really fair; WoW may be bigger than UO, but that doesn’t invalidate UO’s contributions and significance just as UO didn’t magically invalidate anything that came before it.
So, instead of saying “first major MMO”, say “an MMO that was introduced nearly a decade ago.” Yes, yes, it’s more typing, poor you. But, it says that the feature has been around for a while, without the inaccuracy that makes crusty old developers like me shake my cane at you.
Okay, major wasn’t defined, I’ll give you that. I’ll define it now, then: UO was the first traditional graphical massively multiplayer game to crest over 100,000 subscribers and to garner the recognition of the more mainstream gaming audience.
Gotta agree with Psychochild here.
“Major” is relative to the context of the era. When we talk about “major TV shows” over time, we weigh a metric like “number of viewers” for overall market size, different viewing habits, and saturation of the market (pre-cable or post-cable-era makes a big difference in the viewer percentages).
Oftentimes, we as players (and developers) rate ‘major’ on where WE became aware of the market. Ask Richard Bartle what the first “major” online game is, and he’d likely have a much different opinion than my WoW-playing kid brother.
As for the topics of the rant: working on that, but too big for a comment (blog entry coming soon enough). Simply put: MANY of the items above DID exist before, but each with significant limitations- significant enough that they NEEDED TO (or should have) disappeared until the tech is ready.
Okay, major wasn?t defined, I?ll give you that. I?ll define it now….
You’re still missing the point. All someone else, like Blizzard, has to do to invalidate your point is redefine “major” as I did above: Any game with over 1 million subscribers in North America. So, now anything Blizzard does is innovative for a “major” MMO. That’s just as valid as your ad hoc definition, and still just as wrong.
You have a good point, that these features aren’t new and have been in previous MMOs. And, honestly, it shouldn’t matter if it was in UO, Kingdom of Drakkar, or MUD2. Doing something that someone has done before and calling it “innovative” is lazy at best, dishonest at worst. So, I urge you to focus on this point instead of trying to make UO somehow more special by contorting the definition of a common word. You’ll understand this better in a few years when people try to paint WoW as the first “major” MMO. Trust me, it’ll happen.
[...] The Grouchy Gnome’s appearing a bit grouchier than normal lately- that’s good- he’s at his best when bitching about something.? He’s taking issue on all the “all new, never done before” stuff that… well… really has been done- sometimes rather frequently- in the past. [...]
Something people haven’t mentioned, as part of the ign’ant nublette perspective, is that Ultima was a beloved franchise years before UO. I never played either, but I certainly knew what Ultima was back in the day, and knew people who played. On the flipside, M59 I only heard about this year.
Not that that has anything to do with what game had what feature and whatnot, but I thought I’d throw that in.
Now, what happened to the Realm Online… well, I guess that is still a mystery to me. Are Ken and Roberta sipping fufu drinks on some tropical island somewhere laughing at all of us?
How about Major being an MMO to enter the Public conisness OUTSIDE the MMO/MUD community. My first MMO experiance was The Sims Online Beta, followed by SWG. Prior to SWG infact prior to the SWG:CU I was not interested at all in MMOs in general(played SWG because I am a Star Wars Fanatic). However, I was aware of Ultima, mainly through stories in the Main Stream Media about people buying land for Real World money.
BTW, SWG did have “Boats”(well Subs) as the “Water” for SWG was space, and the boats(wich came out a year latter) where Space ships, both single seaters and Multi-Player ships. Though you did have to goto a cut seen to disembarc and Land.
In game housing was one of the things that created a much stronger community, in UO, than any other MMO that I’ve played. The first few years you were only allowed to buy and place pre-made houses but then they released what I considered a very slick program. It allowed you to use a very large selection of housing pieces…wall sections, floor tiles, doors, water and garden features…..to create your own unique house. There are endless designs and it takes the unique look of your game one step further. The lack of in game housing and the cookie-cutter look of the player characters is one of the things that I think is lacking in EQ2. I occasionally visit my Master Tailor in SWG and can’t believe the variety of player clothing and armor. I only wish my tailor in EQ2 could make unique clothing or armor.
Another item that I really miss, from UO, is player written books. These led to an amazing amount of creative writing. People would write stories of their in game travels, histories of their characters or guides to game loctaions or crafting. Every UO shard had at least one public library. Some had hundreds of player written books to be read. I think that’s a feature that would add greatly to the “newer” MMOs.
I agree with you on the variety of player clothing and armor in SWG and would like to see vastly greater amounts of clothing in future MMORPGs where it’s inherent value is in it’s appearance vs. it’s utility, though I do think some element of creative utility would be interesting and “fun” as well, beyond the normal attack and magical damage mitigation and effects. See my post on this thread @ MMORoundTable for a bit of detail on this.
…and those books… well you’re absolutely right, but that’s a topic all and of it’s own.. Of course it wouldn’t be a “new” feature, but it is definitely an “oldie but goodie”. =)
Wow, Psycho, you’re really scrutinizing something that seems rather trivial to me. I guess that’s what grumpy old men do, huh? The point of the article isn’t about which MMO was the first major MMO - it’s the fact that newer MMOs are using features that have been present in previous MMOs and claiming them as their own creations. So, who cares whether it was UO or whatever…
Well, since you brought it up, most younger gamers don’t even know what the hell M59 is. I know that I certainly didn’t until VERY recently… UO, to me, and quite a few others, seems to be the first mainstream MMO that comes to mind when the subject comes up. You can still purchase UO at retail outlets, unlike M59 or MUD1. That says something.
Wow, Psycho, you?re really scrutinizing something that seems rather trivial to me.
The point is that it shouldn’t be trivial. Ryan’s focus on UO as somehow being special actually diminishes his point. He’s complaining that people are ignoring games that came before while simultaneously encouraging people to do the same by essentially claiming there were no “major” MMOs before UO. This is the wrong attitude to take, especially on a topic like this.
This is important for a lot of reasons beyond any ego investment I have in pre-UO games. Ignoring history diminishes our discussions. Creating arbitrary distinctions doesn’t help us confront the issue Ryan brings up: that some “new” features have been in previous games and that marketing has gotten out of control.
You can still purchase UO at retail outlets, unlike M59 or MUD1. That says something.
Yes, that says that EA thinks UO players are still stupid enough to pay extra just to play the game. M59 no longer uses a retail distribution model for the client (that would just jack up the price), and MUD1 uses the telnet program that comes with Windows; that is, they have no specialized client software to distribute in a box. So, you have just created another arbitrary, ad hoc distinction, being available at retail, that does not help the discussion at all and actually makes no sense whatsoever given the two games you mentioned.
Focus on the point and stop making meaningless distinctions in the context of the discussion.
As far as cool features and PvP go, UO had the market cornered. Just about anything you wanted to do, you could do…until they came out with the big, shiny “I hate PvP” expansion. At that point, I left for EQ1 and never looked back, but I still missed all the cool stuff I could do in UO. I kept looking for the “cloak” slot on my character inventory, and was sorely disappointed when I realized that there was no such thing as player housing. And why was it that they never could get the damn boats to work in EQ1? It was amusing (and yet sad) that after 6 years of trying, they said fuck it and posted gnome npcs to teleport you around instead of using the boats.
The whole clothing thing in UO was awesome…I LOVED being able to put a robe over my plate mail and run around pounding mages who thought I was a noob. Magic Resistance FTW! You can shove Corp Por!
And going back to the looting rant, what about UO’s looting policy? Anything and everything you had on you was fair game, and it was up to the winner to take what he wanted from your corpse. Player collision? Not a problem, if someone was being an ass and blocking a door, you simply killed him (or got killed yourself if you weren’t powerful enough). Survival of the fittest. Yeah, it’s annoying when people do stuff like that, but if you know that eventually someone will come along and pound your ass for it, you probably won’t stay there too long.
Something else I loved about UO was the fact that thieves could actually be thieves! Yes, they are annoying. Yes, it makes it hard to keep cool stuff, but guess what? That’s a level of realism I liked. A thief could steal stuff out of your bank if you had it opened while he was around (not sure that was intended tho). If you didn’t have some kind of guard in your house, or lock everything down, a thief could come along and steal all your shit. I know because I used to do that too. And when did it become acceptable to “choose a side” permanently in pvp? I loved being able to turn on people after gaining their trust. It made the whole rogue thing more fun. Hiding in the trees near the crossroad to Yew and ganking a few people, then aiding the stronger group that comes out to kill the PKer’s…so much fun!
The things that EQ1 brought to the table were equally cool (even if most of the UO features fell by the wayside) with the whole 3D world and universal chat system (without the need for the walkie-talkie crystals they eventually came out with in UO). Nothing in UO was more annoying than having to constantly alt-tab to ICQ to try to find my friends. And God forbid someone outrun you, you could never find them again!
As an aside, the funny thing about playing UO 9 years ago was that I thought it ran like crap on my PC which, at the time, was a P2 233MHz w/ 500MB SDRAM, Voodoo 3 (i think?) and SoundBlaster 16, but I tried logging on 6 months ago with my Athlon 64 3500, 3GB Corsair, GeForce 7800 GT OC PCI-E, 250GB SATA and it was STILL crappy gameplay.
Still, EQ1 had some cool features, such as the bazaar (which pissed off a lot of the East Commons 1st torch / Shady guys hehe), a guild system that had some nifty features, and a grouping system that allowed you to actually see what was happening to people in your party, and once they fixed the raid system, that was awesome as well. And yes, I’m going to leave it at that because most of the rest of the features became fundamental parts of every MMO.
I think the things I hate most about the latest MMO’s is this artificial zone barrier…WoW did a very good job making the world nearly completely traversible. So what if I want to climb all the way up on the tippy-top of some mountain? Why put a barrier up so I can’t do that? It’s absurd and annoying when you try to run through Nektulos forest, are in the middle of the zone and hit an invisible wall that prevents you from climbing over a rock that stands between you and the NPC you need to talk to, which means you have to run the equivalent of 3 miles around the rock when you could have just climbed over it.
And what about cool fantasy shit like flying and teleports? EQ1 did a decent job with Druid / Wizzy ports and then PoK came out and the taxi business more or less died, and UO had a good idea with the Recall stones, but it still kinda limited the player. EQ1 levitation / DMF spells were cool, but I would still like to see a wizard be able to actually fly up off the ground without needing a mount. Levitation was fun when you could run off of something high up with Spirit of Cheetah and manage to get on top of something that other players couldn’t get on top of…and it’s stuff like that that makes a game interesting to me.
Now I love playing EQ2, but it seems like so much cool shit was sacrificed in the name of super-duper graphics. I really hope Vanguard is going to at least make an attempt at allowing players to roam the countryside unimpeded and implement more of this kind of stuff. Flying mounts are cool, but there is just something way more impressive about a wizard lifting off and flying away to me.
Anyway, I suppose I have run my mouth (or fingers, as it were) enough.
[...] I want to make sure to point out Nefbat’s Retroactively ‘New’ Features. He just moved, so he couldn’t be here, but he made sure to send that over wrapped in a thermal pad. Good luck with that green monster, Blackguard! The Wizard of Duke Street has a tasty Comparison of WoW and EVE, and Tobold’s got a great big pile of Guild Management in World of Warcraft under that napkin over there. Brent brought some of the Almighty /Tell he made for VirginWorlds last month. Hmm … smells good too. What did you do, put it in a ziplock baggie? Nice. Then we have Foton, who brought us … ‘If This is Wednesday This Must Be Naxxramas‘? Naxx? Foton, you brought Naxx to a Christmas dinner instead of yams? Jeez. I know you’re a non-traditionalist, but c’mon. [...]