Nostalgia Blinders
Everyone who has ever played a massively multiplayer game gets nostalgic at times. Ah, remember that time when we all got naked and put on red capes then ran around like idiots for hours? How about when we all jumped off the side of the city to create a pile of lag-inducing bodies? What about when we fired arrows imperviously at mobs we shouldn’t be able to kill? We all have fond memories, and designers want to recreate them for other people.
But nostalgia is dangerous. More dangerous than many of the dangers we face as game designers. You can try to base an entire game on your fond nostalgia only to see it blow up in your face and fail. At some point, every MMO designer who ever played EverQuest back in the day has wanted to recreate that experience word for word. Some have even tried and failed.
The problem is that people move on. The genre marches to the uneven beat of the massive drum of the internet, and developers have to do the same. Or, they must be prepared to create a niche game that some people will absolutely love and others will avoid like the plague.
Let’s go back to my original example of EverQuest. If you were to recreate the original EQ or, better yet, release EverQuest in its original form (even if you updated the graphics), it would fail. I’m sorry, but it would. Experience and level loss as part of a death mechanic is now out the door. It is niche. Monstrous travel times are out. Requiring players to group at almost all times to be successful is out. EverQuest in its original form is simply out. It is niche. It can no longer be wildly successful like you want it to be. Even EQ has evolved past its original self.
Another example is Ultima Online. If you were to recreate the original UO or, better yet, release Ultima Online in its original form (even if you updated the graphics), it would fail. I’m sorry, but it would. Equipment and inventory loss as part of a death mechanic is now out the door. It is niche. Wolf and sheep PvP is out. A world full of exploitative possibilities is out. Ultima Online in its original form is simply out. It is niche. It can no longer be wildly successful like you want it to be. Even UO has evolved past its original self.
I hate saying things like that because they are both true and offend part of my soul at the same time. Games have to evolve with the genre and its players or they will do significantly worse than you might expect them to. Just because you think something ruled back in that game you once played doesn’t mean it actually does rule or that anyone would accept that something anymore.
The hard truth of it is that players now have options. A wolf and sheep PvP world can literally not exist anymore because the sheep have dozens of viable options and won’t stick around. Sorry, but it can’t even if some of us wish it could (believe me, I am a bloodthirsty dire wolf if there ever was one).
If I were to try to recreate the nostalgia of EverQuest, I’d try to recreate the deep, rich, fantastical, big, unpredictable, flavorful, and all the other positive experiences I had while avoiding the mechanics or evolving them to present. I would try to recreate the spirit of the game rather than the gameplay of the game. Doing anything else is financial suicide.
One of the many challenges a designer faces is fighting through the fog that nostalgia creates to identify what exactly you were really nostalgic for and if that can be recreated. If it can’t, it has to be set aside. If it can be recreated in some way, life is good.
That was sensible, sound and practical advice.
However …
Early on games went down the left road (for example, Wolf and Sheep PvP). The road got rough. They went back and turned right, instead (Consensual PvP, for example). Turning right at that fork in the road has led the whole industry (most of it) to the place we are today.
OK, it’s an overly simplistic analogy. And I’m picking on the rather extreme example of PvP. But can it honestly be said that we definitely know where we might be had UO forged on ahead?
It apparently takes 50 million + to build and polish a big world. Has anyone to date spent that kind of money on a game with a mechanic other than the consensual PvP? Perhaps rather than backtracking, the system just needed a bit more work. Yes, there have been plenty of example of failure … but I don’t think any of them had even 10% of WoW’s development funding.
No one really ever addressed the issue of aggressor risk … typically, the aggressor would choose a target and method that meant little risk. Perhaps alternate means for the sheep to fight back could have been added (the ability to hire great mobs of NPC henchmen of sufficient strength to extract revenge). Perhaps the sheep could be given alternate benefits which, for those willing to play sheep, outweigh the occasional wolf ganking. Who knows, I’m just pulling stuff out of my ….
What we have today is getting a bit stale. It’d be nice to try something different.
Having said all that … I was a sheep .. and I have yet to try Eve.
I would say Eve has tried to build a world without consensual PvP, and it also includes some of the harshest death penalties I know of. Its interesting to watch people raised on consenual pvp only games get outraged in Eve when they lose all their stuff.
My point: I think a fantasy based game with similar mechanics for PvP and death penalties as Eve could be amazing.
Nice post.
Hmm, seems like there’s a huge thriving audience for wolf and sheep PvP, just not in this market. In China, it’s the thing to do.
I think Tuebit is right, that to some degree the market conditioned the games, but we also conditioned the market.
Tuebit — what if, in PvP, every time you fought someone of a certain faction, win or lose, you’d build up immunity to that faction? So after awhile, if you’re from Team A and were always getting ganked by Team B (or perhaps you were always ganking them), over time you couldn’t do anything to Team B without putting a lot of effort into it — but Team C would find you easy prey. And while you were dealing with them, slowly Team B would be able to have a go at you once again.
So every character has an immunity pool, and if the wolf goes back to the same sheep too often, neither he nor any other wolf will be able to touch them until the sheep start running into bears.
Those game might, by today’s standards, indeed be niche… but what’s wrong with that? I really think, at this point, huge teams and budgets are hurting games. Everyone wants to spend $30 million and get WoW numbers in return. And yet, even UO and EQ still probably run a healthy profit. Even EVE online which has been slowly holding and growing makes money.
I’d love for more games to embrace a niche and make a smaller set of gamers vary happy than to try to please everyone and make none of them happy.
I agree that developers shouldn’t be afraid of being niche. Or, more accurately, publishers shouldn’t be afraid of being niche. If you invest $5 million in a niche MMO, chances are it will pay off. Publishers just need to be willing to get less money out of it overall (though potentially a higher percentage payoff).
As far as China and wolf/sheep PvP goes, I’m surprised and not surprised. I’m only truly familiar with the North American MMO market. Basically, you’re saying that people who don’t really like engaging in PvP (sheep) are perfectly willing to play on a server with people who do like engaging in PvP (wolves) without any major restrictions?
Jason has an excellent point. What is the definition of niche these days? If you compare it to WoW subscription numbers, pretty much everything except for the occasional game from Asia and the kid-oriented collecting worlds would be considered niche. Does having ‘only’ 100,000 subscribers mean that the game isn’t worth making?
Ha. I love looking back on Everquest.
All the Pre-Bazaar days…with selling Bag-o-stuff in North FreePort.
*sigh*Memories. Thats all
Jason takes the words right out of my mouth.
Were we to ignore niche crowds, we wouldn’t need any more games in the MMORPG genre because WoW is already appealing to the majority (and lowest common denominator) of people.
And the unfortunate thing? Even if someone took all the concepts of WoW and refined them to a sharper point, people will keep playing it because the nostalgia factor works both ways. People become personally invested in MMORPGs because of the community and the amount of time they put in. Not many people are willing to throw away a top-notch character just to repeat the grind all over again in a new game.
And if they do take the risk and aren’t 100% satisfied, the nostalgia factor kicks in again and they hop right back into ol’ faithful.
I think niche markets are the way to go. As stated above, MMORGs can be very lucrative under good management even if you can only attract a couple hundred thousand subscribers. I have no vendetta against WoW, but it is trying to be the jack of all trades and the master of none. Eventually the sum of the niche games will absorb the dissatisfied and bored WoW gamers. With their numbers though, the game will remain profitable for over a decade, IMO.
I think modern demographics are against those who want unlimited PvP, hard death penalties, massive time sinks etc. We all live in an age when time is precious and we don’t want to waste it sitting and waiting for the boat in Freeport, or going on a 72 man raid that takes 8+ hours. Or dying and losing a weeks worth of XP. I really thing that these “features” are features for younger people who have a lot more time on their hands than most of us holding down a job(and in some cases 2 jobs) can spare. A lot of the things that people fondly remember where vast time sinks and unless you had lots of free time they were a big irritant.
As for PvP there are many, many people who would refuse to play a game if PvP were an integral and required part of the game. I believe Shadowbane was an all PvP game and its success was hardly earth shattering. And its numbers were miniscule.
This is one of the reason why WoW has been so successful — they made a game in which you could accomplish something in a short play period
I think a niche game which has heavy time requirements as old EQ1 did will be hard pressed to make money and attract players unless they have really low development costs and feature sub-par graphics, and content. Content cost money — so if a game is going to cater to a niche market with unpopular features, players had better expect limited content.
I find it difficult to believe that those who think a niche market game will work, will be satisfied with sub-par content.
The biggest nostalgia item I have is the social aspect of EQ. The game had travel and downtime and auto-attack and etc etc etc… Played tight the game could be very active, but it could also be played somewhat passively while still progressing. Modern games are so “active” with all the skill activating and clicking and button pushing, fast combat, reduced downtime… there’s no room for chatting with your group mates. You have to practically stop playing the game to do anything besides playing the game.
I would happily rearrange my schedule to make for larger blocks of game time if it would make a difference, but games like WoW have made everything that isn’t raiding so “easy” that even if I carved out an five hour block for gaming, most groups don’t last longer than 30 minutes.
I agree, nostalgia is a dangerous source of inspiration when developing a game. This is likely one of the major pitfalls of Vanguard (amongst other things).
Nostalgia is looking back into the past. Developing a successful game requires looking into the future. Quite the opposite IMO.
[…] and I came across some interesting articles. Recently, Ryan Shwayder at Nerfbat wrote about MMORPG nostalgia. One line I find particularly […]