General Discussion

Today, Warcry published their final article from former MMORPG.com editor Dana Massey as he leaves to pursue other opportunities. The article samples a number of MMO professionals about the state of the MMO industry today.

Titled "State of the MMO: Industry Luminaries On The Genre, Its Future", the article touches on everything from innovation to business models.

The MMO industry has grown from a two-horse race at the turn of the century to one of the largest segments of the gaming industry and perhaps the last true foothold games have on the PC. Yet, during this same period, there have been innumerable failures, and many questions remain wide open. Can MMOs truly be global? Is the subscription model in decline? To what extent should developers innovate or evolve gameplay? What role should established IP play? Have these games gotten too expensive to make?

To answer these questions, we spoke to cross section of people from around the industry to get a handle on the true "State of the MMO". We spoke to SOE President John Smedley, ZeniMax Online Studios General Manager Matt Firor, Themis Group CEO Alexander Macris, GamerDNA.com Director of Community Sanya Weathers, EVE Online Game Designer Chantel Zuurmond, IGN PC Executive Editor Steve Butts and the former Executive Producer of Star Trek Online Daron Stinnett to get their thoughts on all these issues and much more.

Read the article here.

I would have read the article had this name not been listed...

.. and the former Executive Producer of Star Trek Online Daron Stinnett ...

What is that forum cliche... oh right,

"I stopped right there."

Well I can't blame this entirely on Stinnett, Smed was the first for me to stop reading, but decided to give it a pass...

"It seems like many people learned the wrong lessons from WoW," commented Sanya Weathers, formerly of Mythic and now Director of Community Relations at GamerDNA.com. "[They] are busy spending ungodly amounts of money on what amounts to feature creep with bonus graphic bloat."

Her deadpan delivery aside, it's become a valid point that many in the industry agree with. The simple fact is that World of Warcraft is an accessible game, both in gameplay and system requirements, and most of the forgotten MMOs of yesteryear failed at one or both of those things.

The basic fact is that all these trends are being driven by exponentially growing development costs. MMOs were once merely expensive; now they're multi-million dollar endeavors that dwarf some movie productions. The risk is huge at this price point, and investors need to take whatever precautions they can against failure. That means big budget games are less likely to try anything unproven.

Well the gameplay of WoW is not my thing 2 things they did that sets them a side from other games coming out now is the low system requirements meaning most 5-8 year PC can play it, and second it the fully customizable UI, I don't know of any game that has a scripting component of the UI that the end user can access.

One of the MMO's I still play has alot of the models/textures it had then It came out in 2002, and a lot of them still look good IMO, there has been a few articles about the future of graphics and how to progress and one said that a lot of games are spending a hugh portion of it's cost on graphical content.

While I  do enjoy a story line to games, I get feed up with the way most simple quests are done, I don't want to read a NPC's Life story for every little quest that tells me to go kill 20 rats, I rather go to an NPC and all he says to me is "Hey you I will make it worth your while if you go kill 20 rats" and away ago. Ok I still like some of the Story Line quests that explain the game world.

Interesting story, only breezed through it right now, but a couple of comments kind of stood out:

I think we're seeing the emergence of a massive amount of non-traditional MMOs, the Barbie.coms, the Club Penguins," said Smedley. "The emergence of the much more casual player into the MMO-space."

I disagree with Smedley on this one. I think what we are seeing is the first generation MMO core getting older and not having the time to dedicate to the MMO like before now that families, jobs, paychecks and bills have a larger priority.

"I think horror will be a big genre in this [MMO] space; I know that's something we're looking at," said Smedley.

Really? This is the first time I know of that Smedley has mentioned this. Anyone else have anymore info? I know posters on here before have mentioned how much they would like a horror MMO.

Originally posted by Dracus

I would have read the article had this name not been listed...

 

What is that forum cliche... oh right,

"I stopped right there."

Well I can't blame this entirely on Stinnett, Smed was the first for me to stop reading, but decided to give it a pass...

 

.. and the former Executive Producer of Star Trek Online Daron Stinnett ...

Well since you didn't read it, I'll share this gem with you. Those of you that followed STO, may get a chuckel out of the following.

"However, it may be about more than "cajones". Sometimes an IP just doesn't allow the kind of freedom a developer needs, and it isn't always because of the licensor. Stinnett's last project was Star Trek Online, where he constantly marveled at the amount of flexibility they were given to do what they wanted. The question then becomes, will the hardcore fans accept it?"

Where's Dana moving on to?

HIs is one of the few voices that comes across as both unbiased and informative in MMO journalism.

Originally posted by BaronJuJu

. . .

 "I think horror will be a big genre in this [MMO] space; I know that's something we're looking at," said Smedley.

Really? This is the first time I know of that Smedley has mentioned this. Anyone else have anymore info? I know posters on here before have mentioned how much they would like a horror MMO.

  

 

This follows what SOE has been pushing for every year.  More veriety of genres in thier mix of game for the Station Pass. They have Fantasy covered 3 times over with EQ, EQ2 and Vanguard, Sci-fi with SWG, Matrix and Planetside, Spy with the Agancy, Super Hero with DC Universe Online and Family with Freerealm.

Smedley is probaly starting to stump for a new secret MMO that is in developement.  At any rate, for SOE, its quanity over quality.  Lets just hope they start to see the error of this with Blizzards example.

Originally posted by boinged

Where's Dana moving on to?

HIs is one of the few voices that comes across as both unbiased and informative in MMO journalism.

Somewhat onto the "dark side" I've gone. You might have seen the announcement about Jeff Anderson's company Play Hard Sports. I'm there now as Network Director.

Originally posted by Keogh

Well since you didn't read it, I'll share this gem with you. Those of you that followed STO, may get a chuckel out of the following.

"However, it may be about more than "cajones". Sometimes an IP just doesn't allow the kind of freedom a developer needs, and it isn't always because of the licensor. Stinnett's last project was Star Trek Online, where he constantly marveled at the amount of flexibility they were given to do what they wanted. The question then becomes, will the hardcore fans accept it?"

And from the posting of others (and thanks to them too), I'm glad that I didn't read it.

I think that question should have been, "When will developers stop thinking what is best for a given IP and actually engage the community of the IP?"