The over exaggeration

It is my contention that World of Warcraft is to blame for anything and everything that is going wrong in the MMO industry at this time. It is the root of all evil and the herald of doom. WoW is the seed of destruction and has no redeeming features. Anyone who enjoys it is clearly a fool and would be better off chained to a stake in a yard. Now I don’t actually believe any of that but I’d say roughly 25% of the people who “read” this article will infer those few lines as my meaning and will comment/email/repost as such. Might as well give them something they can quote right?

I’m going to take some time to outline some of the actual problems I do believe Blizzard has introduced into the MMO industry. I’m also going to look at why players like me are so discouraged with that model of game play and why there seems to be a zealot like support base for World of Warcraft! All of this in one easy Friday article!

It’s the economy stupid

Defending World of Warcraft is easy. All anyone who wants to forward that agenda has to do is parrot off “11 million accounts,” “11 Million accounts,” “market has spoken, market has spoken!” Clearly so! Since WoW has 11 million accounts it wins. Article over. All MMOs from now on should be WoW or there should be no new ones. Only, for some unknown reason, WoW players seem to want new MMOs. They seem to want to try them and are excited when someone hypes one. More importantly, they seem to hate new titles that “clone WoW” but are really angry with those titles “lack features in WoW.” That is quite the conundrum! I’m not so sure these people know what they want! They do know that EverQuest players are the enemy, though. That is one thing they’ve gotten down.

In truth I think the economy argument is starting to look weaker by the month. Does WoW make the most money? Absolutely it does! Does it have the most users? Sure it does! By that argument it is safe to assume that Windows is the best operating system and MASH’s final episode was the greatest TV show ever to air. In those terms it seems awfully flimsy right? A lot of people would argue against Windows. They would tell me that Windows has the most users because of marketing forces and other “lock ins.” For MASH they’d point out that while no TV episode since has gotten a higher percentage of eyes as that one, there is now “more choice” in television and a repeat success is unlikely. Lets key on that last phrase, “a repeat success is unlikely.”

World of Warcraft’s rise to fame was seen as the nod to the MMO industry. This game was going to bring in millions of new players to our small, elitist demographic and in time they’d spread out to other games and grow the whole market. New games would chip away at those numbers and everyone would have a big piece of the pie. That never happened. I wonder why? It is my contention that WoW did grow the MMO market but, for the most part, remained in its own market. That market is, of course, the Blizzard market. I’m certain that there are plenty of WoW players who don’t know about other MMOs or have no intention of trying them. They are there to play in the WoW/Blizzard ecosystem and nowhere else. There is nothing wrong with that but we can no longer consider them as “part of the equation.” I’m sure I’ll see the usual “Blizzard isn’t the reason for WoW being a success” but there used to be a quote back before all this. That quote was, “Blizzard could sell 1 million copies of an empty box.” Their name stood for quality, polish and exceptional game play and still does. Do you honestly believe that if StarCraft II didn’t have that name on it it would be anything more than average? I don’t for one minute. Every reviewer basically points out how StarCraft II IS StarCraft with more polish and somewhat newer graphics. Any other company would burn for doing that but not Blizzard. Instead of calling it a clone or a rip off, millions of PC gamers will rush out and buy it, myself included. Don’t write off the Blizzard name. It does matter.

MMOs may be about the economy and subscription numbers but if we base everything solely on that we’re in for a world of hurt. WoW clones aren’t getting a fraction of the WoW business and other MMOs are hanging in there with fairly strong numbers. Since they don’t beat WoW they’re all considered a “niche” title and I just don’t see that anymore.

Shut it you minority

Despite the fact that all early MMOs focused heavily on replicating the real world experience of hard work paying off, that demographic is now considered a niche. In fact, any game play that doesn’t mirror World of Warcraft’s can only succeed these days as a “niche title.” That is the new “bad word.” Oh you like PvP? That is cute, you’re a niche. Skill based play? You’re a niche too! You liked EQ1? No you didn’t, you just think you did. You’re an even smaller niche!

The problem with this argument is that it essentially says every MMO in existence that uses the subscription model and isn’t WoW is a niche! If you don’t have 11 million players you’re unimportant and a failure. Forget the fact that prior to WoW no US MMO exceeded 1 million players. These days most MMOs seem to peak at around 300,000 subscribers once they get past the hype point. That seems to be a solid, profitable number (despite what Mark Jacobs said). If you have 300K you’re making money and turning out content. How is that a niche? Isn’t that a commercial success?

When do you stop being a niche? Do you have to pass the 1 million player mark? Is it higher than that? Are you niche until you pass World of Warcraft? Wouldn’t that make WoW a niche? It basically comes down to players like me being told that since we don’t like WoW there is no “real game” that is going to support us. We should just accept that Warcraft is the best, there was never anything better, and in the future we’re just going to get a newer version of that and we should like it.

I do have some bad news for the fans of this argument, though. World of Warcraft will soon be a niche. I’m not sure everyone has heard but Facebook is the new “real deal.” Games like Farmville and Mafia Wars are where everything is really happening. Those games already have more players too! That means we should be doing everything like those games right? Of course not! More players doesn’t always mean better!

You only think you like it

The most upsetting piece of this argument from my perspective is being treated like I don’t know what I like. I’m talking about the “rose-colored glasses” argument. Players today will tell us EQ fans that we only think we liked that game better. It was our first MMO and as such it has a special place in our heart. Today we wouldn’t enjoy that sort of thing.

To this I have multiple arguments. The first is the most fun. It is “how dare you madam.” How dare you suggest you know what I like better than I do? I like EverQuest because it was less of a game and more of an alternate life. In that life there were actual challenges. Life was not easy and to exist successfully you had to act like a mature human being. You know, kind of like Americans used to act. It was a time of personal responsibility, hard work and rewards. I like that in my games. I don’t want to be given things or treated like a child. I don’t need help! That is why I like EQ, because not just anyone can be good at it without trying. It took real effort.

The argument also breaks down because many of us misguided EQ1 players actually go back and play the game every so often! I played the progression servers; I checked out the live game, I even built my own server that was as hard as the original! There are no vague memories here. Every couple of years I have to revisit EQ1 to remember why I even like this genre! I’m pretty confident I know what I like.

What interests me more is that WoW players used to like these things too. They too have tented glasses as they try to pass off the current game as the one that released years ago. They’re not alike in the least. Vanilla WoW, as it is called, was not as hard as EverQuest. I can’t make that claim. It was probably somewhere between 80 and 120% harder than WoW is now! This is exemplified by the very top of the raid game. The top 100 of WoW is about as hard as it gets. There is no explaining that away. No, EQ players don’t have rose colored glasses; we just refuse to be softened over time. We go against the grain! We delight in the challenge of it and bore with a system that rewards both the skilled and unskilled. I’m not interested in playing a game. I want an alternate life sim!

What is your point?

I realize that this has gone on in what appears to be a long rant. In all actuality it was! Sometimes we all need one. My point is that defending WoW like a zealot doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in the long run. What exactly is the point of stomping out every other play style that doesn’t mirrow WoW? Everything isn’t perfect over there!

Blizzard has set unrealistic expectations for the marketplace. That leads investors to expect more than what is possible from development houses which, in turn, leads to bad games. World of Warcraft also wields undo influence over what “has to be” in a game. If you don’t go far enough you’re a failure. If you go too far you’re a clone and a failure. From what I can tell, any product that isn’t equipped with a built in audience (I’m looking at you SWtOR) will be unable to succeed at this rate.

Despite this fact the traditional MMO market will continue to be compared to the Blizzard market and will only end up more and more marginalized despite the fact that our “niche” seems to be growing daily. I do hope developers realize that this “copy WoW” system isn’t working. No game that mirrors the values of that game has done any better than our “niche” titles. For all we know EverQuest still has more players than some of these products! It is time to try something else and accept that you will not get “WoW money” with your title. Set a realistic goal like 400,000 and go for it. If you get 11 million subscribers good for you! Would a new EverQuest clone really pose a threat? I don’t think so. I can tell you, for a fact though, that another WoW clone isn’t going to defeat the original. I just wish developers were more interested in the “niche” instead of the “WoW.”

Many folks are confused by Brenlo’s statement that it is planned to “move away from” Qeynos and Freeport as starting cities. Could you please expand on that?

Brenlo- Well when I said that, I had been drinking . . . Seriously though, we plan to only allow new characters to start in the newer player areas. Timorous, Greater Fay, Darklight and Soon Halas. THe new player experience in Qeynos and Freeport are just not up to snuff anymore and do not provide as solid an experience when you enter the game for the first time . . . enter the game for the first time

For many a year, female gendered swashbuckler alts have been reduced to wearing an easter bonnet instead of the proper swashbuckler hat that male gendered alts get to wear with pride.
What type of culinary or stuffed animal bribes would be needed to encourage the team to allow choice on hat style for those who want to use this class representative version of the swashbuckler hat instead of the easter bonnet?

HaohmaruEQ2- Culinary bribes would be anything with the words “red meat” in them. As for why this was setup as such – honestly I can’t say. I’ll have to talk to our character lead and the guy who set them up originally to find out why. I’ll have an answer on the boards before too long.

In the area of class balance, would you guys consider having the first Game Update AFTER an expansion focus on many of the new and un-finished concerns that players have with class balance? Especially those that arise DURING the expansion that were not really as big an issue during beta?

Xelgad- We don’t want to focus on just one update right after the expansion as the team wants to move away from bulk adjustments once per year. We intend to make class balance adjustments with every game update as they are warrented. The first update following an expansion launch will be no exception, and is definitely likely to see such adjustments. In short – yes, you should be seeing class balance adjustments with the Game Update following an expansion

What happened to the Avatars?

SOECronyn- Actually, the reason the Avatars left Norrath is explained in the signature quest line “Whispers from the Past”. Anashti gives you guys an explaination… from her point of view. A lot of people have asked about the new mythical quest.

What is the dev’s reasoning when making Mythical buffs available to all even for those who did not complete the mythical epic quest?

Frizznik- The main reason was to make it more available was to level the playing field at 90. It would become very difficult to get a raid together to go back to do old content to complete the mythical version so we made it so that the fabled was the only required part in the later quest. Another big reason was to pop the spell effects off of the mythical so that we could once again itemize that equipment slot again with something different. We wanted you guys to keep those awesome effects, but we wanted you to have the option of agoing after different items too. So that is where it ended up.

Any thoughts of top-end craftable gear to compete with top-end Legendary or low end Fabled loot? And don’t say Mark of Manaar gear, that doesn’t count.

Frizznik- We do have thoughts on this, we were just talking about a few things in our mechanics meeting a few hours ago about it. I don’t want to make any promises about what it will be exactly right now, but I bet you see a bump in mastercrafted stuff as soon as we can get to it.

Rangers are the only class who are completely dependant on ammo, and it can be a struggle to keep yourself stocked. Is there any thought on alleviating that? Some ideas include: increasing the crafted arrow yield so Woodworkers are more inclined to make them; ginormous or “endless” quivers; or an improvement to summoning arrows.

Rothgar- We have no plans to eliminate ammo. We reduced this quite a bit a couple of years ago when we made combat arts not use ammo. We’ve recently made it so that you can use ammo going back about 20 levels so it should be pretty easy to find cheaper arrows without taking a damage penalty. We’ve discussed some of those other options though so we definitely won’t rule out other “options” in the future.

Will we ever see a “player created” content event like players helping design a new spell or item, possibly through forum voting or other method of participation? Having players submit ideas and vote on, for example, their level 100 spell might be a great way to get people involved.

Brenlo- That is an interesting idea and while I do not see us opening it up for voting, perhaps a contest in general, perhaps at Fan Faire could be a good move. We will chat about it with legal, marketing and community and see what folks think

Will there be appearances for mounts? e.g. i would like to hide my mount or use the appearance of another one.

Frizznik- We do have plans for something for mounts. We are looking into different ideas and want it to be a really cool feature. I don’t have a time of when it is coming though, there is a bunch of work to do with it. It is certainly on our minds though!

Some house items like the miniature griffon tower were retired. Will they return, even if only available through the Marketplace?

Domino- Some house items were special rewards for very special events, and it doesn’t necessarily make sense for them to become generally available. However, we are always looking into which items are desirable (both old and new items) and I’m sure we’ll continue to see desirable house items becoming available in the future. I can’t promise anything on specific items though, but if there are particular ones that are highly in demand we could discuss it

We received several questions regarding the server lag on AB. Can you tell us if you have any plans to fix this and do they involve enforcing it as a roleplay server?

Rothgar- We have some short-term plans to help lag by increasing the number of servers that can service zones for AB as well as other servers in that data center. Long term we want to do something about the population. We don’t want to restrict where you can transfer to, so we’re going to try to make some of the other servers more desirable by considering some mergers to increase their populations as well. This is a big task though and must be coordinated with database upgrades. So its certainly a high priority for us, but it will take some time to implement. Meanwhile we’re still looking at performance improvements to the code. But specific to your question, we don’t have any plans to do anything with enforcing roleplay.

How feasible is it to allow guild hall administrators (i.e. guild leader) to decide if they want all of their guild hall declared “inside” when it comes to mounts, thus suppressing them for people while they
are there?

Brenlo- While feasible, I am not sure it is necessary and not perhaps the best use of our time. We can discuss it though, to see how much work it would entail and where it would fall on the priority list.

Why specifically can’t we use a 2-handed weapon appearance when using 1handed weapons or a shield?

HaohmaruEQ2- So most weapons were built with a specific purpose. The weapon influences the stance and how the weapon is rigged determines how it attaches to the character. We -can- use 2handers for 1handers. It just means setting them up as such if size/purpose isn’t an issue.

How hard would it be to have a moderate (less than full subscription price) fee each month that would allow us to log in more than one alt from that account at the same time?

Brenlo- Not without significant rework at the account and subscription level. This is not something that could be done easily and would be a great resource drain for us. So I do not see it happening any time soon. Sorry =(

Is there a chance the Research Assistant’s will lose the one character at a time restriction? The current implementation runs counter to the trend of making the game more and more accesible to alts and it looks like the world ended as much as it could with the initial introduction of RA’s. As now, the restiction unfairly impacts people who have multiple characters on a server and would be best changed to keep with the idea of alt support.

Rothgar- Originally this was meant as an account-based reward for keeping your account subscribed. The idea was that everyone should receive the same benefit, like a once-per-account vet reward. But at this point we can certainly see that using it on multiple characters would just be more fun and wouldn’t really break anything, so those changes are underway as we speak.
Frizznik- I would add that also, right at this second in fact, I am evaluating the time spent to research at lower levels and decreasing it.

Lets say a player completes quest lines, unique to both Freeport and Qeynos (Example : Will of he Tyrant). Will we eventually receive a unique achievement such as Champion of Norrath (in addition to Champion of Bayle / D’Lere)?

SOECronyn- New achievements along these lines are always something we’re looking at doing. This sounds like a pretty good idea, so we can take a look at it and see if it’s something we’d like to add.

Are there any plans to open a progression server for EQ2, ala Sleeper/Combine for EQ1?

Brenlo- Yes

Ferrel- Sweet!

Are there plans to change how how the teleporters work in Neriak (where they bring up a zoning screen) to more like how they are in Kelethin (with no zoning screen)?

Gninja- We can see if its feasible to change the teleporters to be more uniform like the ones in Kelethin as long as there are no art loading issues etc. We will take a look

For some fabled items, have transcription errors occured? For instance, in Sara Greenheart in Perah’Celsis Abdominable Laboratory, drops Bangle of Seamless Strikes +146 Ability Modifier, also drops Bracelet of Removed Lands +14 Ability Modifier. Has a decimal place gone errant, or is the +14 ability modifier intentional?

Frizznik- Anything is possible! We are doing a lot of evaluation on raid items right now, so it will be easy to take a look at this one in particular. We do have some strict stat budgets so it may be that this item did have some left over points that spilled into 14 ability mod, but I kind of doubt it. We will take a look. I may be inviting a world of hurt on myself, but if there are other items that look out of line feel free to PM me on the forums.

Will harvest boxes get more slots, now that we have an additional range of them. Would be sweet to be able to store all ressources rather than a selection.

Rothgar- We never planned for these to be magically-expanding boxes that just got bigger with every expansion, but we will consider it.

How likely are we to see a world-revamp that would allow the use of true flying mounts?

Brenlo- Hmm . . . Are you a betting man?
Rothgar- Why would we do that when we don’t have flying mounts?

Is there any hope on the horizon for us loyal Erollisi worshippers? The slow evolution of her story culminating in a tragic result has been maddening to those of us whose character concepts at launch were tied closely to the Queen of Love. At this point, it’s gone on so long that it feels like you’re just stringing us along, with no intention of ever letting one of the most popular EQ deities back into the game.

Kaitheel- Erollisi’s story has not seen its end. There is still hope!

Is level 60-69 gear going to get revamped to fit more in-line with item progression, similar to how level 1-60 gear was revamped? What about Tier 5 Fabled loot that had special effects on them?

Frizznik- I have been playing through on my 15th alt and just experienced this too. From 1-59 you get a bunch of really nice stuff as far as quest rewards and drops. Then you hit the overrealm and still get nice quest loot but the drops are so bad they are comical. They are so bad they don’t even drop in proper treasure chests, they only get the little wood ones! So the answer is yeah, I want this to get this in the log of things to check in the near future. I am not sure about tier 5 fabled loot, but at least the things on the golden path need to see an upgrade.

And now the one everyone has been waiting for… Many, many players asked: “WHEN IS NEW HALAS?!?!?!????”

Rothgar- After Beastlords.
Brenlo- Soon! Well okay somewhere between 2009 and 2012. But hopefully before December 2012 because that is the end of the world.
Brenlo- (New Halas is coming in the Mayish time frame. . . We hope)

Are we going to see a UI patch that allows brawlers to see their minimum block chance? We used to be able to see minimum deflection, but can no longer tell what our uncontested avoid is.

Rothgar- We can take a look at adding it back, sure.

With STA being planned now as the Resistance stat to protect against Arcane/Noxious/Elemental instead of WIS, and WIS not giving anything beneficial to Fighter classes when that change is made;
will WIS be taken off of Fighter gear or will it give some other kind of utility? It would be a bit counter-productive to keep it on Fighter gear when it doesn’t affect us in any way, shape or form while it takes away the value of said gear.

Xelgad- Stamina only affects your outright chance to resist a spell and only in PVP Combat – such as a player casting a spell on another player. Wisdom still affects your magical mitigations. Casting spells on NPCs and NPCs casting spells on you has not been changed.

Will Tinkerers ever be given explosive devices with knockback?

Domino- I can’t currently comment on the exact stats of the next items tinkerers will be can certainly expect to see some more excitement in tinkering in the future, generally speaking =) *evil*

Rather than homes within the city, can players have homes or guilds on boats?

Rothgar- I’m on a boat!
HaohmaruEQ2- Maybe you should attend fan fAIRe and find out!

On Episode Eight of View from the Top Karen and I interview Kiara, EverQuest II’s Community Relations Manager! She was an excellent guest and provided us with a great deal of insight into what happens when you go from player to industry member. She also spent some time discussing community and some of the things that players should know when interfacing with the company. I highly recommend you check out the epsiode!

Over on the Multiverse Chris, Riknas and I discuss guild selling! Is it really that big of an issue these days? What are some of the problems? Take a moment and listen to episode eleven to find out our thoughts and what prompted them!

EverQuest was a pretty amazing game when you were playing it. However, it had some annoyances. One of those, especially before Kunark came out, was that you had to share everything with everyone. Don’t get me wrong, I do like to share, but this was ridiculous! For any given level range you’d have one to three dungeons and you had to fit everyone there or find alternatives. This lead to a lot of fights, camp disputes and some interesting incidents regarding trains. There just wasn’t enough real estate in certain places. You had too much competition for a finite resource at some key choke points. Blizzard figured that the best move to solve this was to give you and your friends your own instance! Thus, instancing en mass was born (not to be confused with Blizzard inventing instancing. They didn’t).

Now when you wanted a dungeon, you had one! World of Warcraft would give you your own playground and nobody could horn in on it! All the named mobs were yours! The shiny loot that they dropped couldn’t be stolen away by another puller! Nobody outside of your group could get you killed and things were good. Despite early success, WoW initially kept the instances limited. You still had a very robust and large world to level and interact in, even if it was concentrated on chore hubs. Things worked well but now they seem to be out of hand! Everyone seems to be instancing greater percentages of their game. This is especially true when you reach max level. Once you cap out you technically never have to interact with someone outside your friends list or guild again. Dungeons? Instanced! Raids? Instanced! Battle ground? Instanced! Girls Locker Room? Instanced with female only flag! This is a problem.

On any given server I no longer know anyone outside of my guild or the annoying fools who never shut up in general chat. I’ve become so insulated by the instance system that I have no sense of community on Oasis. I no longer have great stories of heroes and villains in that population. There is simply no humanity and that makes me sad. The whole lot of us seem to be on prozium (bonus if you know what that is without Googling it). We don’t experience the great lows of someone competing for our spawn or stealing it. At the same time we don’t have the thrills of derailing a train, saving a failed group, or winning back a mob from a thief. It just isn’t the same.

EverQuest 2 threw me a bone in Sentinel’s Fate by including the Hole as a non-instanced dungeon. It is large, has named mobs, some loot, and an experience modifier that makes you actually want to be there. I’ve enjoyed running into other players and competing a bit for mobs and loot. In all honesty it has been my favorite part of the entire expansion. The execution is superb and I applaud it. It is only one dungeon, however, and it still isn’t as well planned as many of the ones in EverQuest. I think more time spent swinging the innovation arm back would go a long way.

In truth I believe we should always have at least one instanced dungeon per leveling tier. That way, if the open areas are packed, you always have somewhere to go. The great part about open dungeons is that you can also use them as a kind of story and progression. Perhaps at level ten you can begin Ferrel’s Castle and kill some of the simple monsters that roam its outer courtyard and walls. At fourteen you can move into the inner yard and fight harder monsters. The deeper you go the higher the level until eventually it becomes trivial. This mingles high and low level people at a cross roads and I think that would be fine. By doing this you wouldn’t need as many dungeons as you do instances. I might also recommend that each open dungeon have a “maximum capacity.” When it reaches that you can open a second one like EverQuest 2 does. This way you’ll never have the EQ1 system of waiting for a camp for hours.

Grief is also going to be reduced with the way encounter locking works. Yes, you’ll have to compete for spawns, but healthy competition is a good thing. It gets the blood flowing and makes players focus. It is harder to sleep through contested content than an instance. Developers could also break up the camp system by not allowing mobs to spawn on one point. Give each named a chance to spawn in a given area. There are other solutions to that problem as well. The environment has just changed so much from the EverQuest days. It isn’t the same and I don’t feel like we need the fix anymore. Uninstance me please! Let’s bring the community back together.

Hecker’s nightmare is not directed at MMOs specifically. He is looking at aspects of the industry like achievements and in game rewards. The analogy he uses is that “bonuses” and “treats” seem to achieve the desired result but really don’t do so. If you give a dog a treat every time he uses the news paper he is eventually going to focus less on doing his business and more on getting to the reward. That thought right there really struck me as profound because it basically sums up a large degree of what the MMO industry has become now.

“The reason this “nightmare scenario” is a genuine concern is because people are clearly perfectly willing to engage in repetitive dull tasks if they are extrinsically rewarded, even if their appreciation for the play itself is diminished.”

In one sentence Hecker basically sums up what I’ve decided to dub the “Cult of the Ding” (CotD). Players are so addicted to achieving their next level in MMORPGs that they’ll gladly follow dull lines of quests that offer nothing but a movement of their experience bars. How many MMO quests do you read these days? There are so many that it is hard to sort between the quests and the chores. Even when we do find a quest we rarely bother with reading it anyway. A perfect example is what is happening in EverQuest 2 with my guild. We’re doing the access quest for the Vigilant x2 zone. I do not know the name of this quest. We merely call it “the access quest.” I don’t even remember what I have to do for it or why. I just know I go through three zones in order and I’m done. For all I call SOE could have literally named it “Vigilant x2 access” and I’d be okay with it. All we want is the reward. The journey is meaningless.

The shame is all this is that I used to be a quest reader. In EverQuest I read all of the quests I did. I knew why I was doing them. It wasn’t just about the final reward because the stories were interesting and, more importantly, if you didn’t pay attention you could mess them up and have to redo work. We just don’t see anything like that anymore and the sheer volume of quests has desensitized us. Walking into a hub and seeing ten question marks or feathers doesn’t inspire me to read. It inspires me to grab and then run towards whatever is marked on the map.

At any rate I just wanted to bring attention to the article. It was a great read and I would love to hear everyone else’s thoughts on it. Hopefully someone at GDC took something away from it!

The term grind traditionally comes from EverQuest. It means sitting in a place and slaughtering countless mobs for long periods of time to make a little bit of experience. It has a notoriously bad connotation and I can see why. You put in a lot of work for a little progress and a single death could take hours away from you. We still do the same thing today but instead we call them quests. I am not part of “we,” though. I call these things chores. Boring, mindless, pointless, chores that your boss gives you at work because he sees you sitting still for one minute and cannot handle that fact. Eleven out of every ten quests are dull and we don’t even respect them enough to read the text. Developers know it so they just color the map for us. Talk to Skippy the wonder rat and run over here. Quest done! That is totally so much better than sitting in a dungeon and killing monsters! That is an entirely different article. To get back on point, in this case when I say grind I am referring only to the speed at which you level. My point is that we need to level slower.

The attitude that has become prevalent among all players these days is that the game starts at max level. This notion used to be reserved only for the super elite like myself (I am no longer a super elite by the way). By that I mean those of us who invested our time in raiding competitively. Everything prior to that was fluff for the masses. We cheated ourselves the great experiences between 1 and max so we could get on to what we deemed fun. That was okay for a small minority of us. That is disastrous for the average player. The average player probably doesn’t want to throw away the majority of their free time dying to a raid mob. It is because of players like me that everyone assumes level 1 to max is worthless and for that I apologize.

As guilty as my ilk and I are in this regard developers have fallen into that mentality too. MMOs are designed to have really interesting beginnings so you become hooked but as you progress content starts to noticeably thin. Middle content is a very low priority behind end content because it is so transitory. Why spend a ton of hours designing a mid level dungeon when players burn through those levels in two days or less? Why indeed! After all, designers need to spend those cycles working on end game content to entertain the huge sum of average players capping out at alarming rates. The cycle is vicious and self supporting.

It seems that this all is justified by the idea that leveling fast makes a player happy. Leveling rapidly and reaching max level fills us with glee! Right? As far as I can tell, and someone may disagree with me, the answer is no. In fact it seems like they’re less happy. I knew hordes of mid level EQ players who were thrilled to explore the massive world and experience all that it had to offer. They could find neat places, dive into a few different dungeons per level range, and generally live in Norrath. This and more was available at release mind you. I’m not talking about ten years later. I’m talking classic EQ1 and then maybe the Kunark addition. These players were typical and many never reached max and they never cared. I’ve also seen horde after horde of average players cap out in MMO after MMO and complain of being bored or having to just grind gear to do anything. Then, when the next game comes out, they go repeat the process there. This is turning into an almost parental situation. You can’t always let your kids have what they want. Sometimes you have to give them what they need. What players need is to realize that MMORPGs, for the majority of them, are a journey, not a destination.

I think it is time to set the clock back and slow down those dings. MMORPGs need to adopt the Dungeons & Dragons model once more where the game is less about reaching the next level and more about enjoying the ride. If it took longer than two days to cross the mid levels we’d see more time invested there. If there were more interesting things to do in the middle, players wouldn’t shot gun through them so quickly. Death won’t set you back hours anymore so progress will always be forwards. Why then do we cling to this new tradition of easy levels and top heavy games?

My assumption is that everyone assumes that grinding means people will lose interest. They assume the WoW players won’t stand for it. To anyone who believes those two things I have something to say. WoW players do not matter. Everyone assumed that when that game hit 11 million players that would bust the industry wide open. Other games could do the same or draw those players off. That has not happened. WoW players jump on new MMOs for three months or less and leave. The market of non-WoW MMO players is still growing at a small rate and those are the people we need to develop for.

In evaluating my last point I’m sure someone will use Aion as an example as why my idea won’t work. I’d argue that Aion better fits my argument than the counter point. Aion has more of a grind than western MMOs, which players complain about, but it offers nothing compelling in the mid levels! Based one my earlier points I have to say of course it is a grind! They took the dull, chore-based system we have now and made the levels slower! Who wants to do that? The game is on a single rail and doesn’t allow you to deviate. As such, this example unjustly classifies the grind. If you’re going to use a grind you have to commit to it and Aion just didn’t. Not in the way EverQuest and other early MMOs did.

Some of you may not be aware but we have been streaming the Multiverse live as we record it. Our hope was that we’d have some user participation in the chat room and on episode ten it happened! If you click on that live link there you will be able to listen as we do the show. You can then click on chat and talk to us as we record! This discuss lead to some great things in this weeks episode and I’ve love to have more of that. I want to say thank you to everyone who came out. To everyone else, please consider listening in and participating in chat. We record every Friday night around 19:00 (7pm) EST. We’d love to have you.

One episode ten we discussed the viability of linear expansions. Who needs a level cap increases says I! Check out episode ten over at the Multiverse site or on iTunes.

At the start of your murder mystery you’ll find that the inhabitants of the Erudin Library do not want you there. You’re not from their side of the tracks and they want you gone! In the pursuit of justice you may slaughter as you see fit. After all, you can’t solve a murder without committing a few hundred, right? Clearing the first room should be swift and you’ll find Archivist Fahim waiting in the middle for you. He is a bit cocky and assumes you’re a bunch of scrubs. When you engage him large bookshelves will rise from the floor and leave only a single way into the middle area. Be mindful of that at the start as they will break line of sight to your tank. Beyond that Fahim really is the scrub. He doesn’t do anything impressive and should easily be dispatched. Once he has fallen the book shelves will rearrange and make a staircase for you to ascend. Be mindful that you may find the body in this room, the Archives. You may also find a clue here so keep your eye out for different colored ?s. These are the clues I mentioned early.

Follow the book case up and clear the balcony area of the archives. When you work your way to the back side of the room you’ll see a teleporter. Once you know there aren’t any more clues you can hop into it and take it to the next area. In this area you’ll find a few mobs to kill but no named. You’ll also find the Pantry. This is another place that the murder could have occurred. Make sure there isn’t a body stuffed into something unusual in there. On the wall opposite the teleporter back down you’ll see a big symbol. Click on it and it will open the mesh grate that protects the stairs. You can then ascend once more. About midway up you’ll notice a door on the right. Head inside to find a Tesla coil that is pretty fun to see. You can also find a clue in here so be sure to check this room. At the top of the stairs you’ll find mobs once more and you’ll eventually end up at a large opening into the Observatory.

In the observatory you will find Shahrivar the Unquenchable waiting for you. He doesn’t have any tricks up his sleeve for the most part but he is quite capable of beating you senseless if you let him. Shahrivar hits pretty hard and does have a minor power drain so keep that in mind before engaging him. Beyond that you can just keep your tank healed up well and lay into him with your DPS. The fight would be quite difficult without any sort of mana regeneration. Hopefully, though, you can use Plan Thax* on him and be victorious. You may also find clues in the observatory along the walls and hidden behind little nooks and crannies. Be sure you police the room before heading out into the open area.

In this main area you’ll find a lot of mobs flying around on discs to your left. This includes Conservator Haidar who we’ll get to momentarily. On the right side you’re going to find the Stacks. This is another area where you can find clues or a body. You’re also going to find three servants who will help you figure out who the killer was. Each one will give you a list of names in regards to one of the clues you’ve found or the body. Once you have all three and you talk to each servant you can pretty much use the process of elimination to figure out the killer’s identity. Whoever each servant mentions is the killer in the Erudin Library! If you haven’t found the body and two clues yet you may have to come back.

Clear the stack areas before returning to the main part of the hall so that you may talk to the servants and hunt for clues. Once you’ve done this it is time to lay into Conservator Haidar. Unlike the previous named throughout the Erudin Library, Conservator Haidar has a dirty little trick up his sleeve. Ever so often he is going to curse three of your guild mates. This curse is no joke, either. When it goes off it is going to deal some serious damage. The longer the fight goes the bigger this curse appeared to be (at least to me). Your best bet here is to use overwhelming DPS and drop Haidar as soon as you can. He doesn’t have a lot of hit points or mitigation so it shouldn’t be too hard. Just be ready to group heal and ensure that your most important folks are cured. Once Haidar has died return to the stacks. Head into the far room where only one servant is. Behind him you’ll note that one of the library walls is click-able. Do so and it will reveal a stairway up.

When you reach the top of the stairs you’ll see a teleporter that seems to be a bit off color. Don’t immediately run into it because… ITS A TRAP. Prepare your group for an extended fight and be sure everyone is in the room. When you step on the teleporter an alarm will sound and some very nasty minotaurs will come running up the stairs. Defeat them and more will come! Once you’ve finished off all of the usual scrubs you’ll be assaulted by Zulfiqar the Indomitable! Like many of the other bosses he doesn’t have any gimmicks to note. Zulfiqar is just another mob that wants to beat you senseless and he does a good job of it too. Don’t let him have his way, though! Turn the tables, beat him down, and claim your reward. Once you’ve done so you can hop into the now useful teleporter and head up to the Grand Hall.

The grand hall does not have any named mobs in it but it does have a lot of triple ups that will come in pairs or more if you’re not careful. Use body aggro as much as possible to separate out the mobs. As you clear the area be sure to look for clues. You may even find the murder weapon here. When all the mobs have been dispatched click on the three wall symbols and a magical staircase will be built. If you don’t have your clues yet you need to venture back into the Erudin Library to find them. If you do have all your clues you can talk to Head Archivist Farooq to make your accusation. Much like in clue you need to say who did it, where and with what. Once you have done this the person you accuse will fly down and attack you. Each done does something slightly different but the ones I’ve fought aren’t overly hard. If you guess correctly they’ll say something like “I’d have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling adventurers.” If you guess wrong they’ll talk about your flawed logic. Defeating the correct one gives you a better shot at an exquisite chest. With the death of the murderer you’re now a hero despite the fact that you killed a hundred or so denizens of the Erudin Library!

* Plan Thax was developed back in the Iniquity days of raiding. The plan is complex but very useful. In essence it involves you reducing the mob’s hit points to 0 prior to it reducing yours to 0. This has been very successful in the past.

I don’t want to spend a lot of time “defining terms” but I will need to do a little bit of that. The features I’m refer to are the “value adds” outside of the core. Being able to group is no longer a feature. That is a core part of MMOs. I’m going to avoid things like that and talk about the extras that make life easier. You’ll probably disagree on some things so feel free to chime in with your own! I also want to note that “successful launch” doesn’t mean developers just saying it was because the game didn’t go nuclear. Every MMO has been a “successful launch” according to their company (actually I’m pretty sure almost every over hyped MMO last year claimed “most successful launch to date”). Players, however, have had a drastically different opinion on the subject. I’m more concerned with their view.

This may not be considered an in game feature but the lack of it in some recent releases has been astounding. Even if a developer (wrongly) opts for no official forum you still must have an official support forum. New players to MMOs do not know to go to fan sites for support. They want to go to the game’s site for support. This is not unreasonable. There will be problems on day, week and month one. Have a central support area with frequent problems so frustration is reduced!

These days you also have to have a trial. Once more, not every new player is going to know to sign up for open beta. They also might be hesitant to buy a title based on what little information is available on the web (which may be negative). Not having a trial is like saying, “I’m not confident that actually playing my title will sell it.” If trial keys are only available via a code from a paid account that is fine. Just make sure there is some way that the less dedicated players can get in for a little while.

New MMOs frequently focus heavily on the early play experience to get good reviews and build customer trust. The higher players get, however, the thinner the experience. In an industry where leveling is no longer difficult or even long this practice has to change. The focus can’t just be the beginning; it now must also be the end. Ensure that players have something substantial to do at max level for a while. Battlegrounds and PvP does not meet this qualification (unless your game is PvP focused). Too many games have seen a large quantity of players cap out and then talk about how dull the game is. This turns off people and causes them to wait on that purchase. Let the middle be thin! You can fill that in later and it is transitory. Start strong, end strong.

If your game has any sort of skill choices, talent trees, or advancement points you can’t start without the ability to reset those choices. New games mean pioneer justice. Nobody knows what is good or how you’re going to change it from day to day. Players will feel frustrated when they “choose incorrectly” and are stuck with it. Respecs in an MMO are not a frill anymore. They’re not a kindness. They’re a necessity. It is fine if they’re not instant or if the player has to work for it. The point is that two minutes after I log in and pick my first skill I should be able to begin the process of undoing that choice.

The ability to “return home” is also a necessity these days. Players like the option to gate or hearth back to a known point of reference. MMOs also have issues at release with people getting stuck. Don’t make this a customer service issue! Throw the player a hearth stone so they can get themselves out of a jam. CSRs will be happier and so will the players.

To go along with the hearth ability players also need some simple form of reference. A map needs to be included even if it doesn’t do anything other than act as a map. I’m not saying mark quest locations on it (even if that is becoming standard). I’m not saying put guild and group mates on it. I’m just saying give the equivalent to a paper map so players don’t get completely lost.

Having a personal bank is no longer a frill either. Bag space is at a premium these days and some games throw a ton of junk loot and quest items at players during the leveling process. The bank doesn’t have to be fancy; it just has to be there. Throw some slots the player’s way and worry about the upgrades to the system later.

In addition to a bank you also need a basic mail system or ability to get items from one person to another without having to meet them. I personally don’t care if you can even send a “letter.” Just put a tube system in like a bank where I can drop some boots in and send them off to Dresden. Worry about message and spam filters later! Just give us UPS.

We’re also going to need a method by which to sell things. I know auction houses are incredibly complex pieces of code in comparison to other features. I don’t believe games must have the full blown auction house at release. I’m sure many will disagree there but I stand by it. Everything doesn’t have to be instant gratification immediately. A UO style vendor in a set place like EQ1’s bazaar is just fine. As long as I can sell things when I’m not online we’re good to go.

The final piece is somewhat like the auction house in the sense that it isn’t a simple feature. I still see too many MMOs neglect it, though, and that just isn’t an option. A new MMO must have stellar support for player organizations. Guilds keep players playing more than anything else. Give them the tools to do that. They need a guild window, a channel or two, ways to pass information like a MotD and other features of that nature. Don’t skimp on the community tools!

With just those ten features I can see a lot of the major issues that have plagued 2008 and 2009 releases mitigated. Players might complain a lot and seem needy but if your experience is compelling and we have the basic tools we’re used to, even if they’re not as flashy as another product’s, we’ll be fine. Some WoW tourists might not stay but then let’s be honest, they’re going back to WoW anyway. That shouldn’t be the target market anymore anyway!

I can’t begin to tell you how thrilling it was to do this episode. Our guests are always awesome but Brian has been quite a cool character when it comes to dealing with me. We’ve written a joint blog article, played some LotRO together and had a few conversations about the industry. Getting him on the show was totally awesome (or in more 80s speak, awesome to the max). The show ended up going so long that we just couldn’t get it into one episode. That said, Karen and I just couldn’t handle leaving anything on the cutting room floor. Karen went over and beyond the call of duty when it comes to editing and made sure we had a side B for episode 7. Listen to Side A and Side B to hear the awesome conversation we had with Brian.

It is also important for me to send out a huge thank you to Alan, Aimee and Robyn for taking the time to mention us on SOE community podcast 80. If you haven’t listen to their show yet I highly recommend it. It is a great source of SOE news and they do a good job of responding to fans. This is easy access to all the secrets so check them out and learn about your favorite SOE title! Next week on a View from the Top we’ll have Kiara from SOE so also check that out too! We’re looking forward to having her join us!