A look at the modern state of MMORPGs

 The MMORPG genre has certainly seem some success in the likes of World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XIV, Elder Scrolls Online and Guild Wars 2, but since the year 2014 there has been scarcely anything of note as that year marked the last real success, and even then marginally so, in regards to Black Desert Online. I'm going to do my best to take a deeper look into the genre, it's past, and where it's going, or if it even has a future.

The Past

We go back now to the elder days as it were, and what many would call the golden era of MMORPGs. The prime example I'll be drawing from here (As it is mostly fresh in my memory and the one I've most experience with) is World of Warcraft.

Few things denote the true classic MMORPG experience like multiple stats and long grinds, but also a level of social interaction that was never achieved again. Back then it might've been considered a chore at the time to get certain things done, but as they say, you never know when the 'good times' are until they're gone. When we look back we fondly recall moments of grinding in the Barrens for multiple levels, or working up enough gold for your first mount, or even just trying to find a healer for that one dungeon and then all traipsing across the land together if you didn't have a Warlock. It was moments like these however, the long pauses between progress, that really fueled the social aspects.

When you're waiting for a healer, you're spending time talking to the group you've already formed. You're learning who they are, what they do, when they started playing and many more things. Perhaps you'll even join their guild after you find you meld well together, and then you've a whole new group of people to say hello to. The social aspect of MMORPGs did very much pass its golden age, and it's been dead for a while now. Some games manage to get some of that social aspect back but it'll never be as strong as it originally was.

That being; there's something to be said of the actual mechanics of the game too. Back in the day when I for example played a Hunter in WoW, or a Warlock, I used to enjoy the resource management. Farming some soulshards for an upcoming dungeon I knew I was going to partake in, or restocking ammo for my ranged weapon, or even just buying some food for my pet as a Hunter. It was all small details that really just added to the flavor of the class you were playing. As a Hunter you had more to manage than say a Warrior, because you had a pet and a gun that needed bullets. If you were a class that needed reagents you needed the money for those, and if you were a mage you could straight up make gold for buying reagents, making portals, and asking for payments. Every class had a lovely little niche for itself, true identity that separated you from everything else. Only you as a Mage could make portals, only you as a Hunter needed to buy specific food for your pet, only you as a Warlock needed those soulshards to fuel your spells.

Also the depth with stats was a thing back then. You had multiple, and you needed to pay attention to both what were your prime attributes and what you were lacking in; like hit chance. You found, farmed, purchased and crafted gear based on what you needed, and it wasn't just 'This has a higher item level'. What I mean to say in all is that back in the day things were tougher, but there was a finer aspect to everything, so much more immersion with what you were playing and the being able to really connect with the people around you.

A lot will say it wasn't the game that was good, but the memories spent with your friends. To that I'd say that the game provided the platform for those memories to be made, for I couldn't make them with friends in the modern era of the genre.

The Present

So what stunted all this? What started to occur? I'd say it was about the year 2007 when it began with Wrath of the Lich King. It was during the big mainstream boom of games in general with such hits like the original Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, along with Halo 3. And if you go look up the year of gaming for 2007 you're going to find a bunch of huge titles that changed the entire scene. Games had become mainstream, no longer were kids picked on in schools for enjoying games, it was suddenly popular and a social norm.

And that meant things had to get easier.

I'm going to straight up say it now. Too much quality of life features is a detrimental thing. Looking for Group became a staple of the MMORPG genre and with it was removed the time spent in hubs looking for some people who wanted to run a particular dungeon. With LFG you just signed up to a dungeon and were thrown in with random people from other servers you'd never see again, so why waste time getting to know them? It was the first and probably most major blow to the social aspect of the genre.

With the realization that the genre was getting more popular and with a desire to draw in a greater crowd, thus began the dumbing down of the genre in general. Long tiresome tasks were shortened, stats were simplified, quests became 'run to the marker on your map' and rare items became more accessible, thus removing any sense of achievement from say getting a rare or epic drop.

But the genre itself isn't completely at fault, it's also due to the evolution of the internet as a whole. Online messaging services became more readily available and common, and so suddenly when you logged out the game, you still had access to everyone from it, and you were still talking to them. It started to blend that whole barrier between in and out of the game, and your friends were no longer exclusive the game itself.

But the biggest killer? Guides.

When was the last time you played an MMORPG and really just explored yourself? Thrown yourself into the world without any idea what you were doing?

Guides became more accessible and more widespread, and then came the meta rearing it's ugly head. Before we knew it everyone was using the same cookie cutter builds, gunning for the same gear, using the same optimal rotations and b-lining to quest objectives with a guide on hand. The meta and guides utterly destroyed most sense of exploration of an unknown fantastical world, and the allure to simply use one instead of asking the people around you became far too strong.

In the modern era of the genre you'll often find people not talking to one another simply because of the fact that they don't need to. They don't need to ask that person where the quest wants them to go, they don't need to ask their party member what rotation they should be using, and they don't need to ask their guildmates what items they need. Everything is done with a google search now, and we've been worse off for it for a good while now.

The modern era might be more accessible to newer players, but those of us who've been enjoyed the genre since before that are certainly left in the wind. And they wonder why our goggles are tinted so heavily in rose.

There's a small footnote to all of this that I'd like to mention, and it's what I call the invasion of the MMORPG genre. To those who've been with it for a while, you likely know what I'm talking about. It's games labeling themselves as an MMORPG without really being one in the traditional sense, and simply because it has some RPG elements and consider themselves, well, large. An example of this would be... Say Conan Exiles. It has RPG elements, it is quite possible a large multiple online game, but would you call it an MMORPG in the traditional sense? No, certainly not. Anything with player-run servers in my opinion is not an MMORPG. It's a small note, but as time goes on the invasion of the genre becomes more apparent. Certainly something to keep an eye on.

I will also point out that the passion for the genre is simply dead. The love is gone and it has been blatant to see for some time in a lot of games. The only exception I find is Final Fantasy XIV, and that's mostly because the work ethic in Japan demands exceptional results. But turning my eye to Western developers? Where's the soul anymore? A lot of the games are just time-gated and stretched out optimally just enough for you to have to subscribe for another month, and everything they do is hellbent on making sure you do just that.

The Future

What does it hold? We haven't seen a success in the genre for almost seven years. Where do we even look to? It's hard to say, I won't lie. A lot of the MMORPGs that come out these days crash and burn in spectacular fashion and it's hard to say that there is even a future for the genre. We've some promising examples in the likes of Ashes of Creation and Blue Protocol, but is that all we have?

MMORPGs are risky, they cost millions of dollars and can fall flat on their face outside of the gate. Take example Amazon's New World. It's had a few betas and I've partook myself, but the combat is shallow, the choices limited, the enemy variety stagnant, and everyone looks the same. That's not an MMORPG, and they don't even know what they want to make, they keep changing what its focus is.

A topic I hear brought up a lot for future MMORPGs is that they should be player-driven. That players should have huge impact on the world around them. In some sense I agree, but I'll always say it's a bad idea. Why? You'd be foolish to ask. We all know what kind of gamers are out there. We get a lot of assholes, and if you think for a second that some guilds won't just dominated the landscape and be complete assholes about it you're living a naive dream. If given the chance players will optimize the fun out of anything, which is why I think player-driven games are such a bad idea. Everything will be worked down to the bare bone of optimization and no one will find any enjoyment in the end result.

Such an example was already present in Black Desert Online, where if a large and powerful enough guild decided it, they'd lock down entire grinding areas for their personal use, and simply say that it is theirs and you're not welcome. It's a toxic idea and it's only ever worked once, with EVE online, and that is kind of an anomaly of a game.

Another point to make is the target audience. I've strong assumptions that the youth of today cares nothing for the genre as a whole, and while of course there'll always be some exceptions, I truly believe most of us that have grown up with the genre are the main audience. So we an assumed lack of new blood, the growth of the genre as a whole is stunted, and that perhaps lends itself to developers not wanting to risk making a game for it.

I'll be personally keeping an eye on titles like Ashes of Creation and Blue Protocal, and perhaps Crimson Desert but it's unclear wherever that's even an MMORPG.

I welcome discussion on this topic with all my heart, because within said heart, I want to be wrong about the future of the genre, I want there to be hope. But try as I might, I simply cannot see it. It's a genre I've long loved, and I wish the best for it in the years going forward, and ponder how long it will be until the next successful entry.

/DEAD

Warner Bros becomes a Nemesis of creativity

Since 2015 game development studio Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment has been trying to patent the popular and innovative Nemesis system from Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor and its sequel Shadow of War. It comes with great misery and regret to say that they've finally been successful in the attempt, but what is the Nemesis system and why is this patent such a potential blow to the industry?

Released in late 2014 Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor marketed itself as an open-world story driven game with a particular feature that had a lot of people excited; the Nemesis system. It's a system that lets randomly generated NPCs remember you and your actions. An example being that a randomly generated Orc (among the countless unnamed ones) can literally gain a name for himself by killing you, and then he will remember that fight and the way you fought during it. Likewise Orcs that enter conflict with you and escape, be shamed, maimed, or otherwise, will remember the encounter and reference it upon the next appearance, including any physical alterations like burn marks if you used fire, or scars from your blade.

It was and is a innovative and fantastic system that was only built upon further with the later game. Each Orc has one of many personalities, traits, weapons and even rivals and blood brothers amidst the others of its kind. There is also a hierarchy of captains, bodyguards, warchiefs, and so on. It was one of the most creative and fresh systems in recent time and really pushed forward dynamic storytelling and the company should by all means be praised for its creation.

So now we've got this system in the industry and it opens up a whole new realm of possibilities for future games and AI development. Great, right? Think of all the games that could adopt a similar system and take a step closer to that holy grail of game design; each playthrough being unique and different.

But no.

Warner Bros decided that the development of AI across the gaming industry needs to be knocked down a notch, and that it needs to patent a system it seemingly has no plan to use again just for the sake of locking it down. Because another company making a good game is just criminal, right?

To get further into the actual direct wording of the patent it protects 'Nemesis Characters, nemesis forts, social vendettas and followers in computer games'. Notice how vague that is? One could argue that 'Nemesis' could be easily slipped by, but social vendettas and followers? If this is enforced heavily that itself has just delivered a glancing blow to interactive AI across all games. The patent not only does that, it goes a step further and protects the concept of characters changing their appearance after an encounter with the player character, as well as their own ability to move within a hierarchy based on the actions of the player character. Again, very vague, which can be both a blessing and a curse.

The patent goes live on the 23rd of February and has the potential to be held for a seriously long time. Here comes the money maker for Warner Bros though; If any other studio wants to use similar systems they have to purchase a license to do so from the patent holder.

With any luck the industry can get by this frankly greedy and selfish patent and make similar systems of their own for the sake of pushing the industry and AI development forward.

I vehemently disagree with any action that prevents the growth of the gaming industry and this patent holds no value to anyone but Warner Bros and their desire to lock down entire game systems and concepts in order to profit from it. Let's hope other companies don't follow in their steps and start patenting more systems, lest we be left with the most creatively starved and samey games we've ever seen to date (And that's already an issue).

/DEAD