Scott Jennings: Legendary Failures of Legend, Part Two
Last week, Scott Jennings used his column this week to remind us of "some of the most spectacular MMORPG flameouts." This week, he takes a step back and looks at how those failures were preventable.
Column By Scott Jennings on February 03, 2010
You can check out part one of this article, here.
Last week, we discussed some MMOs that have had varying degrees of disappointment. At the end of that piece, I promised to explain how all of these failures were preventable.
So, then, the explanation - from the very cynical viewpoint of a developer, and an avid MMO player, who's seen too many avoidable failures. And yes, I've helped to make my own. Let's start with the one I've been known to fall prey to!
advertisement "Scope": Knowing When To Say When
The root cause of most MMO failures is something which not only isn't very obvious to people outside of development, but, in the eyes of MMO players, can be a failure in and of itself.
In project development, it's called "scope", which means what you're aiming to accomplish with your project - the design, for lack of a better word - and part of the triad of what is needed to bring a project to completion (scope, time and budget). All three of these are possible points of failure - but two of them, time and budget, are painfully obvious when you run out of either. If you run out of time, you either ship too early (which can be fatal in and of itself) or you cancel your project. If you run out of money, well, that's about the most concrete way to fail possible - if you can't make payroll and rent, you are done.
But scope is not as easy to pinpoint, especially for inexperienced development teams. If you run out of scope - or more to the point, if your scope is wildly out of control - it will eat your time and your money. Yet it's easy especially from the outside, to blame the lack of time, and the lack of money, when the real cause is an unrealistic scope.
Say, for example, if you decide you are creating a standard swords-and-sorcery fantasy MMO, and decide that to be competitive, you have to ship with 500 complete zones, each with a unique experience and story for the players. This is an insane scope. Here's why: Assuming - just for purposes of discussion - each zone takes just one worldbuilder and just one artist a month of time to bring from concept to completion (which is wildly optimistic/unrealistic), and assuming you have 25 worldbuilders and 25 artists, you've just committed yourself to over 3 years of nothing but cranking out zones. And, again, that has, as a core assumption, wildly optimistic productivity goals. This is how projects fail - by, early in the process, making unrealistic goals, assuming inhumanly efficient execution, and leaving no room for error. And, two years later, you discover that you've burned through all your budget, have completed 25 zones instead of 300, and have a publisher wondering why you've missed every milestone for the past six months.
And that is just one possible scope failure. Massively multiplayer games are almost failures of scope by their very definition - being that they require having enough content and systems to keep an average player amused for at least a year, and hopefully longer. And rarely do MMO designers sit down and say, "You know, for this new MMO we're developing? I don't want to take any risks. I want to make the most derivative product we possibly can. I want it to be exactly like what we're familiar with." And if they did, they'd never get funding, because few want to buy a game that brings nothing new to the table.
Players don't want to hear about your scope problems. They want to hear about how your game is different, new, better. In short, players want you to have an unrealistic scope. In fact, players will see a realistic scope as a sign of failure - a game that isn't taking enough risks, but is too akin to the games they already have. (And they may be right!) Too many project leaders and designers are more than happy to tell players that yes, they can have meaningful PvP that shapes the world AND challenging PvE raids AND an incredible beautiful 3D engine AND a unicorn AND crafting AND player housing AND a pony. It's very easy to promise things in interviews and message board postings. No one ever asks you in an interview about scope.
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Ignoring scope can be deadly.
I'm going to go out on a limb here, and assert that setting a realistic scope is one of the most difficult challenges an MMO producer will face. You will have to convince your stakeholders, your team members, and your prospective players that you can deliver a compelling, new, and fun game while still keeping a scope that is firmly grounded in sanity. And cutting back on scope is not something that will make you any friends. But it will stop your game from being doomed to completely avoidable failure.?
Technology: Making MMOs Is, In Fact, Very Hard
This is a more obvious failure, but one that too many teams make over and over again, even when they have every reason to know better. An MMO has some very key technical challenges, just by virtue of being an MMO:
- Has to be able to have thousands of players connected to a game server at one time
- Has to support those thousands of players doing fairly complex things with a minimum of server delay, or "lag"
- Has to support interesting AI behavior for non-player entities in the same space as those thousands of players
- Has to have a database to support all the millions of things those thousands of players will packrat away, with zero perceptible lag, and with a varying level of items affecting world persistence.
- Has to do all of the above with some minimal protection against obvious exploits and hacking, which means in practice that almost no processing can be offloaded to the game client.
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Excellent article!
The last portion, particularly, about developers actually playing their game and enjoying it (even at the early stages) as well as keeping their ego's in check seems vitally important. I think you or someone else posted on their blog about how the TR team particularly didn't enjoy what they played (even when it was pretty much feature complete) and we all know how that ended.. Or maybe it was a comment I read somewhere else.
And as for ego, well.. Warhammer. That is all.
Funny, sad, and true crack at EA. Very piffy.
This article should be required reading for Kerry Fraser-Robinson of RedBedlam shame, self-proclaimed as "one of the world's leading authorities on virtual worlds and virtual economics." Never has a lead developer had such a delusional misunderstanding of his own limited abilities. So much so that most MMORPG players never even knew a historically accurate sandbox world named Roma Victor ever existed...
"You are not the god of your game world, you are a customer service professional, and if you want to keep those customers contributing to your paycheck, you had damned well better act like it."
Ironically enough, KFR's in-game persona was in fact Jupiter, and the other developers also appeared as Roman deities when logged in.
What surprises me is how much people harp on Customer Service for MMOs.
I've been playing MMOs for 13 years, always playing at least one and sometimes playing more then one. I've used CS 3 times in that entire span of 13 years.
They were fairly trivial issues really. First was in Asheron's Call you can inscribe items, someone had inscribed an item I bought with some pretty foul things. In the beginning of AC there was no way to get rid of an inscription, so I asked CS if they could do anything and a guy showed up 2 minutes later and erased it for me. I could of played forever with that being there and been fine.
Second was when I wanted to go back to UO and couldn't figure out what I used for a username and password back then, if they hadn't responded or been able to figure it out for me then I would of just made a new guy (I made a new guy anyways) on a new account. But they were able to find it for me and I played again for a couple months.
Lastly was in WoW when they got rid of a quest in a patch (but left in the guy who started you on the quest, nice). This quest was for rogues and you had to pick a chest, in that chest was supposed to be an item that you used to finish the quest. So I picked the chest a couple times before going to Thottbot to see if I was doing something wrong and found out the quest was removed. Problem being was you got a negative spell on you when you picked the chest that lasted an insane amount of time, the main way of removing this spell was to finish the quest, which you couldn't do. Dying didn't remove it either. So I asked CS and a couple hours later the spell magically disappeared.
Basically I just don't see what all these people need CS for, I could of been fine if none of those issues were resolved by CS. What is it people are doing that they are all up in arms about needing more CS? A bugged quest? Ok do something else until they fix it. A lost item? Get a new one. Someone bothering you in chat? Squelch them. There are really only a couple issues CS really needs to be there for, like having a character stuck in the world and no auto tool to get you out of it. As time goes on programmers have worked in more and more little tools for players to help themselves.
I also think there is a tough line to balance between making parts of the game more fun for the customers, and keeping the game balanced and true to the original design. We've had enough examples of companies who have changed the game from the initial design which in turn made them lose a ton of players. Those who are enjoying the game tend to not speak up or post on forums. Also all players have different ideas of fun. And to top it all off, what could be really fun for players could also cause them to get bored with the game much faster which then results in a lot of lost money. It certainly isn't as simple as just making the game fun.
Excellent article, especially the section on "scope". Anyone who has been to this site before, even once, has probably heard "WoW clone" at one time or another. We're all screaming for innovation, but companies who try usually end up failing... because of the reasons you listed. It's not good to let the genre stagnate, but it's also not good to demand so many new concepts in one MMO that it doesn't deliver. Gradual progress - taking what works, adding your own twist and perhaps a new feature - is the way to go. Not building a revolutionary, "guaranteed awesome!!!" MMO from the ground up.
Yes, that means a lot of "WoW clones" (or perhaps "UO clones" if more sandboxes start rolling out).
Yes, an excellent article overall. But I feel a little let down with this second part. I wanted more details in the answers. Design details. But I guess that would be wrong, keeping it general was, after all, what you were doing.
So, you're making a game yourself? Cool. I'll be watching.
But I have to say that over the last few years you've seemed to have moved more into the levels/zones/"I'll make your fun for you" thinking. So I'm not overly excited.
I work in a different industry, but the article points out a lot of things that we struggle with as well except the fun part. Scope creep especially is a killer. Its tricky balancing what you got to have in a project with what you want to have.
some devs need to stay the hell away from their product.
Jack Emmerat played City of Heroes, what happened next?
GLOBAL DEFENSE NERF
TANKER DEFENSE NERF
CONTROLER CONTROL NERF
All cause it didn't play like Mario Brothers.
Great article and an important one.
We need more of these so that players understand that making a game is more than having a cool idea and not understanding why they are the only people who know how a game should be and why didn't anyone else think of it.
As far as some developers missing the boat, there is nothing we can do about that.
Hmmmm this thing could have been written to slap Mythic and Warhammer upside the head. Oh wait a minute, that is where Jennings sold out to.
The article is spot on but coming from a sell out, well, it makes it just a little funny.
Also, Tabula Rasa. Who in the office is gonna tell the great and powerful General British his game is lacking? Apparently, nobody...
Yeah.. Sell-out... I mean, he could have been working for EA, which is EVERY MMO developer's dream, considering their long and illustrious track record with MMO's.
You say Sell-out, I say one of the few people at Mythic with a brain.
Matt Frior was another one - He left to work for Zennimax (Possibly Elder Scrolls MMO), then there's Walter "Copper" Yarbrough (Turbine). Can you imagine if Sanya Weathers had to be the community rep for WAR, towing the EA party line?
Get real. EA is where MMO's (and their developers) go to die. More like Mark Jacobs sold out Mythic for Warhammer.. Might have made sense at the time, but look how it ended.. Even Mark got fired.
One of the smartest things Scott ever did was leave. How you can see it as otherwise is baffling.
Doesn't Jennings work for NC soft?
Well, while Garriott deserves a bit of the blame, I don't think it was all on his shoulders. He was the name on the product.
As you no doubt remember, TR was a much more different game when he started working on it. But then it became a collaboration when NCSoft bought Destination Games between a Korean development house and a Western developer. It probably got bounced back and forth between developers and management like a pipe on the set of a Cheech and Chong movie.
Honestly, I'd be curious to know precisely what kind of an influence RG had on the game. It's clear he had a part in the story, but the mechanics of a shooter/rpg hybrid never set right with me that this mechanic would be something he'd be behind.
Guess we'll never know.
Am I wrong or SWTOR could be the first trying it with HeroEngine? Curious to see how it'll turn out.
He does - He was higher there and started development on an unannounced title, then was fired.. And then rehired again.
But this was all after leaving Mythic before (or when) it was bought out by EA.
Think about the budget, staff, and experience Blizzard has. Think about all the time, money and effort that went into making WoW. Think about the customer service, the website, the content - everything that makes WoW what it is.
Now think about what it would take for a new team to just duplicate what WoW is.
It would be close to impossible to pull off successfully. There's just too much to do. And that doesn't even touch new ideas or innovation.
Finally think about all the above the next time you're about to label a new game a "WoW clone". That's pretty high praise, and few games deserve it.
EXACTLY my thoughts on reading this article.
Excellent article, Scott...truly superb.
Now...if enough of the buffoons on this site that are constantly whining about the "exorbitant cost" of playing MMORPGs, the "oh so terrible 15 dollars a month ON TOP of the initial cost of the client (for shame) and RMT (even RMT that is done in the most positive way possible) would just READ THIS and try to comprehend the magnitude of what they're playing....you, Scott, single-handedly, will have done the genre a real favor. (Don't you love run on sentences?)
Players always think they're the ultimate authorities on games. And well...to a degree...why shouldn't we think that? After all, we've been playing them for longer than most of our adult children have been ALIVE. However, many fail to realize that they are not programmers, designers, marketers, quality control experts, production assistants, graphic artists, personnel managers, server technicians and IT specialists, customer service representatives, etc., etc., etc. While a player may know what is personally FUN to them, they cannot possibly have a realistic grasp of the scope of what goes on in making and maintaining an MMO, unless that's what they do professionally, and I would wager that the majority of whining we see on these forums....isn't done by professionals.
The opinions and views of the customers are indeed important. They're vital. But when the customers don't have any real concept of the vast amount of work that goes into the product and begin denying that companies have a right to make money for all this work...they really just begin to look stupid, at least to me. The whole RMT thing....has brought out some of the most embarrassingly naive comments and complaints that I think I've ever witnessed on a form.
Do I WANT to pay 50 dollars a month instead of 15? No, not particularly. I'm your typical customer. I want the most I can get from my dollar. But to deny the company making the product that I enjoy, the right to OFFER (offer, not force) little "extras" to attempt to make some more money without raising the monthly fees for those that either can't afford, or don't WANT to pay more.....I think that's just ridiculous presumption on the part of players.
I would apologize for bringing RMT into the topic at hand, but frankly, I don't think it can be ignored in light of the article you wrote, Scott. There seems to be very little appreciation any more for the companies that are entertaining us. Now I can understand if someone isn't entertained....then you just stop paying. That seems simple enough to me. But the incessant complaining about game companies trying to make an extra buck being a "baaaaaaaaaad thing," has really started to get on my last nerve around here.
NOTE: And before the RMT flames begin, let me add the classic disclaimer: This is my OPINION. And it's what this article made me think about.
I've read, and continue to read, plenty of opinions in opposition to it, and no....none of them are going to change my mind, and I don't expect to change anyone elses mind either. If you don't think the company that makes the MMO you're playing DESERVES the money you spend....quit fucking spending it. Don't be a hypocrite. To continue to play a game that you find entertaining, and then deny the creators the funding and yes...income even BEYOND "just maintenance" funding...is ridiculous.
Bravo!!! I agree with you totally on everything you have mentioned here, from beginning to end, and especially the part about all the complaints about the various companies that make the MMOs. This read was as good and entertaining as the topic.
You hit the nail on the head with it's all about the fun.
The wheels come off on these games in testing. I have done a lot of betas, and what should happen is that when you do a quest or any other game content, there ought be an in game window where you are asked was this fun? How could it be improved? Etc. But most of the time there isn't.
It doesn't take much of an extra effort to make a quest that has some memorable feature to it then one that is the same old slop. Take a standard delivery quest - take x to y. What if on the way you get attacked and some npc steals the item and runs off. Now you have to track them down to get it back. Or maybe the item you are delivering transforms along the way, and that adds a new complexity. Or maybe the person you take it to is an imposter who has killed the intended recipient, and you have to figure that out from some clues. Maybe the item has a spirit trapped inside who offers you incentives not to deliver it, and you have to choose.
I could spitball ideas all day, as could most players, but for some reason the people who make these games slip into a comfort zone where merely take x to y is fine by them.
How about when they interview people. ask them in the interview, tell me 10 ways a delivery quest could be something fun and different? Then hire whoever actually has an imagination.
Bravo!!! I agree with you totally on everything you have mentioned here, from beginning to end, and especially the part about all the complaints about the various companies that make the MMOs. This read was as good and entertaining as the topic.
I have to agree... well said to Scott and Girlgeek. Both hit the nail squarely on the head. Bravo.
The problem we face now is that big huge AAA - MMO catastrophes have led us to Cheap F2P models with grinding leveling and completely repeated content....
where is the fun in that?
So the industry went one way....failed...and now has done a complete 180 to make money off cheap badly designed games.
Is there no middle ground??
As some one that specializes in project controls and process management, I fully appreciate your analysis.
The elements you mention, Scope, Time and Money, as you say are the project management trifecta. IE, you cannot change one with out affecting to the other two.
However, what you describe is a pattern of failure that has plaqued software developement for the last 20 years or more.
You could be the most influential person in the world in regards to software development planning, tell every key decision maker what to do to be better and nothing would change. Why? Because the culture of software development is not rooted in project mangement, it is rooted in management by Chaos.
For every software product you see go to market, there are at least 10 that never made it. Then at least 80% of software that makes it to market, is a failure or obsolete with in a year.
The only way to make better software is to spend more time up front, before anyone even considers writting code, defining the scope and goals of the product. That is not to say anything is cast in stone, only that when chagne occurs it has to be done with the expectation that changes impact the trifecta of Scope, Time and Money.
Unfortunately corporate leadership in the world is mosty stupid when it comes to planning and technology, and they make poliitical top down decisions with zero consern for the realities of the details. I call the the "Easy Button Syndrome". The attitude that anything can be done with software, automated, and takes no more time.
It is unfortunate that so many of the general public of the world are unable to make decisions that can truly influence a culture of greed and low quality. The only reall variable in the success of a project, IMO, are the people that are running the project and making the decisions. If a project fails the only point of true failure are the people making the decisions.
Sounds like you have material for your next article.
Yeah.. Sell-out... I mean, he could have been working for EA, which is EVERY MMO developer's dream, considering their long and illustrious track record with MMO's.
You say Sell-out, I say one of the few people at Mythic with a brain.
Matt Frior was another one - He left to work for Zennimax (Possibly Elder Scrolls MMO), then there's Walter "Copper" Yarbrough (Turbine). Can you imagine if Sanya Weathers had to be the community rep for WAR, towing the EA party line?
Get real. EA is where MMO's (and their developers) go to die. More like Mark Jacobs sold out Mythic for Warhammer.. Might have made sense at the time, but look how it ended.. Even Mark got fired.
One of the smartest things Scott ever did was leave. How you can see it as otherwise is baffling.
Absolutely. TOR is destined to fail because BioWare is part of EA.
Perfectly logical to me!
Yeah.. Sell-out... I mean, he could have been working for EA, which is EVERY MMO developer's dream, considering their long and illustrious track record with MMO's.
You say Sell-out, I say one of the few people at Mythic with a brain.
Matt Frior was another one - He left to work for Zennimax (Possibly Elder Scrolls MMO), then there's Walter "Copper" Yarbrough (Turbine). Can you imagine if Sanya Weathers had to be the community rep for WAR, towing the EA party line?
Get real. EA is where MMO's (and their developers) go to die. More like Mark Jacobs sold out Mythic for Warhammer.. Might have made sense at the time, but look how it ended.. Even Mark got fired.
One of the smartest things Scott ever did was leave. How you can see it as otherwise is baffling.
This!
Bioware was a good company 10 years ago now is just another cash cow for EA. Unfortunatly they are lots of xbox and pc weak minded players that they are praising them like the next mesia, so overall they dont give a frack. They release a lot of games with chessy graphics and presentation and with a weak gameplay, and they sell milions. What a surprise these days? People are dumb, uninformed, patetic, and that hurts all of us. Since if they get away it the first time, you can bet your ass they will do it the 10th time and they are doing it. They are not the only one but it hurts to see them sell out like that. Oh well
"I'm going to go out on a limb here, and assert that setting a realistic scope is one of the most difficult challenges an MMO producer will face."
Couldn't agree more. I'd add that *maintaining* scope is the second hardest challenge. All too often as a project moves forward, people have new ideas. They play other games, see what competitors are doing, and then people want all of that cool stuff in their game. And that pressure often comes from outside the development team from executive management too. It's important to be flexible and react to changes in the market, but at the same time, one can't do it without understanding the consequences.
It's often referred to as feature creep - the key word being "creep" because it literally does creep up on you slowly. What seems like a small feature here and a small change there adds up before you know it.
Lack of setting and maintaining scope is probably responsible more than any other factor for most of the cancelled mmogs and most of the ones that performed poorly.
"This is something that is obvious to MMO players, but becomes a strange foreign concept the further you get in the game publishing hierarchy. Most game publishers are used to the development cycle of single player computer games. You hire a huge team, you work them into the ground for two years, you ship the game, you fire the huge team, and then you make lots of money and fund the development of three more games. Do this for 10 years and you become EA!"
QFT
I ask for his article to be stickied, as this is one of the most true, well written and true articles I've read in ages. Thank you Stradden!
@garrett
I strongly believe that where we are today as a genre is because of two phenomenons, pre-orders and open beta.
Pre-orders as I've mentioned before are like telling a AAA publisher "We don't care about state of game or how it will turn out, we just want it." So in their eyes we don't care about finished product, we just want it. So they crack the whips at the devs. to hurry the hell up. Then instead of actually "beta testing" they let people play "open betas" to further the hype engine. The game play feels half finished... but the zealots scream "IT'S BETA!!!!" so it's supposed to be acceptable.
Open beta leads us up to the F2P model. Hell, that Battlefield Heroes made by EA I see on the left side of my screen had a working, functional cash shop in beta. People bought the stuff... while in beta. This further enforces the rationale that people will pay for half-finished games... so why not make that the new standard?
More often than not, MMO's tend to be released with lots of issues which can embed in a gamers mind "This is going to be the state of game for all eternity" and first impressions are always the most important. So if a game is in a limbo state of feeling like a "forever beta/F2P" I guess there's no standard there... because it's beta or because it's "free".
Personally I haven't played a new MMO since Tabula Rasa/Hellgate: London. They were supposed to be the next best and new thing since sliced bread but still felt like they were half-assed, and apparently I wasn't the only one since both vanished like a stale fart best left forgotten just a little over ONE year later.
A happy medium would be nice. Personally I no longer want to make a long-term investment in MMO's in their current states. I can't justify buying a $50+ game just to beta test it while the Joes who join in months later have a more pleasant, polished experience thanks to me footing the bill for them early on. As for F2P, I mess around with them, best one so far being DDO for me as content can be unlocked by grinding if you want or purchased... but haven't come across a "WOW" factor that has made me jump head first into one without question.
TL;DR version, we brought it upon ourselves and they're feeding us what they think we want. If you want to break the trend, stop buying it and they'll stop making it. Numbers and $ speak louder than words.
And what about failor of letting on wide scale people exploit/macro/hack it can also be couse of failor OP.
Very good reply sir.
I don't care what anyone says about his background, this is an excellent post, and should be required reading for anyone who wants to get into making games.
I agree. I also think that anyone that wants to PLAY games should be required to read it.
Another great article. It ties in nicely with part 1. Thank you!
Yea it is sad when the dev's dont even play their own games. See this time and again, and they wonder why folks flame them when they give us something totaly useless.
I got to agree with that part.
However I find it funny when the show up after that and then try to convince all of us that were having a great time and actually get into heated arugments with the player base not only on their own forums but other web sites.
There is middle ground of decent F2P titles. There is also middle ground of GW.
The way P2P works you cannot compete with WoW. They are both better and cheaper and on top established.
There is one interesting perk of F2Ps - they have miserable customer support to cut down costs so the game has to be relatively stable and bug free. This simple perk alone helps elimitnating some failures mentioned in the article.
Also smaller MMOs with short lifespan have the advantage of offering relatively fresh experience even if they are not much more than reskin of older game. Some of them are sold as P2P though, to the dissapointment of readers of this site that demand oldchool years long experience flled with raids.
BTW, making fun game is not always conductive to business. MMOs are doomed to be time taxing repetitive affairs it seems. (Edit: See also first paragraph of the article.)
I can accept that designing a straight delivery quest is less time consuming than making one with a plot twist. How much more time consuming I can't say because I am not a game designer.
As a player, I would like to see less "filler" so that the quests which are offered are more meaningful, are better written, or at least have a purpose. With all of these new mmos on the market, I think a lot of us end up feeling we are playing the same game over and over when we are asked to kill 3 rats for no particular reason or just deliver a letter. Surely designers can be more imaginitive than that?
My focus is on the fun side. If you are going to put a quest in the game, it should at least be a little bit fun, no? If not, why is it there? I don't think being able to put on the retail box "thousands of quests" will pay off long term if almost all of them are crap.
Start a company, hire a moderately large staff that you have to pay, etc. etc..
Create a product that is going to be used/played by thousands, if not 10s of thousands... if not 100s of thousands... if not millions of people.
Skimp on your customer service because you can't see "what the big deal is" and don't think it'll be as necessary as everyone seems to think it is based on your own personal experiences.
Come back and tell us if you're still that dismissive and glib about it within 6 months after your product's release.
That said... *excellent* article, yet again. Very informative. Very well-written. Very interesting read. Well done!
I agree. I also think that anyone that wants to PLAY games should be required to read it.
basically this is what happened scott jennings was known as "lum the mad" and had a rant site alot of game developers went there to discuss topics about mmorpg's and game in general it was popular at the time and people where making decisions on purchasing games based on reviews and the topics about games.
well mark jacobs from mythic entertainment started hanging around the site and after awhile offered scott a job ....he took the offer and left the site.
the site was then named slow news day and then after awhile wrote an article on dark ages of camelot it wasn't a bad article it gave and honest view of things where missing content wise.. scott jennings caught wind of it and went into the site and screwed up the pages and basically shut the site down by screwing with the code.
hence why people call him a sell out ...after daoc scott went to work with ncsoft to develope a mmo and the plug got pulled i guess thats why he's writing here now.
also sanya weathers wrote on lums site back in the day .
but for what it's worth lum knows his stuff.
Excellent article -- one of those rare ones where part 2 is actually better than part 1. Thanks so much!
Great article.
The scope portion is the part I hope every mmo developer reads and rereads. It's so bloody obvious that every one of these games suffers from massive scope-creep. Some handle it better than others while some (I'm looking at you Mortal) seem like they didn't even bother to hire a project manager and instead just flung a bunch of ideas at the wall to see what stuck.
It seems, from the outside looking in, that there are very few competent PMs in the mmo industry. Yes I know development is hard, but so was going to the moon, and they somehow managed to pull it off using slide rules.
Dreamers and developers with huge imaginations will only get you so far. Having these guys serve as your PM is a recipe for disaster (McQuaid and Vanguard comes to mind). You've got to have some hardline anal-retentive detail guys in charge to bring the whole project in for a smooth landing.
Fantastic article Mr. Jennings. It makes me hope that some course of events puts you at the helm of the next big MMO project. Maybe then we would see the product we've been yearning for.
I tend to see scope as a combination of depth and breadth - each zone needs to have enough depth that it's a fun minigame entirely on its own, but then you want it to be easy to assemble new zones out of the existing mechanics so that they they feel different but are easily assembled from existing components. (zones in this case are an abstraction - they can be different dungeons, skills, levels ). If you can't easily assemble a new zone, you're in trouble. If you don't have a fun zone, you're in trouble.
I'm surprised that there hasn't been a convergence between MMO-design and Magic: the Gathering card-game design. They strike me as very similar design/development/expansion challenges.
On the difficulty issue, I can't help but think that some of the failed games out there must have had reasonably good back ends. In the endgame of these smaller companies, I can't help but think there should be some engines out there that could be packaged up (what happens to the industry if someone takes a solid back-end from a failed game and releases it under a BSD license?) There are also people who have been able to successfully create pirate servers as a hobby, so the idea that professionals should have a hard time of it just doesn't wash for me.
The best customer service is service that never needs to be used (it always annoyed me reading about people on boards trying to use CS as if it was a 1-900 number "I'd like a rep to come entertain me"). However bugs do happen - and the most important part of dealing with them is detecting that they happen. I hate it when developers seem unaware that a bug exists - a layer of bug detection should be an essential part of the quality assurance of a subscription software of any sort.
This!
Bioware was a good company 10 years ago now is just another cash cow for EA. Unfortunatly they are lots of xbox and pc weak minded players that they are praising them like the next mesia, so overall they dont give a frack. They release a lot of games with chessy graphics and presentation and with a weak gameplay, and they sell milions. What a surprise these days? People are dumb, uninformed, patetic, and that hurts all of us. Since if they get away it the first time, you can bet your ass they will do it the 10th time and they are doing it. They are not the only one but it hurts to see them sell out like that. Oh well
I am sorry that we all cannot be as sophisticated as you and the other god like beings that hate EA. I am also sorry that by me liking Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect 2 is dooming the gaming industry that you love so much. After all I am just a weak minded mortal, from now I will ask you and the other God like beings that hate EA what I should like and play before I spend money. \sarcasm off
Dude get over yourself, I like Dragon Age as much as I liked Ice winddale and Baldur’s Gate 2, as you said Bioware from 10 years ago. Just because you hate something does not mean everyone is going to see it the same as you. So saying that your opinion of Bioware and EA is a fact and we all are hurting the gaming industry is pretty low. To me it is the people that is blinded by their opinions and will not even consider anything else, that are hurting and destroying this industry; both the haters and the fanboys are to blame for this. But that is still just my opinion not fact!
I tried to get assistance in two games in recent years City of Heroes and LOTRO and got crap for customer service. Hell they didn't even bother to answer one question and the last one took them 3 weeks to get back to me only to tell me to submit a ticket to another department. I leave MMOs the minute I loose interest in the game... I have no loyalty to the companies whatsoever which includes their future games.
Eeeeeeeeeeexcellent article! Great read! Bravo! Very true! Truthfuly Awesomesauce. :)
It's not just about playing your own game. You should be playing other people's games.
You should be watching movies, reading books, absolutely immersing yourself in the genre of the game you are developing.
You should be camping the community boards of all the other games which do something similar to yours.
Because how the hell else are you going to know what works, what's popular, what sucks and what is going to kill your game?
Far too many developers seem to approach the development of their product (Sigil, I'm looking at you here!) as though it has to be created in some kind of vacuum. When people study Business, they look at case studies which show how companies thrive or fail. MMO developers must absolutely look at the same things, or we're just going to get iterations of idiocy because everyone will point blank refuse to learn from the mistakes made by themselves and others.
I'm not saying that you have to adopt every popular idea from every other game and shoehorn it into your own project. Blizzard said when reviewing player housing that it was a great idea, but they'd have to consider how it worked within WoW - just implementing it because it was 'cool' was not enough.
But conversely, they've adapted their product over and over in response to competition and to player demands. And frankly a lot of player demands come about because we see what other companies have done, and we want that too! With a side order of fries. Because that other company makes great fries and crap burgers. And you make great burgers and don't sell fries. So could you please start making fries like those guys over there? Not fries that you developed from scratch and which are made from reconstituted cardboard that you think we'd like - we already told you what we'd like.
Customer service goes beyond ticket submission for game issues.
You need accurate, prompt and helpful support for payment issues and problems with cd keys and technical issues. You need to have an appropriate avenue of appeal if you believe you have been mistreated by a representative of the company. You need a way to provide feedback about bugs and improvements, and a way for that feedback to be acknowledged. You need a way to raise concerns about policy violations, and to report anti social behaviour.
That's all customer support.
I am sorry that we all cannot be as sophisticated as you and the other god like beings that hate EA. I am also sorry that by me liking Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect 2 is dooming the gaming industry that you love so much. After all I am just a weak minded mortal, from now I will ask you and the other God like beings that hate EA what I should like and play before I spend money. \sarcasm off
Dude get over yourself, I like Dragon Age as much as I liked Ice winddale and Baldur’s Gate 2, as you said Bioware from 10 years ago. Just because you hate something does not mean everyone is going to see it the same as you. So saying that your opinion of Bioware and EA is a fact and we all are hurting the gaming industry is pretty low. To me it is the people that is blinded by their opinions and will not even consider anything else, that are hurting and destroying this industry; both the haters and the fanboys are to blame for this. But that is still just my opinion not fact!
Highlighted in orange = heh....whatever
Highlighted in gold = brilliant and insightful
Of course....that's only my opinion.
Let's actually compare the two articles and see if they match up.
1. Ultima Online. Reason for failure - release of better games.
Cause A. Scope creep? No
Cause B. Technology? No, unless you count no 3D as technology
Cause C. Service? No, though it wasn't good
Cause D. Design? Personally, yes, but since there are thousands of people clamoring for the same design, that's a no.
So 0 for 1.
2. Everquest. Reason for failure - too much questing
Cause A. Scope creep? No
Cause B. Technology? No
Cause C. Service? No, in fact, changing the quest is customer service
Cause D. Design? Well, the game gained 500K subscribers after the quest was implemented, no.
0 for 2
I am not going to go on. The articles don't match up. Saying that these games failed is like saying Baldurs Gate failed, because no one is playing it anymore.
Well,
I'm just a player who's been gaming online since Legend of Mir 2 (Wait.. that was 9-10 years ago! :S ) and I kind of agree completely with your points.
As a RPG fan I love Bioware games (and I put my trust in them, believing SW:TOR will be the next Great Game) and as a MMO gamer I loved the article.
I don't know why that much hate towards EA, seriously, is not like SOE (game it touches game it kills, take PoxNora as a good example or SWG and Vanguard... still hurting here); but I wanted to add something else to the discussion.
The Endgame: Games are supposed to be fun, not a job (things like "damn! I didn't do the daily quests" or "oops! i'm gonna be late to the event that occurs every 12h and gives coins-tokens to get the omfgiwanna items").
I still have to play a game where the endgame is as fun as leveling and that imho is as important as every other aspect of the game.
Why play when I know that, in the end, i'm gonna need a bunch of people swollen with good items in order to get better items? I still hope to see a game where player skill is much important than equip but i'm going offtopic here ^_^
Imho, developers not only should have fun and take everything wrote in the article in consideration but should sit on a table and ask themselves "after months or years of playing, when they reach the cap level/end-game, what would they want to do? how are we going to motivate them to keep on playing without being forced to create a new char in order to enjoy the game again?"
Here is where every single MMO i've played fails (again, that's my oppinion as a casual-hardcore player) but that's ok if they wanna do like Blizzard - play, be bored, we don't care cause you will leave but lots gonna come in, and we don't care about anything at all as long as there is people coming and paying - or like SOE - play and pay, we're going to screw you and change the whole game after 2 years and everything you did will be meaningless.
Argh, i ended whining >< sorry, but hope you get my point ;)
An excellent article! My favourite comment is,
"This also means that once the game launches, your players are your customers. Calling them customers is critically important. It implies that you are there to serve them, and not the other way around. You are not the god of your game world, you are a customer service professional, and if you want to keep those customers contributing to your paycheck, you had damned well better act like it."
Man, that is priceless. Why do so many MMO execs seem to completely and utterly forget this basic reality?
because...
"THAT IS BY DESIGN!"
+1 internets if you can guess what MMO that catch phrase came from
A. Actually I'd argue that scope creep has been a huge issue for UO - it has repeatedly suffered from wild ideas that have proven impractical to complete. Take for example the virtue mechanic - a core concept in the lore of Ultima games and half-implemented, but after 12 years, it has still not been completed in UO. The game is riddled with the debris of half-finished systems and abandoned projects/events.
B. The upgrade to the new client has been met with fanatical resistance because of every tiny imperfection (and a few very major performance hurdles). I suspect there are devs who could write a good book on the behind-the-sceens story of the Kingdom Reborn client
C. There have been long and confused threads in the community forums about how to even open an account. Integration with the EA store backfired during the launch of the most recent expansion. Exploits/scripting historically allowed to continue for months before action is taken. However at the same time there are some areas where people have had very unrealistic expectations.
D. The design is quirky (see A) and has some dark tunnels where paragon bugs lurk, but that's become part of its charm. Ironically, for all its failings, UO has not failed - it's definitely is fighting the good fight against the march of technology, but it has such a wealth of history that exploring its history and quirks is a whole emergent sub-game in itself.
Already many developers have payed for this attitude/behavior thinking there god and customers just slaves who blindly pay, they eather went bankrupt or sacked by publisher.
But also still millions play crap mmo's and are slaves to these godlike creatures hehe.
Only few come to forums so im affraid most will always be slaves to those companys and we will still see this alot in near future companys bringing crap games and many slaves folllow it and paying for garbage:P
Staff on a MMO before launch are like politicians before an election. They promise you anything and trade on your hope for a better game, or life as the case may be.
Its true that some designers can think they are god, but being a customer service rep is just as bad. Players want everything now, it takes a strong team to tell them no, you can’t have that because its unbalancing or no not this year. Players ego’s can be as big as any developers.
MMOs fail for the same reasons that movies fail at the cinema, it's not something thats clouded in mystery.
If you wanted to support the 'middle ground' you'd lobby MMORPG.com to stop accepting ad revenue from those type of games as well as campaigning for the end of puff pieces on MMOs you knew weren't going to live up to their promise.
While you are at it, I'd like that unicorn Lum promised.
But I actually think you've missed the point: expensive MMOs that promise the earth have failed due to the reasons Lum listed in the article. Cheap MMOs that service a small niche have succeeded because they've been more focused (i.e. better decisions about their scope). The "cheap F2P models" have survived better than the $50m+ sub-fee games, not because the industry has made an intentional push towards them (at least until 2009, when Western developers started releasing expensive F2P or converting to F2P because it was seen how well that payment model worked).
Also, cheap is a relative term - a F2P MMO can still cost several million dollars to develop.
Good read. I've been with a small indie company for some time trying to develop a MMO and we had it all calculated through, costs for everything, really conservative, aiming for a niche thing that could grow if it works well. We extensively tested the middle ware available, made predictions for how long it would take to get them modified by our programmers to the point we would need it, negotiated reasonable licensing prices. And had a multiplayer prototype at least for the combat system playable and it was fun.
And than ... investment. What did happen? Well, the VC's said stuff like "oh, you want one million dollar? C'mon, if you would ask for five or more we could negotiate, but one?!? That is too tiny in scale." or "We asked an "expert" about your game design document and he says your product is not enough like WoW to make financial success likely, you would need the features xyz [like voice over, costing insane amounts of money but adding little to the gameplay] so sorry but we're not interested anymore.". Literally the lawyers (!) costs for contract negotiation with all the potential investors and the early development costs ate up the private funding we had. And when NCSoft asked us for a life pitch we had plain not enough money left to produce something we considered big enough and likely enough to convince them to justify the cost for getting everything set up, fly over and have lawyers check the contracts again etc etc.
So add to the Legendary Failures of Legend maybe "underestimation of funding negotiations and VC's aim of MMO dimensions" too, hm? ;)
OK, time for a virtual reality check.
Just about everything said in the article is correct and is worth payinig attention to. But. Generalities are only rough guidelines, not the details that actually make or break a creative enterprise. I can also say, it's good for the Fed to balance the budget, because if it doesn't we all suffer eventually. Doh. How does saying that help? I will try desperately to just make two points and avoid forum scope creep.
1. I can see why Mellow44 might say that. But it is about 99% wrong. Watch a detailed "making of" segment for a hit movie. I might mention Star Wars or LOTR trilogy. I think it can be argued they were decent movies. They made lotta money. But the people who made the movies, incuding the actors, struggle mightily and constantly with time, money, and scope, and just before release were quite unsure what the result would be. Yes, you need to work hard and not be totally stupid yada yada yada but the creative enterprise, especially the making of something memorable, IS SOMETHING CLOUDED IN MYSTERY.
Why is SW 4-5-6 so much better than 1-2-3, even though the tech was much better, the people were much more experienced. Was Lucas just trying to be stupid and intentionally avoiding making great movies because he had gotten bored with it? It always seems so obvious...in retrospect.
2. If we just follow the rules we will be successful, if we don't we will fail miserably. Of course we can all agree on that, right? Sounds so warm and fuzzy. I am NOT saying it is smart to ignore the points made in the article, but for example.... one of the cosmic failures listed was the epic quests in Everquest. So many things wrong with that game. Read about the making of EQ, it was a mess. But it was IMO the key game that launched the industry. Probably Blizzard doesn't bother with the well made but thoroughly derivative WOW unless EQ is a totally unanticipated hit. Let's look at the monumentally stupid epic quests in particular. Yep, sure looks dumber than hell. Err....but with this as a big feature in the game, EQ still hit 400k subs, people played it for years, and it is still viable 10 years later (though admittedly a different game now.) Maybe people liked the idea of "epic" items actually requiring epic efforts in time, grouping, etc. So does anything done in WOW actually provide anything like an "epic" feel? Let me give the MASTER RULE: its is easier to predict the weather a month in advance than to predict a successful creative endeavor.
I remember one evening I popped into Halas for the bank, and somehow a number of guildmates found themselves there also. And someone bought booze and a local bar and we plopped down outside the bank, and started telling jokes, worked on our Alcohol Tolerance, and....told stories about adventures we had had in EQ. We laughed, drank and babbled into the night.
Ok, people, when is the last time you were in an MMO and people more or less spontaneously got to together and "told the tales"?
Summary: IT IS magical. And forgetting that is the worst mistake one can make.
Please tell me you never worked in the budget dept?
you have to ship with 500 complete zones, each with a unique experience and story for the players. This is an insane scope. Here's why: Assuming - just for purposes of discussion - each zone takes just one worldbuilder and just one artist a month of time to bring from concept to completion (which is wildly optimistic/unrealistic), and assuming you have 25 worldbuilders and 25 artists, you've just committed yourself to over 3 years of nothing but cranking out zones.
25 worldbuilders & 25 artists @ 1 zone/month = 25 zones/month
25 zones/month * 20 months = 500 zones
20 months = 1 & 2/3 years NOT 3 years.
Sorry but math mistakes(especially simple ones) just bug the crap out of me, otherwise very nice article.
Nice article Scott.
I suggest you bone up on Agile Development methods, it works well in any programming environment. It will bring all those grandiose ideas to earth. The problem with many development staffs in MMO's as you pointed out is they try to do too much with the resources available to them.
The key to any software development is to maintain your focus and plan, plan, plan....
OK, time for a virtual reality check.
Just about everything said in the article is correct and is worth payinig attention to. But. Generalities are only rough guidelines, not the details that actually make or break a creative enterprise. I can also say, it's good for the Fed to balance the budget, because if it doesn't we all suffer eventually. Doh. How does saying that help? I will try desperately to just make two points and avoid forum scope creep.
1. I can see why Mellow44 might say that. But it is about 99% wrong. Watch a detailed "making of" segment for a hit movie. I might mention Star Wars or LOTR trilogy. I think it can be argued they were decent movies. They made lotta money. But the people who made the movies, incuding the actors, struggle mightily and constantly with time, money, and scope, and just before release were quite unsure what the result would be. Yes, you need to work hard and not be totally stupid yada yada yada but the creative enterprise, especially the making of something memorable, IS SOMETHING CLOUDED IN MYSTERY.
Why is SW 4-5-6 so much better than 1-2-3, even though the tech was much better, the people were much more experienced. Was Lucas just trying to be stupid and intentionally avoiding making great movies because he had gotten bored with it? It always seems so obvious...in retrospect.
2. If we just follow the rules we will be successful, if we don't we will fail miserably. Of course we can all agree on that, right? Sounds so warm and fuzzy. I am NOT saying it is smart to ignore the points made in the article, but for example.... one of the cosmic failures listed was the epic quests in Everquest. So many things wrong with that game. Read about the making of EQ, it was a mess. But it was IMO the key game that launched the industry. Probably Blizzard doesn't bother with the well made but thoroughly derivative WOW unless EQ is a totally unanticipated hit. Let's look at the monumentally stupid epic quests in particular. Yep, sure looks dumber than hell. Err....but with this as a big feature in the game, EQ still hit 400k subs, people played it for years, and it is still viable 10 years later (though admittedly a different game now.) Maybe people liked the idea of "epic" items actually requiring epic efforts in time, grouping, etc. So does anything done in WOW actually provide anything like an "epic" feel? Let me give the MASTER RULE: its is easier to predict the weather a month in advance than to predict a successful creative endeavor.
I remember one evening I popped into Halas for the bank, and somehow a number of guildmates found themselves there also. And someone bought booze and a local bar and we plopped down outside the bank, and started telling jokes, worked on our Alcohol Tolerance, and....told stories about adventures we had had in EQ. We laughed, drank and babbled into the night.
Ok, people, when is the last time you were in an MMO and people more or less spontaneously got to together and "told the tales"?
Summary: IT IS magical. And forgetting that is the worst mistake one can make.
You don't have a clue do you?
Why was EQ successful?
Why are the first three Star Wars movies considered better than the second three?
Why does boring, content-less and buggy MMOs fail?
Why, why, why?
The information is out there... on the internet.
Actually in both the games you mentioned, the issue was a combination of design and service - refusal to adapt design based on customer feedback until well after much damage had already been done. In both UO and EQ, there was huge "churn" - players buying the game, playing it for a while, then quitting. Both games were financially successful in spite of that churn (largely because the concept of MMOs itself was new and different) but could easily have been more so.
Whoops! You got me. :) It was supposed to be 1000 zones (3 1/3 years) and got dropped in an edit. Woo hoo, we can ship with 500 zones!
Pretty much every MMO team these days uses agile/SCRUM development, which helps in the down-in-the-trenches milestone planning but doesn't help too much if the end goals are wildly unrealistic.
Absolutely. TOR is destined to fail because BioWare is part of EA.
Perfectly logical to me!
It is not destined to fail simply because BioWare is part of EA. I personally don't like the design of the TOR to begin with, but the Star Wars IP alone might be more than enough to keep make it a success... But that's a separate discussion.
However, I suggest you look at the history of MMO's after acquisition or developed by EA.
UO - EA acquires Origin Systems. I do believe everyone who ever worked for Origin was Fired.
WAR - EA acquires Mythic. Most of everyone who worked for Mythic gone, even Mark Jacobs is Fired.
DAoC - See WAR. Playerbase is now consolidated to 1 server cluster, Yawain (Or something like that).
SIMS Online - EA Developed. Gone.
Motorcity Online - EA Developed. Didn't launch.
UO2/UOX - EA Devleoped. Didn't even launch.
They also had some kind of detective MMO.. Can't remember the name, but pretty sure that's gone.
BioWare might be the first one to break the mold, but I'd ask that you name one MMO (Bioware excluded, this is their first MMO with EA) that has improved in any way, shape, or form since EA took the reigns from their creators, or spawned themselves. Or for that matter, before BioWare, name one company where even a substantial number of the employees still work for EA after being aquired by it.
Opinion of why these games went down hill or failed outright, or why the majority of the original staff of whatever company they acquire gets axed is speculative, but the fact of the matter is, if you're an MMO company, or you make an MMO for EA, your job isn't the safest bet in the industry, no matter what your previous successes are. Either that, or the culture shock that EA inevitably introduces is bound to make you want to leave anyway.
When it comes to your career or lively-hood, most people bet conservatively. EA, for MMO's, is not a safe bet by any means.
EDIT:
Just to make certain this point is absolutely crystal clear, I'm referring to MMO'S AND MMO's ONLY. The single player games companies that are acquired by EA make is an ENTIRELY different issue (DAO, Mass Effect, etc.). Although, the Ultima single player games and Wing Commander are a sore spot......
i ,like one of the first replies, wanted more detail after the setup of the first part of this article. most of your points are known by people who have been playing games for a while.
however, taken in context as a general overview of fail, it was an enjoyable read.
i would hope that the people who make games read this with as much interest as those of us who play. and i would hope that we, the gamer community, start making wise financial decisions and stop supporting pre order and cash shops and reward those who listen to their customers and bring new , good, content on a regular basis.
Well,
I'm just a player who's been gaming online since Legend of Mir 2 (Wait.. that was 9-10 years ago! :S ) and I kind of agree completely with your points.
As a RPG fan I love Bioware games (and I put my trust in them, believing SW:TOR will be the next Great Game) and as a MMO gamer I loved the article.
I don't know why that much hate towards EA, seriously, is not like SOE (game it touches game it kills, take PoxNora as a good example or SWG and Vanguard... still hurting here); but I wanted to add something else to the discussion.
The Endgame: Games are supposed to be fun, not a job (things like "damn! I didn't do the daily quests" or "oops! i'm gonna be late to the event that occurs every 12h and gives coins-tokens to get the omfgiwanna items").
I still have to play a game where the endgame is as fun as leveling and that imho is as important as every other aspect of the game.
Why play when I know that, in the end, i'm gonna need a bunch of people swollen with good items in order to get better items? I still hope to see a game where player skill is much important than equip but i'm going offtopic here ^_^
Imho, developers not only should have fun and take everything wrote in the article in consideration but should sit on a table and ask themselves "after months or years of playing, when they reach the cap level/end-game, what would they want to do? how are we going to motivate them to keep on playing without being forced to create a new char in order to enjoy the game again?"
Here is where every single MMO i've played fails (again, that's my oppinion as a casual-hardcore player) but that's ok if they wanna do like Blizzard - play, be bored, we don't care cause you will leave but lots gonna come in, and we don't care about anything at all as long as there is people coming and paying - or like SOE - play and pay, we're going to screw you and change the whole game after 2 years and everything you did will be meaningless.
Argh, i ended whining >< sorry, but hope you get my point ;)
as you say yourself....end up whinning, and to bash SOE is just as bad as say you dont get why ppl bash EA. to ME SOE never did any wrong, even if I may not agree the way they take EQ2 at the moment. but I may very well be in minority of this opinion.
on topic liked the article alot, always fun to see abit "behind the scenes" comments
Should be required reading for getting a MMORPG.com account.
I think this is easy to say in retrospect. But honestly, adapting design based on customer feedback only works if the feedback is the right thing to do. The fundamental issue with "listening to player feedback" as a general principle is that the feedback is more often than not quite conflicting. Even if players are in general agreement that a particular feature is disliked, the proposed remedies will pretty much run the gamut of opposites. Part of a designer's job is to make sure the right thing happens design-wise (and there are hundreds of factors here). Being in touch with the player is key - no arguments. But then we are back to designers picking the correct course of action out of list of infinite hypotheticals, and this us puts on square 1 in terms of adapting design based on customer feedback.
Designers make games to be played, after all. But producers make games to be purchased, which is slightly different
. As you say "both games were financially successful" ... and I ask, who is higher on the food-chain in a studio: designers, or producers?
Should be required reading for getting a MMORPG.com account.
lol astoria
As someone that is has studied game design, I found this article to be quite good even though it feels like it came from a book I read. Scott Jennings has now become my favorite columnist.
These are the same people that ring up the emergency services because they don't know how to turn the oven on or they locked themselved out of their house. Unfortunately the world is full of some very stupid people who are unable to think for themselves.
Excellent article, though. I sometimes think people forget just what is involved with producing an MMO on even a small scale. People need to be realistic but so do the companies; If they propogate hype and are unable to deliver, they only have themselves to blame.
A bit off topic...maybe. The other side of being unable to follow the vision is just what RoM is doing...making patches and even new servers, and admitting during the process they're not quite sure what they're doing. Then again, go to the main German site and lo and behold they're advertising Aion--pay-to-play. Divergence from the initial vision (and from the envisioned ability to carry it through) has many faces).
Lack of judgment (particularly when to call it quits) maybe at the basis of them all.
oregon...various
Excellent article! Nothing revolutionary here just good, solid, meat-and-potatoes common sense that should be mass emailed to every MMO game dev currently working on an unreleased project.
Wholeheartedly agree. Please pass on to your friends out there making our next group of games.
I think this is easy to say in retrospect. But honestly, adapting design based on customer feedback only works if the feedback is the right thing to do. The fundamental issue with "listening to player feedback" as a general principle is that the feedback is more often than not quite conflicting. Even if players are in general agreement that a particular feature is disliked, the proposed remedies will pretty much run the gamut of opposites. Part of a designer's job is to make sure the right thing happens design-wise (and there are hundreds of factors here). Being in touch with the player is key - no arguments. But then we are back to designers picking the correct course of action out of list of infinite hypotheticals, and this us puts on square 1 in terms of adapting design based on customer feedback.
Designers make games to be played, after all. But producers make games to be purchased, which is slightly different
. As you say "both games were financially successful" ... and I ask, who is higher on the food-chain in a studio: designers, or producers?
fully agree its easy to see on the discussions they have about battlegrounds in EQ2 at the moment, there is atleastt 10 diffrent views on how it should be done, and those can be splitted up in 3....ppl that wish it never got implemented, ppl that think its ok as long it doesnt affect PvE progression in ANY way and the 3rd that wish to just do the "PvP" to get their gear.
so its already been changed afew times how it works. and well in end SOE need to take THEIR decision, but they do waste alot of time on this project - because they listen to player feedback...
I've never worked on an MMO, but I have worked on several big productivity packages (little known accounting app called Glasspac, and a well known program called Adobe Reader/Acrobat) and much of what can be said about making a MMO successful can be said for making any program successful - doubly so as many of these apps have online services now (like acrobat.com).
Well done article ;).
One trend that is disturbing too - only hand out beta's to people who pre-ordered the game, or people who signed up for fileplanet on a certain day. In other words - MMO companies are literally selling the beta.
I have no clue, but I suspect only the most hardcore devoted players take this route - those people will buy the game and a good majority of them will stick it out no matter the problem.
I think if most games did a much more formal beta process at least initially (applications, reviewing applicants etc etc) you might get a clearer picture of how your game will stack up to the general public.
After all - if the general public can't play your beta (or don't want to) you might have big problems ahead.
QFT.
This is a great article and bang on the money.
The initial discussion of scope should be the first chapter of a 'how to write an MMO' guide for anyone in the industry to read.
THIS.. straight from the get go is so very important to consider.. and imo simply not touched upon enough at all in this entire thread. Common mistake to generalize the developer/designer as the culprit for reasons of game failure. When the failure starts WELL before the game even begins development. Not in all cases.. but a good deal of them, especially as of late.
best example (weak I realize) without going ape wild with walls of text and links.
Publisher to Dev house: "Great game/name/concept, love it, great story, awsome board, inovative features. we can make it work perfect for the IP Aquired the funding, whats the damage estimate Fred?"
Dev to Pub: "Well Bob, looks like we will need around 10 mil for the project we put on your desk., 3 years min, this includes free turkeys and hams for thanksgiving and xmass"
Pub to Dev: "Ohman, Oh Fred, Fred Fred Freddy... Seriously Fred, the most we could get for that long of time is 6mil, What can you cut or edit to make it work"
Dev to Pub: "Well, we really need the contract Bob, I guess we could lose a few features, double up on the work commits, and offer free donuts. I'll be honest with you Bob, Can't hire more crew, but feel bad about overworking my folks and releasing something less than what you used to aquire the funding to begin with"
Pub to Dev: You let me worry about the tape Fred, you just work your magic and I'll get those donuts to ya"
LATER that night:
Bob. " so honey, closed the deal, where you wanna go this wknd?"
Fred Wife: "whats wrong babe?" Fred: "I hope you don't have any plans for the next 3 years"
Now, I realize that this little dramatization, is a bit silly and in some cases way off the mark. But, you get the idea. There are three main entities that handle concept to finished product. Dev/Design house, Producer, Distributor. And some of the more successfull projects are those that have run all three in the same camp. yes SOE, EA., (thats right I said it) Blizzard/Vivendi, CCP, Tubine..to name a few.
The crux is that each one of these entities has thier own Scope, thier Own concept/idea of technology (or how it should run) and least of all.. usually as an after thought... thier own Idea of Service. The marriages and relationships formed are very similar to IPO/preIPO culture when it comes to sustaining long term support for each other. And the "push" is more important than the final product or the consumer's viewpoint, before, during or after the lifetime of the product. It's like the concept of "one hit wonder" to music. It has become so resourced out, that it costs more resources to communicate the initial concept and release a solid combined effort, with respect to consumer in mind.
I really enjoyed the article. It's well written, insightful and smart. I just feel that it weights on the Dev/Designer much, and doesn't bare enough light to Publisher pressure/marketing/timelines and the effects on said topics of Scope, Tech and Service.
meh.. just my opinion.
d
I am sorry that we all cannot be as sophisticated as you and the other god like beings that hate EA. I am also sorry that by me liking Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect 2 is dooming the gaming industry that you love so much. After all I am just a weak minded mortal, from now I will ask you and the other God like beings that hate EA what I should like and play before I spend money. \sarcasm off
Dude get over yourself, I like Dragon Age as much as I liked Ice winddale and Baldur’s Gate 2, as you said Bioware from 10 years ago. Just because you hate something does not mean everyone is going to see it the same as you. So saying that your opinion of Bioware and EA is a fact and we all are hurting the gaming industry is pretty low. To me it is the people that is blinded by their opinions and will not even consider anything else, that are hurting and destroying this industry; both the haters and the fanboys are to blame for this. But that is still just my opinion not fact!
Hating EA has nothing to do with being sophisticated or god-like, it just has to do with being informed. It is the graveyard for mmorpgs and that is simply a reality: check their track record. While I might not agree with everything the original poster above wrote, I do see where he is coming from, but perhaps from a different angle. I agree with Scott's discussion on scope, but perhaps in a more directed application. For the past 5ish years, the scope of mmorpgs has been expanded to included things originally limited to the fps arena. Personally, I hate the fps influence on this genre and feel that it has done nothing but destroy gameplay and invite a more impatient, instant-gratifying-seeking playerbase. This also ties in with discussions about players rushing to level cap and lack of end game content.
Now it seems we are in the era of single player rpg influence. I also dont like the effect this is having on the genre; whether it be almost prodiminately single player-driven content or lack of community. This is where I agree with the comments about Bioware. Bioware has made some great games, but alot of their games have been largely copy and paste jobs. I have very little hope for SWTOR now after several months of following development. Forcing a single player model on a mmorpg wont work in my opinion. This is where scope comes in to play. Too many companys are designing a fps mmorpg or a single player mmorpg. Why can we not have a mmorpg mmorpg again? Why is it so unthinkable to limit your scope to actually designing a game for the genre that you are, well, designing it for? To me, that is where many of the games listed in the first article tripped up. If you want to make a mmorpg, do it. If you want to make a fps, do it. Trying to expand your customer base by bastardizing the two into a hybrid may work. But is the result really a mmorpg? Should we be pointing to things like Eve and WoW as mmorpg successes without analyzing whether they are really even mmorpgs?
Maybe thats the problem, maybe the definition or accepted definition of an mmorpg has changed and maybe instead of injecting new games into a vague genre, the focus should shift to a new genre. A genre filled with games whose scope is more in line with the UOs, the EQs, and the DAoCs of old. Imperfect games with problems, but games that for the most part knew what they wanted to do and did that one thing pretty darn well.
One of the points mentioned in the article is the server lag, crashes etc, and the poor investement often done.
Hype and expectations I imagine can't make it easy for devs to estimate the true need. Take CO for examples. Gazillion copies sold, and finally how many? maybe a quarter remain. So you build up the architecture for a gazillion, then in the end you don't need it. Now comes STO. Everyone knows it is hyped due to the IP. Will there be as many people left after launch as the sales predict? Or will it be like CO?
I am not envious of those types of decision, but then again, as customer, I simply don't care, I just want it to work!
Now if we could only get Richard Garriot to read this article. :3
The real problem is that many designers are incredibly invested in their creations. So much in fact that they tend to ignore their Closed Beta testers. That's what happened to Champions Online. From the beginning of Closed Beta (heck even in the pre-Closed beta), the testers told devs that the game was boring. That the "action MMO" was not fun. Spamming 1,1,1,1,1,3,2,1,1,1,1 was not fun. Nothing changed, and the game is now partially F2P. Failed because the designers couldn't/wouldn't listen to their player base.
EQ2 failed because SOE both misread the change in MMO public. They also either ignored or didn't know the word of mouth going on from the WoW Beta. SOE thought that a game grounded in huge grind like EQI and SWG was what the players wanted. They assumed that grind = Epic feel to the game. They were wrong, They got strong numbers for their first month or so, but when WOW shipped word of mouth got around that the new game with the primitive cartoon graphics was actually quite a bit of fun.
So when Devs build a new game. Like Scott said, they really need to make sure it's fun. They should bring in other teams to try out prototypes (Possibly from other studios owned by the company), bring in players from communities like MMORPG.com, get as many different eyes on the game as possible.
When I read the comment that went something like "Check your ego. You are not a god." All I could think of was John Smedly from Verant, back when he was working on EQ1. That tagline for Everquest, "You're in our world now!" haha, they sure thought they were gods it seemed. Eventually egos were checked and changes were made, as those in charge took a long hard look at their game and decided some aspects were just too much (or conversely, too little). If only the introspection and ego checking could have come sooner...
Posting in the most legendary thread ever.
Honestly, I think you summed up most of my gripes towards the MMO community. Yes, I said gripes towards the MMO community.
I've been saying the scope of games and the expectations of players have been growing so rapidly and irrationally that its almost impossible for game makers to make a true MMO to please the masses.
Finally, somebody who been in the business stated the problems with MMO development. With MMO's you are always starting from scratch. No matter how many times somebody calls a game in development a wow clone, the god honest truth is they are starting from scratch.
The player base has to realize you are not (at least with today's programs and technology) ever going to have a WOW or a Eq, or (insert favorite MMO thats been out for year) type of game launch and be that in depth and that bug free.
I know some games that have launched in the past few years have been complete crap. But there also has been some very good ones that just needed to have the same chance to "bloom" as WoW did. Eve had a chance to bloom and look at how good that game is.
I also agree with the "scope" thing. I beleive this is what went wrong with WAR. EA buying Mythic was the worst thing for this game. But that doesn't mean its EA's fault. It was Mythic's fault for not knowing what to do when it suddenly had a huge budget for a huge game. so their scope went out of whack. And before they knew it, they had to cut a lot of wha that media mahcine was already promising to the players. Also, with an out of whack scope they could not finish the basics of the game.
I've always said Mythic probably would have had a hit if it had its own small little budget like DAOC.
Great information, good reading. The 4 things you mentioned are applicable to all new product or service development, not just MMOs or software. You've got to do those things if you want to make any thing new at all. Interestingly, as a result, we've got thousands of years of experience at it. But somehow, when dealing with the relatively new field of software, people just don't raise their heads and take advantage of those lessons learned.
Therefore, you get a lot of wheel-reinventing, and that kind of burden will kill your project momentum. When that happens, you lose the energy to make it over the hurdles, and you lose the creative initiative too - people start just getting things off of their plate instead of giving their best.
This sums up the only thing I've learned about projects that matters - every project is all about the people making it happen. Not the plan nor the budget - those are just tools to enable people to be somewhere doing something. The most important thing you can do is keep the people up about the project, keep them connected with the customer, and they'll keep up the speed to make it over the hurdles and deliver their best.
heh, I got banned from the EQ forums (think it was the beta 4 forums, actually) for complaining too "impolitely". A bug with the guards let a friend duel me with spells, but when I whacked his low-level butt lightly with my stick, I was instaganked by the nearby guards. I had just run across the entire continent of Antonica to meet him so we could play together, and boom - I was back in my hometown (level 13, no bind yet) and unable to play with my friend.
So I complained about the fact that we couldn't play together unless we were on the phone together when we made our charactors or had accidentally picked the same starting areas (impossible if you picked certain races btw). My point was that in an MMO, isn't playing with your friends kinda a good thing to support? And I complained about the guard bug. And about the whole "bind" mechanic just making no sense. And a few other things that had caused me trouble in the new player experience.
And I got banned by Brad McQ himself calling the mechanics stupid, counterproductive, etc. while being upset after losing an entire Saturday afternoon running across the friggin' continent so I could play the game with my friend. Side note - we'd bought the game specifically to play together, as we'd been playing the same Elder Scrolls and other games for awhile at that time.
You must have not done a lot of projects then. Its all about planning and budgeting. The bigger the project the more planning and budgeting you need. When a lot of people are working on a project they tend to look at the parts that concerns themselves. A plan and a budget keeps people in check. With no plan, the more people you have, the bigger the cluster **ck.
Sure a game will only be as good as the designers. But the designers can only reach their potential if there is good budgeting and planning done before hand. Also, a good system of exchanging ideas and troubleshooting between different people and different departments is crucial and also requires much planning before hand.
You're not going to read this: another reason why MMO's fail.
I've played a lot of video games and I've spent a lot of time playing them. My last estimate put me at somewhere over 30,000 hours of game time. No, that's not 3,000, that's Thirty Thousand hours. Does anyone care? Nope, why should they? I don't make games after all, I just play them.
I've written to game developers, posted in forums, screamed at the top of my lungs and have done everything short of walking into a studio office in an attempt to tell developers what I think of their games. It took me a little while to figure it out, but I now know why they ignore me: I'm not the average gamer.
It's a paradox see, as a developer, you want to listen to your customers. The problem is, your customers give you horrible feedback. One of the biggest reasons MMOs fail is because they're developing a product for a temperamental, unpredictable kids. I think that developers need to stop placating people and make games that allow the customer to decide what is fun and what isn't.
That's right, no more cookie-cutter, overbalanced MMOs. No more gankfests, no more item based game play, no more static, boring, predictable BS. Give us something we can sink our teeth into and call our own! I know, the technology isn't there yet... and even if it was, nobody is willing to risk millions of dollars on something that's so different. Gaming is a business after all and it's one I've stopped supporting.
You made me laugh. The reason MMO fail is because the average gamer doesn't know what they like and give Dev's bad information? But if they would just listen to you with all your gaming experience everything would be fine?
Seriously? Thats your argument?
I found the article very informative and interesting, kuddo's to you LumtheMad :)
I am guessing everything was from a development side of things. Some things I believe could be part of your 'scope' problem. For example, marketing, like telling the playerbase one thing, then doing something very different. Not listening to the player base can be huge as you stated, some of these company's do not even think of the customers, they only see their bottom line. When something like that happens it is doomed to failure. But at the same time, you really need to know your stuff as well because you need to realize just who you are listening too. Majority of the player's will always be people that never go to or even post on the forums, so exactly what kind of feedback are you getting, and which ones should you listen too. Having a poll in game sounds like a great idea, but that isn't going to help when people don't buy your game and can't log in.
I remember what got me to play EQ originally, not sure if anybody else remembers, but they had a demo that you could play, was like a trial, it was a great learning tool. Now I didn't play the game from the start, it was my first MMORPG but my brother bugged me to play, and I was able to kind of test the game out to see if I liked it. Now if you could combine that with an in game poll, before ever having to buy the game, you could be doing your company a better service in the long run, getting info from all of the people who either play, or potentionally play your game. One of the biggest downfall's of EQ, like you said, was the lack of attention to the player base. Pretty much everybody who ever played that game can agree that spawn spots, the rarity of certain items even dropping from that ultra long spawn, and the constant farming, and 'trains' in that game was bad, but EQ never listened until it was too late, and people were just fed up with it. Back then people stayed with the game because there really wasn't much else to do, there was DAoC, or....nothing really, a lot of people went to DAoC, so they could get away with it, but as more MMORPG"s came out, well lets just say they should have known what was going to happen.
Another big issue company's have now, they are all trying to be cutting edge, in technology, graphics, etc. And like you said, they need to stick with what works, but expand on it or change it to make it their own. They never think (at least it seems that way), that the potential customers may not buy their game because guess what, they will have to buy a whole new computer too, or upgrades, and those customers add that money up. Most of us live on a budget, so what makes them think that Joe and Mary Sue are going to shell out not just the 50 bucks to buy your game, but the extra 50-100 bucks to even be able to play your game. I wish more companies would look at these issue's more before they go off the deep end of advanced state of the art tech, especially in today's economic times.
Great post Scott
Tunnel vision is kind of a paradox isn't it? On one hand, players want developers to jam-pack an MMO with features until it's overflowing at the seams. And due to this sort of expectation it's not unreasonable in the game industry to have a several-month long crunch of 12+ hour work days, plus weekends, when doing a push for a release. And this is just creating all those glorious features that players come to expect and take for granted because "WoW does it."
On the other hand, players want developers to see be able to experience a game through a player's eyes. And not just any player's eyes, but the hardcore player that logs 30 hours a week doing endgame content. Which is why the objections to MMOs I often read on forums is rarely "this game isn't casual friendly," but rather it's: "this game doesn't get the needs of the hardcore player."
So how would you advise the paradox be reconciled?
Great article, Scott!
I found it particularly amusing that you chose Dragon Age as an example in the Customer Service part of this article. Having played this game since launch, I've experienced terrible customer service from Bioware/EA with this game.
Of the two questions I sent in, the first reply took almost 2 weeks to receive and was a "canned" response that didn't address or answer my actual concerns. The second was ignored totally.
A great example of what NOT to do as a Customer Service Manager is what Mr. Priestly did regarding the delay of the DA:O DLC "Return to Ostagar." In the official forum, Priestly posted about the delay in releasing the DLC and, to his credit, indicating the reasons for the delay and that there was no new release date, but would keep us posted, locking the thread soon after and not providing ANY updates to the community for weeks. The only indication to the customers as to what was going on was provided by "good Doctor M" in an interview two-three weeks later, where he indicated the DLC would likely be released the following week. In my view, an EPIC FAIL by their Customer Service folks and a clear textbook example of how NOT to handle it.
With regard to PMs in the software industry. I think that there is more of a problem with who is told to wear the PM hat and associated expectations.
IE, is the PM really a PM or a working developer with the PM hat, that does not really want the job or know it?
All to often the executives of a coporation just throw titles around like candy from a Pinnata and then expect all requests to be honored without consequence.
Stupid is what stupid does and the working developer has no real influence in most cases. A real PM has authority to make decisions of consequence. Corporations tend to castrate this process.
Fail is Fail and fact is that most people are still too ignorant about technology and it's associated development. Scope creap is just the result of bad decisiosns by humans.
IMHO
Seems to me that all the points made in this artical are good ones.
I have a follow-up comment, however.
I've been involved with playing games since 1974. Starting with face to face rpg and boardgames, and now mmorpgs. I've been an office worker for a face to face game design company. I've been an office worker for a play by mail computer game company (the first one, the oldest one, and, arguably, the one that made all these MMORPG's a possibility by inspiring a whole bunch of gamer geeks to think of better ways to do it than by mail...you don't know how many of your designers were our customers way back when they were in high school and such, how many of your employees were our employees at one time... it might scare you (refering to game design companies in general).
My first love was boardgames and face to face rpgs, so that's where I stayed, but I played computer games a whole lot too. Starting on an apple-2C, then a comodor, then an IBM pc... Lets just say I played when Text based games were popular and if you got stick figures on a cubist background, you were lucky.
Somewhere in there I got to help playtest a boardgame. I worked on playtesting a couple of RPG's. I got to edit some scenario packs. I got to write my own scenario packs. I even managed to help design a boardgame. I'm saying all this to give you some indication that I might actually have some basis for an informed opinion.
I've seen the playtest method you guys use. I think you need to add another layer of testing.
In the time I worked as a playtester on face to face games, I noticed that the designers are sometimes lost in the forest of details. They get to where they know what is 'supposed to be' and that's what they see. I got lost in that while working on one of the games I was working on, a spectacular failure that never got published, despite being a wonderful idea. It failed because of expanding scope. Got too long, would not fit in budget. All that work for naught.
I turned it over to a friend, who editted it down to a viable product. Still didn't get published, the company went out of business who had optioned it. Sigh. But we had a good product, at least.
In face to face games, that sort of failure means a few hundred hours work lost, maybe some cash outlay for art or story content. Not a really big deal except to the poor guys working on it.
In mmorpgs a similar failure would cost millions.
The suggestion I have is to put in a new layer of playtester. Somebody who isn't a designer, isn't a programmer, isn't somebody who works in shipping. All they do is play the game and give feedback. Let you know what they like, what they don't, and all that. OK, you do that in Alpha-testing and Beta-testing. But where do you draw your alpha testers from? Usually in-house people who, even if they work in the mail department, know what is supposed to be happening. I'm suggesting recruiting totally unconnected, out of the loop, never been anywhere near the office, don't know the inside scoop people.
Get them involved from the beginning, keep them compartmentalized, and anylize the heck out of what they do.
If I am barking up a wrong tree here, if you already do that, then chalk it up to my lack of familiarity with the computer mmorpg segment of the industry. I'm only a player over here, and I don't read every newsletter or board on development. All I know is, an independent, segregated playtesting group is much more valuable than a connected, in the know group, when it comes to figuring out what is actually wrong with a face to face game. They have no preconcieved ideas, no subconscious understanding of what is supposed to happen. They are, in fact, on the same level as the customer who picks up the game because they liked the packaging or read a review.
Do you already do this? I dunno. But I think you should be.
This is called "QA"
Actually, there are MMOs which have launched using middleware.
Dark Age of Camelot used Renderware
Warhammer Online used Gamebryo
Vanguard used Unreal
Darkfall used Bigworld (ha!)
and I'm sure there are others as well. Yes, the codebases were modified from the originals, but nevertheless, each game still used middleware.
You made me laugh. The reason MMO fail is because the average gamer doesn't know what they like and give Dev's bad information? But if they would just listen to you with all your gaming experience everything would be fine?
Seriously? Thats your argument?
I'll back him on this statement alone "Give us something we can sink our teeth into and call our own!". That is the essence of any long-term product - you need to give the customer the perception that THEY own it, not you.