Gear. What is gear, really? You could say that they're things that take up inventory space and can be used, but that's just how it's flavored. Mechanically, what is gear? Gear is simply a stat boost that goes in a slot. It's important to know exactly how gear fits into every game, because it alone can tell you exactly what you can expect from the game.
In the beginning, there was UO. It wasn't the first of its kind, but it was the most popular. In UO, gear was very temporary. You lost it on death, and death was everywhere. UO treated gear as a means to an end. In UO gear wasn't progression. There wasn't a terrible amount of progression in UO. UO was player driven. Gear was something crafters could make to sell to combatants. It was actually a rather happy system, because it allows several different styles of play to flourish and profit off of each other (keep in mind that it was entirely possible to make characters who never fight anything contributing to UO's unique endgame experience). In UO, high end gear was generally considered to be disposable. The real interest in UO wasn't gear, it was rare crafting materials and gold, those two universally sought after things were what drove UO all those pre-trammel years. Though, with the advent of Themepark MMOs, the role of gear would change dramatically.
In themepark MMOs the fact that gear is a stat increase is emphasized greatly. Think about it, after you get to max level, what is there left to do? You grind or raid for gear. Equipment becomes a secondary progression scale after leveling, and gear is no longer a means to the end, it is an end all of its own. Who can honestly say they had fun raiding Molten Core the 20th time, grinding out Geddon and mashing those buttons? Static, mechanic-based content gets stale, so how do you keep players playing? More progression. Make the best gear hard to get, and everyone who wants to have the best stuff will keep playing, and once they've invested so much time, it's hard for the player to stop. It's all done with addiction in mind, and addiction is a powerful thing.
You see, as a player begins to climb up the progression ladder, they inevitably begin comparing themselves to others. They see a stranger run by, and they often become curious as to how they stack up against others. It feels good to see your invested time in a character pay off by controlling a superior character, and it feels bad to see your time belittled and look at a superior character. This sort of thing varies from surface thoughts to subconscious thoughts depending on a player's mental health, but in 99% of the cases, it's there. This is how the addiction starts. Players want to see themselves as superior to others. Players want to feel like the time invested in their character means something, and this is where raids come into play. Frankly, there's nothing wrong with wanting to take pride in something you've poured so much time into, and I'm not going to get onto a soap box and tell you that games are pointless, because that's a fuckin' dumb argument. It's just important to understand the degree in which addiction runs the themepark style of MMOs, because the content is very static.
Progression is a design element used solely to appeal to our base urge to improve, and to get us hooked onto progression-based systems, and it's cheap and effective.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Still more D3
I originally wanted this to be two points, and it is going to be in two points, but this is a sort of “101 – the basics” version of those two points mixed together. Oh, and it's going to be about Diablo 3 again.
I've spent a lot of my life on the internet. Way too much time, probably, but it wasn't all wasted. I've learned a lot of things from my time playing games and talking to people who play games. In fact, if it weren't for these experiences, I wouldn't even be writing these sorts of articles. Because of my time spent on the internet, I'm quite familiar with what people want out of their gaming experiences, and as sad as it is to admit, the majority of people I've met who are “hardcore fans” of anything are nine times out of ten, in it for the escapism.
Now, escapism is a pretty powerful thing, and certainly it should be something that you should be careful not to indulge in frequently, but escapism makes money. Most people I talk with who play World of Warcraft don't really find the game fun anymore. They just play to socialize with the people they've met, or they just value their characters too much to just give up. Some even tried to quit, but without something to fill the void, they just go back to it. Now, RPGs in general have a lot of ways to keep people hooked. From steady gear advancement, to frequent level ups, the ways a game can make you feel like you've accomplished something in the game world are plentiful. This is what most hardcore fans are actually deriving their pleasure from. The people who actually frequent the forums. The people who advertize your game for free. The people who spend six or more hours a night playing your product are the people who do it for the sense of accomplishment. They're the ones who have the best characters. They're the ones who can claim to have invested time into the game. The Real Money Auction House (RMAH) shatters this sense of accomplishment.
Why grind for eight hours when eight dollars gets you the same result? You see, if the people who spend real time in the game can't feel proud of their accomplishments, they're going to quit. Period. If their characters feel cheap, like walking dollar values, then they won't feel accomplished. Why spend time in a game that won't reward you for the time invested? Sure, there's going to be people who play the game for the gameplay, certainly, but once endgame hits, it gets stale. Who can honestly tell me that the 100th Baal run was just as fun and challenging as the first? It becomes routine, and unless you're lucky enough to get a top tier weapon that can't be sold, you won't be getting any progression that can't be bought.
I have a sinking feeling that Diablo is intended to be a cash grab. I have a hunch that D3 is going to sell like hotcakes at launch because of its name, and then make loads of money from the RMAH via mass quantities of items sold. After the traditional “core” fan base is alienated though, I have a feeling that casual players who picked it up on a whim, are going to drop it just as fast. I have a feeling that this is all intended just to make as much money as possible in a short amount of time. I mean, think about it, no one who even worked on D1 or D2 are with Blizzard anymore. Blizzard has no interest in the franchise other than to have the name make money for them. Why wouldn't they consider killing the name with a cash grab? It's just a suspicion though. I'm probably wrong, considering the infamous leaked documents suggests that two expansions are planned. Time will tell.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
A small update.
I'm going to write more about the subject, but I'd like to just touch on it here first.
Mechanically speaking, items are replaceable stat enhancements, sometimes with a visual component. They have been used two ways in MMOs. Sandbox games utilize them for economy, themepark games utilize them for progression. Now, in a theme park game, if you give incentives for selling high-end loot, you're in actually, encouraging people to sell progression. There will be two future updates about two aspects of these concepts. The first deals with items in general, and what function they have. The second update will be about the social and psychological effects of the concept of selling progression. I look forward to writing them.
Mechanically speaking, items are replaceable stat enhancements, sometimes with a visual component. They have been used two ways in MMOs. Sandbox games utilize them for economy, themepark games utilize them for progression. Now, in a theme park game, if you give incentives for selling high-end loot, you're in actually, encouraging people to sell progression. There will be two future updates about two aspects of these concepts. The first deals with items in general, and what function they have. The second update will be about the social and psychological effects of the concept of selling progression. I look forward to writing them.
Monday, September 5, 2011
A small update
There isn't a lot going on in the MMO world that really deserves to be reported on right now. If I can get my hands on Path of Exile, I'll defiantly talk about that (even though it's not really an MMO). If anyone has a suggestion, I'd love to hear it.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
D3: Real Money Auction House Compiled
Post 1:
Well. Alright. Regarding the D3 "Cash Auction House" (CAH) I just sort of figured I can explain this in a short and concise manner, unlike my usual long winded explanations. There are two points I want to discuss: the player's conceptions, and Blizzard's lies.
Now, as much as I like Athene and his Together To The Top (TTTT) movement, I am really disappointed he hasn't caught onto Blizzard's ruse with their CAH. Now, people are going to swarm into this game trying to get cash off this game, this is pretty much undeniable at this point, a cash incentive for playing is a great marketing strategy. This works in the favor of more hardcore players, who have the ability and patience to grind out dozens of boss runs farming for gear... at least initially. The problem with the CAH is that it's going to attract the attention of entrepreneurs who will try and use the system for mass financial gain. Most people refer to those people as "Chinese Gold Sellers". The CAH will be flooded with items after not too long. A huge player base trying to cash in, on top of the competitive slashing of prices will inevitably result in everything save for the rarest of items to be dirt cheap. Incidentally, this works in Blizzard's favor, since it can be used as a marketing tool for more casual players who would rather buy than grind. Even if D3 sucks as a game, you can bet that it'll do well simply because of everyone trying to get their hand in the cookie jar. The thing is, Blizzard knows this.
Blizzard has gone on the record as saying that the CAH concept was "simply a feature to help players", and "they'd be surprised to break even on the CAH alone". Frankly, that's bullshit. The way Blizzard is taking a cut from the CAH is by a small flat rate with each transaction. What this means is that they'll only make money off of the quantity of transactions, rather than taking a percentage of the total cash moved. Anyone with a basic knowledge of player behavior in MMOs will understand that that system, on top of the inevitable devaluing of gear, that this is the best model for Blizzard to get behind for profitability. The only way a percentage of sale model would work is if Blizzard made items so prohibitively rare, that their price could never drop to an unsatisfactory amount. That model, however, would drive would-be auctioneers away.
A plethora of slightly sub-optimal items for the endgame at a rare-ish drop rate, coupled with a set of ultra rare "best" items, will make for the most addicting and profitable recipe.
As a note that supports my case, keep in mind that Blizzard removed skill points in favor of skill-altering items. That means every time there's a new flavor of the month build (or shit, even a classic example of Blizzard being bad at balancing), guess what gets sold en masse, and guess who profits directly. This is, of course, only pointing out a new feature, if you look at their main website you can see a plethora of items that will most likely end up cheap and be sold in large quantities (Players will have many ways to customize and build each of the five character classes, including charms, traits, enhancements, gems, armor, weapons, dyes, skills...) (http://us.blizzard.com/diablo3/world/systems/runestones.xml) I will forever contend that Blizzard's handling of Diablo 3 is just another example that they will go at great lengths to squeeze every last cent out of their customers.
As a final disclaimer, I make no claims regarding the quality of Diablo 3 as a game. I have no opinion about the potential enjoyability of its gameplay. I do, however, refuse to buy the game because of Blizzard's business practices, and that's the only message I want to spread.
Post 2:
This is going to be a supplementary post to augment the position laid out in the last blog post about this subject. Last post, I detailed how Blizzard's game design D3 was optimized to profit from the Cash Auction House (CAH). Now, those are only the short term effects. By understanding player behavior, and using just a bit of economic knowledge, we can analyze the long term effects of these design choices.
The first of the two major points I'd like to bring up is that Blizzard taking a flat rate from all transactions puts a downward force on the market. Let's say, for example, Blizzard takes only $0.10 from every transaction. Now, let's say the current market price for "Theoretical Item (TI)" is $1.00.Now, the seller is making $0.90 profit off of every transaction that happens at that price point, but what happens when the inevitable undercutting happens? Another seller decides to sell TI for $0.95, making a $0.85 profit. Anyone who is selling for $1.00 can't buy up the lower priced item and re-list it under a higher price, or they'll be selling at a $0.05 loss (they'd be paying $0.95 for the item, but making only $0.90 at a sale), due to the flat rate take from Blizzard. Certainly, you could sell at a five cent lost every once and a while to keep your higher price point, but MMO players have demonstrated in the past that they are willing to sacrifice profit in the name of guaranteeing sales due to the lower price. This means that, as long as someone is willing to make a sale for less, the price will keep dropping. There are lots of factors at play here, and that isn't even the most important one. Another example is that Diablo item's simply aren't soulbound, and thus, aren't "consumed" when a character equips them. Everyone will jump on the chance to sell their old leveling gear. Items are never "lost".
The second point is that this plays exactly into supporting mass transactions (which nets them more money, because again, they only profit on # of transactions rather than value). This self-deflating economy also is extremely appealing to more casual players, who would rather spend $5 than to grind out top-end gear. Diablo 3's economy, as it stands, is an extremely powerful and effective marketing strategy that will draw in tons of new players, and any claims by Blizzard stating that they don't know exactly what they're doing is a blatant lie.
Post 3:
Cranking these out late at night, I, unfortunately, overlooked some of the more minor nuances of the Cash Auction House.
Something I neglected to mention is that there are ways to combat undercutting. For example, if one were to invest a large sum of money, a person (or persons) could buy up all available copies of a single item and re-list them at a much higher price. These sort of things happen, but they tend to be rather unstable (since new items will inevitably be found and put up on the auction house), and the sheer force of the flat rate tax system that is said to be in place will inevitably drive the prices down, it's only a matter of time.
Another important note is to realize that, even in the case of this sort of monopolizing move, Blizzard still profits from the flat tax for every transaction. In the case of a re-listing, Blizzard earns twice what they would have for a flat sale.
The last thing I believe I missed is what makes such low prices possible. There is no cost to obtain items. People are paying to play the game already for various reasons, and any items they find are simply a product of them doing what they would have done normally. Because the items are fake and produced for free, the floor for making a profit is literally whatever the flat tax is plus one cent. My personal guess for the tax is somewhere around twenty cents (and keep in mind, a larger flat tax, the harder it is for a mass re-listing to take place), considering the steps Blizzard has to take in processing each transaction.
Well. Alright. Regarding the D3 "Cash Auction House" (CAH) I just sort of figured I can explain this in a short and concise manner, unlike my usual long winded explanations. There are two points I want to discuss: the player's conceptions, and Blizzard's lies.
Now, as much as I like Athene and his Together To The Top (TTTT) movement, I am really disappointed he hasn't caught onto Blizzard's ruse with their CAH. Now, people are going to swarm into this game trying to get cash off this game, this is pretty much undeniable at this point, a cash incentive for playing is a great marketing strategy. This works in the favor of more hardcore players, who have the ability and patience to grind out dozens of boss runs farming for gear... at least initially. The problem with the CAH is that it's going to attract the attention of entrepreneurs who will try and use the system for mass financial gain. Most people refer to those people as "Chinese Gold Sellers". The CAH will be flooded with items after not too long. A huge player base trying to cash in, on top of the competitive slashing of prices will inevitably result in everything save for the rarest of items to be dirt cheap. Incidentally, this works in Blizzard's favor, since it can be used as a marketing tool for more casual players who would rather buy than grind. Even if D3 sucks as a game, you can bet that it'll do well simply because of everyone trying to get their hand in the cookie jar. The thing is, Blizzard knows this.
Blizzard has gone on the record as saying that the CAH concept was "simply a feature to help players", and "they'd be surprised to break even on the CAH alone". Frankly, that's bullshit. The way Blizzard is taking a cut from the CAH is by a small flat rate with each transaction. What this means is that they'll only make money off of the quantity of transactions, rather than taking a percentage of the total cash moved. Anyone with a basic knowledge of player behavior in MMOs will understand that that system, on top of the inevitable devaluing of gear, that this is the best model for Blizzard to get behind for profitability. The only way a percentage of sale model would work is if Blizzard made items so prohibitively rare, that their price could never drop to an unsatisfactory amount. That model, however, would drive would-be auctioneers away.
A plethora of slightly sub-optimal items for the endgame at a rare-ish drop rate, coupled with a set of ultra rare "best" items, will make for the most addicting and profitable recipe.
As a note that supports my case, keep in mind that Blizzard removed skill points in favor of skill-altering items. That means every time there's a new flavor of the month build (or shit, even a classic example of Blizzard being bad at balancing), guess what gets sold en masse, and guess who profits directly. This is, of course, only pointing out a new feature, if you look at their main website you can see a plethora of items that will most likely end up cheap and be sold in large quantities (Players will have many ways to customize and build each of the five character classes, including charms, traits, enhancements, gems, armor, weapons, dyes, skills...) (http://us.blizzard.com/diablo3/world/systems/runestones.xml) I will forever contend that Blizzard's handling of Diablo 3 is just another example that they will go at great lengths to squeeze every last cent out of their customers.
As a final disclaimer, I make no claims regarding the quality of Diablo 3 as a game. I have no opinion about the potential enjoyability of its gameplay. I do, however, refuse to buy the game because of Blizzard's business practices, and that's the only message I want to spread.
Post 2:
This is going to be a supplementary post to augment the position laid out in the last blog post about this subject. Last post, I detailed how Blizzard's game design D3 was optimized to profit from the Cash Auction House (CAH). Now, those are only the short term effects. By understanding player behavior, and using just a bit of economic knowledge, we can analyze the long term effects of these design choices.
The first of the two major points I'd like to bring up is that Blizzard taking a flat rate from all transactions puts a downward force on the market. Let's say, for example, Blizzard takes only $0.10 from every transaction. Now, let's say the current market price for "Theoretical Item (TI)" is $1.00.Now, the seller is making $0.90 profit off of every transaction that happens at that price point, but what happens when the inevitable undercutting happens? Another seller decides to sell TI for $0.95, making a $0.85 profit. Anyone who is selling for $1.00 can't buy up the lower priced item and re-list it under a higher price, or they'll be selling at a $0.05 loss (they'd be paying $0.95 for the item, but making only $0.90 at a sale), due to the flat rate take from Blizzard. Certainly, you could sell at a five cent lost every once and a while to keep your higher price point, but MMO players have demonstrated in the past that they are willing to sacrifice profit in the name of guaranteeing sales due to the lower price. This means that, as long as someone is willing to make a sale for less, the price will keep dropping. There are lots of factors at play here, and that isn't even the most important one. Another example is that Diablo item's simply aren't soulbound, and thus, aren't "consumed" when a character equips them. Everyone will jump on the chance to sell their old leveling gear. Items are never "lost".
The second point is that this plays exactly into supporting mass transactions (which nets them more money, because again, they only profit on # of transactions rather than value). This self-deflating economy also is extremely appealing to more casual players, who would rather spend $5 than to grind out top-end gear. Diablo 3's economy, as it stands, is an extremely powerful and effective marketing strategy that will draw in tons of new players, and any claims by Blizzard stating that they don't know exactly what they're doing is a blatant lie.
Post 3:
Cranking these out late at night, I, unfortunately, overlooked some of the more minor nuances of the Cash Auction House.
Something I neglected to mention is that there are ways to combat undercutting. For example, if one were to invest a large sum of money, a person (or persons) could buy up all available copies of a single item and re-list them at a much higher price. These sort of things happen, but they tend to be rather unstable (since new items will inevitably be found and put up on the auction house), and the sheer force of the flat rate tax system that is said to be in place will inevitably drive the prices down, it's only a matter of time.
Another important note is to realize that, even in the case of this sort of monopolizing move, Blizzard still profits from the flat tax for every transaction. In the case of a re-listing, Blizzard earns twice what they would have for a flat sale.
The last thing I believe I missed is what makes such low prices possible. There is no cost to obtain items. People are paying to play the game already for various reasons, and any items they find are simply a product of them doing what they would have done normally. Because the items are fake and produced for free, the floor for making a profit is literally whatever the flat tax is plus one cent. My personal guess for the tax is somewhere around twenty cents (and keep in mind, a larger flat tax, the harder it is for a mass re-listing to take place), considering the steps Blizzard has to take in processing each transaction.
Dizzle Trizzle: The Third One of These
Cranking these out late at night, I, unfortunately, overlooked some of the more minor nuances of the Cash Auction House.
Something I neglected to mention is that there are ways to combat undercutting. For example, if one were to invest a large sum of money, a person (or persons) could buy up all available copies of a single item and re-list them at a much higher price. These sort of things happen, but they tend to be rather unstable (since new items will inevitably be found and put up on the auction house), and the sheer force of the flat rate tax system that is said to be in place will inevitably drive the prices down, it's only a matter of time.
Another important note is to realize that, even in the case of this sort of monopolizing move, Blizzard still profits from the flat tax for every transaction. In the case of a re-listing, Blizzard earns twice what they would have for a flat sale.
The last thing I believe I missed is what makes such low prices possible. There is no cost to obtain items. People are paying to play the game already for various reasons, and any items they find are simply a product of them doing what they would have done normally. Because the items are fake and produced for free, the floor for making a profit is literally whatever the flat tax is plus one cent. My personal guess for the tax is somewhere around twenty cents (and keep in mind, a larger flat tax, the harder it is for a mass re-listing to take place), considering the steps Blizzard has to take in processing each transaction.
Something I neglected to mention is that there are ways to combat undercutting. For example, if one were to invest a large sum of money, a person (or persons) could buy up all available copies of a single item and re-list them at a much higher price. These sort of things happen, but they tend to be rather unstable (since new items will inevitably be found and put up on the auction house), and the sheer force of the flat rate tax system that is said to be in place will inevitably drive the prices down, it's only a matter of time.
Another important note is to realize that, even in the case of this sort of monopolizing move, Blizzard still profits from the flat tax for every transaction. In the case of a re-listing, Blizzard earns twice what they would have for a flat sale.
The last thing I believe I missed is what makes such low prices possible. There is no cost to obtain items. People are paying to play the game already for various reasons, and any items they find are simply a product of them doing what they would have done normally. Because the items are fake and produced for free, the floor for making a profit is literally whatever the flat tax is plus one cent. My personal guess for the tax is somewhere around twenty cents (and keep in mind, a larger flat tax, the harder it is for a mass re-listing to take place), considering the steps Blizzard has to take in processing each transaction.
Diablo 3 Cash Auction House Post 2: Economy of Destruction
This is going to be a supplementary post to augment the position laid out in the last blog post about this subject. Last post, I detailed how Blizzard's game design D3 was optimized to profit from the Cash Auction House (CAH). Now, those are only the short term effects. By understanding player behavior, and using just a bit of economic knowledge, we can analyze the long term effects of these design choices.
The first of the two major points I'd like to bring up is that Blizzard taking a flat rate from all transactions puts a downward force on the market. Let's say, for example, Blizzard takes only $0.10 from every transaction. Now, let's say the current market price for "Theoretical Item (TI)" is $1.00.Now, the seller is making $0.90 profit off of every transaction that happens at that price point, but what happens when the inevitable undercutting happens? Another seller decides to sell TI for $0.95, making a $0.85 profit. Anyone who is selling for $1.00 can't buy up the lower priced item and re-list it under a higher price, or they'll be selling at a $0.05 loss (they'd be paying $0.95 for the item, but making only $0.90 at a sale), due to the flat rate take from Blizzard. Certainly, you could sell at a five cent lost every once and a while to keep your higher price point, but MMO players have demonstrated in the past that they are willing to sacrifice profit in the name of guaranteeing sales due to the lower price. This means that, as long as someone is willing to make a sale for less, the price will keep dropping. There are lots of factors at play here, and that isn't even the most important one. Another example is that Diablo item's simply aren't soulbound, and thus, aren't "consumed" when a character equips them. Everyone will jump on the chance to sell their old leveling gear. Items are never "lost".
The second point is that this plays exactly into supporting mass transactions (which nets them more money, because again, they only profit on # of transactions rather than value). This self-deflating economy also is extremely appealing to more casual players, who would rather spend $5 than to grind out top-end gear. Diablo 3's economy, as it stands, is an extremely powerful and effective marketing strategy that will draw in tons of new players, and any claims by Blizzard stating that they don't know exactly what they're doing is a blatant lie.
The first of the two major points I'd like to bring up is that Blizzard taking a flat rate from all transactions puts a downward force on the market. Let's say, for example, Blizzard takes only $0.10 from every transaction. Now, let's say the current market price for "Theoretical Item (TI)" is $1.00.Now, the seller is making $0.90 profit off of every transaction that happens at that price point, but what happens when the inevitable undercutting happens? Another seller decides to sell TI for $0.95, making a $0.85 profit. Anyone who is selling for $1.00 can't buy up the lower priced item and re-list it under a higher price, or they'll be selling at a $0.05 loss (they'd be paying $0.95 for the item, but making only $0.90 at a sale), due to the flat rate take from Blizzard. Certainly, you could sell at a five cent lost every once and a while to keep your higher price point, but MMO players have demonstrated in the past that they are willing to sacrifice profit in the name of guaranteeing sales due to the lower price. This means that, as long as someone is willing to make a sale for less, the price will keep dropping. There are lots of factors at play here, and that isn't even the most important one. Another example is that Diablo item's simply aren't soulbound, and thus, aren't "consumed" when a character equips them. Everyone will jump on the chance to sell their old leveling gear. Items are never "lost".
The second point is that this plays exactly into supporting mass transactions (which nets them more money, because again, they only profit on # of transactions rather than value). This self-deflating economy also is extremely appealing to more casual players, who would rather spend $5 than to grind out top-end gear. Diablo 3's economy, as it stands, is an extremely powerful and effective marketing strategy that will draw in tons of new players, and any claims by Blizzard stating that they don't know exactly what they're doing is a blatant lie.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Diablo 3
Well. Alright. Regarding the D3 "Cash Auction House" (CAH) I just sort of figured I can explain this in a short and concise manner, unlike my usual long winded explanations. There are two points I want to discuss: the player's conceptions, and Blizzard's lies.
Now, as much as I like Athene and his Together To The Top (TTTT) movement, I am really disappointed he hasn't caught onto Blizzard's ruse with their CAH. Now, people are going to swarm into this game trying to get cash off this game, this is pretty much undeniable at this point, a cash incentive for playing is a great marketing strategy. This works in the favor of more hardcore players, who have the ability and patience to grind out dozens of boss runs farming for gear... at least initially. The problem with the CAH is that it's going to attract the attention of entrepreneurs who will try and use the system for mass financial gain. Most people refer to those people as "Chinese Gold Sellers". The CAH will be flooded with items after not too long. A huge player base trying to cash in, on top of the competitive slashing of prices will inevitably result in everything save for the rarest of items to be dirt cheap. Incidentally, this works in Blizzard's favor, since it can be used as a marketing tool for more casual players who would rather buy than grind. Even if D3 sucks as a game, you can bet that it'll do well simply because of everyone trying to get their hand in the cookie jar. The thing is, Blizzard knows this.
Blizzard has gone on the record as saying that the CAH concept was "simply a feature to help players", and "they'd be surprised to break even on the CAH alone". Frankly, that's bullshit. The way Blizzard is taking a cut from the CAH is by a small flat rate with each transaction. What this means is that they'll only make money off of the quantity of transactions, rather than taking a percentage of the total cash moved. Anyone with a basic knowledge of player behavior in MMOs will understand that that system, on top of the inevitable devaluing of gear, that this is the best model for Blizzard to get behind for profitability. The only way a percentage of sale model would work is if Blizzard made items so prohibitively rare, that their price could never drop to an unsatisfactory amount. That model, however, would drive would-be auctioneers away.
A plethora of slightly sub-optimal items for the endgame at a rare-ish drop rate, coupled with a set of ultra rare "best" items, will make for the most addicting and profitable recipe.
As a note that supports my case, keep in mind that Blizzard removed skill points in favor of skill-altering items. That means every time there's a new flavor of the month build (or shit, even a classic example of Blizzard being bad at balancing), guess what gets sold en masse, and guess who profits directly. This is, of course, only pointing out a new feature, if you look at their main website you can see a plethora of items that will most likely end up cheap and be sold in large quantities (Players will have many ways to customize and build each of the five character classes, including charms, traits, enhancements, gems, armor, weapons, dyes, skills...) (http://us.blizzard.com/diablo3/world/systems/runestones.xml) I will forever contend that Blizzard's handling of Diablo 3 is just another example that they will go at great lengths to squeeze every last cent out of their customers.
As a final disclaimer, I make no claims regarding the quality of Diablo 3 as a game. I have no opinion about the potential enjoyability of its gameplay. I do, however, refuse to buy the game because of Blizzard's business practices, and that's the only message I want to spread.
Now, as much as I like Athene and his Together To The Top (TTTT) movement, I am really disappointed he hasn't caught onto Blizzard's ruse with their CAH. Now, people are going to swarm into this game trying to get cash off this game, this is pretty much undeniable at this point, a cash incentive for playing is a great marketing strategy. This works in the favor of more hardcore players, who have the ability and patience to grind out dozens of boss runs farming for gear... at least initially. The problem with the CAH is that it's going to attract the attention of entrepreneurs who will try and use the system for mass financial gain. Most people refer to those people as "Chinese Gold Sellers". The CAH will be flooded with items after not too long. A huge player base trying to cash in, on top of the competitive slashing of prices will inevitably result in everything save for the rarest of items to be dirt cheap. Incidentally, this works in Blizzard's favor, since it can be used as a marketing tool for more casual players who would rather buy than grind. Even if D3 sucks as a game, you can bet that it'll do well simply because of everyone trying to get their hand in the cookie jar. The thing is, Blizzard knows this.
Blizzard has gone on the record as saying that the CAH concept was "simply a feature to help players", and "they'd be surprised to break even on the CAH alone". Frankly, that's bullshit. The way Blizzard is taking a cut from the CAH is by a small flat rate with each transaction. What this means is that they'll only make money off of the quantity of transactions, rather than taking a percentage of the total cash moved. Anyone with a basic knowledge of player behavior in MMOs will understand that that system, on top of the inevitable devaluing of gear, that this is the best model for Blizzard to get behind for profitability. The only way a percentage of sale model would work is if Blizzard made items so prohibitively rare, that their price could never drop to an unsatisfactory amount. That model, however, would drive would-be auctioneers away.
A plethora of slightly sub-optimal items for the endgame at a rare-ish drop rate, coupled with a set of ultra rare "best" items, will make for the most addicting and profitable recipe.
As a note that supports my case, keep in mind that Blizzard removed skill points in favor of skill-altering items. That means every time there's a new flavor of the month build (or shit, even a classic example of Blizzard being bad at balancing), guess what gets sold en masse, and guess who profits directly. This is, of course, only pointing out a new feature, if you look at their main website you can see a plethora of items that will most likely end up cheap and be sold in large quantities (Players will have many ways to customize and build each of the five character classes, including charms, traits, enhancements, gems, armor, weapons, dyes, skills...) (http://us.blizzard.com/diablo3/world/systems/runestones.xml) I will forever contend that Blizzard's handling of Diablo 3 is just another example that they will go at great lengths to squeeze every last cent out of their customers.
As a final disclaimer, I make no claims regarding the quality of Diablo 3 as a game. I have no opinion about the potential enjoyability of its gameplay. I do, however, refuse to buy the game because of Blizzard's business practices, and that's the only message I want to spread.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Wow that just fucking died didn't it?
I had planned a long analysis/rant about RIFT's community. My editor said it contained too much venom. I never got around to posting it. I quit the game shortly after.
All in all, I enjoyed RIFT's leveling. There was hardly any content outside of raiding at launch, so I just decided to unsubscribe and leave my level 80 to rot. It wasn't a bad game, and I still contend that it does what WoW does only better, but I'm just a little burnt out on paying cash monthly for not having that much fun. Next, I'm going to enter a late response to D3's cash AH. Expect that soonish.
All in all, I enjoyed RIFT's leveling. There was hardly any content outside of raiding at launch, so I just decided to unsubscribe and leave my level 80 to rot. It wasn't a bad game, and I still contend that it does what WoW does only better, but I'm just a little burnt out on paying cash monthly for not having that much fun. Next, I'm going to enter a late response to D3's cash AH. Expect that soonish.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
The Time Capsule
Something I was linked by a friend. A thread about WoW in 2004, when it was still in beta. It's a very interesting read. http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=13301
Sunday, February 13, 2011
The Smoking Crater
Oh geez, World of Warcraft. Such a huge topic, lots of shades of love and hate from people about this game. Everywhere you look, everyone's got OPINIONS OPINIONS OPINIONS OPINIONS, and for good reason. WoW has a lot of polarizing features. I'm not really one to give my personal opinion on the subject, though, I'd much rather simply state the facts and state both sides if there is any dispute. I will touch on the love/hate with WoW... eventually. First, however, I'd like to talk about what WoW was, is, and what it has done to the genre.
King Slayer
It was a simple enough idea, really. Blizzard of Starcraft, Diablo, and Warcraft fame wanted to take the MMO genre and put its own spin on it. At the time, Everquest was still the reigning king of level grinding, to dethrone such a game would be quite a feat. How did Blizzard do it? I'll tell you one thing, it wasn't WoW's content. EQ far outclassed WoW in every way when it came to content, even a full year into WoW's life. WoW became the most popular MMO for the same reason many WoW vets hate the game now. Three words: Ease of Access. That's right, WoW dethroned EQ by being easier. Is that to say that WoW was not hardcore? Of course not. WoW's raiding and PvP communities are certainly hardcore, but the leveling and questing were simple and pain-free by EQ's standards. To properly explain the stark difference between these two games, though, I have to tell you about EQ.
EQ was made while UO was still in its heyday, which meant that the big thing to copy when you're making an MMO is to make a detailed world that feels real. Making the player feel like they are actually a part of this world was the number one design philosophy in those days. To this end, EQ's questing was, well, not assisted. What does this mean exactly? No hints from the game itself, no golden punctuation marks, no giant circles on your map. The majority of quests only helped you in their quest text, which was usually cryptic at best. Now, this actually worked in EQ, since you didn't quest to level up. Leveling in EQ was a straight grind, and quests were something you did for a reward that wasn't XP, which was extremely common in MMOs pre-WoW, games like Ragnarok Online and Final Fantasy XI.
Now, to compare EQ leveling with WoW leveling. In EQ you would only kill mobs for hours on end to gain XP and level up. The style in which you killed mobs varied of course, depending on how many people you had. Common tactics included soloing, group AoE farming, and kite killing. Barring leeching and power-leveling, which require you to know people of high levels who are willing to invest time into your character, killing mobs was the only effective way to level your character until you hit end game, which usually didn't even start at level-cap (since damage level-scaling didn't really exist until WoW. Generally speaking a level 80 of class X wasn't that much different from a level 85; it was an advantage, sure, but nothing game-changing). See, other MMOs often used soft-caps to keep their players interested. A soft-cap, for those of you who don't know, is a point during a progression where the time required to progress further increases exponentially. If a game had skill X at a soft cap of 50, but a hard cap of 100, the time to get from 1 to 50 is a rather steady progression, but the time to hit 51 may take double the time, and 52 double the time of that, until it gets to the point where only 3 players ever may have hit 100.
In WoW, hitting cap was actually very fast compared to any themepark MMO that had come before it. Questing was your primary source of XP and leveling gear. Quests took you from one questing location to the next, which was rather slick for its time. In fact, because hitting cap was so relatively easy, it meant that lots of players who couldn't experience endgame content in other MMOs could in WoW. Of course that only really applies to the MMO veterans that switched to WoW. Due to WoW's ease of access, it gained a massive popularity with the casual market. The casual market, of course, had no interest in investing the time in the game to obtain raid-quality loot. The unwillingness was understandable, as many people simply don't have the time, dedication, or willingness to invest so much time raiding. There was a problem with the system as it was, though. In MMO's, you are rewarded much more by time invested in the game than personal skill. This is no less true for WoW. Casual players who wished to participate in PvP stood no chance against those who simply had more time to invest in the game. While this made sense from a mechanical perspective and from the MMO vets who were used to this format, the new players were not happy that they could not have fun in these aspects of the game because they choose not to play it as often.
Time Slayer
Because WoW was a game where the casual players could exist on the same level as the hardcore with the only difference being gear, this caused a very distinctive split in the communities. Many casual players had no initial interest in end-game PvE, and since PvE wasn't competitive it didn't really matter. The big rifts between these communities developed when they were forced to interact, namely in a PvP environment. Battlegrounds such as the 10 vs 10 Warsong Gulch and the 40 vs 40 Alterac Valley were simply not very fun for players without raid-quality gear because they were no match for those who did have it. The power difference grew even more as the raiding progressed, but pre-raid gear never did. Blizzard has tried multiple possible solutions to these problems over the years, only one (heroics) being widely accepted by the community, the rest (Wrath of the Lich King "badges", Honor points as currency, etc...) have always angered the hardcore community. These additions which give the game's endgame content a significant boost of ease of access diminish the value of the hardcore player's time investment, alienating them and making them feel like the game is simply not being designed with them in mind.
This is very significant. RPGs have always been about character growth via time investment. If the time you invest in a character is later rendered meaningless by a future addition that makes it much easier to progress (again, Wrath of the Lich King "badges"), the only reason to ever belong to the hardcore community is to experience content first, as opposed to at all. It is extremely demoralizing knowing that the raid dungeon you've spent week after week going through, learning all the fights getting them perfect, will by the next month's content release be worthless. The rest of the player-base easily farms the same gear doing 5 man dungeons to get the same quality gear. It's less demoralizing if you're only in it for the challenge of raiding, but to anyone who values the time they invest into their characters, it becomes less and less appealing extremely fast.
The situation is interesting, however, since the hardcore community doesn't even make up a tenth of the game's playerbase: financially speaking, it makes no sense to hinder the casual playerbase in favor of them. Since it is impossible to strike a reasonable compromise between both side's grievances, the casual market will be weighted more heavily than the hardcore.
Market Slayer
WoW has the unique distinction of becoming the most successful MMORPG of all time. MMOs have the unique distinction of being very long-lasting and time consuming games, often a player will feel forced to choose a single MMO to play. This mean that any MMO that is created has to compete with WoW in a way that most other genres don't have to worry about. Because of this, MMOs have essentially halted in their evolution, since innovation is too risky to invest serious money into. Many companies simply choose to copy elements from WoW and put their own spin on it. Most do it poorly, others do it well. Still, there is serious money to be gained by hashing old ideas together and designing a pretty game to go with it, which means that an unoriginal WoW clone can still rake in lots of dough. There are some developers, however, that do take this risk: sandbox games aimed at niche markets. While they tend to stay afloat, and the companies in charge of these games make profit, they still don't compare to WoW or its more successful clones. Like EQ before it, WoW has stopped the progression of the MMORPG genre, and will continue to do so until it dies out. How that will happen is anyone's guess. It could simply die out from old age, another blockbuster MMO title could steal the spotlight, or, hell, Blizzard could simply just say they are done with the game and release a sequel. It's anyone's guess.
King Slayer
It was a simple enough idea, really. Blizzard of Starcraft, Diablo, and Warcraft fame wanted to take the MMO genre and put its own spin on it. At the time, Everquest was still the reigning king of level grinding, to dethrone such a game would be quite a feat. How did Blizzard do it? I'll tell you one thing, it wasn't WoW's content. EQ far outclassed WoW in every way when it came to content, even a full year into WoW's life. WoW became the most popular MMO for the same reason many WoW vets hate the game now. Three words: Ease of Access. That's right, WoW dethroned EQ by being easier. Is that to say that WoW was not hardcore? Of course not. WoW's raiding and PvP communities are certainly hardcore, but the leveling and questing were simple and pain-free by EQ's standards. To properly explain the stark difference between these two games, though, I have to tell you about EQ.
EQ was made while UO was still in its heyday, which meant that the big thing to copy when you're making an MMO is to make a detailed world that feels real. Making the player feel like they are actually a part of this world was the number one design philosophy in those days. To this end, EQ's questing was, well, not assisted. What does this mean exactly? No hints from the game itself, no golden punctuation marks, no giant circles on your map. The majority of quests only helped you in their quest text, which was usually cryptic at best. Now, this actually worked in EQ, since you didn't quest to level up. Leveling in EQ was a straight grind, and quests were something you did for a reward that wasn't XP, which was extremely common in MMOs pre-WoW, games like Ragnarok Online and Final Fantasy XI.
Now, to compare EQ leveling with WoW leveling. In EQ you would only kill mobs for hours on end to gain XP and level up. The style in which you killed mobs varied of course, depending on how many people you had. Common tactics included soloing, group AoE farming, and kite killing. Barring leeching and power-leveling, which require you to know people of high levels who are willing to invest time into your character, killing mobs was the only effective way to level your character until you hit end game, which usually didn't even start at level-cap (since damage level-scaling didn't really exist until WoW. Generally speaking a level 80 of class X wasn't that much different from a level 85; it was an advantage, sure, but nothing game-changing). See, other MMOs often used soft-caps to keep their players interested. A soft-cap, for those of you who don't know, is a point during a progression where the time required to progress further increases exponentially. If a game had skill X at a soft cap of 50, but a hard cap of 100, the time to get from 1 to 50 is a rather steady progression, but the time to hit 51 may take double the time, and 52 double the time of that, until it gets to the point where only 3 players ever may have hit 100.
In WoW, hitting cap was actually very fast compared to any themepark MMO that had come before it. Questing was your primary source of XP and leveling gear. Quests took you from one questing location to the next, which was rather slick for its time. In fact, because hitting cap was so relatively easy, it meant that lots of players who couldn't experience endgame content in other MMOs could in WoW. Of course that only really applies to the MMO veterans that switched to WoW. Due to WoW's ease of access, it gained a massive popularity with the casual market. The casual market, of course, had no interest in investing the time in the game to obtain raid-quality loot. The unwillingness was understandable, as many people simply don't have the time, dedication, or willingness to invest so much time raiding. There was a problem with the system as it was, though. In MMO's, you are rewarded much more by time invested in the game than personal skill. This is no less true for WoW. Casual players who wished to participate in PvP stood no chance against those who simply had more time to invest in the game. While this made sense from a mechanical perspective and from the MMO vets who were used to this format, the new players were not happy that they could not have fun in these aspects of the game because they choose not to play it as often.
Time Slayer
Because WoW was a game where the casual players could exist on the same level as the hardcore with the only difference being gear, this caused a very distinctive split in the communities. Many casual players had no initial interest in end-game PvE, and since PvE wasn't competitive it didn't really matter. The big rifts between these communities developed when they were forced to interact, namely in a PvP environment. Battlegrounds such as the 10 vs 10 Warsong Gulch and the 40 vs 40 Alterac Valley were simply not very fun for players without raid-quality gear because they were no match for those who did have it. The power difference grew even more as the raiding progressed, but pre-raid gear never did. Blizzard has tried multiple possible solutions to these problems over the years, only one (heroics) being widely accepted by the community, the rest (Wrath of the Lich King "badges", Honor points as currency, etc...) have always angered the hardcore community. These additions which give the game's endgame content a significant boost of ease of access diminish the value of the hardcore player's time investment, alienating them and making them feel like the game is simply not being designed with them in mind.
This is very significant. RPGs have always been about character growth via time investment. If the time you invest in a character is later rendered meaningless by a future addition that makes it much easier to progress (again, Wrath of the Lich King "badges"), the only reason to ever belong to the hardcore community is to experience content first, as opposed to at all. It is extremely demoralizing knowing that the raid dungeon you've spent week after week going through, learning all the fights getting them perfect, will by the next month's content release be worthless. The rest of the player-base easily farms the same gear doing 5 man dungeons to get the same quality gear. It's less demoralizing if you're only in it for the challenge of raiding, but to anyone who values the time they invest into their characters, it becomes less and less appealing extremely fast.
The situation is interesting, however, since the hardcore community doesn't even make up a tenth of the game's playerbase: financially speaking, it makes no sense to hinder the casual playerbase in favor of them. Since it is impossible to strike a reasonable compromise between both side's grievances, the casual market will be weighted more heavily than the hardcore.
Market Slayer
WoW has the unique distinction of becoming the most successful MMORPG of all time. MMOs have the unique distinction of being very long-lasting and time consuming games, often a player will feel forced to choose a single MMO to play. This mean that any MMO that is created has to compete with WoW in a way that most other genres don't have to worry about. Because of this, MMOs have essentially halted in their evolution, since innovation is too risky to invest serious money into. Many companies simply choose to copy elements from WoW and put their own spin on it. Most do it poorly, others do it well. Still, there is serious money to be gained by hashing old ideas together and designing a pretty game to go with it, which means that an unoriginal WoW clone can still rake in lots of dough. There are some developers, however, that do take this risk: sandbox games aimed at niche markets. While they tend to stay afloat, and the companies in charge of these games make profit, they still don't compare to WoW or its more successful clones. Like EQ before it, WoW has stopped the progression of the MMORPG genre, and will continue to do so until it dies out. How that will happen is anyone's guess. It could simply die out from old age, another blockbuster MMO title could steal the spotlight, or, hell, Blizzard could simply just say they are done with the game and release a sequel. It's anyone's guess.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
An Introduction to the Playground
Hello, my internet pseudonym is Zig. Like a lot of people out of there, I love MMORPGs, so much so I decided to try to maintain a blog that details my love for MMORPGs. Before I get to any meat, however, I'd like to say something and probably just pat myself on the back/shoulder/dick in possibly auto-erotic congratulations; I can't believe I got this name for the blog! It's just perfect, and hopefully I can maintain my goals and post regularly.
Onto the MEAT!
"What is this blog going to be about, Zig? So far it looks SUPER BORING."
This blog will be about MMORPGs! Nothing specific, at least not yet, just about MMOs, the core concepts, game design, all that jazz. I find the evolution of MMOs (and the current stagnation) to be fascinating. The idea of a persistent world where you can exist with other characters is fascinating to me, even after all these years. The standard model has moved far away from user generated content (SOMETHING GOES HERE TO TIE IT IN TO THE LAST SENTENCE), though the sandbox format is far from dead.
"What's all this nonsense you're spewing now? Acronyms! Terms I have no idea about! Why would I want to play a game that's a sandbox?!"
You're right, strawman, how silly of me. Let's get down to the basic of basics of MMOs. Currently, there is a sliding scale of lewdness between the extremes of "sandbox" and "theme park".
The Sandbox extreme is there is practically no developer made content. The players are simply handed tools to shape their environment around them, and thus the players are responsible for making their own fun. An example of this would be Minecraft. While Minecraft isn't an MMO it certainly relies heavily on the player's imagination to keep the game interesting. It uses elements of exploration, the sense of achievement when building, and the excitement of survival and isolation (at least in single player) to produce fun in the player's mind. The only content in the game is the randomly generated map, less than 10 monster types, ores, and crafting recipes. So far it's working great, too. I've had a blast playing Minecraft and just building dumb things like "The Great Cactus Wall of China". Minecraft really does exist near the extreme part of the spectrum though, and I really can't recall any MMO that gets close to it. This is not to say that there aren't any good sandbox MMOs, however. EVE Online, the ever popular politics simulator, and my favorite spectator sport, is quite successful while maintaining its core sandbox philosophies. It's funny to think how far the standard has changed, considering the genre's jump-off point, Ultima Online.
While not the first MMO, UO was certainly the gateway of the genre's future. Ultima Online was an online sequel for the massive Ultima series, and it was designed with the most basic RPG philosophies in mind: “Let the player do what they want”, and they did just that. There were no set in stone classes or even ways to play. You could fish for sea monsters, you could build houses, you could become a rampaging psychopath and kill everyone you encountered. The core sandbox philosophies behind UO is what made the game so charming, it felt strangely alive... until the novelty of the MMO genre started to diminish. Obviously, not many people were big fans of being in so much danger when they only wanted to play the game for recreation, by nature, the areas outside of cities were, at the very least mildly stressful for everyone involved because losing progress was so easy, it was very risky to trust people, and so to keep subscriptions up a duplicate map was created on all servers except non-consensual PvP was removed, which effectively split the population between reds and blues by putting them on different maps. There was no point to play a blue character not in the safe world, and the magic was essentially destroyed. The player-made ecosystem collapsed, and even though the game is still running today, most consider the splitting of worlds to be the death of UO.
The Theme Park extreme is there is practically no player made content.
Onto the MEAT!
"What is this blog going to be about, Zig? So far it looks SUPER BORING."
This blog will be about MMORPGs! Nothing specific, at least not yet, just about MMOs, the core concepts, game design, all that jazz. I find the evolution of MMOs (and the current stagnation) to be fascinating. The idea of a persistent world where you can exist with other characters is fascinating to me, even after all these years. The standard model has moved far away from user generated content (SOMETHING GOES HERE TO TIE IT IN TO THE LAST SENTENCE), though the sandbox format is far from dead.
"What's all this nonsense you're spewing now? Acronyms! Terms I have no idea about! Why would I want to play a game that's a sandbox?!"
You're right, strawman, how silly of me. Let's get down to the basic of basics of MMOs. Currently, there is a sliding scale of lewdness between the extremes of "sandbox" and "theme park".
The Sandbox extreme is there is practically no developer made content. The players are simply handed tools to shape their environment around them, and thus the players are responsible for making their own fun. An example of this would be Minecraft. While Minecraft isn't an MMO it certainly relies heavily on the player's imagination to keep the game interesting. It uses elements of exploration, the sense of achievement when building, and the excitement of survival and isolation (at least in single player) to produce fun in the player's mind. The only content in the game is the randomly generated map, less than 10 monster types, ores, and crafting recipes. So far it's working great, too. I've had a blast playing Minecraft and just building dumb things like "The Great Cactus Wall of China". Minecraft really does exist near the extreme part of the spectrum though, and I really can't recall any MMO that gets close to it. This is not to say that there aren't any good sandbox MMOs, however. EVE Online, the ever popular politics simulator, and my favorite spectator sport, is quite successful while maintaining its core sandbox philosophies. It's funny to think how far the standard has changed, considering the genre's jump-off point, Ultima Online.
While not the first MMO, UO was certainly the gateway of the genre's future. Ultima Online was an online sequel for the massive Ultima series, and it was designed with the most basic RPG philosophies in mind: “Let the player do what they want”, and they did just that. There were no set in stone classes or even ways to play. You could fish for sea monsters, you could build houses, you could become a rampaging psychopath and kill everyone you encountered. The core sandbox philosophies behind UO is what made the game so charming, it felt strangely alive... until the novelty of the MMO genre started to diminish. Obviously, not many people were big fans of being in so much danger when they only wanted to play the game for recreation, by nature, the areas outside of cities were, at the very least mildly stressful for everyone involved because losing progress was so easy, it was very risky to trust people, and so to keep subscriptions up a duplicate map was created on all servers except non-consensual PvP was removed, which effectively split the population between reds and blues by putting them on different maps. There was no point to play a blue character not in the safe world, and the magic was essentially destroyed. The player-made ecosystem collapsed, and even though the game is still running today, most consider the splitting of worlds to be the death of UO.
The Theme Park extreme is there is practically no player made content.
This is the side of the fence everyone's used to now, so I won't go into too much detail... hopefully. Once upon a time there were games called MUDs (multi-user dungeons). A MUD is a fully text based online RPG, these were the fathers of the Theme Park experience, they often had predetermined static dungeons, static classes and races. Everquest, made two years after UO, was designed to be a MUD with a full 3D visual component, it quickly became the most popular MMO of its time. Since Everquest popularized static classes, instances, and raiding (among other things), content being generated mostly, if not solely, by the developers has been the popular trend. Not that this is bad, mind you. There's lots of fun to be had when you're playing mainly against a world that was hand crafted by a group of developers instead of against other players (although, Everquest did have PvP servers). An example of extreme Theme Park would be the original Super Mario Bros. All levels are static, enemies appear at set locations and follow exact patterns. What the Theme Park extreme boils down to is the game becomes a sort of puzzle, where if you can solve a segment, then you pass and you may proceed, but if you can't solve it (or if you havn't done enough grinding to solve it), you are stuck until you can solve it. Like the Sandbox extreme, the Theme Park extreme doesn't really exist in MMOs, nor has it ever, since by the very nature of a game being massively multiplayer, interactions with other players generates content, be it grouping for quests, PvP, trading, or the auction house. Your experience will vary.
In the end though, most any MMO can be labeled as either Sandbox of Theme Park. These two function as sub-genres to the greater MMORPG genre, the same way 3D fighters and 2D fighters are both a sub-genre of the greater fighting game genre.
Next: WoW
In the end though, most any MMO can be labeled as either Sandbox of Theme Park. These two function as sub-genres to the greater MMORPG genre, the same way 3D fighters and 2D fighters are both a sub-genre of the greater fighting game genre.
Next: WoW
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