Redefining MMOs: Developers weigh in, part 3
by Tracey John 
Sep 24th 2009 at 3:00PM
Filed under: Interviews, MMO industry, Redefining MMOs
Jeffrey Steefel, The Lord of the Rings Online Executive Producer, Turbine:
"It's been fascinating to see how the MMO game has been evolving over the past 10 years... A lot has happened. Games have become more complex, consumers mostly all have faster internet access, are comfortable buying things online and spending time online. Social connections now happen through the network as readily as in person or over the phone or through mail. Mass consumers regularly consume media content in small chunks through the network; whether its music, ppv video, eBooks, ringtones, games or even now television shows.
"Players don't want to 'play' with thousands of people, they want to play with a small group in the presence of thousands. It's like an old-school arcade. You don't want to play pinball with 10 people, but playing by yourself in a crowded room is a lot more fun. Players have more varied play-sessions. Some still play for hours on end, some want to come in for some quick fun. Subscription is alive and well, but it is not the only way to charge for this kind of experience. Microtransactions, premium services and content, free online play are all creeping into the genre.
"In other words, 'MMO' is too confining. 'MMO' was the spawning point for all kinds of new online entertainment. And it is reaching a much wider audience. Not to mention the critical importance of not only the game, but the service and media infrastructure that surrounds a good online experience.
"So I believe what we're really building is entertainment services, that combine the flexibility and accessibility of the network, the appeal of social networking, the freedom of an online persistent universe, and the structured fun provided by video games. So it's hard to say there is one term that can cover all that this can be or become. I think we need to look at the ingredients -- persistence, sense of place, sense of purpose, social connectivity, social identity, social grouping, participatory experiences and storytelling -- and then perhaps try and find a name for it."
Thom Terrazas, EverQuest Producer, Sony Online Entertainment:
"Obviously 'massive' is the main theme to the name, but what was the target number of people online when the term 'massive' was [coined for] MMOs? I'm no expert by any means, but I believe the term first referred to a couple dozen simultaneous players if not hundreds of players existing in a virtual world, interacting between each other. When it started, it was with a lot of passion from many that pushed the envelope of technology that enabled the first dozen to be achieved. That just set the bar for others to improve on and it continues today. Today, it means everything. It's a game and it's a business and everything in between. It's a place you can go and leave everything else behind, but at the same time, it's a place you can visit and be everything you've ever wanted. It means a release from the real world and an invitation to your imagination. ... I think ['MMO'] only needs a new term for those that don't know what it means right now.....or what it was meant to be."
Rich Vogel, Co-Studio Vice President, BioWare:
"MMO to me means the ability to play with thousands of players in a world. This was actually coined by 3DO back in the Meridian 59 days and later adopted by EA when marketing Ultima Online. ...
"It was coined over 10 years ago to convey a marketing message. There were no games that allowed thousands of players in one environment and it was a great selling point. Today, that feature is well understood. It has branched out beyond the RPG genre into others like MMOFPS, MMORTS, etc.
"No [I don't think we need a new term for 'MMO']. I feel it has become its own category and a mainstream term that people recognize now -- especially after [World of Warcraft]. The term 'MMO' can be applied to any single player genre that wants to have a large-scale multiplayer component. ...
"Star Wars: The Old Republic is an MMORPG in every sense of the term. BioWare has a long tradition of making great story driven RPGs and now we are entering into the MMO market for the first time. Our game has all of the traditional components of MMORPGs like combat, exploration, advancement, great loot, and crafting. However, we are going to add another element to the MMORPG genre -- storytelling the BioWare way."
Raph Koster, President and Founder, Metaplace:
"I think now, at this point, now that we've chopped the 'RPG' part off of it and just say 'MMO,' which by itself is a meaningless acronym. Massively multiplayer online... The problem is the very word massive is not particularly useful. Sorry Massively website! But the problem is that "massive" is kind of relative. New York is a massive city, until you go to Shanghai. It's completely relative. ...
"I was never that crazy about [the term 'MMO']. We've been here before. There was a huge turf battle over the term 'MUD'... There were people coming up with MUVE, multiple user virtual environment... random acronyms people were coming up with to describe the field. Several of us kept saying, 'These are just virtual worlds, damnit!' Part of the reason why that was working okay was it was fairly easy to say, and MUDs do have a very specific kind of family tree that we can point at, and they all fall under virtual worlds.
"That was great until people started calling things -- without any games in them -- 'virtual worlds,' excluding MMO-anythings. This is where you get people saying, 'Well, [World of Warcraft] is a MMORPG, it's not a virtual world.' And it's like...errrr. Because the battle has started all over again with people trying to appropriate the term 'virtual world' to mean Second Life or to mean Habbo Hotel. So now you have things like social virtual worlds and generic virtual worlds, and people think it means just Second Life, and that's... wrong. I'll say it bluntly, that's just wrong, because WoW is a virtual world and so is Second Life, and so is YoVille. A lot of people don't want to claim YoVille as being in the family, but it is. I much prefer to define these things by what they are rather than how many people they hold.
"I do still say MMO, because at this point it usually has the connotation of game. If you say 'MMO' people assume you mean a game. ... Even us design types, we still need to know what we're actually doing. The terms, right? We need to agree on a language so we can talk about it. Disclaiming something that is a massively multiplayer, comma, online, comma, first-person, comma, shooter, and saying, 'Well, it's not actually massively multiplayer online'... whatever. That's clearly marketing talking.
"There are people that call them MWOs, people that called them MOGs, and people that call them POGs. There's PSWs which is an art term for a specific sub-set of virtual world so that one gets misused all the time because it means 'persistent state world.' ... There are some others... PIG, I've seen PIG, 'persistent interactive game.'
Massively: I don't think a game maker would like to call their game a "PIG."
"Probably not."
Get a WordPress.com Blog
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Archipelagos said on 3:29PM 9-24-2009
Great read.
Reply
Dlangar said on 3:31PM 9-24-2009
A fascinating peek into the minds of some of the people behind the biggest games in the genre out there. Some of the respondents simply used it as an opportunity to pitch their game (sadly), but some of them actually spoke at length about the issue and addressed it head on.
What I find really interesting is the sharp contrast in views between Josh Drescher and Jeffrey Steele in the current state of the genre. They both see MMO's in the same state, but Mr. Drescher dismisses that state as "Massively Single Player", and even goes so far as to say that all those other people out there playing around us are just window dressing, and could just as easily be NPC's.. where as Mr. Steele recognizes that it's become like the old school arcades -- where you want to only play with one or two people, but you want to do so in a room full of other people.
Obviously, I resonate more with Mr. Steele's view of the state of the genre, and honestly find Mr. Drescher's a bit dismaying, considering the sway he has over the kinds of games I love to play.
Dlangar
http://ofcourseillplayit.com
Reply
Scopique said on 3:40PM 9-24-2009
I agree with Dlangar 100%. I've never believed that the only way to play MMOs was to play with other people. Considering the attitude of many MMO players, that's like asking someone to collect dog shit from people's lawns while they're on vacation.
Reply
Pingles said on 3:48PM 9-24-2009
Jeffrey Steefel, The Lord of the Rings Online Executive Producer, Turbine: "You don't want to play pinball with 10 people, but playing by yourself in a crowded room is a lot more fun."
Wow, nail on the head for me.
Reply
Evi said on 3:49PM 9-24-2009
This was a fascinating article. Two thumbs up.
Reply
Wisdomandlore said on 4:04PM 9-24-2009
"Seventy-five percent of the titles on the market that claim to be 'MMO' are actually single-player or limited group-oriented games that just happen to have lots of other people running around, doing the same things and having no impact on one another. In my view, to truly be a 'massively multiplayer' experience, the extant population of the game world has to have some sort of impact on you – regardless of whether or not they're in your raid group or guild."
Completely agree. This is everything that's wrong with MMOs today.
Reply
Vulturion said on 4:31PM 9-24-2009
A fascinating read.
But...
"I've heard 'massively single-player' batted around by various people, and I think that's close. Or maybe 'Massively Multiplayer Online Disney Land' – safe, clean, simple and predictable with lots of polished, shiny goodies that never, ever change. Ya know, assuming Disney Corp. doesn't mind the trademark dillusion."
/cringe
Oh, my dear Warhammer; you never stood a chance - it's like a forum troll just wandered into the conversation. : (
Reply
Bossy said on 5:04PM 9-24-2009
One good advice for the above "masters" of mmorpg's.
The ideal MMORPG for the next 10 years is something like this:
"Hop in, find a group or do solo, game for 1 to 2 hours and "better" your avatar in the choices of play YOU want to do (or are in the mood for).
Use the world behind it as a background story."
-----
The grouping element should be FREE and fast. Grouping must be so easy as to push 2 buttons and wait for 1 minute and do a dungeon or a grouped up PvP play.
Make OPTIONS in all aspects of the game.
Hop in - game - hop out.
In fact I just described WOW CAT (with the clustered server dungeons) or Diablo 3 for the more narrowed choice.
The only thing lacking in WOW post CAT, is that it could be played on a console.
All the rest is blablabla and so niche it isn't even worth trying.
Until then: ALL your subscription based trials in western play will be played for 3 months and then die (yes Aion included).
Apparently only Blizzard knows the above ...... they were not even in the panel....
Typical. The giant with a 80% marketshare knows what we - normal players with a fixed time scheme - want.
Reread and study the above.
Oh yeah, one more thing.... IGNORE Forums. They are a pain in the ass and filled with frustrated teenagers who have NO clue what a G A M E is.
Period.
Reply
Grimthorn Redbeard said on 5:07PM 9-24-2009
Hasn't Massively already tackled this subject? -> http://www.massively.com/2008/02/14/ask-massively-the-mmeaning-of-second-life/
Whatever happened to that guy? He was BRILLIANT! ;-)
-Grim
Reply
Tom said on 5:14PM 9-24-2009
The problematic word is "Massively", imo. (Sorry, Massively website!)
I for one, always liked Guild Wars' workaround acronym "CORPG", which stood for "Competitive Online Role-Playing Game", though I would change the initial "C" to "Cooperative" for PvE-oriented games and reserve "Competitive" for PvP-oriented games.
This, in effect, is what most self-described MMORPGs actually are because, even though there may be bazillions of players online at any given moment, you are basically only playing with very few (or none) of them at any given moment in most of these games.
In fact, I'd have to say that my love of MMOs is essentially the solo and occasional (and entirely optional) small-group content.
A massively populated virtual world is good for a sense of life and immersion and a healthy in-game economy, but, when it comes to actually playing these games, the focus is primarily not massive at all, but rather on small-group and solo content. Thus, the "massively" is a bit of a red herring, imo. It is not really a core feature of most of these games.
Reply
Ryan said on 7:53PM 9-24-2009
Fascinating article. I will admit to thinking there is a need to differentiate between games like Second Life or Sims Online versus games like WoW and EQ. However, especially with many of the freebies out there, there's starting to be more intermingling between those two -- for example, is Free Realms more like Second Life or more like EQ? It has elements of both and the fantasy realm in which it exists is mainly a means to deliver the game's goofy and somewhat addicting silly mini games. Free Realms, to me, is still mostly a Virtual World and less a MMORPG, but the line is certainly blurred.
Additionally, I agree with the above commenter: CORG may be a better fit. First, MMO is a mouthfull and "massively" is somewhat of a redundant world. In reality, these are really "cooperative online roleplaying games." Cooperative is a better word because it implies the fact that there's many people and it also suggests one key element of *every* MMO out there today: the fact that people must work together -- cooperate -- to achieve any significant goals. Uber loot, epic quests and leveling to the max requires assistance and working together, at least to some extant. It could be with giant groups of people, "massively," or just a few friends, so the word is far more accurate in its actual description.
That said, at this point, 10+ years into the genre, after EQ then WoW and now a whole line of new games, some of which appear ready to even challenge WoW's dominance (Old Republic, Star Trek Online, Aion, etc.), I doubt there's going to be any change to the name of the genre. It's stuck now, even if there are better and more accurate options... which aren't quite as much of a mouth full.
Reply
Goonja said on 11:01PM 9-24-2009
There's only one "MMO" with a persistent world and it's called EvE Online.The rest are single player with multi option in a virtual world.
When people try to define MMO it's like saying "There was an old lady there" but defining "old" varies from one person to another.At what age do you consider someone to be old?
a.60 years old
b.70 years old
c.80 years old
d.90 years old.
Reply
Cray said on 7:06AM 9-25-2009
I agree with the majority of the developers that the term MMO is going obsolete. I don't think there is need to define a game because of online play. 90% of all games made are connected online, and because of this little fact, games have every right to call themselves a MMO. Which pretty much makes the term useless.
Honestly I have no idea what would be a better classification. I suppose if the term incorporated Persistent and interactive it would better describe what a true massive online game is.
Reply