evolution posts

Evolution as it does and doesn't apply to MMOs

by Eliot Lefebvre Jan 17th 2010 at 8:00PM

Filed under: Game mechanics, MMO industry, Opinion

A few days ago, we discussed the lack of innovation in the MMO market at the moment, as well as some of the underlying reasons behind it. The topic prompted We Fly Spitfires to postulate the idea that we needed an MMO that broke most if not all of the established and accepted rules of the genre. In his own parlance, we needed a mutation instead of a steady evolution.

Those of you familiar with evolutionary science might be quirking your eyebrow a bit, as did Of Teeth and Claws, where it was pointed out that mutation is a part of evolution. Continuing the analogy, it's a part of the slow improvement we see in our genre of choice, as the source leading to feature implementation and improvement. And as Killed in a Smiling Accident added, evolution is not a straight line, nor does it select features based on inherent quality -- the current "standard features" have evolved because they're best at succeeding in the current environment (that is, the market).

Ultimately, aside from fascinating extension of the analogy, the biggest point to be taken away from both this discussion and the previous one is that change in the genre isn't something which will happen overnight. While the powerful influence that World of Warcraft has placed upon the genre is beginning to abate a bit, it'll be quite some time before it's discarded wholesale.

Tags: evolution, game-development, game-features, genre-improvement, improvement, innovation, killed-in-a-smiling-accident, mutation, of-teeth-and-claws, we-fly-spitfires, world-of-warcraft, wow

The evolution of classes

by Seraphina Brennan Dec 29th 2009 at 8:00PM

Filed under: Classes, Culture, News items

Classes are one of those central components of our MMOs. From the early days of Dungeons & Dragons to the use of class based systems in MUDs, we've been relying on the concept of characters with unique sets of skills working together to get the job done.

Andrew Vanden Bossche over at Gamasutra has recently sat down and looked at everyone's favorite FPS, Team Fortress 2, to analyze how classes have gone beyond their original roleplaying roots. While the article isn't exactly MMO-focused, it certainly does have bearing on our genre as we too begin to branch out away from the sword-and-board fantasy and into FPS territory with games like Global Agenda and Darkfall.

So if you want to see how experience and bullets go together while making gameplay more social and fun, check out the full article at Gamasutra.

Tags: analysis, classes, darkfall, dungeons-and-dragons, evolution, gamasutra, global-agenda, social-experience, team-fortress-2

EVE Evolved: The road ahead for 0.0 alliances

by Brendan Drain Sep 20th 2009 at 6:00PM

Filed under: At a glance, Sci-fi, EVE Online, Culture, Expansions, Game mechanics, Patches, PvP, Endgame, Opinion, Politics, EVE Evolved

A lot of MMOs rarely (if ever) revisit old gameplay mechanics or areas, focusing instead on new expansions. EVE Online is different in that the developers go back and re-visit old aspects of gameplay rather than just focusing on new mechanics and content. Even Blizzard have seen the wisdom in redevelopment of old content, and in their next planned World of Warcraft expansion "Cataclysm", the entire game world is being given a revamp to bring everything up to their most recent development standards.

CCP Games have been using this development strategy for years and coupled with player-based development in the community, EVE Online is truly a game that evolves over time. Player-managed political states shift allegiances, entire empires can rise, span the galaxy and fall within a year and the emergent gameplay that typifies EVE's sandbox style is constantly being expanding on by players. The game we know now is very different to the one we had a year ago and if recent devblogs are any indication, EVE is about to undergo a major evolutionary leap. The entire sovereignty system and the state of capital warfare is about to undergo a complete revamp.

In this article, I take a more in-depth look ahead at the changes that are coming to 0.0, capital ships and the sovereignty system and how I think they could turn out, given my experiences in EVE.

Tags: 0.0, alliance, capital, ccp, ccp-games, dominion, eve, eve-evolved, eve-online, evolution, expansion, featured, infrastructure, mothership, opinion, politics, revamp, sandbox, sov, sovereignty, titan

EVE Evolved: The top ten EVE videos of all time

by Brendan Drain Feb 2nd 2009 at 5:30PM

Filed under: At a glance, Sci-fi, Trailers, Video, EVE Online, Culture, Forums, MMO industry, PvP, Opinion, Machinima, Roleplaying, Virtual worlds, EVE Evolved

Whether you like EVE Online or hate it, I think everyone can agree that it's a visually stunning game. Combined with the enthralling PvP experiences to be had in the game, it's not surprising that the game lends itself well to making some excellent videos. Films of EVE gameplay have been around since EVE began and large fleets now routinely bring a camera specialist pilot in a cloaked covert ops frigate to film their action. With the release of the premium client and the proliferation of good video editing software, the quality of EVE videos has improved significantly over the past few years.

In this article, I run down my list of the top ten EVE videos of all time.

Tags: angel cartel, AngelCartel, carrier, ccp, ccp-games, clear skies, ClearSkies, darwins contraption, DarwinsContraption, empyrean age, empyrean-age, EmpyreanAge, eve, eve-evolved, eve-online, evolution, featured, joystiqfeatures, Lacrimosa, movie, piracy, pirate, pvp, quantum rise, QuantumRise, Tortuga, trailer, triage, veto, video

MMOs may not inherit the Earth after all

by Chris Chester Jun 1st 2008 at 3:00PM

Filed under: Business models, Game mechanics, Interviews, MMO industry, Opinion

A lot of attention has been paid in recent months to the notion, espoused openly by Phil Harrison and quietly acquiesced to in much of the rest of the MMO industry, that single player games as we know them are going the way of the dodo. With technology connecting people to each other in greater numbers than ever before, many people see the logical end of this being the complete co-option of the traditional single player experience that has prevailed in games for so long.

In a recent interview with Ben Mattes, producer for the new Prince of Persia game over at Ubisoft, Mattes rejects this notion, insisting there are experiences in a single player game that you can't reliably replicate in a multiplayer context. Players still crave these distilled bouts of fun, and will continue to flock to them in the future as long as companies keep making them. Obviously, being the producer on a big budget single player title doesn't make Mattes the most unbiased source in the world, but we have to agree with him. While the greater trend is towards connectivity and multiplayer, there's always going to be a market for a well-told single player story.

Tags: ben-mattes, eurogamer, evolution, interview, multiplayer-games, phil-harrison, prince-of-persia, single-player-games, ubisoft

The Daily Grind: Will griefers ever evolve?

by Akela Talamasca Apr 5th 2008 at 8:00AM

Filed under: Culture, MMO industry, Opinion, The Daily Grind, Education, Kids

The MMO industry as we know it today hasn't been around very long, really. Still, we can see definite generational shifts, particularly between the current crop of foul-mouthed, immature children (of all ages) we might label 'griefers', and the older, more stable cadre of players who just want to enjoy their hobby in peace.

The generation of kids being raised on MMOs have the dubious honor of receiving input from both of these spheres. What will they become? Respect can be taught, but kids are mimetic; they'll copy behavior they find amusing. Is there a chance that griefers can grow out of their abusive tendencies and learn to behave? What will it take for that behavior to evolve?

Tags: children, evolution, griefers, mimetic, mmo-industry, tdg, the-daily-grind

The Evolution of World of Warcraft's many games

by Michael Zenke Mar 16th 2008 at 6:00PM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Culture, Game mechanics, Patches

To say that World of Warcraft has changed over the last four years would be something of an understatement. Major content additions have come at a fast and furious rate, from minor class tweaks all the way up to the Burning Crusade expansion itself. The blog GameSetWatch hosts a feature called Play Evolution that looks at just these kinds of changes. In an article this past week author James Lantz laid out some of the ways that Blizzard has modifed WoW over the years.

What's interesting is that he doesn't just comb through patch notes. Lantz notes that within Azeroth itself there are several different games being played all alongside each other. The leveling up game is the one many people talk about, but there's also the raid game, the pvp game, the crafting game, the social game ... everyone is playing a WoW slightly different from everyone else's. Using the evolution of Player vs. Player combat since the game's launch, Lantz talks about the path Blizzard has walked to focus that particular 'metagame' for players - be it for good or ill.

Tags: blizzard, evolution, game-design, world-of-warcraft, wow

Games that could be MMOs: Spore

by Akela Talamasca Feb 1st 2008 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Real life, Age of Conan, Game mechanics, Guilds, Crafting, PvP, PvE, Opinion

Ever since I saw Spore being shown at Macworld this year, I've been thinking about how our characters progress, and likening it to evolution. The more you fight, the more you grow -- in levels, anyway. Here, however, death doesn't cut off your genetic line, but neither do you get to pass yours on. And while it's cool to watch your character gain abilities, hit points, new gear, etc., what if there were an MMO that let you actually evolve?

Take Spore as our example: start life as a single-celled organism. Eat and avoid being eaten long enough, and you level up to the next step: evolving into something better adapted to the environment, so you can survive better, longer. Keep on growing until you've begun making tools. Organize a community. Explore the world, and eventually, space itself, and new worlds. This is what Spore promises, but currently it's a single-player game, with the only interaction with other players arising when spaceflight is achieved. But what if Spore started out as an MMO?

Tags: age-of-conan, customization, death, evolution, microbes, procedurally-driven, spore, will-wright

CES 2008: discussion panel on virtual worlds and the "MMO explosion"

by Kyle Horner Jan 7th 2008 at 3:30PM

Filed under: Events, real-world, MMO industry, Virtual worlds

Gamasutra has posted a panel discussion covering many different facets of virtual worlds and MMOs in general. The panel consists of several panelists coming from all sorts of companies from AMD to Turbine. Overall the panel discusses many of the issues you always hear about when virtual worlds/MMOs come up. You've got talk of evolution within the industry, in-game advertising, global relevance (aka "how can we conquer the world?"), virtual goods/secondary markets (RMT/item selling) and of course cannibalizing older markets.

The discussion on each piece is mostly similar to what has been said already. There are a few intriuging quotes from some of the panelists throughout. Their conclusion to the discussion happens to be focused on a few aspects, but we found one was more interesting than the rest.

Steve Goldstein from Flagship Studios had this to say, "As we spend the next three or four days talking about margins and monetizing, we shouldn't lose sight of the miraculous industry we're in, where people are selling imaginary gold and building real relationships across the world."

Probably the most prolific statement of the entire discussion, Goldstein manages to bullseye the nail on the head.

Tags: advertising, amd, evolution, flagship-studios, gamasutra, gold-selling, in-game-adverstising, mmo-industry, rmt, turbine, virtual-goods, virtual-worlds

The Digital Continuum: Evolving past fantasy Pt. 2

by Kyle Horner Jan 5th 2008 at 1:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Sci-fi, Opinion, The Digital Continuum

Last week I covered several of the reasons given for the fantasy genre's dominance over the massively gaming market. The conclusion which I came to was fairly simple; all of the things that make fantasy great for MMOs can be done with sci-fi. Yet in the comments section last week there was a very good question asked by Jeff Freeman. That question was this, "If any genre can do what fantasy can do, then can't fantasy do what any other genre can do, too?"

It's a very good point that I actually hadn't even thought of at the time of writing last week. The fact is that it's true, but only to a certain degree. I agree with Jeff in that fantasy has different strengths and weakness than sci-fi. The key to making a great sci-fi MMO is to simply take a look at all of the successful massively games over the past several years and figure out what made them work so well. For instance, part of World of Warcraft's success is in thanks to its relatively easy leveling curve combined with several stream-lined elements such as simpler quests. That is something that should be kept in some form no matter what kind of MMO a developer might be making.

Tags: blizzard, ccp, eve-online, evolution, exploration, fantasy, featured, joystiqfeatures, sci-fi, world-of-warcraft

MMOGs: missing a sense of mystery

by Michael Zenke Nov 29th 2007 at 4:30PM

Filed under: Culture, Events, in-game, Lore, MMO industry, Opinion

Just this afternoon, Craig Withers was talking about the regrettably static state of Azeroth. Tying nicely into that theme is an article in the Guardian, a paper known for its thoughtful coverage of gaming news. Columnist Alexander Gambotto-Burke talks more about EverQuest 2, but makes much the same point: MMOGs need more of the unknown.

Mystery is one of the most significant themes in culture. One of the most appealing aspects of the fantasy media and mythologies that inspire and inform games like EQII is the sense of uncertain, and most likely perilous, adventure. But in EQII and its peers, however, the unknown, basically, doesn't exist.

Gambotto-Burke goes on to note that Tabula Rasa is attempting to fill in a bit of this gap, with its fluid control points system: The AI-controlled alien enemies, the Bane, will work against both player and computer-driven humans to capture towns, military bases and cities. Sometimes they'll succeed. Players will never really be certain of which areas are safe and which are overrun, as the battle constantly waxes and wanes - with or without player input.

Tags: content, eq2, everquest-2, evolution, mystery, star-wars-galaxies, swg, world-of-warcraft, wow

Behind the Curtain: Evolving the World of Warcraft

by Craig Withers Nov 29th 2007 at 12:00PM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Events, in-game, Expansions, Game mechanics, Lore, Opinion, Behind the Curtain

Hopefully you read our very own Mike Schramm's post earlier this week (if not, go read it quick and come right back) about Lore and Storytelling in MMOs. I panicked a little when I read it, firstly because he's a better writer than I am, and secondly because I'm going to talk about a similar subject myself – specifically World of Warcraft, and how I feel Blizzard could be doing more to evolve the lore and the story of the game.

I'm not a Biologist, but my understanding of evolution is that things change and grow. Certain species die off, to be replaced by newer ones better suited to the environment of the time.
With one expansion under its belt, bucketloads of content patches behind it and another expansion on the horizon, WoW certainly hasn't stood still as time has passed. While WoW had hardly become sterile, is adding new content the same thing as evolving the game?

Tags: blizzard, end-game, evolution, expansion, featured, instances, joystiqfeatures, lore, world-of-warcraft, wow