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Brace yourselves for a shock, True Believers: some people don't want to raid. Some players aren't enticed by PvP. For some, it's all about exploration and an individual experience, not level grinding, getting better loot, or running with a guild. In short, there is a section of players -- possibly larger than one might think -- who care nothing about high-level content.

Yet in update after update, what developers tout is how much more epic gear is dropped by the now-more-formidable bosses in the 25-man-specced raid instance. Now, there's absolutely nothing at all wrong with wanting to please the audience that has stuck with your game long enough to get to these lofty heights, especially as they're the ones who have kept your game an ongoing concern. At some point, however, it becomes a case of self-one-upmanship, with little true innovation. Why not broaden the low-level content as well, and bring in new customers at the same time? Is the purpose of an MMO merely to ramp up to a plateau and then go static? Is catering to the demands of the hardcore bad for game development?

The conventional wisdom in any service-driven industry is that it's far, far cheaper to retain an existing customer than to recruit a new one. This is especially true in the MMOG industry, where your business model is largely dependent on maintaining a long-term subscriber base. The concept also applies to transaction-driven and episodic games, where you need your customers to want to stick around and continue spending money. Box sales are great, but ultimately they're pretty useless except as an indicator of how many people actually bought the game -- returning players are the bread and butter of the MMO world.

In fact, that's exactly why companies are so interested in finding out why you're quitting their game. If they can fix issues that are making a lot of people quit, they can retain more customers and drive up their revenue. Surprisingly, Blizzard is the only company I know of which actually makes people fill out an exit survey in order to cancel a subscription. It's not that annoying and it gives them great information about how to make their game better for you (so if you're adamant on copying Blizzard, that's a good thing to copy). Unfortunately, Blizzard keeps notoriously quiet about their internal numbers like that. So why exactly do people quit MMOGs, and what can and should game companies be doing to keep you interested?

The Torque MMO kit, first published last year by Prairie Games and GarageGames, has recently announced their newest version of the open-source engine which developer TalentRaspel describes as "completely revised". In this version 1.1 SP3 of the engine, TalentRaspel is proving that their continued support of this product since they took it over late last year promises a step in the right direction for independent game developers.

Not only that, but this could be good news for those smaller companies looking to spend more resources on other aspects of running an MMO, and kicking it off with an established, well-maintained engine. The Torque MMO kit engine was first responsible for powering Minions of Mirth, which is said to have 70,000+ users. Plus, with a price tag of $199 to $999 (depending on sales expectations) for the kit combined with Faust Logic's Arcade FX effects library, you just can't beat that.

Many MMO aficionados cut their roleplaying teeth on one of the many pencil-and-paper titles that formed the early generation of multi-player gaming. In addition to rolling (and rolling, and rolling, and rolling) some dice to come up with their basic stats and traits, character generation involved a lot of "wet work" when it came time to acquire skills. Often, players would bargain with their Game Master to get special dispensation for pushing the envelope.

Player: I want to run this adventure as a zombie elf with three arms.
GM: Okay, but if you do that, none of the other characters will trust you. Also, you will spend 50% more on shirts and body armor. Still want to do it?

Thus, the mechanic of trading character flaws for enhanced abilities was born. One of the hallmarks of tabletop gaming is this trade-off -- saddling yourself or your character with a shortcoming in order to obtain an advantage elsewhere, either as a skill, or a talent, or just another way to go about Min/Maxing. The huge number of available options in some games (Vampire: The Masquerade, for instance) ensures that any player, with only a few minutes' consideration, will have an almost absolutely unique character, fully their own creation.

And yet, almost without exception, the online iterations we all enjoy seem to have omitted this altogether. We are an immense legion of perfectly-formed, mentally-stable, socially-adept übermensch. Even the so-called "ugly" races -- World of Warcraft's Forsaken or Tabula Rasa'sHybrids -- don't explore the depth and breadth of this concept too deeply. Racial traits and differentiation are the merest tip of this particular iceberg.

Why does this rich milieu, this fecund ground of roleplay fodder and character diversity, languish? (And who left this thesaurus on my desk?)

I always think it's interesting when I hear developers talk about how World of Warcraft opened up the MMOG market for new entrants. We have all these new and exciting games coming out: Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, The Chronicles of Spellborn, and plenty more. However, the overwhelming response that I get from WoW players when I talk about these games is a blank stare and something along the lines of, "Okay, that sounds all right... but why would I ever want to leave WoW?" I think that developers tend to underestimate how attached people get to their MMOG of choice. There are now over 10 million World of Warcraft players. The question is, do they even want something different?

I've read a number of bloggers in the past few months and talked to a number of players who claim that they're only playing WoW right now because "it's the best thing out there." They're yearning for something else. Not something totally different, mind you, since they obviously have a blast in Azeroth. But something fresh enough to be new and exciting without bastardizing the game style they know and love. However, I've noticed something interesting. This breed of player tends to overwhelmingly be comprised of people for whom World of Warcraft was not their first MMOG. Otherwise, people just want WoW to put more content in and are willing to make do with what they have until then. I think there's an intriguing bit of psychology there that's worth examining.

Can WoW be killed? This is the question on the tongues of my WoW playing friends since the announcement of FunCom's upcoming title Age of Conan has been pushed back another 8 weeks. Some think it's to polish it just that extra little bit, so that they can come out of the gates running, but honesty I think they just want to make sure they are putting out as high a quality game as possible. Really this idea of a WoW Killer, has been going around for a long time, and frankly I think the whole idea is a bit silly. Like my compatriot Kevin Stallard states on a recent edition of 'Ask Massively', there are games like Ultima Online that have been plugging strong for over a decade now, without any real notion of stopping soon.

Certainly over the years MMO's have risen and fallen from the top spot, it started off with UO holding the torch, then moved along to EQ and pretty much since it's launch WoW has held fast and continued to gain popularity. And with ActiBlizzard's recent announcement that the World of Warcraft has just broken the 10 Million subscriber mark, it's unlikely we're going to see them toppled any time soon. To take a moment and put those numbers into perspective, 10 million subscribers would be like if every man, woman and child in Belgium did nothing but play WoW all the time. I know I'd certainly take the next flight out to Bruges, and settle in next to the Muscles from Brussels playing my Shaman for the good of mother Belgium!

But really, I don't think that there is any risk of a WoW killer, not because I don't think that AoC and EA Mythic's Warhammer Online aren't going to be 'as good' or even be able to compete against WoW, but because frankly I don't think it matters. From what I've seen so far from both of these titles, neither one is trying to be a WoW clone, and I think that's the rub right there. Nothing is going to "beat" WoW, just like nothing beat UO or EQ, they simply lost subscribers to the new evolution of the genre. There are still a great deal of people who play the older titles, things like FFXI, UO, EQ, and so on, but most MMO gamers aren't tied to a single title. I bet you that of those 10 million WoW subscribers at least 30% play at least one other title, and most of them have probably taken part in at least one beta test for another game.

Richard Garriott did it. A critically acclaimed game designer, whose previous modus operandi regulated itself to PC and console games, created a successful MMO in a market overshadowed by Thrall and Co. Some say that his only claim to fame is the Ultima series but then again, those that say such things, their only claim to fame is a blog read by their mother and a few old college buddies.

Big names attaching themselves to MMO projects are becoming commonplace. With 38 Studios making the news and podcasts these days, with starry-eyed fanboys salivating over visions of Drizzt vs. Spawn in an MMO that may or may not contain baseball, one wonders: who else might throw their hat into the MMO ring? Of course, each such entry runs the risk of the 800-pound gorilla, with epic gear, stomping it into oblivion.

But what if ...

In case you missed it while madly dashing about for your festive hat, 2008 has arrived. Since it is the New Year, we have all seen the articles making predictions and projections of what is to come in the following months. Some of these articles are great while others seem lacking. My problem with all of them is that they are too firmly grounded in reality.

That's about to change.

Several hours of sleep depravation, a couple candy bars, and the last few drops of that glorious orange liquid called "Game Fuel" have lead to the following list of wishes that I would like to see granted in the next 12 months. So, game companies, get out your barbed whips and chain your developers to their desks! You've got a lot of work ahead of you.

So I have been talked into starting over an old game I quit over three years ago, deleted all my characters and vowed to never go back. Now, it's taken six months (or more) of convincing and pleading and begging, but the thing that finally sold me was "they made leveling a lot easier, it's not like it used to be."

That right there makes FFXI so much more exciting to go and play again, because as anyone who has ever leveled a character to 75 in that game knows, it was a full time job. I didn't want to go and do that all over again, forsaking the other games I play, my real job, family friends, etc etc (because, let's face it, we all do that from time to time, to get that one next level). But with the prospect of the leveling being easier, more casual friendly where it only takes a matter of weeks (or months) instead of years to get to 75 and have some fun, the game just seems, somehow better.

So that got me thinking about the other games I had left, and if they had made changes over the years to bring people back. Sure there have been the Resurrection Scrolls, and the Return Home to Vana'diel campaigns, and I'm sure countless others. But I'm not talking about promotions, but actual game changes, to speed up leveling, make crafting less of a headache, and allow people to join in, this late in the game.

2007, by some accounts, has been one of the best years for video games ever. While most would think of the tremendous console releases, MMOs have also seen their fair share of greatness. However, as the saying goes, you can't win them all.

We're going to take a look back at 2007 at some of the higher, and lower, points in MMOs and game development. New Year's is over, so take some aspirin, get yourself a stiff cup of coffee and take a brief stroll through MMO memory lane.

Free. Everyone likes things that are free. Well, except when it involves a free kick to the twig and berries. These days, free things are often accompanied by plenty of small-type that make it anything but free. Requiring you to sever a limb or to sign over half of your first born does not constitute free. However, there has been a glut of free-to-play MMOs emerging on the market. Some of these have been around for a while that somehow lost the desire to charge people and others have come out of the gate with no fees like a naked hippy at an outdoor music festival.

What I'd like to do this week is take a look at some free-to-play games and see what they have to offer in the realm of game design and development. If you're looking for a review or a first-impression on any of these games, you're in the wrong place. There are far more capable people than I who can do just that. So put the wallet away, we're about to go free ... just keep the clothes on.

Just a heads up to any massively multiplayer nuts living in the DC Metro area, Destination Games head honcho and MMO luminary Richard Garriott will be speaking to the DC Chapter of the Association for Computer Machinery on December 10th at George Washington University from 7 to 9 p.m. EST. Garriott will be talking about some of the more technical aspects of modern game development, getting into the nitty gritty of design documentation, programming techniques, and UI creation. The lecture is free, so even if you just want to come to sit and swoon at the infamous Lord British, you're welcomed to do so.

Of course, if you're from the other side of the country or just can't make it, you can check back here to Massively where we'll have a write-up of the lecture for your viewing pleasure.

Imagine, if you will, the following: In a dimly lit boardroom, a collection of men and women, disheveled and sleep depraved, stare blankly at a room filled with wads and scraps of paper. A broad shouldered man sits alone at the head of the table, the only indication he is there is the low red glow of his cigar. Finally someone speaks. "Ok, how about this? There is this ancient evil that lives ... um ... in a castle and ... ah ... there is a good king who lives in another castle and ... he needs heroes to help defeat this big, bad evil king ... dude."

A thick silence falls on the room.

Through a puff of gray smoke, "I love it. Let's pump a couple million into this baby. Let's make sure we set up the billing structure and get me some in-game advertising! Let's roll, people!"

I confess. That might not be entirely accurate but what role does the story play in our lovely MMO games? It serves as the backdrop for all the contextual details of the game but beyond the introduction movie, what importance or what prominence does the story play in MMOs? We're going to look a few of the more popular MMO games out there and how they deliver the backstory. We'll start with the obvious.

Over the past two weeks I have gone over some of the base elements of architecture in massively multiplayer games. Touching on how architecture can influence a persons time inside a game, as well as how different types of players can actually begin to influence the environment.

Once a player leaves the cities with the games, they will begin to encounter more diverse and interesting environments and landscapes. The largest percentage of available space in MMOs is simulated landscape and natural scenery. From toxic-hued forests and jungles, to vast dune seas, and rolling grasslands, all the way out into the vastness of space and although the landscapes in the games oftentimes reflect the vistas we know from the real world, sometimes they are as if they were plucked from the dreams or nightmares of the players. However something separates landscapes in reality from landscapes in video games, and that is the fact that at the end of the day, most of the areas outside the cities in online games, are structured just the same as the cities themselves are.

Each area or "zone" is assigned it's own distinct character, and habitat and is assigned a specific level of difficulty. They often have only a few entries and exits, a handful of important landmarks and high walls surround the entire area. In this sense the areas function simply as an exaggerated room, with walls surrounding, one or two doors or windows to get out, and everything within set specifically to function only within that area. Espen Aarseth stated in his Allegories of Space about the game Myst:

"What looks like an open area is really a closed labyrinth with a few possible directions..."

Last week we started to look at the architecture of MMO cities, and how they can impact game play. How developers use areas like transit zones, to herd the players, even if they players aren't aware. This week we will take a deeper look into the cities themselves, the people that inhabit them, and why.

Cities are often looked at in virtual worlds as a type of mall, where you can go and pick up the things you need, trade in or sell the things you don't, and maybe swing by the food court for a bite to eat. As such, players often treat cities very differently; just like malls you have different groups of people who want different things out of the environment. To some, it's a hangout place, the folks who sit around talking with their friends, using yell or in-city channels to spam their personal and most inner thoughts (WTS [Wang] x1 PST). You have those who look at it just like a pit stop, get in, do what you have to do, and get out. And those who abhor the cities entirely and would rather go out of their way to some small outpost just to avoid the unwashed masses, even if it means an extra twenty minutes.

I think developers can change this though, making the cities more like the ones we are used to in the real world. Places to rest, refresh, and socialize. In games like FFXI, the cities feel barren and devoid of life, with only the most necessary NPCs around to give out the quest and vendor your unwanted loot. There are frequently more empty, inaccessible buildings than there are ones you can go in. Where the opposite can be said about WoW, where there are countless houses for you to explore (albeit most of them empty), NPCs wandering around with no function other than to sell pie, and more vendors than you can shake a stick at.