Richard Garriot Argues Against Stagnant MMOG Design

The creator of Ultima Online and Tabula Rasa and well-known designer Richard Garriot spoke at the Develop Conference in Brighton, England on the subjects of stagnating MMOG design and the NCSoft deal with Sony. His commentary on Massive game design is fairly direct: "If you look at the vast majority of MMOs that has come out since Ultima Online and Everquest, you can look at the features and they are almost exactly the same. Even though the graphics have got better and the interface is much slicker, fundamentally the gameplay is unchanged. Worse yet, there are many things that have become standard that I look at and even though they are powerful enough to encourage the behavior of people obsessed with playing these games, I don't think they are the right way of building the future."

Re:Very perceptive Richard

[Om]

I think (and I could be wrong here) that that is exactly what he is trying to do with Tabula Rasa, innit?

Oh, I get it... this is the obligatory Richard-Garriot-Sucks thread. I would think it would be further down. My bad.

Re:Very perceptive Richard

[supabeast!]

He is building a better game. Garriot gave up a comfy job and huge salary at EA to go and develop a better game. That's one of the big point of TFA.

More elements of simulation needed

[spun]

MMORPGs need more interactive elements and less static content. I would love to see a game where you could start a merchant empire, overthrow a king, or build a village, as well as delving in dungeons and hacking monsters. Everything outside of combat skills is relatively useless in most MMORPGs. With elements of simulation included, skills such as diplomacy, leadership, and acting would become important. Every server would develop differently. Developers wouldn't write static content, but would instead script dynamic content that would draw from the present game world instead of shoe-horning new plots into every instance. For instance, rather than making quests that use the same NPCs, existing NPCs with the right characteristics would be used every time the quest was given. Rather than use the same locations, generic locations such as "any lower class bar" could be specified, and the quest might be activated any time the PC went into such a location.

well..

[doublefrost]

Eve and DOAC are good departures from the MMO standard. Still are I think. Whats also great about those 2 games is you don't have to spend 8 hours a day on them to do well.

Re:Some are differant

[eison]

PVP with clear cut goals and accomplishments? The description sounds _exactly_ like Dark Age Of Camelot. How will this game be different? Does it remove the insane grind as the chief gameplay mechanic? The fedex quest as the great innovation in improved gameplay? The constant repetition? The unbalanced-rock-paper-scissors design/constant nerf/constant whining cycle? The pick-a-"shard" dice roll that will have a huge impact on your game experience that you have to make up front with nearly zero info to base it on and can't really change later, so you better do homework before signing up to play?

Re:UO=innovative and no one has gotten it right si

[Xlipse]

SWG had a lot of potential, but SOE royally fucked that game up because they are imbeciles.

Re:UO=innovative and no one has gotten it right si

[GearType2]

The point he was trying(at least I am hoping he was trying) to make is that in WoW the difference between a lower level and a higher level is pretty vast and outright. Lower levels are worthless in groups, or parties. In Ultima Online, you only grind if you feel the need to. You are virtually effective at any level. Just at higher levels you are more effective. This was one of Garriot's core game design issues when designing UO. I remember high "level" players coming to my blacksmith for gear, and repairs well before I was 100 in my blacksmithy skill(which is the max in UO).

Can you say the same in WoW? Is there any reason for a high level player to go to a low level crafter? Or how about low level players helping on high level quests?

This is grind. Players feel the need to do monotonous dull tasks to level up because doing the riskier task will kill them and halt their progression, or slow it down(exp penalty). In UO the only reason to grind was if your impatient, or a powergamer. There was never a need for it. In WoW, it's gameplay design. This is what Garriot is angry about. Grind is now considered to be a gameplay aspect that players "expect", and grind isn't fun.

Re:Very perceptive Richard

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who is currently in the Tabula Rising (TR) beta, I wouldn't come close to saying it is a better game.

I don't think the FPS MMO market is ever going to be a smashing success, because you can only shoot so many bad guys and have so many weapons before it gets old.

Anarcy Online in its current form is a better game than TR. It was a better game back when it was first released. The biggest problem with AO is the fact that so many losers think it is cool to create a female toon, strip down to nothing, and gyrate their ass in your character's face if you ever sit down. /yawn.

TR's UI sucks, the quests are fairly lame, and unless Garriot listens to those beta testers that aren't still frothing over UO and think he is god (see, Brad McQuaid and the disaster that was Vanguard), this game is going to be a pile of bullhockeypucks.

I'll hope for improvement, but most games don't get radically better from their beta state.

Re:Very perceptive Richard

[cthellis]

But he put GRAPHICS on it...!

Oh, wait, Meridian 59... I mean, The Realm Online. I mean, Neverwinter Nights...

Yes, grinding is bad

[MMaestro]

Grinding in MMOs is terrible. I've played MMOs since UO and recently quit WoW; most of them all have one thing in common, spending 100+ hours just to reach the "maximum" level (assuming there aren't multiple "jobs" like FFXI or cranking out a new character every month in WoW).

Obviously, to SOME extent grinding is necessary (not counting PvP which Guild Wars has down damned near perfectly) but when you start talking about hundreds of hours just to REACH the end game (let alone take part in end game activities), you've got massive barrier against casual gamers.

Re:Very perceptive Richard

[*weasel]

Sure, but when you point out problems in your competitors products, I expect either: a little more from your product, or a little deeper insight. I see neither.

Games aren't really stagnating, your just bored with them. There is a difference.

No-one said they weren't fun, just that the design is stagnant.

In general, you do have a great point: Why should anyway care that some crotchety bastards think the genre is stagnant, when more people than ever are paying $15/mo to play a Diku?

It's similar to the old:
If five hundred thousand people are happily playing EQ, why would you think anything's wrong with the design?
The answer to that, of course, is nine million people happily playing WoW.

When design stagnates, it doesn't mean no-one's having fun. It just means that if the next game is the same, it can't grow the market.