The Invisible Pigeon-Holing Council - MMOs

As gamers, we live in an exciting time. The technologies that drive the games we play are advancing at a break-neck pace to the point where we have created entirely new kinds of games in the last few years. One such example is the MMO game. Though many principles of the "genre" have been set since the dawn of online gaming, the rise of publicly available high-speed internet connections has allowed it to flourish into one of the defining examples of modern gaming. But like any new genre, MMOs have a long way to go in defining themselves to the point where the moniker is actually a useful tool. So what can we, as gamers, do to stay for-armed against the trappings of a bad MMO?

The foundation for the modern MMO began in the late 80's when the development of the personal computer allowed the development of simple text-based adventure games, with early modems being able to connect them together. Improvements to server architecture enabled these text based adventures to persist between log-ins, and thus persistent worlds were born. Here lies the piece that makes an MMO an MMO – a world that changes and evolves beyond any one individual’s contributions.

Attempting to classify "Massively Multiplayer Online" gaming in the greater scheme of genres is an interesting puzzle. The simple truth is that just calling something an MMO means next to nothing – it tells you only that you can expect a persistent world game and, more likely than not, a monthly subscription fee. “MMO” is, at best, a sub-genre; a term you add to another larger genre to describe features and not overall structure. For a practical example, consider World of Warcraft. WoW is an MMO, certainly. It has become an MMO so well-known that it has changed the entire nature all manner of industries - new kinds of server architecture have grown out of making World of Warcraft work. But simply referring to it as an MMO, if you had never played or seen the game, says very little. In fact, if you were to tell someone that Blizzard was making a Warcraft MMO game, it would have been safe to assume something more like the Real-Time Strategy games on which Blizzard built its name. To use genre conventions in a useful way, WoW is an massive multiplayer online action role playing game set in a colorful high fantasy world.

Some of the first advertisements for WoW. 5 years later, still no demon hunter class.

If the MMO title tells us so little, how can we, as consumers, use this sub-genre to make informed purchases? There is one consistent thing we can expect from a game that calls itself an MMO - a major focus on multiplayer gaming. Though many genres emphasize online play, it is only in the MMO that focuses exclusively on online gaming - noone will fault an MMO for lacking a single player campaign. The way we initially gauge whether an MMO is worth playing comes down to whether or not we enjoy the greater genres on which the game is built (and the quality we can anticipate from the game's producers).

The value (and cost) of most MMOs extends beyond the initial purchase, something that was unique to the sub-genre before the advent of DLC. It is assumed that an MMO will see a variety of updates and additions over time - the market expects their monthly fee to come with new ways to keep the game interesting. In this respect, an MMO lives or dies on the quality of service its producers can generate. This is one of the many reasons we will see an increasing number of MMO-style games in the future - from a business perspective, a service-based structure allows for smoother, more consistent income without incurring multiple initial production costs. Unfortunately for the consumer, that means a flood of games trying to be the next big thing (the first wave of which we saw around the time that Age of Conan came out).

Age of Conan had alot of things going for it. Well, it had alot of sex going for it. That keeps people playing, right?

The large majority of MMO games fall under the RPG umbrella. The ultimate goal of the MMO is to pull a player into the community and keep them there, and there is no easier way to achieve that than with the Role-Playing Game. RPGs give the player a sense of return on investment through progression (generally of both levels and equipment) and a strong association with your individual character. Though this is the MMORPG's greatest strength, there is an inherent tradeoff - persistent worlds with this kind of power growth create a gap between early adopters and newcomers. This builds a barrier to entry and turns new players away. World of Warcraft addresses this challenge with an incredibly forgiving leveling curve - which was not without risks of its own because it takes incredible work to produce enough content to keep older players happy.

RPGs are hardly the only form of MMO - everything from puzzles to sims to shooters have seen the massive multiplayer treatment. Most use progression elements to keep things fresh, but with time and the growth of software development come new ideas and methods to keep the sub-genre alive. An interesting example is the upcoming class-based shooter, Global Agenda. Produced by industry newcomers Hi-Rez Studios, Global Agenda uses an interesting hybrid gameplay model. With the initial purchase of the game it plays much like many modern shooters - class structures and leveling systems are the biggest thing since 3D graphics. It is clear that Hi-Rez built the core game with a careful balance between progression and accessibility in mind, and the emphasis on skill as opposed to playtime is a bold choice. Most interesting of all is that Global Agenda, if you do not subscribe to its pay-to-play content, can hardly be called an MMO - it has no persistent world and a fairly limited player-driven economy. But when you subscribe, a persistent area control mechanism comes into play and the possibilities of crafting expand significantly.

Global Agenda isn't so much an MMO... until you get here.

This creates a unique game that is simultaneously an MMO and a non-persistent online shooter; it presents an unusual opportunity to observe a game that can actively shed a part of its genre definition. It's a significant gamble - more established companies have crashed following far closer to standard genre conventions. But if Hi-Rez has some success, we may yet see some genuine change in a market that has been dominated since its inception by high fantasy RPGs. If nothing else, we stand to have an interesting case study in what makes a massively multiplayer game tick, and what it means to us, as gamers.