Date posted: May 19, 2006
Updated: Oct 24, 2006
By Mirjam Eladhari, researcher at Zero-Game Studio, Interactive Institute, Sweden.
Currently, in April 2003, there are 51 MMOGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Games) available and about 120 MMOGs are in development. This article is based on a survey of these games and addresses the questions of what trends there are in type of gameplay and fictional world themes. We will also have a look at how the MMORPG genre (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) is evolving by identifying what new features are being developed.
The standard MMOG
In order to see what is new, we need to compare with existing standard features.
The first MMORPGs that reached a wide audience were released in the late nineties, (Meridian 59 September 1996, Ultima Online September 1997, EverQuest March 1999, Asheron’s Call November 1999) and features in these games are more or less standard components in most MMORPGs:
• Thousands of simultaneous players.
• A very big 3D environment with several cities and vast areas between them.
• Character classes of varied complexity.
• A set of skills for the player to choose from and develop for the character during the game by usage and by assigning experience points.
• Combat system, in game mostly used for fighting NPC (Non-player characters) foes like monsters, but optionally to combat other players.
• Magic system that ties into combat system and skill system.
• Items in game world that can be used by players as equipment or modified and used by using acquired skills.
• In game trading between players, which often extends to out of game trading with real money.
• Homes, areas in the game that a single or several players have ownership over and can modify by placing and storing items in them.
• Quests for players to perform, either in the form of items or NPCs in the game world leading or motivating players to perform a certain series of actions, or events initiated by a game master or implemented by a live team.
• Evolving story line, i.e. the history of the game world.
• Social systems allowing players to form permanent or temporary groupings.
• NPCs of several types, usually including monsters, humanoid NPCs that trade items and humanoid NPCs that deliver quests.
Feature trends in MMOG development
Most of the MMOG games under development follow the state of the art when it comes to the basic game play features listed above, adding new features to the list or slanting existing features in new directions. Some development teams (about 15%) are restricting themselves to standard features.
However, some prominent trends that can be observed from the features of the 114 games under development are the notions of player freedom and virtual life. Game developers are striving to create worlds that provide an alternative to the real world but with similar perceived levels of complexity. This in-game complexity is born when developers are able to make systems that are so dynamic that a massive number of players can use in-game features to create systemic complexity by interacting according to different varieties of frameworks for social structure, politics and economics. Frequent words in the most ambitious outlines for games are “freedom”, “virtual life”, and “dynamic”. (e.g. Athanasia, Boundless Adventures and EverQuest II). This might be seen as a heritage from the precursors of the MMOGs, the shared virtual worlds (e.g. Active Worlds, WorldsAway and Online Traveler), where the idea and praxis of a virtual life parallel to the real life was promoted to the users.
Another observable trend is to make it possible for the player to create objects within the game, and to shape and affect parts of the game world, depending on the circumstances, as an individual or as part of a group, players and their actions then actively forming large parts of the geography of the world (e.g. Atriarch, Dawn).
Also the idea of deeper characterization is something that developers are focusing on more strongly, and this is especially common in games that are in their second iteration (sequels). The idea of deeper, or better, characterization is in most cases realized, not by remaking the commonly used system of character classes into something else, but by focusing on making more advanced systems with a greater variety of character classes and greater freedom to combine the different features of the classes and associated character skills (e.g. Atriarch, EverQuest II).
The idea of having more dynamic systems for quest assignments and for players to experience and evolve stories that affect the world and the history of the world is common. Usually this involves having a storytelling system that allows the player to take part in the formation of the history of the world on different levels – large-scale world history, the individual story of the player character and of the group (e.g. Atriarch, StarWars Galaxies).
It also appears that many game developers are making a strong effort to build features facilitating group dynamics with emergent political and economic systems. This involves the possibility of forming social groupings, both on small and large scales, being a part of a smaller, tighter social group, but also being part of a bigger, more loosely connected group, a society, culture or subculture. (eg. Horizons, Entropia, PlaneShift, Ryzom). The game that currently stands out among available titles in this area is Asheron’s Call, and this feature is also a strong factor in the game’s success.
Most games in production are striving for the development of more advanced non-player characters that behave in more dynamic ways than in current games.
Another trend in MMOG sequels is to make it possible for players to develop their characters in non-confrontational ways (e.g. EverQuest II).
Last but not least we have the trend of building game worlds that have both autonomy and are affected by players in the game, embodying principles of an eco system.
MMOG genre trends
Before making this survey I had a few preconceptions about the results that proved to be false. I thought that there would be an increasing number of games that combine different game play genres, such as real-time strategy or first person shooter combined with role-playing. I also thought that there would be a change in the choice of fictional themes for game worlds, going away from the two prominent themes of sci-fi/post-apocalypse/space and fantasy towards a larger number of game worlds having unique themes. This all proved to be wrong. Looking at the percentages below we see that the quantitative division between game play genres and world theme genres for games in development is about the same as for existing games. The only significant change is fewer MMOGs in development having real time strategy elements of game play. Another observable trend that is not clear from the percentages below is an increase of world themes inspired by either comics or movies.
Game world themes in current MMOGs and in MMOGs in development
In April 2003 there are 51 MMOGs available for game players worldwide. The fantasy genre dominates the world themes of these games - 14 of them have a fantasy theme. In second place come 9 game worlds having a science fiction or post apocalypse setting.
A survey of the 51 available titles shows the following balance among themes for game worlds:
2 games with historic themes (6%)
11 games with science fiction or post apocalypse world themes (32%)
14 games with fantasy world themes (41%)
5 games with unique world themes (15 %)
2 games with oriental or anime style (6%)
Remaining games: genre not of interest in context (vehicle games for example); hence the percentages above are counted on a sum of 34.
By comparison, for MMOGs that currently are under development the themes are:
4 games with historic world themes (5%)
24 worlds with a science fiction or post apocalyptic themes (36%)
26 worlds with a general fantasy themes (38%)
9 games with unique worlds (14%)
5 worlds inspired by comics or anime (7%)
Remaining games fall within world themes not of interest in this context (eg. vehicle games). The percentages above are counted on the sum of the categorized games, 68. Total number of surveyed MMOGs under development is 114.
Type of gameplay in current MMOGs and in MMOGs under development
When it comes to genres for world themes, the percentage of titles under production in each genre is roughly the same as the percentage of titles already available in those genres. This suggests that the development of MMOGs follows the same pattern as traditional game production in rigidly following established genres and avoiding market risk.
This pattern is possible to observe when it comes to genres for game play (as opposed to world theme genres). My survey shows the following balance in available MMOG titles:
28 games with role-playing elements (54 %)
11 games with real time strategy game play (26%)
6 games where game play is focused on driving a vehicle (12%)
5 games that are mainly focused on battle (10%)
2 games combine role playing elements and real time strategy (4%)
The percentages above are counted on 51 games, but note that some of them are categorized in more than one category, or are not possible to categorize at all.
Except for a decrease in the number of real time strategy MMOGs, the balance between game play genres is very similar for the MMOGs under development:
53 games with role-playing elements (56 %)
13 games with real time strategy game play (14%)
10 games where game play is focused on driving a vehicle (11 %)
12 games that are mainly focused on battle (13 %)
4 games combine role playing elements and real time strategy (4%)
These percentages are based upon 94 games; all 114 games in production minus 20 for which there is insufficient information (too early in production). (Note that the sum of 92 listed games is not a figure for the actual total number of games since some of them are represented in more categories than one and some not at all.
About the survey
The background work of this survey consisted of reading descriptions of the 51 available MMOGs; the 114 MMOGs under development and 26 cancelled or suspended MMOG productions. From the basis of this material, I classified the games according to type of game play and theme of fiction in the game world, while I paid special attention to non-standard features in games under development. Due to time constraints, I played only a few of the games that are currently in their beta stage. Besides information about each individual game I found the website Stratics Cental (http://www.stratics.com) very useful. The genre categorization (21 pages) is available on request (mirjam.eladhari@interactiveinstitute.se).
Links
Stratics Central – Available MMOG titles
Stratics Central – MMOGs in development
Document with descriptions of MMOGs available in March/April 2003
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