I’m tired of murdering murlocks, slaying slimes, and attempting genocide in my gaming. Perhaps it’s ennui, perhaps it’s moral, perhaps it’s just rebellion against “more of the same”… but as fun as it can be to stick the pointy end of weapons in the squishy things that scream and bleed, it’s getting old. It’s not coincidental, then, that the games I’ve spent the most time with the last few weeks are Puzzle Quest Galactrix, World of Goo and AudioSurf. (Though I’ll admit to a mild itch to pick up Burnout: Revenge here and there. The primitive hunter/gatherer in me wants to rack up a few more satisfying crashes.)
Since I write about MMOs a fair bit around here, though, there’s a problem. Most MMOs are built almost completely on the combat minigame. (Most RPGs and action games are, too, so it’s not something that we only see in MMOs.) If I want to play a pacifist character in WoW, for example, well… there are limitations. For those who try to bend the game to their will, it’s an uphill climb. All is well and fine as long as you play on the rails, but try something different and, well… good luck with that.
That’s just not satisfying in what I want out of MMOs. I want living, breathing dynamic worlds, not murder on rails. To be sure, some players do want that, so I don’t disagree with including the combat minigame, I’m just pointing out that it’s not a satisfying world that only offers new and unique ways to kill stuff and raid corpses. There are so many more things that could be done to make an interesting world.
Ysharros spoke about it a bit here:
and here:
Progression, brass rings and horizontality
and Wiqd dove in here:
It’s My Party and I’ll Craft if I Want To
Crafting is perhaps the easiest direction to expand into, since it has natural hooks into the economy and non-combat players. I don’t think it’s the only direction, and indeed, Wiqd also writes briefly about scholars who explore the world and derive new knowledge from perusing ruins and extinguished battlegrounds. Gevlon the Greedy Goblin writes fairly extensively about playing the MMO market, which is a sort of “secondary minigame”. He can do that because the Auction House in WoW is half decent, but that could really be fleshed out even further for those market wonks. There could be political minigames, toying with NPCs and even players, not unlike EVE’s shenanigans. (Though griefing could be an issue, of course.)
Bottom line, these MMO things, to my mind, should be alternate realities where players of any stripe can find interesting, fun niches to play in, and ways to feel like they are making personal progress as well as affecting the world around them. Channeling everyone through one “golden path” of gameplay (the combat minigame) does work, for many people, but it’s just so… shallow (and ultimately static), compared to what this genre could really offer. In other terms, it’s just one (highly burnished) facet in the gem that a spectacular MMO could be. Without polishing the other facets of the gem, it’s only going to look spectacular from a few angles, and even those angles will suffer for the low-luster background.
MMO players have a wide variety of motivations, but the gameplay support for varying motivations often falls by the wayside because of a focus on combat. It’s easy to design and implement, and players love the monster pinatas and ever-increasing gear numbers… but MMOs really could be more than they are.
That’s the heart of many of my articles; MMOs have a fair dose of fun in them as they are, but they could be more than what they have become. Wasted potential always makes me a bit sad. (And, just so it’s not a moral soapbox, it also means that I don’t spend money on games that provide the same old killing machine. There’s a very real monetary impetus for expanding horizons, especially in MMOs, of all games.)
Even though it’s combat based, I like the idea behind MMOs like City of Heroes and the upcoming Champions. You don’t kill anyone, you just defeat or arrest them. Yea it’s the same idea: “do enough damage so the enemy doesn’t fight back anymore and you get xp” but their presentation is nice.
That said, i don’t mind killing, but it’s overplayed now. When that’s all there is in your game, something’s wrong. The problem occurs when people realize that’s all there is in their game and try to strap on a half-assed crafting system to appease people. Doesn’t work. Sorry.
As a side note, a lot of people mention griefing in games and I wonder exactly what degree of “abuse” constitutes griefing. I mean … people PVP and like to be criminals and if the mechanics of the game permit that, then that’s awesome. But criminals prey on the people who follow the law (and sometimes other criminals) so would that be griefing, or just experiencing the game?
I think you need a retaliation method, but does having one get you out of having a griefing mechanism in your game? For all the times I heard of people getting corpse camped in WoW it NEVER happened to me. People tried, but they failed every time, whether it be because I was on my rogue and just stealthed out or whether I just laughed at them as I was dead and turned on the tv to do something else til they left. But I never once felt griefed.
The Eve incident with BoB could be considered griefing, but is allowed via the game mechanics (not as an exploit mind you), so is it really griefing? If you put a way to deal with idiot players into the hands of players, is that ok?
Food for thought I guess.
[…] No, it’s a fairly highly polished minigame in the suite that is the WoW MMO as a whole. As I wrote earlier, though, it’s just not all that satisfying in the long run, and having a suite of other […]
Well, there are two things contributing to my blase attitude here. One is the moral factor, but I recognize that’s not going to be something most internet denizens really care about. I do appreciate the CoX mentality, but that’s not the bigger point.
No, the larger problem for the design community at large is what you mention here:
“When that’s all there is in your game, something’s wrong.”
MMOs specialize in appealing to a wide cross section of gamers, and if combat is the bulk of what your game offers, it’s not living up to potential. It’s not necessarily bad in and of itself… it’s just not as much as it could be.
As for griefing, I’ve wondered about countergrief mechanics. That’s another article that I’ll likely write someday, but yes, my thoughts run along much the same lines.
I would be already content if they would not solely focus on combat alone. But it seems to be the easiest thing. Speaks volumes about our imagination and mankind… 🙂
Crafting was actually my first thought, too. If we go by the hunters and gatherers scheme, there is a lot we can do in how people can search for rare ore, herbs, various raw materials and food.
The basic foundation of such a MMO world would be the economy. Without turning it into a stockholder game. 😉
I wonder that space games like EVE Online do not focus more on exploration. The problem is that you cannot really discover something new, and space is pretty much empty and everything pretty much the same everywhere.
They recently added wormholes with new rare stuff to be found behind/in them and so on. Of course also some NPC ship-mobs that you must defeat.
I am getting away from the topic and will rather read the blog entries what games could offer that is not related to killing. 🙂
This is exactly why I A: didn’t want combat in our HM:O game and B: why when I did allow for it, I instituted it as RTS to give some semblance of strategy and skill. Maybe it should even be turn-based strategy like FF Tactics.
I’m up for any excuse to make some good Tactics gameplay. 😉 Yeah, I like that idea of abstracting the combat a layer or two removed into a RTS or Tactics system, both to introduce skill and reduce the viscerality.
I almost hate to bring this up, but it sortof seems like the old debate of game versus world, or themepark versus sandbox etc.
I don’t think it’s can be bad to have combat be the only thing in your game if that’s the kind of game you’re trying to make. I think that’s disciplined game design and a clear vision.
Not to say that it’s not cool to have games with less combat, but WoW isn’t failing to have non-combat things to do, it’s specifically not trying. SWG on the other hand saw itself as much more that type of game where you could choose to spend your time many different ways, not just fighting.
wrt griefing: almost anything players do is a direct result of game mechanics. so all but the most extreme griefing is really just gameplay that’s designed in. if players aren’t doing what the designers wanted, then that’s just bad design, but trying to discipline players for playing the game that they were presented with is a pretty bad move imo.
A good example recently would be the players in AOC, WAR, and Darkfall that were reprimanded for spawncamping, killing people “too much,” teaming up “too much,” etc. If that’s not the intent of the game, code some rules that prevent or discourage it. GM discipline isn’t a valid game mechanic.
http://forum.goonheim.com/showthread.php?t=1073
Getting back to the original topic, I think it’s important that the way this is solved is creating new games with this non-combat focus, rather than try to crowbar it into games that were never intended to be that kind of game.
Well stated, Mike. My point is merely that MMOs should be more inclusive, and that the DIKU combat mentality is overused. WoW is definitely succeeding at what it’s angling to do, yes… it’s just failing to aim higher. 😉 What it means to do it does very well.
Yes, the solution is probably looking to redesign from the ground up. I write about WoW often enough that it may seem that I’m just trying to reshape that game, but I’m usually talking about general theory with WoW as an example. I should make that clearer.
Good call on griefing. That’s why EVE works, methinketh; it’s designed to allow the sort of shenanigans that undermined the BoB group. If a player is hacking, pound ’em with the banhammer… but if they are playing the game as you permit, the problem is indeed in the ruleset. (Which is why some sort of countergrief/revenge mechanic might be interesting.)
Very nice article Tesh! I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiments. Part of the potential of virtual worlds is that there should be other ways for people to express themselves other then just violence, combat and destruction.
Just for once wouldn’t it be nice to allow players to build something rather then destroy things? Even player housing at it’s most basic form would be something positive and a way for people to have a bit of ownership in their world and allow for the player to spend time furnishing their home. Nobody has to die for a player to put a table and chairs in their home — only maybe a tree. 🙂
I’ve always been impressed by Richard Bartle categorizations about people in MUDS: achievers, socializers, explorers and killers. It gives us hope that maybe just maybe….that violence isn’t always the answer and that there are other kinds of people with different motivations then the achiever/killer type.
The problem is that other then being a rich tycoon (making lots of money in the Auction House), there is only one other mode of self-actualization in a MMO: combat. It makes me sad that 10 years after EverQuest we are still trapped in the Diki MUD way of thinking with really nothing to show for it other then a more polished and anti-social version of it: World of Warcraft.
The Bartle Test tells us that if given the opportunity that players would be interested in other forms of experssion wthin MMOs and virtual worlds — if they were only provided to them. Of course combat will probably always be with us to some degree and I can live with that. I just wish MMO companies would conspire to give us something other then *killing* as the main preoccupation. It would be a breath of fresh air and would make being part of a virtual world so much more interesting.
Bartle would probably say that contemporary MMOs mainly cater to the ACHIEVER crowd.
Despite his test generating tons of explorers, not to forget socializers and killers…
Aye, the *game design* is mostly about achieving… you just do so by killing everything in front of you. 😉
[…] was reminded of this by a brilliant article recently penned by Tesh entitled Tired of Killing. Just as some of us like Muckbeast and myself have recently started questioning quest directed […]
I already read Wolfshead, and I will write a short and concise comment. I plan to make comparisons to fantasy literature and the movie industry, in short, MMO design needs a quantum leap or we will be stuck in the shallower part of what is called the “Swords & Sorcery” genre of fantasy.
After killing gazillions of mobs with SMD (Spells of Mass Destruction), I got the feeling that the “Killer” faction actually wants a more personal experience, i.e. killing ME or YOU, Tesh! 🙂
Well, that explains Darkfall. 😉
Just a note of thanks and recognition to Tesh for coining the phrase “murder on rails” which I used as part of the title of my latest blog entry.
[…] wind up as mercenary assassins of one sort or another, trying to selfishly gain power and loot. That’s just how these DIKU MMO things work, for better or worse. […]