Core Tenets of Retaining a Satisfified Playerbase
Hello Verrans! Today I'm going to define the three primary major tenets of Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) games that players value, and then discuss how different MMO's tackle these tenets in their own respective ways.
The first tenet for MMO's is time. Time is not only defined as the time to learn the basics of the game, but wanting to invest your time exploring and finding value in every nook in cranny of the world, its economy, its mobs, and finding value in the details game developers leave. This applies to both general/basic design, to medium/high level gameplay design, but most especially applies to game design that are not in plan sight which can be due to either overlapping in multi-nodal game design, or passion in individual detail. The former leads to what can be defined as base-value (or expected) time investment of the game, while the second is what can be defined as high-value (priceless) time investment of the game. The hardest balance with time is when a player feels like their time is not valued. This can be either due to poor/lazy game design (in both a game mechanic sense and detail sense), undeserved loss of progress/deserved loss of progress without a route and reason to regain that progress, or stagnating progression without alternative routes.
The second tenet in MMO's is power. In general, MMO's address the issue of power by quickly ramping up the power in the early game to hook the player, and then slowing it down for smaller manageable upgrades to the mid/end game for balance and higher value in each small upgrade to increase player retention. But, power can often times is the most encompassing of the tenets, as a truly multi-faceted MMO does not just reflect power as "big number". Power can also represent having a good economic base, having high levels community influence, being specialized or skilled in a specific role, or even having high knowledge in various aspects of the game. The former leads to what can be seen as expectation of most MMO's linear cycles for the modern theme-park MMO. The latter is crucial for the survival of sandbox MMO's, as specialization leads to a demand and place in a community, and therefore makes a thriving world for players to exist and feel a part of.
The third and most important tenet in MMO's is the community. Every MMO's has the capability for players to interact with each other. This can range from forum/chatroom posting, to in-game world chat, to meeting each other in the game world either through happenstance or having similar goals and/or overlapping situations. Through these interactions, individual players go from playing a single player game to suddenly being invested in other people. But the greatest MMO's create an environment in which community interaction is not only encouraged, but exists in every facet of the game. This is what I define as the miracle of MMO's; the ability to make introverted people who find it hard to have connections in the physical world connected by being adjacent in the virtual world. By making these connections in the game, the game transcends the code itself and transforms into something new. This new can be many things, expected and unexpected. But either way, a strong community is cornerstone of every successful MMO, and a good game development team does whatever they can in their power to promote team-work and good neighbors in the world they create.
Finally, I will discuss some MMO's and how they tackle each of these three tenets in their own respective ways.
World of Warcraft (WoW) is the gold standard for the second tenet. In modern WoW, players can do dailies and see a steady progression. In classic Wow, committing time allows you to get immersed in a massive and detailed world and killing mobs in the early game gives you meaningful progression through a satisfactory item system, level system, and skill tree system. To get the best items, players must work together to defeat the group content and get the best items in the game. Due to different item types with different classes, this allows for minimal contention between players and fosters a better relationship through the friend system which culminates into their guild system, the core of their community aspect.
Where Wow falters is due to its over-reliance on tenet number 2. WoW in the end becomes an endless gear-hunt for "big number". Due to that aspect, the only way this model can exist is through an endless theme-park system where the numbers keep getting bigger, and the worlds created get left in the dust as they're only a vessel to get to sitting in the new end-game hub and farm higher numbers. While this isn't inherently bad, no lasting impacts are made with the world as your player is not living in the world, but merely going through actions in the world. Power is everything, and everything else is merely an agent to attain said power.
Eve online a pretty good example in the first tenet. Eve is a serious time commitment, which can be seen literally in the skill section in which levels skills on the in-game time system. Power is achieved through money in the game, and the most effective way to earn money is by investing the time to finding the most efficient farming methods. Strong communities thrive in this game, as a high amount of small trained players can completely annihilate even the biggest of whales through good coordination.
But, the most important take-away from this game is the willingness to continue on for it's players after losing everything due to the highly PVP environment. Experienced Eve players are able to continue to commit hour after hour and stick with the game due to their connections to the strong community, and the value of EVE puts in player's time. The flaw in this is that the sheer amount of time required to get to this point and how hard introduction into this brutal game is. When the player loses due to their difference in time and is not shown how to get to that place or a reason to get to the place the enemy player is at in the game, the player no longer find a reason to play the game or find a new way of playing the game which may not be the most fun way to experience the game for them.
The last example is a good example in the final tenet, Star Wars Galaxies (SWG). The end-game for SWG had more of a sandbox feel to it that was more focused on building your mark on the massive world. Communities were not just a guild that listed out names of players to recruit for a raid. They had different specializations, different game knowledge and were often literally your virtual neighbors. This cemented SWG communities as the core reason to stay for the end-game, as well as some of the best small detail/hard to reach things that players could chase for that were not just big number related (jedi class, color crystals, pets, outfits etc).
Where SWG faltered is due to it's inability to produce new content and by trying to change the structure of the game to appeal to the WoW audience. SWG multiplayer elements relied on the static warfare done in cities and made minimal lasting changes to the dynamics of the game. Fundamentally, theme-park and sand-park MMO's have different goals, and since SWG was initially designed to be a sand-park MMO the game needed more adjustment to align itself with its new WoW values as well as the constant content requirement theme-park MMO's require to keep players invested was unsustainable.
Overall, I believe all MMO's must consider these three tenets if they want to be successful in their game. I wish the best for the Ashes of creation development team and look forward to future developer updates!
-Aldie
