A few hours ago I was reading through my emails and received an update from one of my favorite gaming sites, MMORPG.COM, that caught my eye. MMORPG has a column called "community spotlight" that takes forum conversations and highlights them as a blog post. I posted a quick response to the article (see if you can figure out who I am once I post this) but I felt like I had a lot more to say than I wanted to leave in the comments.
I feel that there is a lost opportunity every time a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) gets shut down. It's not because of the subscribers that they lose when they stop accepting their money. It's because those subscribers (and probably many more people) would love to have their own version of the game that they can play at home by themselves or with friends even after the game has been shut down for good.
More after the jump
EverQuest OFFLINE
My first MMORPG experience was EverQuest. I logged thousands of hours into that game and never experienced even a small fraction of what was out there. There is a near endless amount of quests, zones, mobs (mobile NPCs), special drops, rare items, etc. Most of which are obsolete by years of expansions that have built players into monsters compared to the original top end toons. The problem in EQ is that if you want to stay relevant and have people around that want to play with you then you need to be on the cutting edge when it comes to gear and goals. If you want to experience older content for the pure entertainment value it brings and the odd old rare drop that you can show off from your bank then you're out of luck.
I spent the last year or so I was subscribed trying to run old raids (50+ player quests) and find fun little items that had special abilities. I had a second account that gave me the ability to do a whole lot more than I could on my own, but even my box shaman couldn't replace having adventurous friends. In essence I was logging into a subscription based chat room and playing an offline game. I still loved playing, but all my friends had moved on and when I needed just a little bit of help to conquer some old boss that nobody had killed in ages I could NEVER find it. Everyone was too busy being high end raiders, keying themselves into some new dungeon, or grinding AAs (Alternate Advancement points... similar to leveling but nearly unlimited) to do a blast from the past run through some old castle to kill some old boss who drops some old trinket that nobody needs.
At this point I figured I'd try to start up my own guild based on running old raids and experiencing the maximum quantity of adventure possible without the desire to be the best geared. I received nearly zero interest. The people I did find could barely fill out a group. When I explained to them that the first thing I'd like to do is get everyone keyed for Vex Thal...
BREAKING NEWS: When I went to go get a link to the Vex Thal quest I read that VEX THAL IS NOW OPEN TO ALL PLAYERS LEVEL 55+... Do you have any idea how long I farmed those stupid luclid shards off names that spawn 1 out of 5 with a 30 minute timer and only drop the shard 3 out of 5 times? I spent WEEKS hunting stupid green mobs for EACH shard only to have to roll for them only to LOSE THE ROLL 3 OR 4 TIMES PER SHARD AODGHAODSGIHASGHAJGHNASGHO;LASGH;L and then they open it up... I may have to renew my sub for a month just to hit that damn zone... ANYWAY... BACK TO THE POST
ehem... so I gave everyone the link to the Vex Thal Quest and told them that if they need any help finding placeholder mobs or camping any of the shards I'd be on just about every day doing the camps and would be happy to help. After a few days of trying to get 5 other guys keyed they all decided this was a stupid idea and went off to grind more XP (Experience Points).
So, here I am. A warrior who's too well geared to find any upgrades in a group but too low geared to get INTO a group. I know that sentence doesn't make a lot of sense, so let me just say that's EXACTLY what I meant. I was just about full raid geared from farming Anguish meaning I had gear that was far superior to current day group content [NOTE: I stopped playing a couple years ago. I'm sure current group stuff trumps Anguish gear]... but the groups that were looking for warriors wanted only warriors in current end game gear!
To get into a raiding guild that could bring me up to par I would have to invest a specific amount of time per week raiding. Because I wasn't cutting edge, I'd just be a liability to the guild on the raid anyway. A common raid guild would have a mission statement that went like this: "You are required to attend 60% of raids to stay in the guild. In order to bid on loot you need to be at 75% raid attendance. New members will not be able to bid on loot for 30 days. Raid schedule: M,T,W,F 6-11PM EST and Su 1PM-5PM EST." To clarify, that means they raid 5 days a week. In order to improve your character through drops you have to go to at least 4 of those raids a week for 30 days and then you have to "bid" on loot using what is commonly called "DKP." Briefly, DKP is awarded for attendance and tracked by a guild officer so when an item drops it is auctioned off to the highest DKP bidder. Going any deeper into that will make you gloss over... if you haven't already. Most guilds have a rigid raid schedule and stick to it. They expect you to be able to be on for those hours doing what they want you to do for that amount of time or more. So what happens to guys like me who work all different shifts? Some weeks I work during the day, some weeks I'm at night. Even if I do make every raid when I'm home during those hours I'm still below the 75% attendance I need to loot any items and improve my character... and I accumulate a massive quantity of wife aggro.
EverQuest's Charm and How Most People Miss it Completely
everQUEST to me was about adventure. From the minute I logged in for the first time I couldn't believe this whole world was designed with things for me to find and conquer. I was equally blown away by the fact that there were all these other real people around me who were helpful, friendly, and made life online so much more enjoyable. But, when it came down to it, what I loved the most about EQ was the ability to live an online life as an adventurer. I'd go from zone to zone hailing NPCs to find the next piece of some puzzle that would end up giving me a piece of gear so old and underpowered that I'd never even put it on. When I'd get that piece I'd be so excited that I had to send everyone a link of the item and tell them the story of my most recent adventure. It would go a little something like this:
Me: "Hey, guild, check it out! I just finished the quest for this LINK: Shiny Sword"
Guildmate1: "LINK: Shinier Sword I Bought for 100 Platinum"
Me: "I know it's not the best, but the quest brought me all over Antonica and I figured it out all by trial and error, hunting down quest pieces, and figuring out key words to say"
Guildmate2: "lol"
Guildmate1: "Why didn't you just buy the one I got for 100 platinum?"
Guildmate3: "If you need a sword, just ask I'll give you one 10 times better for nothing"
Me: "I did it for the adventure"
Guildmate2: "lol what?"
I believe with all my heart that the original developers of EverQuest intended the "fun" of the game to be found in the satisfaction of completing quests and adventuring through the unknown. While the ol' XP grind seems like the main activity, I think it was designed to give you a way to get to know people and bond with them while you're doing quests or getting more powerful so you could get new quests done. I wouldn't even be shocked if one of the devs said that the quests were supposed to go hand in hand with the grind and that you were supposed to level up through a series of quests that required you to kill a bunch of mobs while you waited on some special mob to spawn.
What ended up being the "fun" for most people I've played with was advancement. It was getting that new helm or winning the bid on that new sword that they looked forward to. It wasn't about the activity being done, it was the reward for finishing it. This caused most everyone to go into an arms race that's lasted for a decade without realizing it. I'd always hear stuff like "once I get my new ax from this raid I'll be able to do so much more DPS. I'll finally be able to go to that zone." Once they get to that zone it's "After I grind 100 more AAs I'll be able to go to this other zone." For a lot of people it really felt empty to play the game if they weren't constantly advancing their gear and becoming more powerful. When you'd ask them why they need to do a bajillion DPS they wouldn't know.
South Park summed this up very nicely in their episode about World of Warcraft. In that episode they grind for months to take on one griefer who keeps killing them. Once he's dead they say "OKay... now we can finally play the game." Only to go back to exactly what they were doing before. EQ can pass you by while you're playing it. If all you are concerned with is being the best, then you miss out on all the joy that can be had experiencing the lore and adventure that's out there. You don't have to enjoy things the way I do, but I've seen top 5 warriors quit the game way more often than you'd expect. Why? When they have everything they can get there is nothing left for them in the game. There is nothing fun but advancement if you let the other stuff go by.
NEWSBREAK from the future: EQ Goes Dark!
At some point in the future Sony Online Entertainment is going to pull the plug on EQ. Maybe it's years away, maybe it's sooner, but it's coming. Everyone has been saying it's over for years but it keeps on plugging away. It goes dark... what's next?
I believe that there are hundreds of thousands of players who would love to play EQ again, but on their own terms. People like me that could never finish their epic quest because some platinum farmer had their quest mob on a timer for 10 years. People who want to experience the little things and have access to the character that they lived through for all those hundreds of hours. Here's how I see it happening.
You can buy a copy of offline EQ. That copy works very similarly to how FPS multiplayer games work. You can set up a server online, select options (which expansions to include, who can join, etc) and play. Your character is persistent on your end. The world shuts down with the server. That means I could take my warrior and join my friend's EQ "room" and quest with him when I wanted to on his instance of the EQ world or he could join me. I could set up my server to have any number of simultaneous connections so I could organize a raid of any zone at any time and invite a whole raid party to my server, get set up and go without having to worry about raid timers. Those players could be organized on a message board, a chat room, a super cool blog about games (lolololo) or through real life friends, but you're pulling from people all over the world who have an interest in this game at this time instead of your server or your guild.
NEW POST: Vex Thal raid
Hey, guys. I'm setting up a Vex Thal raid for this weekend. I'll be hosting the room starting at 18:00 EST and the raid will move out at 19:00 EST. I'd like to get a feel for who'd like to come. Post here with your character information if you'd like to make a run through good ol Vex Thal. All loot will be /random 1000. Afterwards we can make a second run or we can move the raid. What do you think?
If I saw that post I'd be in in a heartbeat. Add a search function to the server list and you'd be rockin and rollin.
Servername: Baromen's World
Current Zone: Riftseeker's Sanctum
Connections: 5 of 6
Average Level: 71
Description: Level 72 Warrior grinding some AAs with level 70 Shaman [box'd]. Join up for some GRINDAN
Servername: Glantok the Raider
Current Zone: Asylum of Anguish
Connection: 15 of 32
Average level: 74
Description: Farming anguish augs and 2.0 orbs.
Servername: Old Skool
Current Zone: Halas
Connections: 3 of 6
Average Level: 6.5
Description: Questing through Antonica. Grinding the early levels WITHOUT twink gear.
Can you imagine that? How much fun would it be to be able to organize anyone who's purchased an "offline" copy of EQ into whatever you felt like doing? How many people would come back if they didn't have to deal with certain player related problems or have to keep up with their neighbors via endless raids? How many people would love to kill Nagalfar with a group of level 50s geared up in the expansion's appropriate gear? How awesome would it be to try to reinact the killing of The Sleeper?
An offline copy would be like a time machine that you could enjoy forever. If the devs decided it was worth it they could even select "expansion appropriate replacements" for weapons that didn't exist when you're going into battle in an older expansion. Have your epic 2.0 but want to raid the plane of time in a server that restricts all newer expansions? You'll have the choice to select appropriate gear from your bank or have your gear replaced with "expansion appropriate replacements."
The economy would be a difficult thing to "fake" for an offline game, but I'm sure that something could be done to make it rewarding enough to screw around with. This is pretty much a MMORPG simulator anyways. You're not going to get the same experience. It's just a way to enjoy something in a new way instead of it being gone forever.
Since EQ introduced "mercenaries" to the mix, why not have programmable "bots" that you could bring along to fill out a raid? Why not give the ability to control any one of them at any time? Select the monk, pull a mob, go back to your warrior, tank the mob. While you're tanking, the monk goes back to dps. While you're pulling with the monk, the warrior is ready to assist. You could program commands similar to how the platinum farmers used macros to have your "bot group" do whatever you want them to do. Want your bard to sing an AC tune mixed with Selo's? You got it! Want the cleric to use quick heals instead of complete heals? Would you rather have your enchanter charm an add instead of mezzing it? You get the picture. It'd be a whole new game of multitasking with added AI support.
MY EYES! THE NOSTALGIA GOGGLES DO NOTHING!
Nostalgia is a terrible thing because it makes us do things like renew a sub because you just read that a zone you never got to go to because it was locked is now open to everyone 55+. That costs you at least a month's subscription, makes you remember all the bad things again, and puts you back out of the game remorseful that you didn't just let it go.
But, if you could set up your own instance of the game, invite people to that instance under the pretense that you'd be doing what you want to do, and go back and do it... that's a delicious serving of nostalgia served with an exciting new memory topping. Add in that you can have a realistic experience of what it was like when that content was fresh by restricting gear or blow through it like a one man army with all your shiny NEW gear and you have something that will be revisited for years to come.
When you take out the need for there to be thousands of people subscribed at once and give people the option to pay up front (and maybe even rent a server of their own) to play with whoever they want whenever they want you have a sustainable model that will be remembered as something special forever. Yes, you lose the persistent online world that gave life to the pixels around you, but you gain the ability to experience all the content on your own terms after the online product has passed it's profitable life. Why would anyone let over a decade of imaginative content just vanish when there are thousands of people who'd love to be able to say they can go back to it at any time?
The End
Do I feel this model works for most MMORPGS? Yes, but with a little caveat. The longer a game is live and the more people that have subscribed the greater chance you have at making a buck and giving people something they really enjoy. Do I think that Tabula Rasa is worth an offline version after it's short life? I don't know. I never got a chance to experience the game, but from what I've read I'm sure there would be some interest even if it was only to fly around using a devkit and just look at the places that you could go.
What I do know is that this week I happened across a video an old guild mate of mine made. It was just a series of screenshots with background music that detailed our progression through the Planes of Power raids. I was so nostalgia'd out that I wanted to resub right there. The timing of the MMORPG.com article was perfect and hit me in a place that I am passionate about. I'd LOVE to be able to start up a version of the EQ world on my PC today and just be able to move around the zones like a GM and look at everything. Just to stand there and stare down Quarm again... not even to interact with him... but to stand there and just see him grunting and waiting... ready to test the metal of the next guild who thinks they've got what it takes... Just to look at it one more time... I can't even put a price on it. I'd pay whatever SOE would want. I couldn't get my credit card out fast enough if I could have my own little time capsule to enjoy... even if I couldn't see a thousand other players hanging around the big bank in the plane of knowledge...
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