The past few weeks I’ve been playing a lot of Requiem: Bloodymare in my free time. (as evident by the posting about it, and there’s more to come!) The other portion of my gaming time is with Eve. So, I’m balancing between RMT and subscription. Whenever I surf around gaming sites and find a discussion between the two business models it always seems the majority [strongly] dislike RMT. Why is that? What are the differences?

The hate, it seems, comes from the idea that people can pay to make the game ‘easier’ or get an advantage — whether it be through buffs or special items. In some cases I find this argument appropriate; if the only way to get the best gear in the game, that gives a decidely unfair advantage in certain aspects of the game, is to spend money — it’s wrong. Simply making the game ‘easier’ or getting some convience items/buffs is perfectly fine to me. They make the game more enjoyable to the person that wants them and is willing to pay for them. I’ve never been an achiever type, I could care less if I had the best gear and ruled the [virtual] world. Perhaps that is why RMT doesn’t bother me.

Even the buying/selling of characters doesn’t bother me, and it can already be done in Everquest II and Eve Online — soon Vanguard: Saga of Heroes will also allow it. These are games we play, with no real meaning other than entertainment — if you really want to be the best, then be the best. If you have the [real] skills, it shouldn’t matter whether the other people bought their characters or not — or had an easier time playing.  

The differences between RMT and subscription are pretty obvious. Subscriptions charge a certain amount for a certain period of time — sort of like a contract. (or exactly like a contract) Typically, you buy the game (roughly $50.00) then begin paying a $15.00 subscription after your first ‘free’ month is up. RMT typically charges nothing for the client or to play. But RMT does have a ‘cash shop’ where you convert real money to cash shop ‘currency’ or ‘tokens’ and spend those tokens on things to use in-game. RMT is typically completely optional. (that’s generally the rub for most die hard subscription fans, ‘typically’) The only RMT game I’ve spent any money in was Runes of Magic to get a permanent mount and some extra bag space. Even in Requiem I havn’t bought anything yet. (Requiem does have optional basic and premium subscription services though, with some goodies for that — apart from their cash shop services) Either way supports the developers/producers. The only true difference is you must pay to play with subscriptions, while you can play for free with RMT. 

Playing a game for free is nice — every gamer would love to get free games. But, as a somewhat recent article on Gamasutra pointed out, having free games means having a lot of choice in what to play. Just like flipping between channels, many gamers would likey flip between games and not get truly invested in one of them — a real killing blow to the RMT model. Does this mean RMT can’t work? Obviously not, it is working. It simply means competition will become more and more fierce and only the best will survive and profit. Natural selection works in the MMO world, even with subscription based games. If you look at Asheron’s Call 2, Tabula Rasa, and Auto Assault — all deemed poor quality games by many — they died off. (I will say, I loved Asheron’s Call 2 and wish it didn’t close down)

Subscription model games should have a better chance at survival due to a more stable income — as long as they know their subscriber base, they know how much money they have to work with. The only problem for subscriptions is maintaining that subscriber base over a long period.

 Player base problems with RMT typically involve size instead — they need a large base in order to get a decent amount of income since the majority of players do not pay for the game.

Overcoming both problems requires the same solution — producing decent content on a regular basis. Just like television shows, people will stop tuning in if they don’t like what they see or are just getting re-runs.

Has this subject been beaten to death? Yes? Cool, let me beat it some more.

There has been one single aspect of MMOs that continually draws me away from them — the grind. EVERY MMO has one in some shape or form, whether it be monsters, quests, crafting, skills or money. If you want to advance, you have to grind something — work for it. In real life that’s a pretty solid reason, not everyone can have everything they want — if you want something you work for it. But why do we have to go through it in MMOs? Last I checked they were games. I’ve always found putting barriers in place to keep people from the truly enjoyable content, just to keep them paying longer, to be silly. I find my favorite challenges are ones that require true personal skill and thought to overcome, not ones that simply require obscene amounts of free time. (which I don’t have) Leveling, skilling, making money — none of it is really a challenge in ANY game, it just takes a lot of time. This is solely for the benefit of the company producing the game, to try and get people to spend more money — whether it uses the subscription model or the cash shop. Why not change that? What could be changed? How would it be done…

I’m certainly no professional game designer, but I’ve played games for nearly two decades now and seen quite a bit. The typical MMO involves stats, skills/levels/both, and equipment for displaying advancement. I’m pretty fine with equipment — it’s a great visual achievement. But what can be done for the rest?

The wii is a good starting point. The wiimote is just the right type of device that we need to spice things up in the MMO world — deepening the interaction of the player and the game. So, what if we took away the levels and skill levels and instead gave players their equipment, but their ability with it was purely their own? Swords would have to be swung, spell incantations drawn out — all by the player. Stats would still be apart of the game, but not numerically visible to the players (think I’ve used this before in the ideas page?) — actual changes to the characters appearance should allow for that.  This may never come to PCs, but would be cool to see on the wii. 

How would the above be good for removing grind? By taking out some of the most ground elements! The next step is in the content — develop content that can be done in multiple ways, is truly involved and rewarding. Developers set the pace for advancement, they know that if you do x quests you’ll be at y point in the game. However, players do skip content, or do content in a different order and the experience can change. This is fine and should not only be expected, but encouraged.

Content tends to be the most lacking aspect of MMOs. I remember the launch of DDO, in the early levels grinding was pretty much non-existent. You did quests in dungeons that had more depth than simple kill x y number of times. (it may have had some of that though, it has been a while) When you went into these dungeons you had to have a group, and group make up could change the experience. Doing a dungeon a few times was easy when you had a different group each time — it could, and did, change the experience. Having multiple ways of completing a dungeon/quest is an excellent feature to have. The biggest downfall for DDO at its launch was not the quality of the content but the lack of it — they simply did not have the time to create a lot of it since it took longer to make. I see this as being the biggest hurdle to overcome — designing quality content on a mass scale.

The next hurdle is making that content repeatable, and making people want to repeat it. Instancing could go a long way for this — once you’ve killed the evil Dread Lord Ornash in the Keep of Blood, you wouldn’t want to kill him again, would you? But, what if his lieutenant was away pillaging some village, and returned after you had ransacked the place? Now in revenge he’s seeking out your life and the lives of your friends… and now you must all return to the Keep of Blood and truly put an end to the Dread Lords. It would be using the same instance, same elements, but there would be a difference — perhaps this lieutenant has some tricks that Ornash didn’t have, maybe those traps you knew about before are no longer the only ones around.

I think a basic concept of this is being taken up in more MMOs, calling it ‘phasing’, and I suspect it will become pretty commonplace in the next 5-10 years.

Another challenge is removing the gap between players of different ‘levels’. When you start out in WoW/EQ2 now, you’re basically worthless for the first 70 or so levels — everyone is off doing the higher level content since they’ve been playing for years. How can this be overcome? Eve Online does a decent job of it, new players can participate in the content that older players do — to some degree. Certainly no new player can hop into a dreadnaught and start sieging POSs right from the start, but they can fit small, cheap tacklers. They may not be able to jump into a mackinaw and mine ice, but in a short bit of time can get a cheap industrial and haul ice for a corp mate. Removing the majority of numerical stat and skill differences would allow younger players to partake in content that older players go through — and vice-versa. Having more people to group with at any given time is a boon for both the new and old players, and having more people to work with should help build up the community further — allowing for better player retention. 

Removing the grind, removing barriers and allowing for further player interaction can only be a positive thing for MMOs. Perhaps one day it’ll happen…