Naoki Yoshida recent interview

[Airget]

They are in decline due to clueless developers like Yoshida. They've been harping the death of MMORPGs long before Yoshida ever showed up and they aren't dead. The current reality is that we have hundreds of thousands of players wanting some game they can enjoy but are forced to play WoW-MMO after WoW-MMO. These devs have been killing the market for years. Yoshida is working for a company that only knows how to make single player games or games with optional multiplayer. I mean, he was surprised that hunts, something implemented due to player request, "even worked." He doesn't have a clue how to make a long lasting MMORPG.

Thing is if you are going to call someone clueless for reviving a failure from the fires then go ahead and make your own MMO and realize how hard it is to pull in people with "hardcore" mechanics that force you to spend an excessive amount of time to just keep up with those around them.

[Risvertasashi]

Thing is if you are going to call someone clueless for reviving a failure from the fires then go ahead and make your own MMO and realize how hard it is to pull in people with "hardcore" mechanics that force you to spend an excessive amount of time to just keep up with those around them.

Wildstar is an excellent case study here. Both in terms of accessing endgame (time sink) and scaling rewards based on performance of the group. Among other things.

spoiler: It ain't pretty.

[Delily]

They are in decline due to clueless developers like Yoshida. They've been harping the death of MMORPGs long before Yoshida ever showed up and they aren't dead. The current reality is that we have hundreds of thousands of players wanting some game they can enjoy but are forced to play WoW-MMO after WoW-MMO. These devs have been killing the market for years. Yoshida is working for a company that only knows how to make single player games or games with optional multiplayer. I mean, he was surprised that hunts, something implemented due to player request, "even worked." He doesn't have a clue how to make a long lasting MMORPG.

So, calling Yoshida clueless is like saying a Iggy Azala can't sing. People are watching her videos on YouTube, and not yours. Similarly, people are playing Yoshida's game, and not yours. You may disagree with this design decisions, but in the end, he has a successful product on his hand. Where's your MMORPG?

Claiming Square only knows how to make single player games with optional offline comments ignores the fact that FFXI has been running for a decade now; in fact, it was released 2 years before WoW. A little known fact is that have a second MMORPG, Dragon Quest, that was released in 2012. Again, where's your MMORPG?

Third, claiming the player base wants something other than WoW is not accurate. I can think of 2 games that are distinct from WoW that have not done well, those being Wildstar and the Secret World. I'll also throw in Warhammer Online, where Mythic basically said "we're the alternative to WoW" and the game flopped. The 2 most successful post WoW MMOS are LoTRO and FFXIV, both of which have refined the WoW model. LoTRO is F2P, true, but it's still a success. Even more, you yourself have a level 60 monk, clearly you dislike FFXIV.

You're entitled to your opinions as everyone else, but claiming Yoshida and Square aren't qualified to speak on MMOs when they have a proven track record is ridiculous.

by copy catting the general structure of a game long since in decline and slapping a few things from GW2 on as an afterthought. Yes, he is skilled as a game developer, and he saved the company by creating a game that managed to sell over 4 million copies. There is a big difference between the genre being stagnant and being in decline. Wild Star's structure is WoW with action combat, although the housing is uniquely its own. ArcheAge is something I have no experience with and will not comment on. The forces at play in the MMORPG market obscure whether it is truly a niche genre because it has been overrun with copy cats created by devs who haven't done their sociology homework.

He took a model that has proven success, and added his own design decisions to it. He was not out to evolve the genre, he was out to save a failing product. You also left out the concept of a genre being mature.

Compare the life of older MMORPGs to these new age ones. The developers for those games, especially Ultima Online, claim to have delved into sociology to learn more about human interaction before building their games. Considering the features implemented in today's MMORPGs are far less social than those of earlier ones, I sincerely doubt the devs for all those WoW clones really did any homework.

The key word is they claim. Maybe Garriot did work with Bartle when making UO, but in the end, that was built in a different market space. Markets evolve over time.

[Risvertasashi]

-snip-

TSW is another excellent example. No classes, no levels, extremely customizable character progression, quests like no other MMO has...

I'm very glad TSW exists, it's truly different and really quite an experience to play. But... it's also been on life support pretty much since launch. Bugs that have been there since release. Content coming 2 years late and in many cases not coming at all...

It just doesn't have population, doesn't have budget, etc etc. I'd still like to see someone successfully reinvent the genre, but, yeah. Most people just don't find alternatives interesting and certainly aren't willing to pay for them.

Minor nitpick about EVE online: It's not really a space sim at all. Its physics model actually resembles that of submarines/being underwater. But mostly it doesn't actually simulate much at all.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

MMOs are in decline. MMOs are honestly getting boring.

However, that is mostly because I've never seen another "POLISHED" Sandbox MMO.

[ruskie]

Yoshida：Maybe I should look into having NPCs that approach players as well. (Laughter)

Yes please.

[KisaiTenshi]

Yes please.

That -IS- how NPC's worked in Ultima 7/7.5 and 8. If you stole something, your (NPC) party members would also just spontaneously leave you and you'd have to convince them to come back.

I've yet to see any CRPG or MMORPG ever do this since. Most NPC's are "nailed to the ground" because they are actually part of the game map, and not dynamicly placed by the server. FFXIV V1.0 's version of FATES(you manually had to join) and V2.0 's FATES were the only exception to this nailed to the ground issue. But they're not really what we're talking about.

Imagine this:
If you started a "new" game, and were just "dropped" into the world. All the Players and NPC's have the same color names so you can't tell them apart. There's no global chat, only /say and link-shell. The entire game requires you to have an 8-player party for all content. To dynamically create an 8-person party all you do is flip a switch and the 7 closest people/npc not in a party with a "auto-join" switch on will join and the content will commence. Your only ability to tell if a player is a computer controlled or not is by asking questions about the world outside the game. eg "How old are you? Where do you live?"

It is a great over-simplification, but this is part of the entire "dating game" genre, where you try to "win over" certain npc's by either being nice, or helping them, and in turn they will willingly help you. In this theoretical game, autonomous computer controlled characters keep schedules like real people, and are actually in demand. Most content could be cleared with an all NPC party, though coordination would be made easier with real people. There are entire games out there already that are basically "dating RPG"'s which western'ers tend to think are a joke. The entire point of that aspect is you don't get to be a jerk to -everyone- , you can completely ignore every npc character and play only with other real people that you met outside the game and likely get through the content much faster.

But I think we're a long way away from simulated worlds that actually have function. A lot of what existing MMO games do is setup goalposts for the ride, and you're just along to push the start button. There can be quite a massive improvement in how player-npc interaction works. There's just not much will to do it because we're still viewing MMO's as games that are full of throwaway props and dolls.

As for VR. I predict it will be even less popular than "3D" is. Sure there will be people who actually buy the entire getup of head, hands and legs. But for all practial purposes, go ask anyone who has ever bought gym equipment what they do with all that crap after a week. It collects dust. Nobody wants to bother "suiting up" to play a game. The proposed VR stuff just isn't going to happen unless they invent an entirely different kind of device that is contained in a helmet. Like think about how expensive a "SLI" setup is already, and now figure out how to stick that on someones head. You will not be buying a 300$ laptop and plugging an OcculusVR into it. You wll be required to buy two of the most expensive video cards available at 1000$/each just so that each eye sees 120fps and you don't get sick.

Gaming has phases.

Adventure games all had a massive die-off due to the internet making it easy to just goto gamefaq's and solve the game so what used to take 3 months to finish could now be finished in about 2 hours. They came back as FPS and Platformers with RPG mechanics thrown on top just to pad the time out, but mostly Adventure games exist as a facet of RPG's or as a narrative switch in other games. There's not much puzzle solving anymore because the puzzles can just be looked up online.

A lot of "edutainment" also had a massive die off, despite it should be massively more successful on mobile devices. The reason? back in the 90's you had to learn to read and type to even play these games. Now both of those issues don't exist on touch devices that can be narrated.

The vast majority of mobile shovelware exists because developers are trying to make a quick buck, and is due for an Atari Shovelware video game crash. Caught in the crosshairs of that will be every game that adopted the freemium business model.

[Delily]

Imagine this:
If you started a "new" game, and were just "dropped" into the world. All the Players and NPC's have the same color names so you can't tell them apart. There's no global chat, only /say and link-shell. The entire game requires you to have an 8-player party for all content. To dynamically create an 8-person party all you do is flip a switch and the 7 closest people/npc not in a party with a "auto-join" switch on will join and the content will commence. Your only ability to tell if a player is a computer controlled or not is by asking questions about the world outside the game. eg "How old are you? Where do you live?"

It is a great over-simplification, but this is part of the entire "dating game" genre, where you try to "win over" certain npc's by either being nice, or helping them, and in turn they will willingly help you. In this theoretical game, autonomous computer controlled characters keep schedules like real people, and are actually in demand. Most content could be cleared with an all NPC party, though coordination would be made easier with real people. There are entire games out there already that are basically "dating RPG"'s which western'ers tend to think are a joke. The entire point of that aspect is you don't get to be a jerk to -everyone- , you can completely ignore every npc character and play only with other real people that you met outside the game and likely get through the content much faster.

Think through the implications of this applied to an MMO. If the NPCs keep a schedule, how would you prevent lockout? Meaning, how would you ensure that if a person (with limited time) wants to clear content, how would you ensure there's always at least 7 NPCs around that can help him? Also, how much time would a person need to spend managing relationships with NPCs. Dating sims work well in a single player setting, I've yet to see one scale out to multiplayer.

I'm not trying to shoot down the idea, more just interested in seeing some of the downsides to it.

[KisaiTenshi]

Think through the implications of this applied to an MMO. If the NPCs keep a schedule, how would you prevent lockout? Meaning, how would you ensure that if a person (with limited time) wants to clear content, how would you ensure there's always at least 7 NPCs around that can help him? Also, how much time would a person need to spend managing relationships with NPCs. Dating sims work well in a single player setting, I've yet to see one scale out to multiplayer.

I'm not trying to shoot down the idea, more just interested in seeing some of the downsides to it.

I mean they keep a schedule. Like the game has a day and night cycle right? So you will always have NPC's attending their shops (your regular shops) during the day, and sleeping at night, and shops that are only open during the night (eg blackmarkets) and are attended by more "dark" NPC's. Should you choose to embark on a quest that requires 7 players, whoever is available (depending on content,) player or NPC will join the party. If the NPC's die during the quest they are subject to the same rules players are. So if you kick them from the party while they are knocked out, they will revive back in town and "remember you for that" and the next time you look for a party, that NPC will not join you again until you make it up to them. Or you could just go about an never try to fix it, there are plenty of other players and NPC's.

If there is an especially good NPC (let's say for the sake of argument, you wanted to take the "King" out on an adventure) they will likely not join players that aren't popular with NPC's. But should you get the King in your party, the King will want the quest to succeed at all costs, so they may "rent" you all the gear you need for the quest for free as long as you're on that quest. Shopkeep NPC's may do the same. Adventurer NPC's can only rent gear they own. Smithy-type NPC's may craft or repair gear just go out on such quests. And so forth.

As for downsides...

Most NPC's will likely not join you on quests that are anti-alignment. You need to seek players/NPC's of the same quest alignment. If you're in "Herotown" and you want to start the quest "Who wants to be A Villainare?" , chances are nobody will join your party until you wander outside Herotown, or find the shady backalley at night. So most of the time un-aligned quests will find party members in the immediate vicinity that will be willing to do that quest. NPC's shopkeepers are always interested in joining because they can get "Free loot", and taking a shopkeeper NPC with you will make that shopkeeper NPC unavailable to the rest of the world until they are dismissed from the party or the quest ends. Most NPC's will keep their own narrative, and failing certain quests will make them unwilling to join players again if that quest is not yet completed.

Some NPC's will have "blank" slate narratives to begin with, and will join anyones party, but they are basically "NPC-casual" and can only learn how to fight other monsters by copying what players do. Where as specific NPC types (Eg Deity, Celebrity, Shopkeeps, Light Adventurer, Dark Adventurer) will have a certain style and alignment in order for them to join, and some are better than others for certain quests. Celebrity NPC's would include socialites and royalty, and you'd need to be "on their list" just to speak to them. They might be awful combat partners, but they have high charisma, so it may be possible to solve a quest peacefully that would otherwise require bloodshed. A Deity NPC (think more along the lines of the primals in FFXIV) would require sacrifices of time or inventory to their shrine or temple, so they would be very-powerful but also very expensive in game resources to summon.

Like just to touch back on the "dating game" concepts. In a MMORPG context, the only game that did this was Mabinogi, but every time your character was "reborn" the NPC's all forget, so there wasn't really much point to it. There were certain quests and gear available if you made the NPC's like you enough, but none of them joined you in any quest.

The idea here isn't to have 3-4 NPC's that follow you around like a lost puppy the minute you login, but rather the NPC's will keep a popularity table, and should you be on their list when you open a party, they will join you automatically if you don't invite them first. If a quest requires 3 healers, then only NPC's that have a healer AI would join.

If shopkeepers are absent due to being out on a quest, or sleeping, other shopkeepers will take their place if their shop is regularly busy.

As I said, it would require a great deal of foresight to plan a smarter NPC-Player interaction system, and it requires the world actually functioning like a world with needs, not just having NPC's that give out their one quest while being part of the map.