More work than play?

I’m not a fan of the FPS genre.

In fact, I use FPSs as an example to help demonstrate that I’m not biased, but merely expressing a point. “Sure I think that x games are great, but I’m not naïve; after all, I know that CoD sucks, am I right?” Of course this shows bias in a completely different way again, but let’s not get into that here.

Rather I’d like to take a look at another genre that I believe is, on principle, worse than FPS, one which I vehemently disapprove of, not out of personal taste, but because of the rut that the genre has been digging itself into for the last six years.

Yes, I’m looking at you MMORPGs.

Now, those among you who are familiar with MMORPGs should also be familiar with the common complaints raised against them – namely the Skinner box technique they use, the way that they attempt to get you addicted and then the methods by which they go about triggering an emotional attachment between you and the addiction. However, I feel that these problems have been overarticulated by critics and so I’d quite like to attack MMORPGs from another angle. I would like to look at a problem that I have experienced with them, not as manipulative corporate tools, but as games.

First and foremost, the main reason why I am so disillusioned with MMORPGs is that no MMORPG that I have ever played has lived up to its portrayal in the media. Neither its portrayal in adverts, or even reviews. No, I expect those to provide me with an exaggerated picture of the game, but rather the fact is that the ‘Let’s Play’ videos of so many MMORPGs have been vastly more enjoyable for me to watch than playing the MMORPG itself.

Case in point? Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Playthroughs of this game looked amazing. For all intents and purposes, it appeared that you would get to play out the role of a hero or villain in the Star Wars universe, an expansive universe that could only exist in a MMORPG.

When I eventually got to play the game itself for a considerable amount of time though, it wasn’t all that great. Sure, it’s above average for an MMORPG, but at the same time, after a couple of hours of gameplay, it got to the point where I was given a choice between doing a “kill 10 of those” quest or grinding for a few hours in order to be able to defeat a boss in the main story arc. What had appeared to be a fresh new adventure game while watching other people play, quickly became boring and samey.

This is in no way confined to the Old Republic though, I know that the same problems have rung true for every MMORPG that I have ever played, be it anything from Lego Universe right up to Twelve Sky 2.

I see the heart of the problem lying in the fact that MMORPGs are meant to be played indefinitely, while you will only ever get to see a limited amount of them before you ever actually play them. In truth this would explain why when I played SW:TOR at Gamefest last year I really, really enjoyed it. Yet when I was given access to the beta and got to play it for a longer period of time, I just could not enjoy it as much as I had done. While snapshots of MMORPGs provide you with just as much of a snapshot of the game as other genres do, due to the length of MMORPGs, you get a lot less content per hour played.

The way I see this as working is that MMORPGs try to draw the player in through providing them with much longer tasks than any normal game would ever ask of you. This is partially because MMORPGs have servers that are always on, meaning you can leave a quest halfway through and shut your PC down and still be able to pick up the quest at the same point when you log back in. In addition, ever since World of Warcraft, the best way to deal with massive numbers of players has been seen as having longer quests and tasks.

This is because with such huge groups of people all playing in the same world at the same time, you do not want everyone to be doing the same quest at the same time. As such, while a core story often remains, MMORPGs will try to considerably thin the ranks of players in the same place at the same time (while still keeping them playing) by having both a huge number of side quests and activities that will pull the players off the main quest line by rewarding them for doing so (hence xp grinding). The reason why they can’t just add more core plot lines running parallel to each other is that they would take far too much time and money to develop, especially when compared to the time and money required to produce a side-quest-grinding option.

As a result, the more you (or certainly I) play an MMORPG, the less you find yourself enjoying it as you have to do the same, or very similar, task over and over again. While other games (like normal RPGs for instance) can have a definite end to them, MMORPGs need to keep you playing as long as possible so that you keep paying your subscription or completing micro-transactions.

And this, my dear reader, is why Guild Wars 2 is not going to be as fun as it currently seems to you.

I’ve watched all the videos, I’ve paid close attention to the previews that gaming publications have been releasing on YouTube for the last week and you know what? It looks fantastic! At the same time though, so did SWTOR, as did Eden Eternal and so does WoW, even now after I’ve played it and know for myself I don’t actually like the dratted game.

I’ll give Guild Wars 2 this – it does look innovative and original, but only for an MMORPG.

The fact remains that, despite the various factions in conflict, despite the spontaneous quests appearing in the world around you and despite the unique and flexible approach to levelling, it is still an MMORPG that has made the decision to try and improve on the core problems of other MMORPGs while still having them at its centre. It is still a game that will require xp grinding and it still has side quests (even if it doesn’t call them by this name) that will get repetitive very quickly. Guild Wars 2 hasn’t even really gotten rid of the “kill 10 of those” quests, they instead modified them into “defend some of these” quests by having you frequently defend certain towns in the game world.

Guild Wars 2 does look like it has improved on the core problems of MMORPGs, but this does not mean that they have gone away. Essentially, if you go and make a beautiful origami swan out of a soiled piece of tissue paper, you still have a soiled piece of tissue paper.

So, I am really sorry for those of you who who have been hyped up about Guild Wars 2, but please take note; so far as I can see, Guild Wars 2 is shaping up to be just as repugnant as every other MMORPG out there.

It doesn’t have to be like this, however, and there are so many ways that MMORPGs can be fixed and improved to the point where they are enjoyable. I have nothing against the genre as a concept, just the execution of it.

As to what those improvements are though, that’s a topic for another week. For now I think it is obvious enough that there is something intrinsically wrong with the MMORPGs of today. It just is not right when it gets to the point where it is more enjoyable to watch a game rather than actually playing it.