In the wake of perhaps one of the most conservative MMO designs that enjoyed great success, we have Guild Wars, possibly the boldest and most original MMO designs to be released. Yeah, yeah, they’ve got swords and sorcery, combat, a grind, etc, but it’s the stuff where they really differentiate themselves from the competitors that should make any student of MMO design sit up and take notice.
I’m really surprised more people aren’t talking about it.
From my point of view, even if the game fails, the learning that the industry will go through along the way will be invaluable towards breaking us out of our current rut. Here’s some of the more interesting choices they made:
No monthly fee. When you talk to somebody about Guild Wars, this is probably the first thing they’ll say positively about it, so the idea clearly has resonance. Guild Wars opts for a model where they sell expansion packs which offers more character building options (but in theory, not more power — see ‘lateral advancement’ below). In theory, players can play for free after buying the box, although I’m sure in NCSoft’s business model, they plan for most of their moderate-to-heavy users to pick up most if not all of the expansions. This has some interesting effects, which may not be immediately apparent.
First and foremost, it moves players away from a commitment purchase and towards a series of impulse purchases. Sure, many of us are used to monthly charges, and cognitively we know that $10 bucks a month will get us five months of gameplay for the cost of buying Doom. But that doesn’t change the fact that we don’t like commitments. Your average Joe has been trained by Gym Memberships they can’t quit and cell phone companies begging them not to leave. To them, a monthly fee is something they’ll forget to cancel until six months later when they finally take a close look at their credit card bills. They find that a little daunting. On the other hand, Americans are all about fire-and-forget purchasing. It’s possible that this paradigm shift helps break MMOs out to a larger audience.
There are other psychological things that happen as well. In the old days, UO and EQ enjoyed very lengthy subscription life cycles from their fans, but these have been shortening over time. The reasons for this merit its own lengthy post, but a clear one is that now, with more competition for the MMO dollar, a customer can only justify having a couple monthly fee games on their credit card (not just to him, but also to his spouse). In today’s age, when players make a decision to quit, they don’t take a break like they used to. Instead, they hand out their stuff, make a big theatrical deal about leaving, and then bolt, planning to never log on again.
But if the game’s really good, or the live team gets their shit together, you might want to come back. At that point, the character you lost is an even bigger reason NOT to. For example, I’m intrigued by Jump to Lightspeed, but if I logged on to find that my Master Armorsmith was gone, that experiment would be over. With no monthly fee, there’s no need to cancel. Much like the magic card collection you have stashed under your bed, your character is still hanging around, in case the game strikes your fancy.
Lateral Advancement. This is what I thought people would be talking about more, but I’ve only really seen discussion about it on GW-specific fan sites. Personally, I find it very exciting, as it’s a direct assault on ‘the grind’ that people loathe so much.
The general gist is that, while there are levels and experience, these are easily zoomed through. The player’s true growth is collecting spells and abilities for their character, and so long-term play grants your character more flexibility. Everyone who talks about it compares it to collecting cards in Magic the Gathering, though I’ll confess it doesn’t quite nail it on the head. Still, I find the direction this is going to be very exciting.
Quick time to PVP Viability. Hey, you hate levelling up characters to prepare for the endgame? Well, screw all that stuff. If you decide that a character is purely for PvP, the game gives you the option to bypass the grind entirely and take a high-level character directly into the fray. I like to think their billing model helps enable this – if there is no account cancellation, there is less pressure on designers to lengthen the play experience and try to build retention mechanisms in the game.
Heavy usage of instancing. Virtually every space in the game is instanced, to the degree that many have made the accusation that the game isn’t an MMO at all. While I’m not as big a fan of instancing as some others, I certainly appreciate the value of someone trying out the extreme approach to see what we all can learn from it. One interesting benefit of their structure is that their instanced fights are zerg-proof, as each fight is a fairly even-handed experience between small groups (8 vs 8, I believe). I do hope those fights get bigger – I’d expect larger conflicts from a title called ‘Guild Wars’.
Background downloading of new content. This is just a really cool piece of technology I hope to see more of in the future.
So how does it all work out? I… don’t know yet. I’ve only dabbled in it so far. My initial experience was mostly confusion – trying to figure out how everything works. It’s newbie experience is definitely less glossy than other recent entries into the market, and I think they took enough risks that they need even MORE handholding than their competitors. The game is oddly counterintuitive at times. Sometimes, the information I need is right on the screen but my eyes just gloss right over it.
I love the thinking behind the game, I just wish it were stickier and easier to get into. Still, I think everyone who loves MMOs should watch this one closely over the next couple of months.
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