[MUD-Dev] Why are we all making RPGs?

[Andrew Kirmse]

I've often wondered when, or indeed if, the spread of the Internet
and the graphics technology we've had available for the past 5 years
or so would lead to new types of online games.  However, the
tried-and-true RPG is still enjoying overwhelming dominance among
large-scale online games.  There have been important exceptions, and
more are on the way (Planetscape, Earth and Beyond, The Sims Online,
and many others), but RPGs and their central concepts (such as
avatars, PvP, combat, leveling) permeate all of our discussions and
designs.  I am interested in finding out how the commercial games
industry can move beyond RPGs into new genres of
massively-multiplayer games.  I'm asking this here because any
future online game must take the current RPGs as a frame of
reference, and in addition many of you have both RPG and non-RPG
experience.

One might point to several reasons why the RPG is still the genre of
choice for massively-multiplayer games.  First, the genre has a long
and proven history of being successfully computerized.  Many MUDs
and MMORPGs are well-implemented and extremely popular.  This
success builds on itself; profitable RPGs spawn clones, the builders
of previous RPGs become experts in the field and move on to build
better RPGs.  In these early days when the technology for building
graphical MMORPGs is being developed, it's natural to turn to MUDs
as a proven design.  It has been said that most successful games
innovate in only a single area, and these games have innovated in
multiplayer technology while staying very close to the decades-old
formulas of single-player RPGs.

A second reason for the success of RPGs is their intuitive appeal.
Especially after years of avatar-based games, it seems natural that
the player is represented by an individual on the screen, with a
body and a face.  To propose otherwise sounds awkward--how will the
players know where they are?  How will they communicate?  These
questions illustrate the degree to which we've tried to transplant
the physical world, or familiar fantasy worlds, into our virtual
worlds.  It's certainly true that the familiarity of avatars, and to
a lesser extent the comfortable apparatus of single-player RPGs,
have lent MMORPGs a degree of mass market appeal they probably would
not have achieved without them.

Finally, we ourselves and our industry have consciously perpetuated
the RPG, to great effect and profit.  Just as in single-player
games, the industry chases profits; clones of previous games are
seen as lower risk than new games, so proven formulas are generally
preferred over new ones.  It would be unfair to blame only the
sequel-itis of the industry, though.  As game creators, we've felt
inspired to create similar, but better versions of games we've
played.  Everquest is a direct descendent of the very first MUDs by
only 6 or 7 generations, each of which built quite directly on a
similar design from the previous generation.  Much as DOOM and Quake
have spawned an entire sub-industry of ever more specialized
first-person shooters, the MMORPGs are inspiring people to create
more--and admittedly better--MMORPGs.  Many of the best graphics
programmers gravitate toward shooters, and many of the best
designers want to do an MMORPG.  They are the acid test, the highest
achievement within the discipline.

I have nothing against RPGs, and in fact I'm enthusiastic about the
current group of games being made.  However, I believe we could be
doing even more with the opportunity we currently have, the
once-in-a-lifetime combination of millions of people newly connected
to the Internet with extremely capable machines.  Where are the
massively multiplayer strategy games, god games, RTS's, and
simulations?  A few of these games are now under construction.
Where are the new genres that are only now possible, unlike anything
that has ever come before?

The mechanics of the game industry, where sucessful formulas are
endlessly refined and repeated, certainly makes the development of
new genres more difficult.  But I would suggest that our focus on
the RPG and our MUD heritage, while instructive, useful, and fun,
can also blind us to seeing other possibilities.  For example, is it
possible to make intuitive massively-multiplayer games without
avatars?  Of course.  Look at some of the casual gaming Web sites,
where hundreds of thousands of players have formed communities
without faces.  Taking the MS Zone or Yahoo! as an example,
communication through chat, instant messaging and ladder rankings
have been enough to keep people coming back.  Granted, this is a
free service for casual gamers, and not a massively-multiplayer
commercial game, but the point is that there are alternatives to the
traditional avatar-based interface, which we've grown so accustomed
to that we see it as the obvious design choice.  Of course, this
isn't new--games like Air Warrior were doing this long ago--the
point is that avatars, as an example of an RPG concept, have
insinuated themselves into our thought to the point that they
immediately spring to mind when we think of the online
representation of players.

I spent a year working on a large-scale action/strategy game, a kind
of cross between Go and Rampart.  One thing we found was that player
communication, which initially appeared to be a major obstacle, was
not the hardest problem--a chat mechanism like IRC, with
appropriately chosen groups, can be made to work fine.  The real
problem was figuring out what is fun in such an unfamiliar design
environment.  Parts of the design only kicked in with 1,000 or more
players; the game was only marginally fun with 4 players, but would
it be great with 10,000?  When you abandon many of the familiar
elements of the RPG or other single player games, you're in
uncharted territory with a high chance of going astray.  Successful
genres have usually developed over long periods of time, with many
failures along the way, though sometimes they are born with a bang
(Populous, Wolfenstein 3D).

Are there new online-only genres that no one has thought of yet?  Is
it possible to develop a commercial-quality online game in a new
genre, especially considering the ever-growing sizes of development
teams?  I think so.  There are several ways really new online games
might develop:

  - A previously unknown, probably small group may develop a new
  game on their own.  There is certainly a lot of precedence for
  this.

  - An experienced, talented single-player designer or team may turn
  to the Internet, and bring his or her original thinking to a new
  genre.  That's what's so interesting to me about The Sims Online.

  - Eventually, an online RPG or other "traditional" game may
  advance to the point where players can invent their own games
  within the game world.  Perhaps there will eventually be an MMORPG
  mod community, and someone will come up with an analog of
  Counterstrike.

I would not put the most common method of commercial game
development--established companies producing games with large teams
of experienced people in a traditional environment--on this list.
Again, there are exceptions, but the most interesting ideas tend to
come from newcomers, or those select few designers who have a knack
for unusually original thinking.

I'm interested to hear what the people on this list, the hardest of
the hard-core RPG developers, think about their genre and the
potential for new online genres.  What parts of today's RPGs have we
learned to be so essential that they should also be present in
non-RPGs?  What single-player genres could make a natural or
interesting transition to online?  What totally new genres might
work only with large numbers of people, and how can we realistically
go about building them?

---Andrew

P.S.  I've only recently joined the list after years of telling
myself to.  Hi!  I hope this message is on-topic enough.
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