[MUD-Dev] [DGN/BIZ] Why player dont play multi user race or is there a market for multiuser race?

[Damion Schubert]

st=E9phane Garin wrote:

> I think that if their is a kind of game where multi user may give
> interest, just behind RPG and it's social relation, it is in race,
> further more if results are persistent, championship regularly
> organized and so on...  Some of those publishers justify this
> incredible fact by saying that, even if they are able to play such
> mode, gamers don't play multi users race game, few are gentle
> enough, to tell me the tales of Motor city online to ensure their
> arguments.  I had thought a lot about this, and, before trying to
> convince they are wrong, I would like to hear yourur opinion on
> the fruit of my cognitive doom! First, if player do not play
> multi-user mode race it's because they don't find good multi-user
> mode race!  That is cognitive isn't it?  If they do not, it is
> because of a perverse combination of Game play, technical and
> business investment Issues.

MCO is, of course, the most compelling argument against the genre.
While certainly there were design mistakes involved in the title, as
well as mistakes EA made in production and marketing of the title,
there were some pretty thorny issues that they hit.

One of the first, and strongest, issues was one of market.  The top-
selling driving games are tech demos at the core - top notch
graphics engines that show amazing physics and the latest in Shader
demos.  When you're talking about persistent games, which in theory
you want to live 5-10 years, the game can start to look aged very
quickly.  In MCO, this was exascerbated by them being late, meaning
they looked a little old on day one.  Of course, if you walk away
from 'realistic' and attempt to go the Mario Kart/Wipeout route, you
might lessen the impact of that.

Related, the matter of Physics is very important.  Physics are
extremely important to racing games (where they are not important at
all in most MMPs).  Latency can really reduce this immersion factor,
which is highly prized by most racers.

MCO also had the classic skill-based game problem (which many other
games, such as Planetside have) - really, really good people can
wipe up newcomers without even trying.  This is true of all games,
but the combination of skills vs persistent rewards creates a large
gulf for newbies to get over before they feel like they can
contribute and integrate with the community.

Lastly, MCO was 'catassed' in some unfortunate ways.  Players wanted
to 'level up' their cars as quickly as possible, and so they would
play the easiest maps over and over again.  This, of course, meant
that the players were choosing to play the boring maps repeatedly,
which helped burn them out of the game faster.  This is, of course,
not a phenomenon unique to MCO -- monster camping in almost any
contemptorary MMPRPG has the same overall results -- but its
definitely a problem that needs to be addressed front and center in
the design.

(Note: all descriptions are from conversations with a game producer
who worked on the project, as my experience with the game was quite
limited.  Anyone with more hands-on experience is more than welcome
to correct anything that wasn't completely accurate).

> Do you thinks there is a market for such game ?

I think that someone, sooner or later, will ship a persistent racing
game and it will enjoy relative success.  However, I'd be surprised
if that game wasn't attached to a successful franchise or license.
If I were you, I'd go find one.

--d
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