That said, it’s questionable how much overlap the JGE and Champs audiences will have. And, as Massively points out, Eurogamer’s announcement of Champions’ release date hasn’t been confirmed by Cryptic yet.

Just in case you need some background:

Free Realms: SOE’s first free-to-play title, a whimsical fantasy game aimed at tweens and families.
Champions Online: Cryptic’s second go at a superhero MMO, based on the tabletop RPG license. Will build on City of Heroes innovations and feature more physicality in the world.
Jumpgate Evolution: Netdevil’s long-in-development space shooter, a persistent online successor to games like Wing Commander.
Aion: A fantasy game from NCsoft featuring a unique background story and playable characters with the ability to fly.

I’d say it’s a busy year for MMOs, but the genre’s become something altogether different in the last few years. I expect most years we’re going to be looking at a number of big-picture releases, along with numerous smaller entries into the field. These AAA titles are going to be joined in 2009 by numerous free-to-play games and indie offerings; already this year we’re seeing the relaunch of Three Rings’ Bang! Howdy.

It’s awesome, and highly encouraging, to see the genre explode like this. I can’t wait to see what the industry looks like at the end of the year (thought I’m pumped that Free Realms is going live so soon!)

“Making a AAA fantasy game is a solved problem” is something I said in my 2008 MMO wrapup on Gamasutra, and it’s something I’ve said frequently in the past. And I mean it. AAA fantasy games are ‘solved’, the formulae is complete, development and iteration on that particular niche of the niche market can stop now.

I never said anything about making one being easy.

In fact, I’d probably be one of the last guys on the face of the planet to tell you anything associated with making an MMO is easy. I’ve never helped make one, I’m not a designer, but I definitely have had a lot of opportunities to see how challenging, strenuous, and sometimes soul-crushing it is to hew one of these beasts from the raw energies of human creativity.

When I said AAA fantasy games are a ‘solved’ problem, I mean purely from the design point of view. World of Warcraft is a niche fantasy title with simply enormous appeal. The mix of PvE, PvP, dungeons, instances, etc. etc is … if not perfect, then good enough for government work. At this particular place and time, I simply don’t see the market need for another huge-budgeted fantasy MMO. That niche is ‘filled’, and any new products trying to break into that niche will have an almost-impossible obstacle to overcome.

The problem with my outlook here, which you’ve probably already spotted, is that timeframes when you’re talking MMOs is always problematic. When the average MMO can take 3+ years to make, you’ve always got to be looking out ahead of where the market is right now. The games in development right now were probably kicked off after about two years of WoW; think about the huge difference in World of Warcraft’s design between 2006 and 2009. That’s a lot of supposition to make. And some suppositions from that timeframe haven’t paid off.

Warhammer and Conan were both made looking “beyond WoW”, with the hope and assumption that World of Warcraft players would want something kind of like what they’d already played, “but different”. Despite what their PR may have been, both of those titles were direct runs at WoW’s niche, and they both failed to achieve their goals as set out by the developers.

That said, I believe WAR is in a good position to grow based on the team’s extraordinary skill, dedication, and the very strong IP the game is rooted into. I worry about Conan. A lot.

All of this is the basis for my statement that AAA Fantasy games are ‘solved’, and simply reinforces my opinion that MMO developers should be seeking out a new niche in the market. Superhero MMOs are already on the move, with three different games vying for the position as pre-eminent title. That level of competition (something fantasy MMOs have had all along) is something I think will be extremely healthy for that genre.

Sci-fi has suffered mightily since the genre blossomed, but we’re now seeing a bunch of titles on the horizon that look like they’ll finally give that respectable storytelling milieu its due. The Old Republic is the obvious one, of course, but everything from Jumpgate Evolution to Star Trek Online has a chance to offer up that ‘perfect fit’. There are quite a few ‘real world’ MMOs in the works as well, and the free-to-play space is carving out niches AAA players didn’t even think about a few years back. A penguin MMO, a cartoon MMO, puzzle MMOs … it’s a cornucopia of goodness.

This, all this stuff above, is healthy. What SOE is doing (Free Realms, Agency, DCUO), what Cryptic is doing (Champions, Star Trek), is healthy. Even NCsoft (bless em’) made Tabula Rasa with the expectation that moving away from AAA fantasy was the right thing to do.

If you’re currently making a AAA fantasy MMO right now, my apologies if I’m offending you. Perhaps your game will be the one that gives that innovative twist on the MMO platform, pulls the rug out from under WoW, and ushers in a new era of multi-mmo supremacy.

Were I a betting man, though, I’d pass on that wager. World of Warcraft isn’t a game anymore. It’s a hobby, it’s a genre unto itself, it’s a culture … it’s an institution. And (at least in the short term) the house always wins.

Last two days alone:

• SOE Launches Proper RMT services for EQ/EQII
• Warhammer adds two of its missing classes
• Infogrames/Atari purchases Cryptic Studios
• Age of Conan server merges delayed
• Mythic won’t skimp on WAR Updates for Expansion

If you look down the big list of cancelled or never-released Massive games, Microsoft’s name comes up a suspicious number of times. AC2 anyone? Mythica, True Fantasy Online, Vanguard, and now Marvel Universe were all dented by the Redmond giant’s deft touch. On a fundamental corporate level, I think that MS just doesn’t understand the whole MMO ‘thing’. Trash talking jock douches calling each other ‘fag’ on Xbox Live? That’s understandable. But having the patience to see something like an MMO through – not so much.

Even more than that, I think Microsoft’s stupidity when it comes to this genre has left a huge opening for Sony and the PlayStation 3. Though there are no firm plans in the public eye right now, the tide is rising for MMO experiences on Sony’s console. Has Microsoft ceded the fight without even firing a shot?

Microsoft’s Messups

The fantastic feature piece Delay of Game was originally published in the pages of (sniffle) Games for Windows magazines. The article, which touches on some well-known delayed/cancelled games, has the most recent discussion of Microsoft’s biggest MMO failure: Mythica. I mourned the game’s loss (big time) lo these many years ago, and even then it was very clear why Microsoft had cut it free from development:

[Microsoft says] there are too many games already, we don’t think there is a market for our game. Besides Mythica, Microsoft also has an entire gaming platform to support … Despite the protestations of Microsoft’s PR department, it should be mentioned that Mythic studios had a lawsuit pending against MS … In all likelihood all of these reasons resulted in Mythica’s cancellation. Two years of development time is not something easily thrown away, even by the likes of Microsoft.

I may have been a bit harsh with that ‘douche jock’ crack, but it really is hard for me to understand what goes on in the company’s corporate mind. It’s almost like their are two mental models at work. On one hand you have a company willing to put everything on the line for the untested Xbox 360 concept. On the other, you have a corporation that wasn’t willing to even try to put an MMO on the market. The 360 and Xbox Live have been hugely expensive gambles, and in the US and EU they’ve paid off.

So why cut Mythica? Really? It would have done fine, and might have even done really well. It was ahead of its time with the concept of instancing and storytelling in games, and offering a unique themed experience that still hasn’t been adequately tapped by the MMO genre. Trends that were explored in Gods and Heroes (sigh) and are going to be touched on lightly in Age of Conan were given center stage in Mythica: norse mythology, the gods walking among the adventuring populace, etc.

True Fantasy Live Online’s cancellation makes even less sense to me. It was a gorgeous title that could have not only opened up the Xbox platform for MMOs but also broken down the barrier between MS and the Japanese development culture. That barrier, ultimately, is why TFLO was shut down, at least according to Wikipedia:

Relations between the two companies soon began to spiral out of control as Level-5 struggled to meet the demands required by Microsoft, who in turn grew frustrated at the lack of progress being made on the game … Level-5 President and CEO Akihiro Hino stated in a Japanese interview that the poor relations between his company and Microsoft, partially due to the latter’s inexperience in dealing with Japanese developers, was one of the major reasons behind True Fantasy Live Online’s cancellation.

As recently as early this year Hino said he’ s interested in working on the project some more. The CEO of the company is invested enough to rez a several year old project, a project that MS was too short-sighted to fully explore. Hey … given Level 5’s high-profile current-gen console title, I wonder who they’d end up working with if TFLO ever gets off the ground?

Sony’s Sweet Spot

Two things spell out Sony’s intentions in this space very, very well: the recent reorganization of SOE beneath SCEI (out from under Sony Pictures), and NCsoft’s announced intentions to work with Sony to bring products to the PlayStation 3. For all the terrible, insane, idiotic choices Sony has made over the last few years, their MMO chops are not something you can doubt. FFXI, PSU, EQOA … almost every MMO to come out on a console has hit a Sony platform.

NCsoft’s stake in this is really clear-cut. They want into the console market and need a partner. Lineage and Arena.net’s Guild Wars would be fantastic additions to the PS3, with a minimum of UI tweaks and adjustments to get them working. They have seekrit projects in the works as well, at least one of which I assume to be a purely console game. With their stated intention of working with Sony, I wouldn’t hold my breath to see that game on the 360 anytime soon.

Smedley claims that SOE’s move is purely functional. That may be so, but even if that’s the case the move has a lot of symbolism behind it. SOE has always been the Sony outsider, doing very much its own thing. My personal view is that MMOs and Massive-like games are kinda the future of all entertainment. Sony’s realignment here makes loads of sense. Bring the experts closer into the fold. Maybe watch them more closely. But most of all bring the MMO-style of thinking ‘in house’ so that ideas can percolate in the right directions. With a firewall between Sony Online and the rest of the company there was little chance of that kind of thinking making it into the correct brains.

It probably helps that SOE has two games committed to the PlayStation 3 platform already. Agency and Free Realms will both be bringing some of that new Sony Online thinking to the benighted console – a little glimmer of hope for their online offerings. Agency is a serious contender, and anyone interested in games has to be taking that game more seriously than Home at this point.

Beyond these corporate moves, Sony has two other things going for it on the MMO front. The PlayStation store and the Sony service itself is free. That’s a huge plus for companies wanting to put their games on the PS3 platform: no additional barriers. If a company like Nexon wanted to bring one of their games into the fold, they could offer a free download from the PlayStation store and never have to worry about their business model being disrupted.

The other thing going for Sony: they haven’t made a giant mess of every MMO they’ve previously touched. Microsoft’s got a reputation in the industry now. Speaking of Nexon, Mabinogi may be making its way to the 360. And, of course, Huxely is still (ever) in-development. Aside from those two, though … there’s just not much movement on that front anymore. Not surprising, given what’s happened in the past.

Without a big shakeup, I don’t see MMOs taking the world by storm on any platform this year or even in 2009. Someday there will be a big console MMO, though. One of these days we’re going to see a persistent online gameworld crawl to the top of the charts and take on the big boys with a controlpad. I’m laying odds that Sony’s going to have the lock on it. In the meantime, Microsoft, can you stop wrecking stuff up? Geez!

There’s something ongoing in Massive games that just makes me dejected, though, and that’s ‘middle levels’. The levels past the ‘newb experience’ and before the ‘endgame’. IE: The stuff everyone mostly wants to skip. The reason: I love those levels! I think the middle levels are freaking awesome. The problem is that both the developers and the players seem to view them more as speedbumps than anything else. As a result, additions to games tend to heavily weight towards either end of the play experience. New character races introduce new newbie experience, while almost every expansion will add (or prolong) endgame content.

Meanwhile, the middlin’ levels are left lolling about wondering why they got out of bed in the morning.  I want to take a moment to pour out a metaphorical beer for my friends, the middle levels.

What makes a middle level so unloved? I think the primary reason is a shift in goals. During the newbie experience, players are working towards understanding. They’re still working out the quirks of their class, getting used to the game UI, and learning how to deal with this brand new world that has such people in it. In EQ2 and World of Warcraft this period ends around level twenty or so. I’d say the second time a player ’shifts venues’ is likely to be the end of his learning experience. After two jumps to a new locale, most players are going to have a good understanding of what the game is like.

At that point the player is no longer playing to learn. With learning no longer the goal, something new has to step in. It varies, obviously. Players with a static group have the goal of meeting expecations. “I have to be there or the group will have no healer.” Players seeking in-game wealth will be looking for prime financial opportunities offered by lower-level experiences.

Most players, though, will be leveling with the goal of engaging in endgame content. Whether they are looking to meet the expectations of a guild, looking forward to endgame PvP, or just want to have really cool looking gear, most level/class games spur the player on to the highest levels.

The problem, as I see it, is that this shift can be done too rapidly. If players stop learning new things early in the leveling process, they’ll quickly see the game as repetitive and lose interest. If the content geared for players just out of the learning process isn’t interesting enough, they players will begin to think the newbie honeymoon was some sort of beautiful lie.

EQ2 has several harsh examples of this, and recently I’ve been thinking this may contribute to the game’s lack of stickiness. For example, old-world players coming out of Freeport (which is in itself a terrible experience) and the Commonlands are sent into Nek forest. Until changes were made to the zone last year tweaking a number of fundemental elements, it was easily one of the most broken zones in the game. The high quality level of the Greater Faydark zone makes for another bad leap. GFay is such a great place to start the game (especially if you’re a Fae). Then you head off to either the Thundering Steppes or Butcherblock Mountains. While I like BB just fine, I’m sure there are a lot of players who find the change jarring.

World of Warcraft also handles this spottily. While Alliance players can look forward to the spooky depths of  Duskwood (a zone I’ll never tire of playing in), they also have RedRidge mountains. The Horde face down Stonetalon and Thousand Needles. With Blizzard’s creation on the tip of our tongues, it’s worth mentioning that they have begun the process of correcting this lack of love for the middle levels. Patch 2.3 added a buttload of new content to Dustwallow Marsh for the highly unloved 35-45 range.  That patch also made essential changes to the speed of leveling from 20-60.

Unfortunately, as much as I love the Dustwallow changes (some of those quests are just awesome), the leveling curve change speaks to Blizzard’s real intent: get players past the middle levels ASAP. In other words, get em’ to the good stuff.

My fervent wish is that someday a dev team will have the time and resources available to look to the present day for inspiration, instead of constantly seeking future glory. My ideas for a WoW expansion may have seemed quite in contrast with what has been announced for Lich King, but they ultimately stem from the same place Blizzard’s does. We both want the game to be fun. I just want the game that’s out *now* to be even more fun.