Time = The Most Valuable Gamer Commodity?

Let’s face it… Time is becoming increasingly valuable as we progress throughout our lives; as we grow older and as society changes as a whole. This has led to a more fast-paced, instant gratification kind of mentality for most of us (in developed nations especially). The group most affected by this is probably the 15-60 year-old age demographic. This likely coincides with the MMORPG-playing demographic as well.

In MMORPGs, you have two distinct groups. Hardcore players average over 25 hours per week play time, while casual players are significantly below that. Obviously, the hardcore players have less constraints on their real lives and can dedicate more “hobby time” to gaming, while casuals have busier schedules and, as a result, can’t play as much. You could also say that hardcores put more value on the game than their real lives and casual gamers put less, but that’s an entirely different article for another day! It’s safe to say that they’re related though.

If World of Warcraft has taught us anything, it’s that the vast majority of MMORPG gamers are more casual in nature. One simply needs to look at what stage of progression the bulk of The Burning Crusade expansion players are currently at a year after release. Most are barely beginning to enter the first high end raiding dungeon, Kharazan, while an estimated < 5% have experienced content from the top tier dungeon, Black Temple. My guess is that this is the primary reason for the delay of their new expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. When most of your gamers haven’t experienced all that your previous expansion has to offer, what’s the rush in putting out another one?

These observations have led me down three different paths of thought:

1. Maybe the current MMORPG model is okay, because 10M people are playing WoW (which is indicative of the generally used progression model) and seem to be sufficiently satisfied (otherwise they’d unsubscribe)
2. Maybe the model needs to be shaken up a little bit by creating dynamic content that satisfies both hardcores and casuals with “hardcore” dreams
3. Maybe your gaming experience is the sum of many different parts, and as long as the smaller tasks are more friendly from a time management approach, people will continue to happily achieve their mini goals in a timely fashion

I want to go into a bit more detail about points two and three.

Dynamic MMOs that appeal to both the hardcore and casual:

People want to progress, plan and simple. The hardcore wants to progress higher and faster than the casual, yet the casual wants to be able to compete with the hardcore. What a pickle, huh? This is a problem that has plagued MMORPGs since I can remember and it affects level progression, gear progression, and skill progression (in both PvE and PvP).

Warhammer Online’s public quest system is one step in the right direction. Co-operative play puts both the hardcore and casual on a level playing field. The overall teamwork by all individuals present (hardcores and casuals) will ultimately determine how successful you are. Not all the details have been released about this system, and I’m afraid to break any NDAs, but suffices to say, PQ’s will be a great balancer.

Another of WAR’s solutions is the Tome of Knowledge that will reward you for experiencing various facets of the game. I view this as the Final Fantasy VII approach! One could complete FF7 by following the linearly progressive storyline, however, there is a lot of additional content you’d miss without exploring the world and thinking creatively. I didn’t know about Chocobo Racing or the Knights of the Round summoning spell in my first run through the game, however, I found it quite rewarding in my second pass to learn all about them! I actually got an extensive guide that unlocked every mystery of the game so I could enrich my experience to the fullest extent. I found FF7 fun in my first pass and even more exciting in my second. I believe this is what EA Mythic intends for the ToK: it will satisfy my casual AND hardcore tendencies.

World of Warcraft also takes a step in the right direction with their 5-man instances in normal and heroic modes. The casual player, in a relatively decent group can compete in regular 5-man instances with success, hopefully achieving what he set out to do (in the case of a WoW gamer, probably get some better gear). Hardcores, or even casuals in good enough gear with sufficiently improved skill can also enter the same dungeon in a heroic mode, which is more risky but offers greater reward. The content scales to the amount of time you can invest, yet still allows everyone to experience it.

It must be noted that I firmly believe MMOs need to reduce the gap between the insanely powerful items achievable only by the most hardcore of gamers and the weaker stuff available to everyone else. I won’t get into it much in this article because it has already been written about in “MMORPG Motivation: Is Adventure Not Enough?” It’s my belief that a casual player should be able to find sufficient gear making them competitive (at a slight disadvantage) against hardcores with much more time to farm uber-gear. If your entire game is based around gear and mudlfation, this concept won’t work, but if your endgame is based on RvR like Warhammer Online, then it’s quite feasible.

There are many other ways to create content that appeals and rewards casuals and hardcores alike. How about more in depth storylines? Developing for mobile devices (craft while riding public transportation)? Stats tracking [most total renown for the week vs. best renown ratio (most renown for the week divided by hours played)]?

Can you think of any more?

Speeding up the micro in a larger picture macro

Think of the micro as all the little parts of a game. Individual quests. Travel. XP-per-mob. Macro on the other hand, is the sum of all these parts. Your overall game experience. Balance. Realm strength.

Because we’re all in such a rush these days, the smart MMORPG developers are those who not only increase our satisfaction with the game as a whole (macro), but also allow us to achieve what we set out to do in a single play session (micro). The best MMORPGs are those you can log into for an hour and still gain a sense of accomplishment.

Here are some good, time-saving features that allow people with tighter time budgets to succeed:

Movie cut scenes - I think WoW did things really well when they introduced each new level 1 character you create with a racial video, giving you a sense of their current situation and struggle in Azeroth. Why not bring this into questing? Right click on a quest mob and he’ll verbally explain what to do, while showing a brief cut scene to the area where you must perform your deeds. Obviously, you still want a text version of the “quest objective” for quick reference.

Important mini map / world map icons - Why not show trainers, quest mobs, quest regions (telling you where to go for a certain quest), merchants, crafting resources, key locations, etc. on the mini map? Sites like Thottbot and WoW Head are bound to pop up on the Internet anyway. In-game integration would save us a lot of time. I can’t count the times I’ve alt-tabbed to my browser to search for a particular mob’s /loc.

Audio quest logs - Rather than force us to read a quest log, it would save us time while we travel to have the instructions play in the background.

Mailboxes - WoW did this great too. All I need to do is mail something to my friend (or alt) across the world and he’ll receive it shortly. It’s a lot quicker than running all over the place trying to meet up with people for simple trades. It also allows crafters to work out of a central base of operations like a city centre.

Speed buffs - Whether these come in the form of mounts, class abilities, or potions, I really enjoy speed buffs because they cut down on mindless travel time. Ask any Pirates of the Burning Sea free-trader his opinion on ship travel and he’ll probably give you his biggest gripe about the game. Teleportation is nice too, but in moderation. Another great idea is the “meeting stones” concept from WoW, which allows a party to summon group-mates directly to the dungeon they want to raid.

Rest XP - Easily one of my favorite features in WoW. I haven’t seen this in any other game and I have no idea why. Does Blizzard own the patent? There’s nothing a time-starved casual gamer appreciates more than a bonus to their XP that increases the longer they stay logged out. It doesn’t punish the hardcores either. Technically, they could play two characters to max level in the same amount of time as a casual, benefiting from rest XP bonus as well.

Quick regeneration - DAOC was ridiculously slow in terms of health and mana regen unless you had a bot (heck, this was one of the major reasons people botted). WoW improved this by introducing food and water that would quickly regenerate you back into fighting form.

Solo-ability - A game that allows you to progress solo is very good for someone who can only log on for an hour or two here and there. The old saying goes, “Who wants to spend 20 minutes forming a group when they can only play for an hour?” An alternative is the sidekick or buddy system from CoH/CoV, that allows you to temporarily increase your level to group up with higher level allies.

Porting game information to the Web - Sites like the Camelotherald, WoW Armory, and Thottbot really give players a chance to play the metagame outside of the game setting. While many of us don’t have more than an hour or two of log in time per night, we do have time during the day (From work? For shame!). I think it would be an awesome idea to port the Tome of Knowledge from WAR onto a website so I can read it “offline” so to speak. I surely won’t spend the time to read it in game because that’s time I could be spending on advancement rather than lore research. Priorities!

I’m sure there are many many more. Please contribute your ideas in a comment!

In closing

Damn, this took longer than I thought it would!

If you figure the average person works 8 hours per day and sleeps 8 hours per night, he’s really only left with 8 hours to eat, maintain relationships with family and friends, perform household chores, and enjoy some leisure/relaxation time. Game companies used to target children and teenagers, but arguably, subscription (or RMT) based MMORPGs have widened that demographic to older gamers with an income. People with an income can afford monthly fees, expansions, and related marketing items (t-shirts, trading cards, and lunch boxes). Also, the youthful gamers who were hooked by arcades, Atari, Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft, and Sony, BBS text-based MUDs, and those CDs with 101 different games on them in the 70s, 80s, and mid-90s are all grown up now. We’re in our late 20s to early 50s.

And we obviously have less time to play than we used to.

The best thing MMORPG devs can realize is that Time = The Most Valuable Gamer Commodity for hardcores and casuals alike.

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