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Massively multiplayer online role-playing game

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See also: Massively multiplayer online game
File:WoW Flying Gnomes.jpg
An image from World of Warcraft, the largest commercial MMORPG as of 2004 based on active subscriptions.[1]

MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) is a genre of online computer role-playing games (RPGs) in which a large number of players interact with one another in a virtual world. As in all RPGs, players assume the role of a fictional character (most commonly in a fantasy setting) and take control over many of that character's actions. MMORPGs are distinguished from single-player or small multi-player RPGs by the number of players, and by the game's persistent world, usually hosted by the game's publisher, which continues to exist and evolve while the player is away from the game.

MMORPGs are very popular throughout the world, with combined global memberships in subscription and non-subscription games exceeding 15 million as of 2006.[2] Worldwide revenues for MMORPGs exceeded half a billion dollars in 2005[3], and Western revenues exceeded $1bn in 2006.[4]

Common features

Though MMORPGs have evolved considerably, many of them share some basic characteristics. Most MMORPGs are based off traditional Dungeons & Dragons gameplay, including quests, monsters, and loot. Like in Dungeons & Dragons, there is usually the ability to develop your character after they have reached certain levels which occurs after gaining enough experience points to do so. Often there are Game Moderators or Game Masters (frequently abbreviated to GM), which are sometimes-compensated individuals who attempt to supervise the world.

MMORPGs usually involve large communities of players and social networks, some having support for the creating of Guilds or clans, which are organizations of players. The "world" that players visit tends to be persistent ones where a client-server model is employed, in which the "world" software runs continuously on a server, and players connect to it via client software. MMORPGs usually have a virtual economy, based on the trade of items such as weapons and armor, and a regular currency.

For most MMORPGs, players either purchase the client software for a one-time fee or pay a monthly subscription to play. Most major MMORPGs require players to do both. By nature, "massively multiplayer" games are always online, and require some sort of continuous revenue (such as monthly subscriptions and advertisements) for maintenance and development. Games that feature massively-multiplayer functionality, but do not include roleplaying elements, are referred to as MMOGs.

Most MMORPGs share the common fact that a player can fight monsters alone without a group for awhile. Eventually they must find parties or groups of other players to get experience points because the monsters are too difficult to kill alone. Some MMORPGs like World of Warcraft break this tradition and let players solo to the highest level to make the game accessible to casual players or people who do not want to play for long periods of time.

History

File:MUDscreen.jpg
MUD, the world's oldest multi-user roleplaying game
Main article: History of MMORPGs

MMORPGs as defined today have only existed since the early 1990's, when restrictions on use of the Internet were first relaxed. Still, all MMORPGs can trace a lineage back to the earliest multi-user games, which started appearing in the late 1970's. The first was MUD, a non-graphical (text-based) world, though more would soon be developed for the PLATO system. 1984 saw a Roguelike multi-user game, called Islands of Kesmai. The first truly graphical multi-user title was Neverwinter Nights, which was delivered through America Online and was personally championed by AOL President Steve Case. The first success after the opening of the Internet was Meridian 59, which also featured 3D graphics, although The Realm appeared nearly simultaneously and may be credited with bringing the genre to a wider player-base. Ultima Online, released in 1997, may be credited with first popularizing the genre, though Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds was primarily responsible for mainstream attention throughout Asia, and it was Everquest that drove MMORPGs into the western mainstream. After this point, competition in the genre brought MMORPG titles onto consoles and into science-fiction and comic-book settings. The current market for MMORPGs has Blizzard's World of Warcraft dominating, with over 50% of overall market share, though an additional market exists for free-to-play MMORPGs, which are supported by advertising and purchases of in-game items.

Economics

See also: Real-money trading

Many MMORPGs feature living economies, as virtual items and currency have to be gained through play and have definite value for players. Such a virtual economy can be analyzed (using data logged by the game) and has value in economic research; more significantly, these "virtual" economies can have an impact on the economies of the real world.

One of the early researchers of MMORPG was Edward Castronova, who demonstrated that a supply-and-demand market exists for virtual items and that it crosses over with the real world.[5] This crossover has some requirements of the game:

  • The ability for players to sell an item to each other for in-game (virtual) currency.
  • Bartering for items between players for items of similar value.
  • The purchase of in-game items for real-world currency.
  • Exchanges of real-world currencies for virtual currencies.

The idea of attaching real-world value to "virtual" items has had a profound effect on players and the game industry, and even the courts. Castronova's first study in 2002 found that a highly liquid (if illegal) currency market existed, with the value of the in-game currency exceeding that of the Japanese yen.[6] Some people even make a living by working these virtual economies; these people are often referred to as gold farmers, and may be employed in game sweatshops.

Game publishers usually prohibit the exchange of real-world money for virtual goods. However, a number of products actively promote the idea of linking (and directly profiting from) an exchange. Some players of Second Life have generated revenues in excess of $100,000.[7] However, in the case of Entropia Universe, the virtual economy and the real-world economy are directly linked. This means that real money can be deposited for game money and vice versa. Real-world items has also been sold for game money in Entropia.[8]

Some of the issues confronting online economies include:

  • The use of "bots" or automated programs, that assist some players in accumulating in-game wealth to the disadvantage of other players.[9]
  • The use of unsanctioned auction sites, which has led publishers to seek legal remedies to prevent their use based on intellectual-property claims.[10]
  • The emergence of virtual crime, which can take the form of both fraud against the player or publisher of an online, and even real-life acts of violence stemming from in-game transactions.[11]

Private servers

One reaction to the virtual economies has been the phenomena of "private servers," which are servers operated by individuals and groups who have reverse-engineered commercial MMORPG products. Anyone who sets up their own private server has complete control over the virtual world existing on that server. Typically, these servers operate in violation of publisher's end-user license agreements. In November 2006, NCSoft and the Federal Bureau of Investigation shutdown a prominent private Lineage II server that had claimed 50,000 active users.[12]

Private servers are mostly run by volunteers, and are often free. However, some private servers may wish for people to donate money, sometimes in exchange for a bonus in the game. Private servers remain markedly less popular than the official servers, with player numbers usually in the hundreds, though popular private servers may reach up to one or two thousand online players and even up to ten thousand in terms of player registrations. EQEmu is a server emulator for EverQuest; others exist for World of Warcraft, Lineage II, Ultima Online, Ragnarok Online, and many other MMORPGs.

Psychology

Since the interactions between MMORPG players are real, even if the environments are not, psychologists and sociologists are also able to use MMORPGs as tools for academic research. Sherry Turkle, a clinical psychologist, has conducted interviews with computer users including game-players. Turkle found that many people have expanded their emotional range by exploring the many different roles (including gender identities) that MMORPGs allow a person to explore.[13]

Nick Yee has surveyed more than 35,000 MMORPG players over the past few years, focusing on psychological and sociological aspects of these games. Recent findings included that 15% of players become a guild-leader at one time or another, but most generally find the job tough and thankless;[14] and that players spend a considerable amount of time (often a third of their total time investment) doing things that are directly-related to, but outside of the game itself.[15]

Many players report that the emotions they feel while playing an MMORPG are very strong, to the extent that 8.7% of male and 23.2% of female players in a statistical study have had an online wedding.[16] Other researchers have found that the enjoyment of a game is directly related to the social organization of a game, ranging from brief encounters between players to highly organized play in structured groups.[17]

Richard Bartle has classified multiplayer RPG-players into four primary psychological groups. His classifications were then expanded upon by Erwin Andreasen, who developed the concept into the thirty-question Bartle Test that helps players determine which category they are associated with. With over 200,000 test responses as of 2006, this is perhaps the largest ongoing survey of multiplayer game players.[18]

Development

In general, the cost of developing a commercial MMORPG title exceeds ten million dollars.[19] These projects require multiple disciplines within software engineering, art design and network infrastructure:

The front-end (or client) component of a commercial, modern MMORPG features 3D graphics. As with other modern 3D games, the front-end requires expertise with implementing 3D engines, real-time shader techniques and physics simulation. The actual visual content (areas, creatures, characters, weapons, spaceships and so forth) is developed by artists who typically begin with two-dimensional concept art, and later convert these concepts into animated 3D scenes, models and texture maps.[20]

Developing an MMOG server requires expertise with client/server architecture, network protocols, security and relational database design. MMORPGs include reliable systems for a number of vital tasks. The server must be able to handle and verify a large number of connections; prevent cheating; and apply changes (bug fixes or added content) to the game. A system for recording the game's data at regular intervals, without stopping the game, is also important.[21]

Maintenance requires sufficient servers and bandwidth, and a dedicated support staff. Insufficient resources for maintenance lead to lag and frustration for the players, and can severely damage the reputation of a game, especially at launch. Care must also be taken to ensure that player population remains at an acceptable level by adding or removing servers ("shards"). Peer-to-peer MMORPGs could theoretically work cheaply and efficiently in regulating server load, but practical issues such as asymmetrical network bandwidth and CPU-hungry rendering engines make them a difficult proposition. Additionally, they would probably become vulnerable to other problems including new possibilities for cheating. The hosted infrastructure for a commercial-grade MMORPG requires the deployment of hundreds (or even thousands) of servers. Developing an affordable infrastructure for an online game requires developers to scale to large numbers of players with less hardware and network investment.[22]

In addition, the team will need to have expertise with the fundamentals of game design: world-building, lore and game mechanics,[23] as well as what makes games fun.[24]

As there are a number of wildly different titles within the genre, and since the genre develops so rapidly, it is difficult to definitively state that the genre is heading in one direction or another. Still, there are a few obvious developments. One of these developments is the raid group quest, or "raid",[25] which is an adventure designed for large groups of players (often twenty or more).

Another is the use of instance dungeons.[26] These are game areas that are "copied" for individual groups, which keeps that group separated from the rest of the game world. This reduces competition, and also has the effect of reducing the amount of data that needs to be sent to and from the server, which reduces lag. World of Warcraft's "raids", mentioned above, are often instance dungeons, as are all of the combat areas in Guild Wars.

Increased amounts of "Player-created content" may be another trend.[27] Some non-combat-based MMORPGs do already rely heavily on player-created content, including everything from simple animations to complete buildings using player-created textures and architecture. Examples of these games include Second Life and A Tale in the Desert. However, these games are very different from the far more popular "standard" MMORPGs revolving around combat and limited character tradeskills. Player-created content in these games would be in the form of areas to explore, monsters to kill, quests to carry out and specific in-game items to obtain. The Saga of Ryzom was the first of these "standard" MMORPGs to offer players the ability to create this type of content. Again, whether or not this becomes mainstream is anyone's guess.

The production of movie "tie-in" games, common in other video game genres, may also begin to appear more frequently in MMORPGs. The most recent example of this is The Matrix Online, based on the Matrix trilogy of films; the earliest possibly was Star Wars Galaxies. Neither of these titles was a great financial success, probably due to their divergence from the original property. In addition to movie-license MMORPGs, there may be games produced on licenses from television; for example, Stargate Worlds, based on the popular Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis television series, is currently under development. The process is also apparently being applied in reverse, with James Cameron designing a MMORPG that will precede a film (Project 880) it is tied to.[28]

Free content is also a popular trend in MMORPGs. World of Warcraft and EVE Online both incorporated a free trial to the game, while others, like Anarchy Online and Shadowbane, became completely free and available to download. Another popular trend that has shown great presence in MMORPGs is "player-driven" gameplay. Player-driven gameplay relies on the players themselves for events and wars. In this kind of setting, the NPCs or game world is affected by the players instead of the game company. A great example of a player-driven MMORPG is Shadowbane, where quests, and dungeons are non-existent. Shadowbane allow players to own land, properties, provences and even nations. Therefore the players are given the freedom to rage war on a foreign nation.

Independent development

Daimonin is one of the independent efforts to create a free MMORPG.

Many small teams of programmers and artists have tried to create their own MMORPGs. As shown above, the average MMORPG development project requires enormous investments of time and money, and running the game can be a long-term commitment. Independent development, or game development not run by any company, is therefore less common than corporate development. Still, many independent MMORPGs do exist, representing a wide spectrum of genres, gameplay types, and revenue systems.

Some of the best-established independent projects are RuneScape, AWplanet, Crossfire, Daimonin, Endless Online, Star Wars Combine, Eternal Lands, Dream Blue Online and Planeshift. Some independent MMORPG projects are completely open source, such as Daimonin, while others like Planeshift feature proprietary content made with an open-source game engine. The developers of Endless Online have also released development information with details about their coding.[29]

The WorldForge project has been active since 1998 and formed a community of independent developers who are working on creating framework for a number of open-source MMORPGs.[30] The Multiverse Network is also creating a network and platform specifically for independent MMOG developers.[31]

Browser-based MMORPGs

See also: List of text-based MMORPGs
File:LotGD.png
Legend of the Green Dragon is an example of a text-based MMORPG accessible with a web browser.

With the success of the MMORPG genre in recent years, several multiplayer games played in web browsers have also begun using the MMORPG moniker. This browser game sub-genre developed from old BBS games and pre-dates the modern idea of an MMORPG. Browser-based MMORPGs are usually simpler games than their stand-alone counterparts, typically involving turn-based play and simple strategies (e.g. "build a large army, then attack other players for gold"), though there are many interesting variations on the popular themes to be found. Many browser-based MMORPGs are more like turn-based strategy games or wargames than role-playing games.

One of the earliest examples of a browser-based MMORPG is Archmage, which dates back to early 1999. More recently, faster computers and the Java programming language have allowed the introduction of graphical browser-based MMORPGs such as RuneScape, which are more similar to standalone MMORPGs. Adobe's Flash Player 8 also provides functionality for a full function MMORPG such as Horse Isle and Dofus. Macromedia's introduction of Shockwave 3D and the MUS Multiuser Server in 2001 makes it possible to create 3D browser-based MMORPGs based on the Shockwave plug-in.

See also

References

  1. ^ Chart from MMOGchart.com
  2. ^ Chart of Subscriber Growth, http://www.mmogchart.com
  3. ^ Parks Associates (2005), Online Gaming Revenues to Triple by 2009 http://www.parksassociates.com/press/press_releases/2005/gaming-1.html
  4. ^ Piers Harding-Rolls (2007), Western World MMOG Market: 2006 Review and Forecasts to 2011, http://www.screendigest.com/reports/07westworldmmog/readmore/view.html
  5. ^ Castronova, Edward. Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games. ISBN 0-226-09626-2, University Of Chicago Press
  6. ^ Online Game Economies Get Real (2002), http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,55982,00.html
  7. ^ My Virtual Life, Business Week (May 1, 2006) http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_18/b3982001.htm
  8. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropia_universe#Partnerships
  9. ^ Robert Shapiro (2003), How online games teach us about economics, http://www.slate.com/id/2078053/
  10. ^ Blizzard Goes to War, http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2004/12/blizzard_goes_t.html
  11. ^ BBC News (2005), Game Theft led to Fatal Attack, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4397159.stm
  12. ^ FBI, NCSoft drop hammer on MMORPG pirates, http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061120-8258.html
  13. ^ Sherry Turkle (1997), Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, ISBN 0-684-83348-4
  14. ^ Nick Yee (2006), Life as a Guild Leader, http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001516.php
  15. ^ Nick Yee (2006) Time Spent in the Meta Game, http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001535.php
  16. ^ Yee (2003), An Ethnography of MMORPG Weddings, http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/000467.php
  17. ^ Nardi, Harris (2006), Strangers and Friends: Collaborative Play in World of Warcraft, Proceedings of the 2006 20th anniversary conference on Computer supported cooperative work
  18. ^ Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology, http://www.guildcafe.com/bartle.php
  19. ^ Adam Carpenter (2003), Applying Risk-Based Analysis to Play Balance RPGs, Gamasutra, http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20030611/carpenter_01.shtml
  20. ^ Frank Luna (2006), "3D Game Programming with DirectX 9.0c, a Shader Approach," Worldware Publishing, ISBN 1-59822-016-0
  21. ^ Jay Lee (2003), Gamasutra, Relational Database Guidelines for MMOGs, http://www.gamasutra.com/resource_guide/20030916/lee_01.shtml
  22. ^ GDC Proceedings 2005, Online Game Architecture: Back-End Strategies, http://www.gamasutra.com/gdc2005/features/20050310/esbensen_01.shtml
  23. ^ Chris Crawford (2003), Chris Crawford on Game Design, New Riders Games, ISBN 0-13-146099-4
  24. ^ Koster and Wright (2004), "A Theory of Fun for Game Design," Paraglyph Press, ISBN 1-932111-97-2
  25. ^ http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/1028
  26. ^ http://www.blogtimesherald.com/entertainment/index.php?ArticleID=40&ShowMore=NO
  27. ^ Jon Radoff (March 20, 2007), Gamasutra, Five Prescriptions for Viral Games, http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20070320/radoff_01.shtml
  28. ^ James Cameron's Game Theory, Business Week (Feb. 13, 2006) http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_07/b3971073.htm
  29. ^ "Endless Online Technical Information". {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessdaymonth= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  30. ^ "WorldForge History". {{cite web}}: |first= missing |last= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); Unknown parameter |accessdaymonth= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  31. ^ "About Multiverse". Multiverse. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessdaymonth= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)


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