How to addict consumers to a real next-generation MMO

TLDR: Make an MMORPG that eliminates levelling content and starts the endgame content from Day One. Player characters are fixed archetypes with only a few abilities each but with the option to create a huge number of these characters ala DOTA / League of Legends. The game world is diverse and each area is intended to be actively used by players every day -- no ghost towns.



In playing games over the last year or so a number of common themes have emerged and any true 'next gen' title needs to take each into consideration.

1. "The real game begins at 60" is a quote you hear from most MMO developers in reference to the creation of a robust and extended 'end game' to keep players entertained and thus retain them as customers in the long term.
2. Most of the max-level content consists of running 'expert' versions of dungeons, doing daily quests, and tradeskilling or accumulating consumable resources necessary to do 'raids' which are seen as the pinnacle of max-level content.
3. Designers create X.2 X.3 etc major patch content updates that add in additional end-game content in the form of new level 60 zones which tend to be quite popular as there are limited places for max level characters to actually go.
4. The vast majority of the game world created at-release and geared toward 'leveling up' is critically overcrowded initially and completely unused within a couple weeks past release.
5. Much of the playerbase at launch will employ any exploit possible or the most efficient way to 'get to 60' ASAP and completely ignore all the work that went into creating your huge world.
6. Players play alts. More importantly they are perfectly fine with switching between characters as needed. I have yet to see an adult or kid play Skylanders with only one Skylander from start to finish. More importantly they 'gotta catch em all' Pokemon style.
7. Given a system of 'talents' or 'build trees' that offers some or unlimited diversity the playerbase will almost immediately identify THE 'build' that maximizes synergies that the class designer had no intention to create and which turns the whole illusion of diversity into an IQ check. Trying to maintain 'balance' within a system that has so many options and therefore dependent variables is mathematically impossible and a fool's errand. (The exception being the null condition where everything is simplified to the point where every build does everything exactly the same and so all diversity is eliminated)

Here are my thoughts of how to address these concerns and create an engaging game that makes efficient use of designer resources to maximize potential return on investment.


The World:

The entire world is 'level 60'. There is no starter zone / midlevel zone / etc. The entire game is open to be explored and enjoyed by anyone on the very first day. It is this big open world that players will inhabit during their 'down time' when not actively engaged in doing dungeons, raids, PVP, or another highly social activity with their friends. Players can start the game from any of the home bases for whatever character they are playing at that moment and proceed from that location out into the world without worrying that they will get killed instantly by an NPC that is 'higher level'.

The content in the open world consists of quests, events, resources, etc. that allow for character 'progression' in the same vein as current endgame progression. Players acquire currency, collect resources, and earn faction. Instead of earning 'experience' needed for levelling they are earning several different forms of currency that are traded in for better gear, consumables and abilities. In Cryptic's game Star Trek Online the player needs "Marks" acquired from running dungeon-like content in order to initiate daily EVE-like tasks that raise faction which then unlock additional benefits and items that are purchased with "Dilithium" which is earned through doing 'normal' content as well as the dungeon-like content. Taking this to the next level you could include specialized currencies that are acquired in different parts of the world and thus drive the playerbase to spread out and actively engage with the entire world on a daily basis.

Here is an extended example using Everquest names for common familiar reference: Ice motes come from killing creatures and doing quests in EverFrost, Sand motes from Desert of Ro, Fae motes from the Greater Faydark, Clockwork motes from Steamfont Mountains etc.
Having unlocked a reputation tier with the Qeynos fighters guild you can now acquire a new Axe for your Dwarven Berserker, but need 40k Metal motes, 15k Lava motes, and 6k Sand motes in addition to 30 Marks of Qeynos in order to commission the crafting and acquire your new weapon. You queue up and participate in Qeynos dungeons to get the necessary marks but when not actively in a dungeon you are out in different parts of the world doing quests to earn the necessary motes for your item.

You have to explore in order to unlock different locations and thus be able to do the associated quests and earn the necessary currency. In the case above your Dwarven Berserker may never have been to Lavastorm and thus has no Lava motes and thus sets out on a personal quest to get over there and unlock travel to that area for himself and start doing that content. While the designer of the item has provided the player with a very compelling reason to go further out into the world the actual decision to do so is something the player has made on their own terms.

Each character has a 'home' at different locations around the world. Thus the player may instead decide to switch to his Dark Elf Assassin and go to Lavastorm with her in order to earn the necessary motes. Some players will unlock all the fast-travel locations for their favorite characters while others will just switch to characters headquartered in different regions as needed. Day One you have players scattered all over the world without having to create multiple 'newbie zones' and viable levelling paths. At the end of Year One you still have players scattered across the world earning different currencies and collecting tradeskill resources as to their particular wants and desires.

Essentially the entire planet is "daily quests" and "rifts" but with highly localized resources, currencies and rewards that discourage regional clumping. If it is really easy to farm Ice motes in Everfrost then people will do this, but that will only depress the global value of Ice motes on the internal auction system. Enterprising players will eschew Ice mote farming and go quest in Lavastorm instead and sell their Lava motes for Ice Motes, thus the global economy creates a natural feedback of diminishing returns for players until the difficulty can be adjusted in an update.

In this way you create an entire planet that is Thunder Isle and players have many things to "do" during their downtime. The entire game world is thus intended to be used by all players on a daily basis thereby eliminating any wasted effort creating 'low level' zones that are blown through as quickly as possible and never revisited. This encourages the development of more dynamic zones whose content changes over various timescales as these areas will be under continual use. Ex: Now that the seasons have changed the farmers in Karana have a different set of problems for which they will still award you daily Grain motes that you need for Baking tradeskills.



The Characters:

Each character starts the game as a fully fleshed out and functional archetype. They have a limited number (5 ish) of abilities and have access to them all right out of the starting gate. It is up to the individual player to learn how to make use of these abilities. The lion's share of the focus then becomes on player skill in the actual PLAYING of the game rather than on whether they levelled up and spent points in the 'right' way.

The intent is while a player may choose to play one and only one character and progress through the entire game playing just that one character, nearly all players will pick and choose the right character to play for any particular occasion. Think of this as a combination of Skylanders or League of Legends with the Soul System of Rift and the Job system of FFXI. The player may choose to use his Dwarven Berserker with his focus on AoE attacks to compliment his current group / raid, or may instead choose to play Tinkerman the Gnome construct which can do impressive explosion based AoE damage but also has a high durability.

Each archetype can be a generalist or highly specialized as needed with a limited number of abilities to reduce player confusion and unintended synergies. This essentially takes the notion of 'bring the player, not the class' to the next level by allowing each player to swap out their character among any in their roster.

The game would launch with each player having access to a reasonable set of generalist and specialist archetypes (pre order bonus!!!) to choose from which allow them to immediately jump into content either solo or with friends Day One. Additional archetypes would then be acquired through reputation tiers, faction unlocks, dungeon/raid rewards, and in-game purchases. The game can then be continually refreshed both through the addition of new world and dungeon content but also the systemic release of new archetypes. Hardcore players would strive to get access to every archetype in order to have the best possible tool for any occasion, but the content would be designed to be doable with even the modest baseline archetypes withconsiderableplayer skill.

Progression would exist both at the character and account level. At theaccountlevel you would have a shared pool of currency and reputation tier with the various factions in the game, at thecharacterlevel you would have individual gear bound to that character. Thus the player could acquire a new archetype and immediately use their stored currency to buy reputation gear for that new character but would still need to earn any dungeon or raid dropped item for that character to use. Some items may be bound-to-account to allow for easier transfer between different characters at both the very common and incredibly uncommon tiers. Characters could then receive hand-me-downs of common items that would be otherwise tedious to acquire for each character as their roster-mates acquire new gear but also artifact-quality items could be used by a given player on any of her characters thus appropriately rewarding the player with an incredibly valuable item that would not need to be reacquired for each different character.

This encourages the player to build a large roster by eliminating the tedium factor associated with rolling alts and having to repeat daily content but not allow every character that player owns to be equally awesome.

The intent would for there to eventually be a very large number of archetypes in a manner similar to League of Legends where it comes down to individual player skill to know how best to play the different characters in order to succeed. This works in a modern MMORPG because players focus on the identity of other players more than they consider the actual build or character they are playing at any moment.

Monetization opportunities abound in such a concept, but the balancing of character abilities becomes much easier with fixed modular archetypes and furthermore allows for dungeon and raid content that has highly specialized requirements. You could even design an encounter that uses a special archetype unlocked when the encounter is started that one player must assume as an integral part of the encounter design.



The Dungeons

In this context Dungeon includes both small group and traditional multigroup instanced content. A player would be able to grab several of their friends, or enter a random queue, and jump into a dungeon on Day One. With introductory gear the content would be extremely difficult and some additional content could be locked behind faction, exploration achievement, gearscore or additional traditional 'end game' tiers. The first action of an individual player after installing could, however, be to immediately jump into a dungeon and defeat enemies with friends. Because there are no traditional levels players need not worry about not being able to play with their friends if they don't all progress through the content during the first few weeks at the same rate.

Dungeons would be designed around the baseline characters being able to complete the initial dungeons with some difficulty and taking some considerable time. As players grow more skilled, obtain additional archetypes for their characters and unlock higher tiers of faction purchased item rewards the speed and ease of completing the dungeon should increase, but dungeon delving should remain a viable activity over the long haul.

Dungeons would be the primary means to acquire Marks necessary to initiate the daily faction quests mentioned above. Faction tiers would be somewhat exponential in nature with diminishing returns at the high tiers so as to minimize the development of 'elite' cohorts within a given population. Simply put the powergamers will still want to group with more casual gamers in order to complete daily dungeon content.

Multigroup dungeons or Raids would similarly be accessible on Day One for a suitably organized population, but unlike dungeons and similar to current games would not be designed to be completed on Day One. There may exist content tiers within the Raid category that include both 'normal' and 'LFR' style raids to appeal to as broad a playerbase as possible. In all other aspects these would be essentially unchanged from current endgame activities. The success of LFR in World of Warcraft has shown that there is a desire among the mass population of gamers to participate in multi-group activities and so these remain a viable and efficient use of development efforts to keep players engaged over very long timelines.



Summary:

The focus of this concept is to maximize player engagement with the game by not only giving the player something to do, but by giving the player something viable to do. A player should be able to login at any time and make some significant progression in the development of their characters during the play interval available to them. Dual emphasis on the progression of the player, in the form of account wide unlocks, and character specific gear encourages the acquisition and development of a large roster by each player.

All content should be designed with the intention that it will still be actively used essentially forever. Players who frequent a variety of different locales will feel part of a large world rather than hitting 'm' and being shown tons of areas theymaybevisited once instead of sitting in Capital City waiting for 'the queue'. The entire world can justifiably be dynamic without concern that any particular event or change adversely effects 'levelling' zones.

This kind of game addresses each of the 7 common themes I identified above and eliminates the unnecessary single-use aspects of game content in favor of developing content for maximal reuse and player retention. Eliminate barriers to entry and encourage all the different competitive and completist tendencies that exist among the consumer base and I think you'll have a successful 'next generation' title.

Instead of going to Westfall from level 10-15 and then leaving you go to Westfall whenever you need stuff from Westfall. Local currency, materials, etc. You can still have the same quest lines that you had before, only now they can be repeated or change over time as opposed to only changing once after Deathwing blows up the world and in a way that you will never see unless you rolled an alt through the place because it is so low level.

I think this was one of the main crimes of Cataclysm. They spent a ton of effort redoing the whole world and yet even brand new players just jumped into the Dungeon Queue and grind that shit out.