14 DAY TRIAL // John Smedley, the leader of Sony Online Entertainment, has recently talked on his official blog about the future of the Massively Online Multiplayer genre and about the way his company’s titles will aim to deliver a more sandbox-focused experience in the coming year.
The developer believes that The Elder Scrolls Online, the title coming from ZeniMax Online and Bethesda, will suffer because it lacks enough content to satisfy the demands of the modern player, much like Star Wars: The Old Republic from BioWare did before.
At the same time, the MMO that will be able to succeed in the near future is described as one in which gamers will have the tools to create the content that they will experience and control the core mechanics.
But wait: does not this sound like the main job of a development team?
Smedley might be right when he says that there’s a segment of the MMO fan base that cannot be satisfied because they have the time to consume all content that a developer launches.
But the answer to this problem is clearly to create game modes that do not require many assets and can sustain a gamer’s attention in the long term: player versus player or Alliance versus Alliance.
The community might be interested in creating content and experiences but it’s unlikely that its quality will be on par with that the likes of SOE, BioWare, or Turbine can create.
Rather than risk a decline in quality, MMO creators need to focus on making new mechanics that can sustain a game in the long term.
Game of Thrones: Ascent is a social title I play a lot of, despite of the fact that it only offers a few short new quests every week.
I do that because the game has a community of people who share similar interests and the ability to battle other Alliances in a new and complex mode.
The longevity of the experience owes a lot to the core material created by George R.R. Martin, but the true attraction is how a range of clear mechanics can be used to deliver interesting results.
Something similar is happening every day in the space-based EVE Online from CCP Games.
These are the examples that Smedley should take into account when he is contemplating the new MMO from SOE, titles that can deliver innovation regularly without asking the player to manufacture it.