Here’s an idea that just popped into my head: Are MMOs becoming too feature-rich or experiencing feature creep? I’m confident that the answer is a resounding ‘yes’. Â Wikipedia actually does a nice job explaining feature creep.
The most common cause of feature creep is the desire to provide the consumer with a more useful or desirable product, in order to increase sales or distribution. However, once the product reaches the point at which it does everything that it is designed to do, the [developer]Â is left with the choice of adding unneeded functions, sometimes at the cost of efficiency, or sticking with the old version, at the cost of a perceived lack of improvement.
I changed manufacturer to developer, but otherwise it perfectly matches the MMO industry. Developers are constantly taking a working MMO model and smashing as many features as possible into the game in order to make it more desirable.  The mentality of making a game that appeals to everyone will, like I have said many times in the past, ultimately appeal to few or no one.  The last line of the wikipedia quote is my favorite because it’s so dang true!  Gamers are constantly looking to ridicule anything we perceive as lacking improvement.
This gets even more interesting when you look at a big cause of feature creep: Design by committee.
Another major cause of feature creep might be a compromise from a committee which decides to implement multiple, different viewpoints in the same product. Then, as more features are added to support each viewpoint, it might be necessary to have cross-conversion features between the multiple viewpoints, further complicating the total features.
I wrote about this idea of player-developed content a few days ago, and ultimately we all seem to agree that it has more potential for harm than good. Â Funny, though, how even when developers aren’t saying how much they want the players to be involved we still find ourselves digging in our claws to influence design. This has been an issue with PvE and PvP for a very long time. Â The PvPers want their features, and the PvErs want theirs. Â Both never seem to coexist from a mechanics perspective, and in the end more mechanics or features are made.
A simple game can be way more fun than a game suffering from excessive features and complication.  Earlier MMOs had really great specific features that I’ll often write about, but one of their best features of all was a lack of features.  Simplicity governed play, and the imagination made up for the rest. To bring this somewhat to a point and resolution, I’ll reiterate what I have come to call ‘Keen Design’: Focus on simple fun.  Strip the features away.  Strip away everything but the fundamental core game and ask yourself… is it any fun?  If not, your game is governed by features and ultimately surviving on borrowed time.
I think the idea of maximizing accessibility to obtain the largest target audience possible is likely to generate an overall mediocre product with jack-of-all trades mechanics.
Incompatibility issues between PvE and PvE are an example of shortcomings of this master of none approach; immersion can also suffer as attempts to address these incompatibilities can make one feel like they are non-seamlessly playing different games at different times (different armor sets, arenas, minigames).
I saw no specific “features” mentioned in Keen’s post, so I hope I understand the term ‘feature” correctly here.
Too many features could be the reason I burn out on MMO’s after a while. I get really into the leveling and gearing up and deciding how to build my character (usually only like one way to build each class, which is a whole different issue) and then there is always that wall somewhere around mid to late game. The wall I refer to is where the game makes you start focusing on things like crafting or group quests or pvp or auction trading, or reputation grinding, etc. to get good gear to progress. Each of those features takes you down a rabbit hole of time sinks, and all I really wanted to do was see how the build path I chose would play out. Or see how the main story line plays out. The time sink these features incur often show the failings in the combat system if it is not really well developed.
I was thinking about this yesterday when I was struck with an urge to play GW2. I realised I had no idea what I was going to do in there. ‘Playing GW2’ isn’t a plan, it’s what you do when your plan fails.
I’ve been out of MMOs for a little while and really enjoying hitting up some SP games. There’s a thing and you do it as well as you can; if you like it you do it again, the focus is clear and refreshing.
I also recall from FFXIV I seemed to spend as much time fighting off stuff I didn’t want to do as doing stuff I wanted to do. Of course if I could play MMOs solo I wouldn’t have that issue, it’s all a fantastic buffet for the solo-crew I imagine.
@Jada-k: Sounds like you understand what I meant.
@Gankatron: AGreed.
Try to think of the game that best represents this concept of “feature creep”.
I know my answer…
I’ll follow-up with another comment after work. 😉
I loved classic Everquest, I started playing it when I was probably way too young to be playing MMOs so there might be a bit of a perspective issue. However, I know exactly when I stopped playing and it was definitely due to the game: Lost Dungeons of Norath came out, and suddenly everyone is just running these dungeons for a few tokens at a time to trade in for equipment. I don’t know if I played EQ wrong or something, but I hadn’t bothered with equipment since level 10 or so, once I got a decent set of crafted gear and a looted weapon without level restrictions.
A similar thing happened with SW:G, when they introduced these little things you stick into your armor to give them better stats. Up until that point you just bought armor from a crafter, used it until it broke, then bought a new set. Now, though, you had to collect piles of junk loot and throw them through some black-box process that at the end might net you a few pieces of +X/Y/Z components that you could plug into your armor. I tried the grind, got pissed off at it, and quit playing.
These “Features” were really just treadmills to run on, running over and over again to try and improve a little bit. There is a reason I don’t run on treadmills in real life, FFS. I know both examples I gave are ones where, back in the day, you didn’t have to work too hard to have viable gear, but I don’t mind working for gear. Or rather, I mind Working for gear, I just don’t mind running for it so long as the process is interesting. Jogging through a city or along a beautiful hiking trail is something I find awesome, I’ll snowshoe for miles in the winter through the forest. I’ll be damned if I’m going to run on a fucking treadmill, though.
Games shouldn’t feel like work. You shouldn’t “have to” put in your hours every week. You shouldn’t need to repeat the same process over and over again, until that exciting dungeon and boss run turns into an automated process. That isn’t how I play, and I’m sick and tired of it being the end-all be-all of every damned game these days.
That depends a lot of what you call Feature – if you includes “activity” in feature – like PVE, PVP, WvW, Dungeon, Crafting, etc… – i would disagree.
Taking the very well known exemple of the thempark (the real one with rollercoaster). One big part of the pleasure we have with it, is that there is so much different things to do. You can want to to the big roller-coaster again and again, until you want an ice-cream and would go for the smoother animation. You will not find this theme park as much fun, if there is only the Big rollercoasters. The multiplicity of diverse activity is what is fun.
Going back to the MMO : having the possibility to do multiple thing is what define this genre for me : this a way to give the impression of a world ! In fact, this is one thing lacking in MMO-RPG VS S-RPG : the lack of possibility to interact with the world. Everything is higly codified VS freeform.
But I agree with you on the premice : developer should not think about game using the concept of “Feature” but with the concept of “Design” : Great product is not an accumulation of feature : it is a design that is using technology to achieve its goals.
…SWTOR.
If this had been released as two different games, essentially KOTOR3 and Plantside with lightsabers and the force, I think we could have have had two big winners, but instead we had a gimish of non-complementary game mechanics, with forum protests with PvP’ers complaining that they had to take the time to level through a storyline in an MMORPG.