I was asked in an email by one of our readers to discuss the term ‘Endgame’ and why I dislike its use when referring to mmorpgs. First and foremost I want to say that it’s not so much my dislike for the word but for what it has come to stand for in the industry. Aside from mmorpgs not really having an “end of the game” and being “ever evolving and changing” there really isn’t anything wrong with having terminology for that stage of the game where you reach the max level and begin working on the final pieces of implemented content.
To kick things off I want to give you a basic dictionary definition that you can think about while reading.
1. Games. The final stage of a chess game after most of the pieces have been removed from the board.
2. The final stage of an extended process or course of events.
In MOST mmorpgs the majority of players will spend the bulk of their time as a subscriber in the ‘Endgame’ stage. This is also the stage of the game where most players will quit. This has given cause for devs to start shifting their focus onto this stage of the game because they want to retain the largest amount of players for as long as possible; it’s common sense.
Why is this bad? I can’t claim that this is always a bad thing but in many cases developers have become so consumed by the ‘Endgame’ that the following things can happen:
1. The game doesn’t even BEGIN until the ‘Endgame’.
2. Devs are driven to treadmills, grinds, and other forms of easy mode game design to meet the demands of ‘Endgame’.
3. Expansions, content updates, and general development cease to maintain the same level of quality in non-endgame updates.
I’m not going to open a can of worms by calling out any games in particular but I’m fairly certain each of you can identify a game that has been stricken with at least one of the above downsides of the ‘Endgame’ philosophy. I strongly feel that developers should stop focusing entirely on the last few levels and the last bit of content players will experience and develop their ENTIRE game as though their subscriber-base depended upon it. Going back to the dictionary definition I gave you earlier you’ll read that, by definition, endgame is the “final stage after most pieces have been removed from the board”. Therein lies one of the biggest problems. A game of chess is designed to end but a mmorpg is not. One would hope that by the endgame most of the pieces or parts that have made the game what it is are not lost to the player as they are in a game of Chess.
The ‘Endgame’ philosophy has only hurt how mmorpgs are being designed and I hope to see the emphasis returning to the ENTIRE game soon.
(Note: I am in no way saying that developers should not be constantly thinking up and developing content for those who have reached the “high level” content. After all, that is where I too spend most of my time. )
Certain games have an endgame philosophy that always brings to mind the story of Sisyphus from Greek mythology. He’s the one that was condemned to an eternity of pushing a boulder up a hill only to reach the summit and have it roll back down forcing him to start over.
I think the main reason most MMOs suffer from Symptom 1 (Game doesn’t begin until Endgame) is because of the necessary steps to reach said Endgame and how they change your character. Yes, it sucks major to have to grind to Max Lv, but there has to be some sort of incentive to do so. If you could complete every raid instance and every objective without first acquiring all your skills, tools and spells, what sense would there be to invest time into the grind?
I guess the best non-MMO comparison would be to a Legend of Zelda game, where you have to get all the tools before you can really get to the bulk of the story. Sure, you’ll get some bits here and there about what you’re trying to accomplish, but if you could skip straight to Ganon and down him without a Boomerang, Hookshot, Megaton Hammer or what have you, what sense is there to gather all those items besides the accomplishment and the number (exactly what Achievements are)?
@Drakorn: Fantastic comparison. I’m going to use that in the future. 😉
@FenixStryk: That’s very true and not really a bad thing -all- of the time. In some games it works, as you have shown with Zelda, but keep in mind that Zelda is a “start and finish” game. Mmorpgs, while capable of being similar, often struggle to give players the same type of experience when they subscribe to the ‘Endgame Philosophy’.
It’s a matter of putting all your eggs in one basket. Not all mmorpgs do this but some have, quite obviously, made their entire focus the ‘Endgame’.
I think WoW struck a good balance of end game vs. the rest of the game. The proof is in the fact that the new player areas are always active. Sure, the mid-range stuff is a bit barren, but that is because I think players feel the need to push for the end game the closer they get.
So, WoW gets a B+, but has room to improve. Also, with another expansion with another 10 levels, WoW could easily lose that charm as it is very evident Blizzard is completely fine with abandoning the plethora of content at 60 and 70 in favor of what will be there at 80.
WAR has me excited because of the lockout mechanics which I am dearly hoping vitalize the lower tier RvR content, which worked wonders in DAoC and certain level ranges were very popular for rookie RvR.
WoW got a B+ before Burning Crusade but slipped to a C when they trivialized all the content in their game that wasn’t expansion content and turned their focus solely on the Level cap+++ content. I think if they do it again they’ll slip to a C- for continuing to fail living up to their potential. The fun I had leveling up characters in WoW completely trumped the experience I had when I reached the level cap. Blizzard fell victim to the treadmill trap because they allowed themselves to be consumed by ‘The Endgame Philosophy’.
DAOC and WAR are tough to grade on this scale because several times I’ve heard (I think it was Jeff?) say that WAR doesn’t even truly begin until level 40 where you find the “meat and potatoes” of the game. Now whether that’s true or not I am uncertain but it could be a good or a bad thing. From what I know about WAR they have a solid experience from 1-40 that really provides the exact same TYPES of experiences you’ll get when you reach the ‘Endgame’. Hopefully things like the lockout mechanics and other systems in place work out well.
I don’t have an end game solution. Typically when I hit “end game”, I quickly get tired of the grind and quit in a few months or less.
WoW definately does not get a B as the end game is very different than the rest of the game.
I wonder how WAR will do? Sure I know some about their plans, but until you see them, you never know if they will work out.
I am excited about seiges and sacking major cities. Thats the intuitive endgame goal I think most people expect to be able to participate in in any “war” themed MMO. The zone RvR idea seems to naturally prepare you for that moment. Can’t wait.
But I will say this, if I have to grind for gear for months on end just so I don’t get 2 shotted at that final endgame city seige, I won’t hesitate to cancel. Been there, done that 😉
I think DAOC was a perfect example of a game that didn’t just have end game content. Most other games I have played, EQ, EQ2, WoW, etc etc I was in a race to get to the max level. I found myself in DAoC almost trying to avoid some experience to stay in a battleground level. It was funny when I got the experience and didn’t even realize that I leveled out of that particular battleground. I honestly didn’t care about level as much because it was so fun. I think what made this succesful was you have people around your level to fight against and not lame people 20 levels plus purposely trying to gank so there was always a chance.
I think (hope) the RvR side of War the is going to require lower tier’s to do their job, so that the upper tier’s can continue the siege toward the capital, it’s really going to spread the entire endgame experience to lie on all levels at once, and make me actually WANT to roll numerous alts… *crosses fingers* although I love the tome of knowledge, I fear it’s going to keep me glued to one toon, because I would’nt want to spread my tracking thin.
Amen to the Battleground comment from Michael. I still have characters on Gaheris parked eternally in Thidranki and Molvik. I hope that WAR’s tier’d design recaptures that feel…
I think something important to remember is that players are always looking for new experiences while playing.
While leveling up a new character you enjoy traveling the game world, unlocking new areas, and conquering the challenges the game puts forth until you reach max level.
It’s only then, when you have exhausted all the low level content and have put all your time and energy into your favorite character that you feel compelled to continue trying to recapture fun you had by completing all the max level content. Unfortunately, the max level content is no where near as large as the earlier parts of the game which leads to the “grind” of the same content or taking advantage of other time-sinks like crafting.
At this point most players don’t have the patience or the desire to repeat 60-80 levels again just to reach “endgame”.
Add to this the differences between “hard core players”, “casual players”, PVE focused players, and PVP focused players you’ll see that developers have a huge challenge on their hands when designing an MMO.
Cheers!
I love how the term Endgame is so descriptive in a single word, but it’s usage is a reminder of game design processes gone wrong. My friends and I recreated our WoW guild in 2005 and renamed it to “Retire at Sixty” to demonstrate our disatisfaction with Blizzard’s Endgame compared to the beautiful leveling content.
Most MMORPGs craft a standard RPG single-player experience and mash that into multiplayer groupings with a (usually poor) transition to even larger groupings. They may also throw in some PvP. The only thought put into Endgame is apparently:
“How do we keep people here?”
The answers have been:
1. Players will stay in a world they enjoy despite the grind punishments (Drakorn’s Sisyphus comparison is apt), so stretch the content.
2. Competition is the easiest route for repeatable content.
For #1 you must make them fall in love with your world over the leveling experience. WoW accomplished this spectacularly. A compelling world is paramount, this is why the next batch of games are based upon strong licenses: Star Wars, Stargate, Star Trek, DC universe, etc..
But if you abuse the love your players have for your world, they will grow bitter and eventually hate you. Gordon Walton said it: “the only way for them to escape was to demonize the game“.
#2 has two sides: PvP competition is too easy to toss it in as an afterthought. Free-For-All PvP (WoW, AoC, etc.) assumes the players will provide the experience. This leaves room for games like WAR to distinguish themselves by providing PvP depth with *gasp* actual PvP content.
For PvE however, #2 really drives me nuts. These games have strong potential to deliver satisfying cooperative and community experiences but the playerbase is slowly being trained into self-interest and greed. I find WoW’s implementation of Endgame particularly cold and calculated as an e-peen waggling contest: bringing out the worst traits in even the nicest of players, in order to motivate them to grind grind grind.
I’m still waiting for someone to come up with a #3 solution which actually involves satisfying repeatable PvE gameplay.
Why can’t a game just approach the initial question differently? Design from the ground up around multiplayer content: Skip the whole transition from Leveling into Endgame entirely?
Competing for loot with other members of the group i’m in is a real downer for me and I simply won’t do it, because for me the point of grouping is cooperation not competition. The result is that I very rarely get loot from group quests. Also I think resentment over looting is a big cause of guild problems. When I realised that the whole WoW endgame would revolve around loot squabbles, in huge groups, I quickly lost interest in the game.
I’m hoping that WAR will be better in this respect and the looting rules for PQs certainly look good. What’s worrying though is that they do seem to have implemented Need/Greed for other quest types. I wish that MMOs would get rid of this model which just causes resentment. Loot should be allocated automatically by the game.
Roq (Not to be confused with Rog)
For me, it is not so much the “Endgame” as it is the journey to get there. I am all too often saddened by folks complaining excessively in MMOs that this is too hard or that is too hard and needs to be nerfed. For me, I find a greater sense of accomplishment of finding that holy grail, finding that one solution or tactic the game developers intended for you to employ to solve a certain situation. Not complaining until the developers open up the flood gates to multiple ways to skin a cat. I want to take my time and enjoy what the developers envisioned, not make it a Death Race to get to the level cap as fast as humanly possible. Although, I find it more and more to be this.
After all, the Wizard of Oz would of been a rather short, boring movie if it were not for the journey down the yellow brick road to get there.
Well spoken Roq, I agree that the idea of competing with group members is kinda dumb when the whole idea of a group is working together to achieve a common goal. Why would it be so bad to reward everyone in that group? I guess it would kill some of the re-playability of those certain dungeons/bosses etc, but in the end I can’t say I enjoy repeatadly doing the same instance over and over for that single piece of gear.
“In MOST mmorpgs the majority of players will spend the bulk of their time as a subscriber in the ‘Endgame’ stage”
Are you sure about that? I think the majority of bloggers and forum posters spend most of their time at the endgame, but the majority of players overall never reach the endgame. Most players quit before the end.
The endgame might be a major concern for all MMO developers, mainly because of the vocal players who rush to the end (who some developers consider very important), but the majority of content is the grind. Even the endgame is typically a grind… just for rewards players couldn’t work for earlier (in class epics, raids, etc).
MMO developers spend the majority of their time thinking of how to milk people through mathematical progression schemes and dress it up as adventure. They aim to provide addiction more than fun. I’ve been to the GDC in Austin twice, and they talk about things like “intrinsic need satisfaction”. I have no doubt that the majority of developers want to make great, fun games. But the addiction model currently dominates the industry and few developers are free to stray from it until the people with the money allow them to.
As for what Proximo says, I don’t mind redoing instances a few times but when you start getting into the 20th run and so, then it starts to become bad. I think there should be a system that sort of keeps track of how many times a character runs a dungeon for an item and adds a percentage to the chance for you to get that item for each run through you do.
To extend on that, you could have a loot table come up when you first enter the dungeon and you can say click on 2-3 things you would like to get on the run. Now first, you are not guaranteed for the drop but, each time you run it your chances go up so say by your 3rd or so time running it you are guaranteed to get it. There would still be other drops and suck of course but this way you know that you will get something you need.
The basic solution, (and the one that WAR is trying to implement) is to make sure that all players can contribute to the “endgame” regardless of level. Sure the Max level players will being most of the contribution, but a low level character can meaningfully contribute.
Games that have achieved this are EVE and early SWG. City of Heros sort of did this though its exemplar/sidekick system, but there isn’t much “endgame” content in that game.
Pirates of the Burning Sea tried but in the end failed. Sure when the game opened you could get away being lower level in a port attack. But soon it became limited to level 50 players in top line ships. Lower level players were more often just cannon fodder.
I hope WAR’s tiered system works. I like the idea that I could at any level and with any character do something that will contribute to the games overall goal.
@Aaron: I thought about it for a while when I was typing this up. In the end I decided that, over the lifespan of a game, the ‘Endgame’ (Whatever it may be) is where the highest concentration of players will be at any given time. I think perhaps there may be more players spread throughout the game but the game runs the most risk of losing a chunk of players from the endgame.
@Michael: I touch briefly upon running instances over and over again, I think I read somewhere that Mythic is implementing some system for their dungeons where they won’t always feel the same each time they are done. I’ll have to find that link sometime.
@Gustavef: Good point. I think SWG is a good example and although I never played EVE for a long enough period to say for sure, I think I know enough of the basic principles to say that it was at least going in the right direction. PotBS got lost somewhere along the way for sure.
I’m still on WoW because for the most part, I tune out the “end-game” content. I don’t want to arena for gear, I don’t want to do heroics, I just want to enjoy their game world. It works better for me than most people because I’m an altoholic and don’t mind several trips through their beautifully crafted leveling experience. I’m really having to force myself to grind a few pieces of gear to be ready for the new expansion, I’d rather just be on my alts.
By comparison, I got a single character to level 47 in Conan then unsubscribed. I wasn’t even having fun leveling up.
@Kalath: I know the feeling. I leveled at least 6 characters to 60 (pre BC) and after having 2 of them in tier 2 gear (was quite an accomplishment at the time) I still felt the leveling up process was the best thing in WoW. I’m hoping Blizzard’s next game can capture the same feeling in the leveling process and continue it beyond into the ‘Endgame’.
All loot drama starts with someone that did not get the item feeling that they deserve the item for whatever reasons they feel like spouting off at the moment, Roq.
And you know, it sucks not getting stuff. I’ve been there and done that so many times I should have the T-shirt by now. But it happens, and learning to deal with losing, wether it be an item or the campaign itself, is something the playerbase needs to be able to do.
Aaron, seriously, this late in WoW’s life, if you’re not on a new server, the mid-level zones are dead as a doornail. The lowbie zones have a never-ending supply of 19/29’s twinking projects and altoholic alts, but beyond The Barrens lies the great wasteland.
Gustavef, the contribution from say, the T1 RvR zones is likely to be a pittance. But it is the thought that counts.
Rog, the problem with repeatable PvE is the repeatable part. Anything that is repeatable will grow stale. Content worth anything takes MUCH longer to develop than it takes for the playerbase to devour it.
Paul Barnett of Mythic in a recent interview was asked how the game should cater to people who blow thru the content to rush to the endgame.
His answer, paraphrased: “You don’t. …those people aren’t true Warhammer fans. They play an MMO, beat it and move on. …it’s like someone being called a romantic after having a bunch of one-night-stands.”
Most other companies are trying desperately to retain “numbers”, journey be damned, and it really is hurting the industry.
@Neri
What I’m objecting to is the game placing players in this kind of dilemma, particularly when they don’t know each other well. It takes a long time before you can get to know someone well enough to trust them – and that is exacerbated when you don’t have access to facial gestures. WAR has some interesting ways of getting people to meet and group together (e.g. pqs), but Need/Greed looting is certainly not going to be one of them, since it discourages PUGs and encourages people only to group within their guild. I’d estimate that in over 50% of the PUGs I’ve been in there has been someone who violated honourable looting rules. Also the solution is so simple…
I liked the Sisyphus reference, particularly as I name many of my MMORPG characters in his honor – as can be seen from my name at the top of this comment. I once had someone send me a tell as I was grinding in WoW saying “Keep rolling that stone, brother”. I’m glad someone in game got it.
More on topic, there are a lot of good points in the comments, here. Although I disagree to an extent, Keen, that WoW’s leveling is its strongest element; if only for one reason, the miserable PvP access. Having to wait 7-8 levels in the 40s and 50s before you can safely enter a BG is torture to those of us who are primarily interested in PvP.
I think the biggest danger the endgame philosophy brings is that everything before level cap is trivial grind to suffer through before you can really *play* a new class, and then content at cap is repetitious, mudflating-gear-oriented, and ultimately unconnected to the “leveling” game. Guild Wars avoided this to an extent, and WAR looks like it might too – or at least I hope it will.
@Neri: That’s the theory that I disagree with. Maybe it’s because I grew up with Pong and I’ve got Joust and Super Sprint coin-ops in my living room. I do believe there’s such a thing as satisfying repeatable gameplay, although it’s easier to achieve as Player versus Player.
Speaking for myself, I’d rather have quality repeatable gameplay than have stretched gameplay. WoW’s raiding content IMHO is not designed from the ground up as repeatable, it’s been leveraged that way via their loot system. Like butter that’s been spread over too much toast.
[…] play more. This type of PvE is common in PvP games or games that focus too heavily on the “endgame” (I recommend one of my previous blog posts for further reading). Examples of obvious […]