原作者：Anderson Addo 译者：Willow Wu

跟其他从2005-2010年代开始玩游戏的美国孩子一样，我喜欢玩大型多人在线角色扮演游戏 (MMORPG)。我就是喜欢那种奇幻世界、自由、还有冒险！游戏社区很活跃，能让我沉浸其中，游戏中的冒险惊心动魄，让我不禁赞叹……你懂的我的感觉吧，这一切都妙不可言。

具体来说，我玩Runescape和Flyff已经有6年了。

但是在2012年，Runescape发生了变故。游戏换了一批管理团队，开发者们做了一些非常不对玩家胃口的决策，甚至影响了原来的游戏玩法。新团队才接手没多久，游戏中就出现了各种坑蒙拐骗的微交易，然后社区彻底分裂，游戏被活生生地撕成两半。我目睹着社区成为一盘散沙，最终我伤心地离开了游戏。

我相信阅读这篇文章的大多数人都有类似这样的MMORPG游戏经历。

GW2(from mmorpg.com)

Jagex还算走运，Runescap并没有因此遭受打击，还依旧活跃，但是有时候我还是很想知道当初他们到底是为什么做了如此反常的决定，给游戏和玩家们都带来了无法抹灭的伤疤。直到今天，还有人争论说Runescap并没有完全恢复它往日的辉煌。用一些玩家的话来说，到底是什么能让开发者们“不爱社区爱钱包”？

讲个故事……

我有自己的一套推论。Runescape之前一直在尝试增加对新玩家的吸引力，避免游戏停运。有段时间，我也和大多数人的想法一样，以为这就是MMO游戏的其中一个失败案例。

但是最终我还是决定深入研究一下。花点时间上网，我在Reddit上收集到了好多信息，了解到其实早在变故发生的10年前，这段插曲就已经开演了。

1990年代末期到2000年代早期是MMO游戏的天下。如果你的游戏跟别人不一样、有潜力，在那个年代的游戏行业是很吃香的，像是Eve Online, MapleStory, Everquest和Runescape (是的，Runescape算是很老的游戏了)，都是很有趣的游戏，有几百万玩家支撑着。说真的，他们简直是挖到了金矿。

然而，YouTube一个名为Extra Creditz的频道中有一期视频说到了“每隔一段时间就会出现一款强有力的游戏，虽然很少见，但足以震撼整个游戏行业。”这用来形容MMO游戏是再合适不过的了。

2004年又有一款游戏加入混战，从此MMO游戏翻过了新的一页。

这么厉害的游戏是什么？这个非同寻常，能够载入MMO史册的游戏是什么？如果你玩MMO游戏玩得多的话你应该知道我说的是什么，而且很有可能你自己也在玩这个游戏。

它就是《魔兽世界》。

一个充满魔兽的世界

《魔兽世界》(通常被简写为WoW)对游戏行业的影响就像是陨石对恐龙的影响。

没夸张，就是字面上的意思。

《魔兽世界》简直是让整个行业都没了活路。有趣的是，这意思并不是说这个游戏差到让人不敢相信，或者是令人反胃或者是怎样，是因为它实在是太棒了。这种成功是史无前例的，但更重要的是游戏所具有的巨大吸引力。

它造成的影响跟数量没有没有关系，玩MMO游戏的人数并没有因为《魔兽世界》而产生巨大改变，而是它影响的是MMO游戏的特色。

《魔兽世界》已经找到了成功的方法，于是其他人也想分一杯羹。突然之间，大部分的MMO游戏都做成了《魔兽世界》的山寨品，这个现象持续了有整整十年。这些游戏的开发者进入这个行业只是为了赚钱，毫不意外，他们也没有真正搞懂玩家社区对于MMO游戏的重要性。

游戏质量差，行业变成饱和状态。如果有人不明白这是什么意思，其实就是游戏太多了。因为这种状况，整个行业进入了低谷期。

对于新玩家来说这个类型的游戏并没有多有趣，而开发者们又面临着越来越大的竞争压力，把那些现有的玩家看作是行走的取款机。游戏越来越注重收益，社区的重要性已经不如从前了，但是它恰恰是促成游戏成功的关键。

但是问题还不止于此。

快餐式满足作崇

MMO游戏有个特点就是它们非常耗时间。你要花费好几个小时升级，取得游戏进展。很多时候，这个过程会很慢，而且……我得承认确实是……比较无聊，但是最终拿到奖励的时候真的是感觉很爽。

然而这就是游戏行业的其中一个问题：开发者们提供给玩家的游戏体验越来越多是快餐式的满足（而且他们也越来越擅长于此），而不是传统模式那样需要努力一段时间，之后才得到你的奖励。

为了取得最后的满意成果，玩家需要花很多很多的精力，只有少数游戏类型才会要求玩家这样做，RPG游戏就是其中一个。在过去，这个过程是非常枯燥的，而且必须不断重复，但是现代RPG在这个过程中增添了很多乐趣。

但是这仍是RPG游戏中不可或缺的一部分。

MMO行业逐渐趋于饱和，竞争越来越激烈，只要一有新玩家接触到游戏，开发者们就不遗余力地要把他们留下来。这些玩家大部分都是第一次玩MMO游戏，他们并不习惯传统游戏中那种需要耗费很长时间才能得到满足的游戏体验。因此，有些MMO游戏就降低难度，变得容易上手，只要能够让玩家高兴他们什么都愿意做，最终结果通常就是玩家抛弃了这个游戏，又去寻找新游戏。

游戏变得简单了，社区对于他们来说并没有多大的合作意义，所以他们的社区也是一盘散沙。

安全行事

所以，《魔兽世界》的轰动效应过去之后，MMORPG行业到处都是低质量的山寨游戏，玩家也不在乎游戏社区。当然，高质量的游戏并没有消失，比如Tera，但同样也有一堆不怎么样的游戏。

所以这种现象大概还会持续一段时间吧。为什么？就跟它出现的原因是一样的。

制作MMORPG游戏是一项非常艰巨的任务。成本高、开发时间长，上线了以后，开发者们还得继续花钱花时间来维护游戏，这点也是很让人头疼。开发者们知道有个赚钱的好方法，就算是红海地狱他们也愿意往里跳。比起创新冒险，他们更愿意直接参照别人的设计，安全行事，这就是为什么很多人都要山寨《魔兽世界》。

所以现在呢？

MMORPG游戏开始复苏了。现在有越来越多的新想法出现，但是正如我上文所说的，开发游戏需要时间，所以这个复苏过程会有点慢。

所谓复苏指的不是会有更多玩家去玩MMORPG，而是指游戏本身不再那么千篇一律，而是有各自的游戏特色和闪光点。

除了创新，MMORPG也逐渐向F2P模式靠近，这样就会吸引更多玩家，让社区重新活跃起来，也能帮助开发者们更好地运营游戏。希望开发者们在游戏上能够更加“顽固”一点，坚持自己对新内容的想法，把焦点侧重在游戏社区上，而不是收益。

在未来，我们可能不会看到太多比较复杂的MMORPG游戏，但是我们会看到更多更有趣的游戏，它们将会有更好的玩家社区，能让玩家沉浸在游戏中。

这就是我最后的答案！

我想这就是为什么Runescape能渡过难关。他们不顾玩家的反对，顶住了压力，对游戏做出了更改。虽然事实证明这不算是坏事，但我也无法客观地说开发者们做出的这些改变到底是必要的还是多余的。然而，以这个例子来讲，Runescape“丢失了它原本的特色和闪光点”，这是署名为Witchwood Icon的一位粉丝说的。在这个竞争激烈、门槛低的行业中，它变得比较“现代化”了，在一大堆MMORPG游戏中它变得那么平庸，我们还要花点时间才能找到它的位置。开发者们的想法是吸引更多新玩家来带动游戏的老玩家，但同时又想保持游戏的核心部分，但这么做反而让玩家觉得这个游戏变得越来越陌生。

要点

MMO游戏是个相当复杂的领域，尽管我想尽力把东西总结给你们看，但是内容实在是太多了。我说东西不一定都能适用于整个行业，肯定还有很多内容我没有涉及到，还有一些我没有完全理解的地方。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Like many children who started playing games in the USA around 2005 to 2010, I loved to play Massive Multiplayer Online Role Player Games (MMORPGs). I just loved the fantasy, freedom and adventure! The communities were immersive and lively, the adventures were wondrous and breathtaking and … you get the idea. They were amazing.

A snapshot of Runescape. Credit: Wikia

I specifically played Runescape and Flyff for 6 years.

But then, around 2012, something happened to Runescape. The game went under new management, and the developers made some majorly unpopular decisions to affect the gameplay, and before I knew it the game was chock full of cheesy microtransaction schemes and a community so divided that the game literally split into two. The community dissipated before my eyes, and eventually I left the game heartbroken.

I’m pretty sure a lot of you out there have had an experience like this with an MMORPG.

Luckily for Jagex, Runescape survived and is alive and well, but sometimes I wonder what caused them to leave such a permanent scar on the game and their player base. To this day, some could argue that the game hasn’t completely recovered. What caused them to, as some players put it, “care more about their wallets than their community?”

A little Story by the Campfire…

I had my theories. For a while, like many, I though it simple was a product of the MMO genre dying out, and Runescape was attemping to become more attractive to new players to avoid closure.

But eventually I decided to really look it up. After a little web surfing and a ton of Reddit, it became clear that the history of Runescape’s episode actually started almost 10 years before its occurrence.

In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, MMOs were all the range. The gaming industry welcomed the change and potential, and games like Eve Online, MapleStory, Everquest and Runescape (yeah, Runescape is a very old game) were benefiting from millions of players and were quite a lot of fun. Honestly, those guys struck a gold mine.

However, as was once said in an episode of the YouTube channel Extra Creditz, “Every once in a rare while, a single game comes along that affects the entire gaming industry.” And that couldn’t be more true for the MMO industry.

A game in 2004 came into the mix that changed the course of that genre forever.

What was this rare game? What was that anomaly, that game that would make it into the gaming history books? Anyone who plays MMOs enough should know exactly which game it was, and have most probably played it themselves.

World of Warcraft.

A World of Warcraft

A snapshot of World of Warcraft. Credit: Cinemablend.com

Commonly abbreviated as WoW, World of Warcraft hit the industry like the meteor that hit the dinosaurs.

Literally.

WoW killed the industry. The interesting thing is, it’s not like WoW killed the industry because it was just mind-bogglingly bad or revolting or anything, but because it was just too good. It’s success was simply unprecedented, but more importantly, it was attractive.

The death it caused wasn’t necessarily a death concerned with numbers, but with individuality and flare.

WoW had found a formula to find success, and others wanted its benefits too. Suddenly, for a whole decade, the majority of the MMOs coming out were all rip-offs of WoW. They were being made by developers who entered the industry just for the money, and, not too surprisingly, didn’t really grasp how important the community aspect is to the MMO genre.

The games were low quality, and the industry became saturated. For anyone who doesn’t know what this means, it simple means that there were too many games. And it’s due to this the industry hit a pretty low point.

The genre seemed less interesting for new players, and existing players were faced with being treated like walking money bags since the games they played had to deal with more and more competition. Games became more and more about money and less about the community that made the games successful in the first place.

But here was another problem too.

The Evil of Instant Gratification

One thing about MMOs is that they take a lot of time. You’ll grind for hours and hours to level up and get make progress. Many times, such grinding is slow and…I must admit it…boring, albeit the reaped rewards make you feel really great.

That’s a problem for a gaming industry that’s growing and getting better at supplying users with instant gratification, rather than delayed gratification (working and earning your reward).

You see, RPGs are one of the only genres where you have to really work for an end product of gratification. In the past, that work was dull and repetitive, but modern RPGs are making that progress making more fun.

But it’s still an integral part of the genre.

So with the industry becoming saturated and competition becoming unfavorably tough, MMOs would prefer to keep any players that stumble upon their games. Many of these would be players new to the MMO scope, and when they get on they aren’t used to the delayed gratification. This leads to some MMOs making their games easier to play, reducing their challenge levels and doing anything to please players that leave to try out new games in the end anyway.

Games that become easier had a lower need for a cooperative community, so their communities crumbled too.

Playing it Safe

So by the end of this earthquake the MMORPG space was filled with tons of low-quality rip-offs with low community engagement. Sure, there were still high quality games out there, like Tera, but there were a lot of pretty mediocre ones out there too.

So this trend continued for a while. Why? For the same reason it started in the first place.

Making a MMORPG is a very herculean task. The costs are high and development time is long, and on top of that the maintenance that goes into the game once it’s live can be a real headache. Developers only want to jump into that abyss if they know there’s something good on the other side. They’d rather play it safe, which is why a lot of them decided to just follow WoW and choked up the industry.

So what now, then?

Star Citizen, a major MMORPG hopefully coming out in the next few years. Credit: engadget.com

The MMORPG industry is starting to recover. More innovative ideas are coming out, but as I just said, these games take a while to develop and this recovery will be a bit slow.

Like I said, it will be a recovery of flare and individuality, not numbers of players playing the genre.

Apart from having more unique takes on things, MMORPGs are becoming more free-to-play, which will attract more players to them and can help revive their communities (provided the developers run the games well). Developers will also hopefully be a bit more rigid as to what they will add to the game, and focus more on the community and less on the wallet.

We probably won’t see that many challenging MMORPGs in the future anymore, but we will see more interesting ones with better communities and player engagement.

So I Got my Answer in the End!

So I think this is why Runescape went through that episode. It bucked under the pressure to fit the masses. It’s not necessarily a bad thing though, and I can’t objectively say whether how they changed was necessary or not. However, in this case, Runescape “lost its individuality and flare” as the fan Witchwood Icon put it. It became more “modern”, and took a while to find its place in the MMORPG industry that has become more competitive and easy. Its attempts to attract more players affected its indigenous players, and while the game tried to keep its core aspects ,it became more and more alien to its fans.

Takeaways

The MMO industry is a complex one, and while I tried so summarize things for you, there’s a lot going on. Some of the things I’ve said don’t apply to the whole industry, and there’s sure to be a lot I haven’t covered or don’t fully understand.(source:gamasutra )