MMORPGs and the lost art of digital escapism

In a first attempt at creating a personal diary of sorts to collect my thoughts on here, I figured I should start with a topic very near and dear to my heart: MMORPGs. Primarily, talking about how the MMORPG has been thoroughly standardized and corrupted in the modern era by greed and lack of understanding of what even made the genre so innovative in the first place.

To start out for the uninitiated, while MMORPGs existed prior to this game, the first major breakout success in the MMO sphere was 1997's Ultima Online developed by Origin Systems.

The development of Ultima Online was led by Richard Garriott, director of the Ultima series as a whole, and the goal of bringing it online was simple: create a believable, livable digital world.

This simple goal was the core of every design decision during the games, by today's standard, short development time. Be who you want, how you want, in a world completely disconnected from our own

Ultima Online was also designed to give players an unprecedented level of freedom, something that had never truly been seen in another game before it aside from the Elder Scrolls series, in that nearly every single item, animal, enemy, natural resource was not only shared between all players, but the ecosystem itself would be influenced by player's actions. This level of freedom of course came with it's downsides, within moments of the servers opening to the public, the entire game world had been razed of all resources and wildlife, and player killing was rampant. But one fact remained to the people who played it: the concept was not only new, it was exciting. 

Fast forward 2 years, and the landscape of online worlds would change again with the release of 1999's Everquest by 989 studios, a game directly inspired by the ideas that Ultima Online brought to the table. This game though, would take a wholly different approach by placing certain restrictions on what players could and could not do, scaling back the total freedom for a more directed "themepark" design while still maintaining the core tenets of what they believed the genre was. 

Everquest's gamble on scaling back the sandbox elements in favor of more restrictive tabletop RPG mechanics ultimately paid off, as the game skyrocketed past the player count of Ultima Online very quickly, and held that spot as the "top dog" of the genre for multiple years bringing the genre and concept of an MMORPG to the front of the general consciousness. Not so lightly given the nickname of "EverCrack" by worried parents and reporters at the time, Everquest proved one thing, and that was that the MMORPG audience is growing, and will keep growing. 

In Japan, famed director Hironobu Sakaguchi, was also addicted to Everquest. His admiration and excitement for the possibilities of online RPGs eventually came to a head when he was adamant to pursue taking the Final Fantasy series in this direction with the game that I even bothered to start blogging for, Final Fantasy XI Online. 

The success of the prior two games I've mentioned has really only been to set context for this game, Final Fantasy XI, as my intention of this blog post is not only to explain how things went wrong, but also to why I think Final Fantasy XI is the closest the genre has ever been, and ever will be to perfection. Final Fantasy XI being inspired by EverQuest is one of the major points that needs to be explained here, as prior to Final Fantasy XI, MMORPGs were next to non-existent in Japan. Online gaming in general during this era was still in it's infancy, primarily delegated to PC exclusive games like DOOM, QUAKE, Unreal Tournament, Realtime Strategy games, etc. MMORPGs were so radically different to these games that the appeal was almost universal, everyone regardless of place of origin loved RPGs, but in Japan there hadn't been anyone willing, or interested in attempting to make an MMORPG beside's SEGA with 2000's Phantasy Star Online (although, this was not exactly an MMORPG like the previous games listed, and SEGA themselves never labeled it as such). 

Because of this, Hironobu Sakaguchi was determined to create what he was calling the "Japanese style of MMORPG". Final Fantasy XI was designed first and foremost to be a *Final Fantasy* game, but online. It's very inception from it's logo, to it's game mechanics, and artstyle were designed to evoke a sense of unity and co-operation. It got rid of previously deemed "hardcore" mechanics from EverQuest like dropping all of your items on death, but purposefully kept a vital component of it: Experience point loss on death

Of course, the idea of losing progress on death sounds silly and overly punishing by modern standards, but I believe that this system was what rounded out Final Fantasy XI to be nearly perfect. Players would inherently fear death, just as any person in life would, and because of that people all play on the same level: everyone knows the consequences of dying, so they try harder to avoid having it happen to them, and by extension work harder to ensure their allies stay alive

The first time you go somewhere you shouldn't, or pick a fight with something clearly too much for you and you hear the dreaded sound of Levelling Down is a very humbling experience meant to teach you one specific thing: the game does not operate on *your* rules, it operates on the world's rules.

The fear of death, and the sense of unity coming from the hardship of levelling up and making it to the end of the journey of FFXI, created a community so tight-knit and so passionate about the game that it was not uncommon to see people sacrifice themselves so that others can get out safely, or bring useful items when getting together to level up with other people just to protect them and ensure everyone can avoid losing their XP. 

It also fed into the world itself, players who didn't want to leave the safety of the various cities and towns could take up the job of creating useful items for people, joining one of the various crafting guilds using items collected by the people who *did* go out and fight monsters and level up to create armors, weapons, food items, medicines, and more. 

These 2 factors, mixed with Final Fantasy XI's world simulation mechanics such as real-time boat travel, airship travel, needing to rent chocobos from the stables in cities as well as shops having working hours and holidays gave just enough restrictions alongside the freedom to explore the world at your own pace that gave a level of immersion that to this day has not been matched.

The game itself financially was also a smash hit for it's time, steadily eclipsing EverQuest for the record of the most users in an MMORPG at the time, benefitted by being the first fully cross-platform MMORPG with PC, PS2, and XBOX360 as it's platforms. But, you can't talk about FFXI without also mentioning PlayOnline.

PlayOnline is what rounds out what I feel was lost from MMORPGs after the release of World of Warcraft in 2004: the feeling of innovation, excitement, and creativity. PlayOnline as it was, was effectively what could be considered Steam today. It's primary reason for existence was serving as a hub for all things Square Enix, from news to promotions, wallpapers to strategy guide hints. It served as a hub for players to get together, chat, and for Square to be able to market directly to their userbase and connect with them in ways a company hadn't tried yet. It also served as the launcher for Final Fantasy XI, allowing you to keep in touch with your friends made in it via the PlayOnline email service even when you're not playing the game.

In too many ways to count, PlayOnline was ahead of it's time, and is the final reason why I think MMORPGs of today have lost the ability to capture an audience the way they originally did. PlayOnline as a social platform for FFXI captures the essence of the old MMORPG: bringing people who may never have been able to meet together. 

MMORPGs of this era had a simple payment model, purchase the game and pay a monthly fee. This kept everyone on an equal playing field, ensured constant funding for continued development, and prevented more insidious monetization methods from being used. It was in benefit of the feeling of escapism, you could log in and know no matter what happened in your day, what your current situation is, you can take a brief respite away from it all and immerse yourself in a virtual world alongside other people all on the same playing field as you. Real life, and it's problems, did not apply to these virtual worlds.

This changed when the advent of the free-to-play MMORPG exploded in popularity. Suddenly, no one was on an equal playing field. Your real world status could get you real, and extreme advantages in the virtual world. These games were designed to encourage the spending of money via annoyances, the spending of *extreme* amounts of money through the "fear of missing out" tactic and random item boxes that had a low chance of giving you extremely powerful items.

This mentality and business model forever perverted and distorted the intention of the MMORPG, shifting design away from bringing people together through shared hardship and equal playing fields, and instead dividing them through monetary and social status. No longer were MMOs focused on creating a digital world to escape to, instead they focused on creating a game to trap you, and remove any need to interact with other people to succeed to cast as wide of a net as possible to ensure maximum profitability.

Now, what I'm trying to say here isn't that you're a bad person for enjoying a modern MMORPG, or that your experiences with your favorite game are any less valid than mine, but what I hope I got across with this blog post is that over time the MMORPG as an artform has been more or less forcefully buried by the goliath that was World of Warcraft and free-to-play games. Buried to the point where a lot of people might not even have any memories of what the genre was before these games, and may not even be aware games of the genre existed *before* the mentioned games. 

But, to end it, I think it's a shame and it's emblematic of the way games in general have been headed for awhile now. What was once a powerful tool to bring people together, and create a connection between artist and consumer never really seen before, has simply just become another victim of wild west capitalism taking precedent over the art itself.