Will we finally see the fabled approachable MMO?
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With Guild Wars 3, developer ArenaNet is looking to directly tackle probably the biggest challenge in the entire MMO space: these things are hard to get into, and even harder to get your friends into.
As part of our big Guild Wars 3 preview, we spoke to studio head Colin Johanson about ArenaNet's next big adventure. He examines the onboarding and accessibility hurdles endemic to MMOs, or in short, the second job problem.
"We want to have that next generation come play MMOs," he begins, "and I think that, honestly, one of the biggest challenges the MMO industry faces right now as a whole is when we tell people to come play our game, the first thing they say is, 'I don't have time for that. It's like a second job. I can't engage with it.' And I think that makes it hard for anyone, folks with families, to engage and bring their family in. Folks who are younger who have 50 games that they're trying to play that compete for their time, they don't want to have that experience that's like a second job."
Many recent MMOs have talked about getting to the good stuff faster. Johanson suggests this is part of the solution, but only part of it. The key, he reasons, will be getting Guild Wars 3 "approachable to the point that you can very easily play and progress and complete things, while also having the depth that MMO players are looking for, so that if I want to play for that long, I can meaningfully engage."
Here, he looks at play patterns. "I think a huge part of the problem for MMOs is there's this ingrained 'preparing to have fun' window where you load into the game, you figure out your inventory, organize your inventory, go through your quest log, set up your build, get your gear figured out, get your friends' gear figured out, your build's ready to go, and you're ready to play the content. And you look at the clock, you've been online for an hour, and you haven't started playing yet.
"So many other genres have modernized to the point now where they're accessible and you're able to very quickly get in and start playing the game, and immediately be able to get a return on your time investment. And you need to be able to jump into an MMO and have 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and be able to do something."
Momentum is directly reflected in Guild Wars 3's combat and movement, which veer closer to a traditional single-player action game – even spectacle fighters or character action games – than you'd expect from an MMO. A sense of weight turns actual momentum into a vector of power and strategy, sending you diving and soaring with rare physicality.
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Additionally, Johanson echoes a point that the Final Fantasy 14 team brings up a lot: "You also need to be able to set this game down and say, 'I'm going to take a break for four months, and I'll come back when the next expansion comes out, and I'm not going to be left behind and not be able to keep up with everybody. I can just jump back in and play when I want to play.'"
Here, ArenaNet has one big advantage. "I think our no subscription fee helps there too," Johanson says. "There's nothing holding you hostage, [like] you have to keep playing the game. You just set it down for a while and that's a totally healthy, normal relationship with a video game, and it should be, and our system should respect that."
He and ArenaNet are still keeping the details of their solution close, but Johanson says this is collectively "one of the most important things we're trying to tackle with Guild Wars 3 so that it can speak to a broader audience. so that it can speak to a broader audience. So it can be both what brings a lot of older MMO fans back, and the 29 million Guild Wars fans who played over time, bringing all of them back to be able to engage with this game.
"But also to bring a new generation into MMOs, who I really don't think have had an MMO in their life for the last 10 years. [Something] that they all jump into, and we would love to be like that."
Guild Wars 3 may have cracked the MMO code for tired millennials.
