As my office-mate Will said, there are two kinds of people with two different viewpoints on how low system reqs should be for MMOs.

  • The people who think that the reqs should be as low as possible. As in, they want the client to run on that watch calculator you wore to the prom in 1986.
  • Everyone else. As in, all of those people who are wrong.

This came to mind when reading Scott’s summation of Vanguard’s current issues, specifically the part where Brad McQuaid says

  • Vanguard requires a top-notch machine by today’s standards. But with time, machines will catch up and everything will be dandy.
  • Vanguard’s really needs to reach a more casual audience.

The problem is that these viewpoints are not terribly compatible, simply due to the way that PCs get bought and handed around. One of the reasons that World of Warcraft exploded is because hardcore geeks bought it, and were joined by wives, girlfriends, siblings and what not who saw the game over their shoulder and proceeded to join them. This can happen if the game runs on the house’s second machine. More often than not, though, the wife is running on the PC the husband gave her when he last bought a machine (probably, say, when Doom 4 came out).

At this point, social pressure starts to kick in. Great, WoW got wifey addicted to MMOs. But your new game came out, and she doesn’t have a machine good enough to play the game (because, you know, most households don’t have the cash to upgrade two or more boxes to Alienware quality whenever any game with promise launches). So what’s gonna happen? Most likely, the wife’s going to pout until the husband agrees to play with her (or vice versa, for all you hardcore gamer moms out there), and collectively they’re going to choose the game that runs on both PCs. In that negotiation, the game that requires a nitrogen-cooled CPU to run will probably lose.

The real tragedy, of course, is what being the hot-shit graphics game really gets you – a long arms race with everyone else who is trying to be the hot-shit graphics game. Here’s an article that Anyuzer probably wishes he could take back: the one where he predicts Everquest 2 would win due largely to their realistic art style. Now, EQ2 looks dated, and Vanguard and LotRO trying to grab the realism crown. Those games will look dated two years from now. WoW’s art approach not only sidesteps the uncanny valley, but ensures the game will age well. And in a genre which successful games routinely have a 10 year lifespan, longevity shines.

Tangent aside, MMOs are all about reaching social critical mass. About your virtual world being the place to be. Accessibility is key, and while for most designers this means silky smooth tutorials, intuitive UIs and a candy-coated level 1 to 10 progression, the very first accessibility test is whether or not your game runs at 4 frames per second in character creation on a machine that was top of the line just 3 years ago.

Think of the children. Think of the wives. Or at least, think of their hand-me-down machines.

Original comments thread is here.