As one of the largest category branches of the domestic game market, MMORPG has been the object of pursuit by major manufacturers for a long time. Even today, with the decline of MMORPG in the domestic terminal game market, the mobile market is still continuing the leading position in this category. In the "2021 China Game Industry Report", role-playing (ARPG/MMORPG) ranked first in terms of the number of categories and revenue capacity.
The number of game types in the top 100 by revenue accounted for the proportion of the top 100 game types by revenue
However, from the perspective of gameplay innovation, the development of MMO seems to have fallen into a bottleneck again, and the homogenization problem envelops this category. Similar graphics styles and similar core gameplay make many players tired, while the increasing gameplay content makes a large number of players reluctant to run anymore, and it is increasingly difficult for newly entered MMO mobile games to survive.
Many manufacturers have focused their efforts on the strong gameplay tolerance of MMO itself, bringing innovative experiences by combining various gameplay and MMOs, and re-attracting MMO players who have gradually precipitated.
"MMO+" has become the next breakthrough in the entire category.
01
The collision of MMO and unique theme styles
At the time when the popularity of mobile game MMO is gradually rising, many manufacturers see its future possibilities and have entered the battlefield. A large number of Xianxia martial arts MMO mobile games began to emerge, and then major manufacturers also brought their own terminal game big IP to the field of mobile games, such as NetEase's "Fantasy Journey to the West" and the IP mobile games of various game manufacturers represented by Tencent have achieved good results.
But with it comes the aesthetic fatigue caused by a large number of MMO of the same theme. Games that lack characteristics, do not escape the shackles of the "war pastoral method" gameplay and homogenization of the cultivation line are difficult to attract the attention of players.
Manufacturers have set their sights on the new breakthrough of the theme, and mobile games with survival themes such as "After Tomorrow", Western magic "My Name is MT4", and "Soul Hunting Awakening" have emerged at almost the same time. Of course, with the emergence of the second dimension, the potential of this style has also been noticed by many manufacturers.
2018's "Wind Continent" won a place in a number of realistic style MMO mobile games with its unique Japanese two-dimensional painting style. At the end of last year, "Magic Tower" integrated the elements of the two-dimensional style on the basis of the wasteland theme + open world, and the achievement of 50 million flowing water on the first day of the launch is still vivid. And also focusing on the two-dimensional theme, there is also the recently first exposed "Tower of the Sacred Realm".
In addition to the japanese fantasy style world view background, "Tower of the Sacred Realm" also put a lot of effort into the performance of the picture. "Forest System" and "Healing" are the style positioning of "Tower of sacred land" for its own game, and unlike "Wind Continent" which is also a two-dimensional fantasy style, "Tower of sacred land" deliberately reduces the color saturation of the scene and makes the overall picture appear softer and brighter.
In terms of graphic performance, compared with the "Jepplic Realism" style of "Two Kingdoms: Interlaced World", the "Tower of the Sacred Land" game simplifies the details of the picture while retaining the transmission of information. In addition to alleviating the visual fatigue caused by the complexity of the picture, it also unexpectedly adds a bit of fantasy color.
In addition to the painting style, "anthropomorphism" has also become a feature of many two-dimensional mobile games. From warships to firearms, from dishes to cultural relics, "everything can be anthropomorphic" seems to have become a trend in the second dimension. "Tower of the Sacred Land" combines the world background of its own tree of life and the positioning of the "Forest System" style, and integrates the "Flower Spirit" into the game.
According to the image characteristics and flower language of flowers, the game gives the "flower spirit" a fairly delicate standing painting and backstory. Thanks to the Tree of Life-themed worldview, "Flower Spirit" blends very naturally into the game. The main story around the "Flower Spirit" has made many characters get a full character shape.
"Tower of the Sacred Land" brings the common content of the two-dimensional mobile game into the MMORPG, and the bold fusion of the two popular categories in the "MMO+" idea is quite interesting, and the attraction to the pan-two-dimensional players is obvious. But after digging deeper into the game, I realized that their goals may be more than that.
02
Make MMO "lighter"?
Being able to achieve long-term operation is the primary goal of every MMO category game. How to ensure that the player retention rate in the process of new content production is high enough has also become a major problem after the genre is mature. Manufacturers are trying to stretch players' game time, extremely long cultivation processes, copies with a very low equipment explosion rate, online time rewards, and so on.
The two-way increase in liver and krypton has made many players bitter, and some players are deeply disgusted by the experience of "going to work" in the game. Some MMO have shown a trend of "light" development, returning to the essence of entertainment, in addition to slowing down the boring cultivation of games, adding a lot of casual play to serve social needs.
At this point, the approach of "Tower of the Sacred Realm" is even more surprising to me. They have taken advantage of the content inclusiveness of the MMORPG category to add a rich and diverse light-to-casual gameplay to the game, as the R&D team said, "I hope that every player can find a goal in the game and be different." While incorporating as many interesting gameplays as possible, Tower of the Sacred Lands takes good care of the playing experience of light players.
Although the game is a two-dimensional theme, it does not choose to plunge into the mainstream two-dimensional style of the current "black and deep", and "Tower of the Sacred Land" depicts the healing atmosphere of the entire game with a funny or gentle story. Nicely lowers the acceptance barrier to entry for the game. Under the main tone of "relaxed", the game's large number of light gameplay has enhanced the player's sense of immersion.
In addition to the various life and professional gameplay common to MMORPG, the game also has a small game area - garden activities. You can find a group of friends to relax by playing music in the square, or enjoy the fun of slow life by the river. Cultivating land, cooking on fire, taking orders and running businesses and other content with a breath of life abound in the game.
And with a series of light gameplay that is easy to heal and full of life, the game brings players a sense of immersion and realism. The game strives to create a real world from all aspects, and heals the player with the ubiquitous relaxed and brisk atmosphere of this world. This sense of inclusion for groups of players is quite rare at the moment.
Tower of the Sacred Lands is trying to attract the attention of more light casual players in the blue ocean, which is very new to me in today's highly competitive environment of MMORPGs, and it is also a wise approach.
03
The sword refers to the larger market
In today's MMO category mobile games tend to be saturated, unlike other MMORPG mobile games that use strong liver to increase the intensity of players' games, "Tower of the Sacred Land" is willing to set its sights on mild players and pan-secondary players who have slightly entered the MMO market, and can also see their determination to change.
The outcome of Tower of Sacred Territory's choice to try a wider audience market to enhance its competitiveness in the category is unknown, but if it succeeds, perhaps Tower of Sacred Land can open up a new path for future MMORPGs.