MMO Rambling
Every MMO I play I look for these four qualities:
• Consequence to actions
• Interdependence
• Self-directed pursuits
• Intelligence
I want all of these in a game. Sadly, it appears the American mass market does not. The popularity of WoW signifies the fact that people want none of these things in their MMO experience. My retention in the current iteration of mmog's has been very short due mostly to the lack of these four ideas. I don't want to be lead by the nose, I don't want to be able to do everything well, I don't want to win every encounter easily, and I certainly don't want to be insulted by an overtly simplistic game format.
I like solving puzzles. I like my games to be difficult to a point that I feel I've done something when I've overcome a challenge. I like having a role in a gaming world that cannot be duplicated by everyone else... being a specialist as it were. If one could incorporate those four into a game world, correctly and not half-hearted, I would perhaps be that game's slave for eons.
Now, instead of talking about what I dislike in a game, I'm going to be constructive to begin with (What a shock, I know!) and give some example of a recipe for a good game.
First off, you've got to remove levels from a game entirely. We've gone as far as we can go in a DIKU-based world. DIKU is great for a social-based game. Now its degenerated into combat-based in which it doesn't work. Removing levels almost completely removes Endgame as well.
Secondly, there must be interdependence between all players. The various aspects of the game have to relate in ways that don't require the individual player to commit to them all. If you want to PvP would shouldn't be required to kill lots of animals. If you want to craft items you shouldn't be required to be any good at PvP, if you want to go kill animals you shouldn't be required to be able to craft things, etc. This doesn't mean things shouln't be related, the relationships just shouldn't be forced. For example:
Lets consider a couple of players.
Player A: Likes being important.
Player B: Likes crafting things.
Player C: Likes PvP.
Player D: Likes hunting animals/exploring.
Player E: Likes making money.
Player A is a city leader and is good at politics, but not much else, nor is he interested in much else. However being an important person he's often the target of enemies of his city, besides wanting to make the city safe for its own sake. So he hires Player C and some of Cs friends to look after things. Player C likes nothing else but to pvp, however he needs to get items made and he doesn't want to make them himself so he pays Player B to do that for him. Player B likes making things but hates getting the rescources, so he buys them off Player E, a local merchant. Player E likes making money but doesn't like running around the land for items, so he runs a shop in the city where he buys resources from Player D, and sells them for a profit to Player B. Player D likes running around the wilds exploring and finds a lot of rescources in his travels, so he sells them to Player E on his way through town. Player E has all this money on hand and needs somewhere to look after it, so besides paying the town (and through it Player A) for his shop he also keeps it in the town bank. Player A safeguards the bank by using taxes and shop fees and the like to fund hiring guards and Player C. And so on.
This is an ideal situation where everyone is able to do what they want to do and not worry about everything else, while still taking part in a world with meaningul relationships. There is no "endgame" here!
Thirdly, the game must have a good community. The new game industry's mantra of "How massive can we go?" is detrimental to the MMO world as a whole. In a game with a proper community then your actions as an individual will have meaning, if you're getting lost and wondering what to do in the game it might be because the game does not have enough of a structure between the players to give the individuals actions meaning. In a virtual world you should be movitated to do things for yourself because you feel that doing so will change the world around you and thus be interesting. To go back to my example above: If the guy who likes exploring comes back to town every day and sells his items to an NPC other than another player then he is all of a sudden cut off from the rest of the world. For all intent he might as well be playing by himself and it would make no difference to anyone else playing the game. It might seem like a small issue, but this can have a large affect on how "fun" the game is for the individual. Example:
Scenario 1:
Player D comes back from the wilds with a whole stack of animal furs which he sells to the local NPC.
NPC: Thank you. Here is your payment of 1000gold.
Player D goes off to do exactly the same thing.
Scenario 2:
Player D comes back from the wilds with a whole stack of animal furs which he sells to the local merchant.
E: "Hey D, the market for fur has exploded, all of a sudden we have this new crafter in town who can make winter coats and the price is through the roof, there isn't enough fur to meet demand. If you can get me anymore of this stuff I can promise you 5 times the normal price."
D: "Who's the crafter?"
E: "B, he's got a shop over near the center of town. Tell him I sent you and he should give you a good price on a coat.. hell bring me another 30 pelts and I'll get you one for free."
D: "Sounds good."
D walks over to B's shop.
D: "Hey, I hear you need pelts, how much are you paying for them?"
B: "I've got a deal to work through E for all my raw materials, if you have any stock you'd best go through him."
D later stops by Es shop before heading out of the city.
E: "Listen, I heard you went over to B and offered to sell him pelts up front. The guy and me go way back so he let me know right away what was going on. I've given you a good deal here for ages and I'm pretty annoyed you tried to go around me, don't let it happen again or I'll cut you off."
etc etc..
Its not even like making a system like this is so hard to make a base for...
If we consider a more trading friendly concept, say a game where rescources are heavy and need to be transported by a cart, ship, or whatever.
Player A has 50gold and wants to fight. He buys armor and weapons.
Player B has 50gold and wants to trade. He buys a donkey.
Player A comes across rescource X but has no way of transporting it.
Player B comes across rescource X but finds wild animals in the area.
Player B says to player A, "Guard me while I load this on my donkey and I'll give you 10 gold when I get back to town."
Player B gets back to town and sells rescource X for 100 gold, giving 10g to player A.
Player A goes and buys himself a new and better weapon.
Player B buys himself a horse and cart.
Player B will eventually get rich, and player A will get better at combat."
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There will be a non-nerdy update to come after I have some dinner. So no need to worry for the rest of you.