The Future of MMOs
August 23rd, 2006 by park
Once upon a time, MMOs were called MMORPGs. But with the advent of the next generation games, they’ve managed to shrug off the RPG part of the title. Games that should have been more, have been reduced to nothing more than treadmill reward systems. Role playing has been replaced with roll playing.
The only game I can think of off the top of my head that has managed to dodge that is Neverwinter Nights. And it’s not even a MMO. The reason? The one component the big guys have neglected. The community.
Let me share a small story with you. When UO first started, a friend of mine and I played it religiously. We found other role players who wanted a world that reflected the games we grew up playing, and didn’t involved acronym communication. A little mature game play, a story to drive it, and reasons beyond phat lewt to explore and go places together.
Many of us were part of a pirate guild, and even though there was no ship-to-ship combat, or anything remotely resembling it, we still managed to have a blast. We worked within the community. And the guys at OSI supported us by rewarding us.
Somewhere along the way EA decided they didn’t care about the people who meant a backbone to their game. They killed off the sequel so they could “update” their little UO 2D world. We were noticeably upset. The RP community I knew and loved deserted the game, myself included. EA canned all the people who pretty much supported us, and we were back to square one.
Now we’ve got some good games out there. I can’t bad mouth too many of them or fault them very much for the games they’ve made. World of Warcraft, Everquest, Everquest 2, and even games like Star Wars surprised me.
But here’s what they lack. They don’t create a world for us to mold, to exist in and to populate. Believe me, I’ve tried. They’ve created “economies” based on time investment creating items, time investment taking out the big bad raid level monsters, but what they lack is a soul.
The soul comes from their players. And I am betting it’ll be awhile before it happens, but before long it will happen. Players will grow up, realize they cannot get anything more from the game than what the devs decide to give them, and move on. Probably back to platform games. Players will have this taste in their mouth, they can’t figure out where it comes from, but they will know they are missing something.
Oh sure, they get “involved” in as much as they are allowed to. In World of Warcraft you can do some quests to earn items that involve some of Warcraft’s more popular heroes. That’s great. You can even earn some nifty titles. But in the end, there’s no housing for players to customize. There’s no place for people to socialize without the NPCs just staring blankly ahead with those dopey grins on their face, even when the Dread Master of Undead Trolley comes strolling in.
In my days I’ve seen some pretty spectacular takes on RP in these games. Some loyal fans of the franchise have had to ignore most of what is going on around them and create a little mini-world within their mind’s eye to help get around some of these limitations. But isn’t that the point of a graphical MMO? To take away the need for the mind’s eye involvement?
In my previous example, let’s say The Dread Master of Undead Trolley came in. He’d be wearing what he can get for items. For WoW, as an RPer, he’s probably not going to be decked out in the best gear possible, so he’s not going to be looking very terrifying. Oh sure, he’ll be level 60, but in games these days, it’s the items that make the man. All you have to do is hop on the treadmill and run and you can get max level. But to get the serious items (i.e. - the ones that make you the great and terrible) you have to be a raider. You have to be in a guild of people who run the high-end dungeons and can get that kind of firepower. The trouble is, if you are in a raid guild, there’s little time left for RP. Especially for those of us on limited playing schedules.
Which leaves our RPers in the dirt, even for looking good. And when it comes down to it, it’s all dress up dolls for guys anyway.
You’ll always hear me refer to UO, and the reason being is that the game masters they used to have really put in the effort to make us feel at home in their world. For instance, I once halted a demon and undead invasion into a city by playing music for the general demon and even learned a few secrets that helped us put an end to the event. Not too bad for a RPer with a lute, huh? When the warrior next to me died about a dozen times trying the fight the undead scourge, I waltzed right up to the general and had a little conversation. I even got a reward for it, a magic lute that didn’t wear out. This is the kind of thing RPers look for, sounds silly to the guy who can fireball me in less than a second. But in the real world, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.
Knowing people, this is the fate that awaits all MMOs in the end. Sure, they will create new games, and release prettier and prettier graphics. They’ll have buildings we can actually destroy. They’ll have real physics in place to let us do it even better. But in the end, unless there is a place to give RPers an outlet with support, it’ll all fall away.
Now, take a look at Neverwinter Nights. They created a solo-play game based on the famous Forgotten Realms setting of D&D. But they also gave us tools to create our own worlds. And to top it all off, they gave us the ability to link those worlds together. They gave us the support and the tools we needed to create those places we can go to write our own stories. I encourage you to look at player initiative. Look to the places these players have created. Some are silly, some are serious, but they all share something in common. They made it themselves.
It’s all about setting themselves apart. Everyone wants to be part of something. It’s the reason country clubs and fraternities exist. But they want to be a little different within that member’s only club.