Common player interactions are the most important.
Hell, while I am on this “deep” kick, I might as well run with it. I’ll get back to posting about death penalties later.
If there were a motto I live my life by, I’d say that it is: “Variety in diet, gaming, living and vision.” In other words, try everything you can. Don’t stop until you’re dead. Write it down and keep going. I try to do that, in many ways. I play lot’s of different games and in lot’s of different ways. But one thing that troubles me is that I see a trend in many of these games (if not most) to place the most value upon a few simple goals, instead of on the entire game. Each MMO, in my opinion, is a wonder of art design and tech. I am not saying that this equals the best of art design and tech, but it is still a wonder that they are made.
And within each game are a million activities to participate in, even within games with very limited “goals.”
With the last blog, I am claiming that EVE has many, many more goals than fighting with other players. It is surprising to see how certain players, especially players that have played for many years, continually place value on those same limited goals. It seems as though exposure to the game and all it’s limits would actually draw out only more ideas on how to play the game, not less. If you were given a box and a magic marker, over time only more ideas would come out, not less. Right?
In MMO’s in general I see more and more of this attitude that there is a set amount of goals that you must go after. The funny thing is that most players, even the most extreme of these goal-oriented players, are actually doing more of something else besides pursuing goals. While many of their activities are part of preparation to work for those goals, that does not mean that the activities could not stand alone or are not valuable.
Here are some examples of everyday gaming that many players do not see as gaming, but only as part of the journey towards something else:
1) A player in WoW boards a griffin flight path. Along the way, he sits back and enjoys the scenery and the music.
2) A player in EQ2 outfits his character using the “appearance slot.” For those that might not know, this is a special armor slot that allows a player to place clothes over the usual armor, for appearances only. This activity takes the player an evening.
3) A player in EQ spends her evening organizing her bank.
4) A player in EVE spends two gaming sessions making missles.
5) A player in Mabinogi explores new areas.
These are all examples of common game-play that we all have probably participated in and, yes, enjoyed. The fact that many of us have grown used to the activities does not discount the activities or discount them as non-gameplay. Playing an MMO especially is not lined out with a set of rules, only by a set of physical boundaries. (You cannot physically fly unless the game allows you to, you cannot poop on another player…etc..) Within the MMO’s that we play, we mostly spend our time doing these ordinary activities. Even hard-core raiders recognize how much time is spent just performing “mundane” tasks just to play inside a dungeon for far less time. And despite the fact that they might look at the dungeon run that night as “just another dungeon run to outfit a guild mate” and as something that they are used to doing (and might be bored of), they place more value on it as compared to the “boring” activities that they do most of the time in game.
This is, I believe, the one thing that will lead to the downfall of MMO gaming.
This is not me saying that MMO gaming WILL fall, but if it does, it is because of players that concentrate too much on a small set of activities. Gaming, if encouraged by the players, will become nothing but an instant transportation into the middle of a boss fight. I truly believe this, and this is why I play the way I do and write about the things I do. Sometimes I repeat myself, but so do many players in their activities.
As in real life, I appreciate the small things in my gaming. I know it sounds pretentious or sounds as though I think that no one else appreciates the small things, but I am only speaking the truth about how I feel. MMO gaming, it seems to me, has a good chance of becoming less of a virtual existence and more of a series of button-pushing reflex tests. Think Mario Brothers Online. There will be players that while reading this will think “Ha! He just wants to live in a virtual world! Go play Second Life!” Well, yes, yes I do. I am not playing a game with orcs, dragons or spaceships to ignore the environments of the game. I am not reading through lore or doing quests without considering the reason the NPC wants me to do them. If we remove all the common player interactions, and the common game characteristics (the art, the story, the music) then you are literally left with nothing but a series of button mashings, a box with some scribbles on it.
That’s fine, if you are into button mashing. I am not. I play MMO’s to pretend. I play MMO’s because I enjoy exploring other artists’ art. I play MMO’s, not to repeat the same activity over and over, but to explore as many ways to do things within those virtual spaces.
Beau
I can agree with that. I’ve just started on EQ2 a few weeks ago. Yesterday, I fell off the dock in Gorowyn, into the water. On my way back up I found out that there’s wildlife underwater there. Who’d put it there? The chances of a player discovering it are very small, so the developers wouldn’t have had to bother — it’s mostly just for decoration and perhaps for a quest or two. Yet it made me smile.
Then, on the way up, I found a very nice array of rocks and excavated ore, so I mined them. It was a pointless activity because I don’t do tradeskills, but somehow it felt satisfying to chip away at the stuff before returning to the dock to get on the boat.
Another time, I noticed the light change and turned around in Butcherblock Mountains just in time to catch the sun rise and flood the bay with warm light.
Having these tiny little things that have nothing to do with gameplay at all gives a great deal of depth to these games, in my opinion. I subconsciously rank a game higher that has all these elements, whether they are fluff or part of gameplay, simply because the game feels “better” somehow with them
MMORPGs were supposed to be virtual worlds… but now everyone wants them to be more like ‘games’… complete with scores and ‘push button get carrot’ and all that… and I think that losing sight of the ‘world’ part in order to attract more players will eventually ruin MMORPGs as a genre.
The number of people who appreciate the immersion of a virtual world is not in the ‘millions’ that most companies now want.
Pai: I think the “world” aspect is secondary if we’re really talking about an MMORPG, with emphasis on RPG. Tabletop RPGs have a strong gameplay aspect next to the social aspect. You go and solve the mysteries of a dungeon, help some townsfolk, recover an artifact, prevent a war, that sort of thing. So there’s always a goal there.
Plain virtual worlds wouldn’t really need any of those aspects (see Second Life).
The fact that people brag about never reading the quests or caring about the lore, and mocking people who do, is already a sign that the immersive MMORPG that is built around the assumption that people want to live in the world and care about their characters as more than just ‘cute behinds to look at while I kill stuff’ is dying. People now don’t want to RP or pretend they are a part of a fantasy world, they just want to play an online multiplayer adventure game with fantasy graphics, and constantly complain about any mechanic that doesn’t facilitate that playstyle.
I’m aware that an RPG is a ‘game’ in and of itself… but the goal and mechanics of an RPG is not what a lot of games that call themselves ‘MMORPGs’ are even about.