[MUD-Dev] Why are we all making RPGs?

[Freeman]

> From: Andrew Kirmse [mailto:akirmse at pacbell.net]

> I've often wondered when, or indeed if, the spread of the Internet
> and the graphics technology we've had available for the past 5
> years or so would lead to new types of online games.  However, the
> tried-and-true RPG is still enjoying overwhelming dominance among
> large-scale online games.  There have been important exceptions,
> and more are on the way (Planetscape, Earth and Beyond, The Sims
> Online, and many others), but RPGs and their central concepts
> (such as avatars, PvP, combat, leveling) permeate all of our
> discussions and designs.

I'm hooked on avatars.  But as far as I'm concerned, everything else
can go.  I would expect that having avatars would make people still
call it (whatever "it" is) an RPG.  But there are an awful lot of
conventions that I'd take a second look at.

Primarily I'd design the game from the ground up to be a
community-oriented, "town building", "colonize the wilderness" type
of game, rather than a "level-up your avatar"-type of game.

However, I wouldn't want to do away with avatars (ala Earth &
Beyond), so that would probably get it pegged as an RPG regardless.

> One might point to several reasons why the RPG is still the genre
> of choice for massively-multiplayer games.

I think mostly it's just the desire to do "D&D with bunches of
concurrent players" (which is not a desire that I happen to share).

> A second reason for the success of RPGs is their intuitive appeal.
> Especially after years of avatar-based games, it seems natural
> that the player is represented by an individual on the screen,
> with a body and a face.

Yah.  My desire to retain the avatar even in the face of replacing
pretty much everything else is so that the player can have an
identity within the game world with which he can identify as being
"him".  I think people can manage that more easily if it is a
human(oid) type of avatar, vs. it being a building or a spaceship or
a town.

> Where are the new genres that are only now possible, unlike
> anything that has ever come before?

'Not too many people with the ton of money AND the ideas required to
do anything really innovative.

> Are there new online-only genres that no one has thought of yet?
> Is it possible to develop a commercial-quality online game in a
> new genre, especially considering the ever-growing sizes of
> development teams?  I think so.  There are several ways really new
> online games might develop:

Like "Majestic"?

>   - A previously unknown, probably small group may develop a new
>   game on their own.  There is certainly a lot of precedence for
>   this.

Doing it to a degree that is of "commercial quality" is becoming
increasingly difficult, I think.
 
>   - An experienced, talented single-player designer or team may
>   turn to the Internet, and bring his or her original thinking to
>   a new genre.  That's what's so interesting to me about The Sims
>   Online.

That's definitely possible, assuming what they are bringing to the
internet is itself innovative.  If it's just a single player game
with thousands of concurrent players then, well, we already have
that. :/

>   - Eventually, an online RPG or other "traditional" game may
>   advance to the point where players can invent their own games
>   within the game world.  Perhaps there will eventually be an
>   MMORPG mod community, and someone will come up with an analog of
>   Counterstrike.

Maybe.  Shipping with worldbuilding/mod-making tools seems to be a
growing trend.

> I would not put the most common method of commercial game
> development--established companies producing games with large
> teams of experienced people in a traditional environment--on this
> list.  Again, there are exceptions, but the most interesting ideas
> tend to come from newcomers, or those select few designers who
> have a knack for unusually original thinking.

I would.  They'll get there eventually.  Once they have their huge
x, y and z games in production and the sequels in development,
they're bound to think, "Ok, what ELSE can we do?"  The desire to
avoid competing with their own products will push them into doing
new things, I think.

> I'm interested to hear what the people on this list, the hardest
> of the hard-core RPG developers, think about their genre and the
> potential for new online genres.

Well, I'm not really a hard-core RPG developer.  I don't even
consider MUDs to be RPGs (not any more or less than CRPGs, anyway).
I think MUDs are a different beast altogether, and the RPG elements
in MUDs are mostly baggage that we're better off replacing with
something more appropriate for the environment.

Console game designers might get around to making some sort of
persistent state world (aka MUD), too.

> What parts of today's RPGs have we learned to be so essential that
> they should also be present in non-RPGs?

Avatars.  End of list. :)

> What single-player genres could make a natural or interesting
> transition to online?

Well, all three of them.

> What totally new genres might work only with large numbers of
> people, and how can we realistically go about building them?

The "community building game", which cannot be played offline or
single-player at all.

Sims Online might be just that, depending on how much it focuses on
building communities versus teaching virtual people not to poop in
the kitchen.

> P.S.  I've only recently joined the list after years of telling
> myself to.  Hi!  I hope this message is on-topic enough.

Hi!
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev