[MUD-Dev] Grouping in MMP Games

[Dave Rickey]

Article by Mike Sellers of this list for the Gamasutra Online Games
Resource Guide.  Too long for complete inclusion, the short
description would be that it discusses the importance of groups in
these games, and the ways in which creating them has been fostered.
In my opinion the most useful article of that set.

http://www.gamasutra.com/resource_guide/20020916/sellers_01.htm

<EdNote: Heck, I was just working thru that list seeing what to
cherry pick for the archives.  Suffice to say, "I agree."  Without
contradiction:>

--<cut>--
Creating Effective Groups and Group Roles in MMP Games

By Mike Sellers
Gamasutra
September 16,, 2002

Massively multiplayer (MMP) games are built on a social
foundation. They differ from other games in that they encourage
people to do fun things (adventure!) as part of a group, and to keep
up their group ties over months and years. These games lure players
in with visions of heroic battles and individual character
advancement, but ultimately succeed when they provide meaningful,
interdependent roles for people to play as part of a group.

In this article, I'll provide some design principles to follow based
on how current MMP games are encouraging (or not) players to be part
of groups within and around the game. In particular, we'll look at
temporary and permanent groups, designed and emergent roles within
groups, and where this might lead in the future.

The core idea is that anything you can do as a designer to encourage
players to form groups and take on meaningful roles within them will
increase the likelihood that those players will enjoy themselves
enough to play your game for months or years to come. Conversely,
anything your game does that makes it more difficult for people to
get together or form social bonds will drive players away: For most
people, the only thing lonelier than playing a game by yourself is
playing by yourself while surrounded by a virtual world full of
other people.

Support Temporary Groups

Temporary groups -- adventuring parties in most games (fellowships
in Asheron's Call) -- are the most common catalyst for making
friends in the game, and in many ways form the social backbone of
MMP games. Players need to be able to find each other easily and
quickly, "buddy up" to go out into the dangerous world, and
complement each others' characters' abilities. Adventuring parties
throw players together in a low-commitment context, setting the
stage for more permanent connections later on.

Finding Others

Before players can get together to go adventuring, they have to be
able to find each other and decide whether they want to join up. The
first obstacle here can be simply geographic: most MMPs have large
worlds to explore. Unfortunately, this can make it much more
difficult to find people to explore it with. In Asheron's Call, the
time it takes to run from one city to another has been a persistent
problem, especially for low-level characters -- the ones who most
need the help getting together with others. If you have only an hour
or so to play and it takes half that time to reach your friends, you
can very quickly become frustrated.

The next problem is knowing who else is open to being in a
group. Dark Age of Camelot addresses this by allowing players to
flag themselves as looking for a party or not, and to automatically
look for others nearby of approximately the same level. Even with
this, many new players find it difficult to locate others with whom
to form a party, but at least they aren't reduced to shouting that
they're "looking for a 3rd level fighter" as in other games.

There are many potential solutions to the issue of players having
trouble finding others to group with. The best of these make it as
easy as possible on the players -- help them find others with
complementary characters who are nearby and who are also looking for
a group. Ideally, players should be able to find out this
information before logging in to the game and running
around. Asheron's Call provides lobby' chat rooms for players, but
this seems to be insufficient to help players get together. Among
other things, you can still log in and find yourself across the
continent from the person with whom you were just chatting. A better
solution would be the ability for players to state where (i.e., what
city) their character starts play in for this session. To avoid
cheating, the game could allow an expanding list of session-starting
cities based on how long the player had been logged out (that is,
how far could your character have traveled during the time you
weren't playing). There are many other possible solutions, all
having the common thread of making it as easy as possible for
players to find each other and form a temporary adventuring group.

Once two or more players have found each others' characters, it's
typically easy for them to chat about where they want to go, where
they think some good treasure is, what quests they have to complete,
etc. This is a process of the players evaluating each other's
character and whether their abilities are complementary. There's
typically little cost in forming a party though, so most people
aren't too picky unless they have a specific, difficult goal in
mind. However, it is important that players be able to uniquely
identify other characters not just by name, but also by ability and
even reputation. Players want to know that the others in their party
aren't going to take them out into the wilderness and leave them for
dead (a popular tactic early in Ultima Online's history), and that
in general the other character approximately matches their own play
style. Games that flag characters as good or evil, or that have a
more fine-tuned reputation system, help players decide whether
another character is someone they want to join up with or not. (A
full discussion of robust reputation systems is beyond the scope of
this article, but this is something to consider seriously in any
game where people interact closely.) After a player has identified
others with whom they enjoy playing, being able to place their name
(character or player) in a buddy list helps make future connections
easier and more likely.

Group Communication

When the party's been formed, one central but easily overlooked
aspect of their play together is the ability for the party to
communicate privately. Most games today have private chat channels
for temporary groups. Providing this enables the party members to
talk amongst themselves without worrying about extraneous chatter
around them. In socially active areas this can make it easier for
the players to keep up their conversation, and provides a sense of
solidarity within the group.

In addition to chat communication, most current MMP games enable
party members to see each others' health and other vital
statistics. This makes it easier for players to help each other out
(with a timely healing spell, for example). In addition to
increasing the party's efficiency in combat, this also creates
social bonds between party members who save each other in the nick
of time. But if your game allows player-vs-player combat, one member
of a party should not able to harm another when operating together
as a party. This is the mechanical implementation of "all for one
and one for all," whereby no one character can -- mistakenly or not
-- harm another party member. This helps reduce tension when
fighting monsters in close quarters, and prevents party-destroying
sneak attacks between party members.

Complementary Roles

In every MMP game, players create characters that specialize in some
way. Building on now-classic fantasy character archetypes, you're
typically a fighter, wizard, healer, or some variation on those
(including science fiction and other genre variations). Each
character fills a specialized role from the beginning. Put a few
different character types together, and you have an effective
adventuring group -- a fighter or two to whack things and absorb
monster damage, a wizard to provide high-damage attacks, and a
healer to keep everyone alive. In some games such as Everquest and
Dark Age of Camelot, these roles are not only well-defined, but
accepted to the point that coordination occurs via highly condensed
jargon. For example, a statement like this would not be unusual and
would be understood by everyone in the party: "Thane pull, tanks
rotate aggro, runemaster nuke but do not draw aggro, watch out for
adds. Protect healer; rezz only after fight over." These are battle
orders issued just before the fight begins that give everyone their
part: the thane (a specialized fighter-mage) makes sure that only
one monster out of a group goes aggro' (aggressive) and approaches
the party; the damage-absorbing fighters work to split the monsters'
attacks; the spell-caster does as much damage as possible without
having the monsters target him; and everyone protects the healer
(the only one who can bring those who die in battle back to life by
resurrecting or rezzing them after it's all over).

Such characters' abilities are useful on their own, but when paired
up with other members of a party they become part of an overall
strategy available only to diverse groups. These strategies act as a
multiplier, increasing the effectiveness and benefit of being in a
group. Players have been quick to explore and exercise these game
mechanics, and to assemble groups of complementary character types
where each player understands their role. By creating such
complementary roles in the game mechanics, you give people multiple
ways to group together effectively. Each character type handles
situations the others can't. Of course, this means that the world
has to support these roles: not every monster can be killed by
whacking it; some have to be dispatched with magic, or have a rogue
sneak up on them.

If in the rest of the game you provide opportunities for each
character type to shine, you'll keep the players satisfied and
feeling like their character is a vital part of whatever mission or
adventure they attempt. This extends beyond just fighting styles
too. Characters with crafting skills should find that they are able
to produce higher quality items when they combine their abilities
together rather than trying to do everything themselves. For
example, blacksmiths can make basic swords and armor, but require
the services of carpenters and leatherworkers to make higher quality
items. These kinds of interdependencies can also extend beyond
crafting to other types of group efforts as well (see the discussion
on New Types of Groups below).

Rewarding Players in Groups

Even though people will naturally want to adventure together,
enhancing this experience will encourage them to do so. Everquest
encourages players to form parties by basically making the game too
difficult to play otherwise. While some parts of your game should be
difficult enough that they require a group effort, this is more of a
stick' than a carrot' approach. Asheron's Call introduced the novel
approach of rewarding players in fellowships by increasing the
experience points earned when fighting together. This is a
positive-sum rather than zero-sum approach that promotes working
together as part of a fellowship; that is, instead of me earning 200
points for killing a monster, or each of us earning 100 points, we
might each earn 150 points if we kill the monster while grouped
together. This encourages players to take on greater challenges as
part of a group, and has proved to be an effective reward for
adventuring together.

Other games such as Diablo II provide examples of other forms of
rewards for playing as part of a group. In that game, both the
number of monsters being fought and the amount of treasure gained
increases with the number of people playing together. More
interestingly, this game also scales the type of treasure gained to
how many people are playing together, so that the rarest items are
available only if you are playing with others. This kind of gameplay
would no doubt be welcomed by the players in traditional MMP games,
and would further encourage them to form temporary groups.  Support
Permanent Groups

Temporary groups often lead players to want to join together more
permanently. Once you've been adventuring with someone and seen that
they're easy to get along with and react well under pressure, you're
more likely to want to get together with them again in the
future. Permanent groups give the players a way to create long-term
associations within the game, provide a strong sense of belonging,
and create their own forms of gameplay.

The most common form of permanent groups in MMP games are guilds' --
loosely based on medieval craft associations, and more directly
based on social or character-class-based guilds in text MUDs. All of
the MMP games today allow players to create and join guilds or
similar groups. In Asheron's Call, the guild is called an
allegiance, and differs from guilds in other games in specific,
novel ways. In particular, AC allegiances rely exclusively on a
patron-vassal pyramid system, which has some interesting effects on
how the groups operate (we'll come back to this later). However,
both guilds and allegiances offer design principles for all sorts of
permanent groups.

A Sense of Belonging

One of the main things that guilds provide is a sense of belonging,
of being part of something larger than you. This feeds a powerful
and deep desire most people have. Membership in permanent groups is
the main reason why many people remain in MMP games after they've
exhausted the adventuring gameplay.

To aid in this sense of belonging, players typically name their
guilds -- that is, the person who starts the guild gives it a
descriptive name. This sets it apart from others and gives the
members an easy handle to use in identifying themselves. In
addition, visible methods of identifying other guild members are an
important aspect of creating a shared sense of belonging. For
example, in Ultima Online, many guilds adopt a certain dress or
certain colors (clothes can be dyed to suit the player's wishes). In
Dark Age of Camelot, players are able to create a guild crest, or
colored symbol for their guild. This has real-world analogs ranging
from medieval heraldry to modern sports teams, and is a great way to
allow each guild to have its own visible, shared identity. Being
able to easily identify others in your group is an important way to
foster a sense of belonging.

Communication and Infrastructure

Guilds also benefit from having infrastructural supports within the
game. Most games provide guild-based chat channels, for
example. Some, like Meridian 59, provide guild-specific bulletin
boards and coveted guild hall' locations. Guilds in Ultima Online
and Asheron's Call often use large keeps and manor houses for this
same purpose. These in-game structures acknowledge the guild's
permanence and importance in the world, which in turn increases the
players' sense of belonging and commitment to the guild. In M59, the
guild halls are so desired by the players that they have been the
focus of many guild wars -- a good example of gameplay arising out
of the importance players attach to their social groups.

In addition to in-game infrastructure, it's common for guilds to
have their own out-of-game web pages where the members congregate,
post messages, and plan meetings and adventures. These are often
elaborate sites attesting to the group members'
dedication. Providing in-game links to these sites adds to the
identity shared amongst members of the group. These links might be
displayed in a central registry or, as in M59, on the individual
characters' identification panel. Linking to these pages from the
game's main web page also shows that you take the players' guilds,
and thus their contributions to the game, as seriously as they do.

Forming Groups and Changing Leadership

All the current MMPs allow players to create new guilds or other
groups, if you can meet certain requirements: in Ultima Online, you
have to own a house first, for example, and in Dark Age of Camelot
you have to have eight people to join your guild. In Asheron's Call,
anyone can be a patron with vassals, but in practice most monarchs
(group leaders without a patron, and with several levels of vassals
beneath them) are powerful, high-level characters.

However, in most of the current games once a guild is formed it's
internal structure never changes. In these games, if the guild
leader decides to disband the group or simply leaves the game, the
entire group falls apart. In such cases, the other members are left
to scramble to re-assemble their group, which may or may not work
out. This makes the permanent group structure brittle, leading to
situations in which a guild fails because one person -- the founder
-- leaves the game (or even just the guild). This causes frustration
and dissatisfaction amongst many players, and weakens the utility of
permanent groups in the game.

In contrast, in Asheron's Call it is possible for any character with
vassals to sever his ties with his own patron, and thus become
monarch of his own allegiance pyramid. Conversely, a monarch could
quit the game, leaving her vassals to re-form their allegiance as
they saw fit. In such cases patron-vassal relationships lower in the
pyramid are unaffected, and the allegiance as a whole continues
on. In a similar way guild members in Meridian 59 can elect a new
guild leader at any time, deposing an absent or unpopular leader
whenever more than 50 percent of the members put their political
support behind someone else. The game automatically bestows all the
leadership abilities on the new leader, who can then demote or even
expel the deposed one.

Methods like these, where the overall structure of the permanent
group or guild is preserved across leadership changes, makes the
group much more resilient to change, and thus more likely to carry
on over time. In other words, it's not enough to let your players
form their own groups; they have to be able to manage them as
well. Providing simple but powerful methods that enable the group
members to do this gives them a greater sense of ownership, binding
them more closely to the group and to your game.

Innovations

Guild and group management is a fertile area for finding new ways to
improve the players' experience. Asheron's Call's allegiance
structure as a substitute for guilds is an interesting
innovation. It makes the entire group hierarchical, and essentially
institutionalizes the practice of twinking' -- that is, giving a
lower-level character money or equipment in exchange for something;
in this case the exchange is that a patron earns a small amount of
all the experience gained by their vassals. This is a novel form of
reward for entering into a group relationship that should be
explored further. However, AC's allegiances also have significant
downsides: all person-person connections are vertical, going from
patron to vassal, rather than being horizontal, from group member to
member. This means that two people who are vassals to the same
patron or monarch are essentially strangers with little shared
identity, and without any reason to help each other. They often do
not develop the same feelings of cohesion commonly found in guilds
in other games.

Another area of innovation in games such as Ultima Online and
Asheron's Call are provisions for player-owned houses. Housing has
turned out to be phenomenally successful for UO, and slightly less
so for AC. The difference may be that in UO, players can design and
place their own homes, while in AC you can only buy those that are
pre-existing, made and placed by the designers. This may not seem to
be that big of a difference, but players feel much more control and
ownership of their houses in UO, and they have thus become a more
desirable part of the game.

On the other hand, pre-set limits in the game are not necessarily
bad. Everquest has innovated in this area by dividing characters by
race (troll vs. elf, for example), with biases for or against other
races, and with a limited ability to speak to other races. This
creates externally imposed divisions between groups of players, but
encourages intra-group roles to emerge.

This type of grouping-by-division is taken even further in Dark Age
of Camelot, where characters from each of the three Realms (Albion,
Hibernia, and Midgard) cannot communicate with -- and are
necessarily at war with -- those from the other realms. This "Realm
vs. Realm" (RvR) play is the core of the game once your character
has more or less exhausted the fun of killing monsters and
completing most quests (level 30 or so). Players slide naturally
into this as part of their character's identity is as a member of
their Realm, even though there is little to be gained by winning'
this part of the game. Still, groups of characters form in the
frontier-lands, waiting to either defend a keep against foes from
another Realm, or sallying forth to increase the glory of their own
Realm.

Finally, there are other possible ways in which players can interact
within permanent groups, as for example via political
meta-games. Both M59 and UO attempt these using political factions
that are separate from player guilds. In UO the faction-game has not
gathered a strong following as it has no real effect on the world
other than allowing for guild-wars. In M59, the political game has
been much more popular. In this meta-game, players are able to
interact with NPCs to indirectly affect their opinions. This
eventually puts one faction or another in power,' resulting in
in-game rewards such as better prices or cheaper spells for that
faction. While the gameplay and rewards are relatively simple,
players have banded together and spent a great deal of time and
effort to ensure that their faction -- and thus the permanent group
of which they are a member -- remains in power as long as possible.
Support a Broad Range of Group Roles

Functional Roles

Within both temporary and permanent groups, players need a variety
of valuable roles to choose from that fit their goals and play style
(note that these roles need not correspond to character skills or
classes). Games that implement only typical fantasy roles (fighter,
wizard, etc.) are quickly seen by many who are not die-hard fans as
being narrow in their scope. Ultima Online has retained many players
who see their characters as tailors, carpenters, or miners -- roles
that have value in the game, and which extend beyond the typical
fantasy archetypes. This breadth supports more players than do more
narrowly defined roles, and increases the chances that people will
form strong social bonds.

Each role that a character may take on must have a valid and
valuable function within the game; those that have no discernable
function will be largely ignored. Giving characters the ability to
mine ore is irrelevant unless the ore has some value in the game --
such as being turned into ingots which can be hammered into armor
and weapons. Not all roles have to have overt gameplay value such as
this, but each must have a direct perceived value for the
players. In some cases this can be a social value: being a guild
leader, tavern owner, or even just an accomplished story teller are
all potentially valuable functional roles. The broader the set of
functional roles your game supports, the denser its gameplay and
social web will be.

Avoid the Uber-Role

In-game character roles must remain synergistic throughout the
game. In UO for example, many players eventually gravitate toward
what's called the "tank mage"-- a high-level character with enough
skills to throw spells with the best of them, and then pull out a
big weapon and wade into combat. The problem with this is that it
reduces the need for getting together with others; such a character
is essentially his or her own group. In contrast, Everquest players
are keenly aware of the continued need for grouping together, as
there is no one super-character type. However, even here, the game
too often doesn't present monsters or quests requiring a wide range
of different character types, maintaining instead the "whack
monster, get gold" method throughout. By focusing not only on the
combinations of character types and roles, but also on how they are
used in the game (situations that are impregnable to fighters or
magic users, but where a thief or alchemist or even a healer might
be just the thing required), you can encourage players to explore
all the possible roles, and include them in their groups.

Group Roles

The types of roles described above work as part of groups, but are
still focused on individual gameplay. Other roles focus more on
maintaining the groups themselves -- both temporary (parties) and
permanent (guild) groups. Adding these roles and connecting them to
the rest of your game will give players another often neglected area
in which to shine.

In adventuring parties and other temporary groups, many players like
having a designated group leader. Others like a more ad hoc
approach, but adding leadership capabilities to the group can
enhance the players' experience and add new dimensions to their
play. For example, the group leader might be the only one who can
let new people into the party or toss them out. This formalizes what
often happens in parties anyway, where one person takes the lead,
gives people their battle orders, etc. By allowing (not forcing)
parties to select a leader in a way that's known to the game, you
can also make this part of the game: a traditional paladin-type
character might have greater leadership skill, which, when he or she
is the party leader, adds to everyone's attack bonuses and/or
morale. Or perhaps when a thief is the leader, everyone gets the
benefit of moving a bit more silently. Improving individual gameplay
via group roles is a great way to add to the effectiveness of groups
and move beyond alone-in-a-crowd MMP gameplay.

There are many opportunities for group roles in guilds and other
permanent groups, most of which are still untapped in today's
games. As discussed above, allowing the guild or group to designate
their own leader (rather than just having the leader always be the
person who started the guild) creates many more dynamic group
interactions. This helps the group be more resilient and last
longer. It also gives players something to focus on beyond just
killing more monsters, since those who want to can take a more
active hand in helping to manage their guild. You can also allow the
players to designate ranks or titles to go along with group
functions. In M59, each guild leader can designate up to five guild
ranks (each with its own title), and each with its own functions in
the guild. Some can promote or demote others, some can bring
lower-ranking members into the guild's hall, and only the leader can
change the hall's password. Such group roles within the guild add an
entirely new layer of gameplay to the game.

Emergent Roles

So far we've focused on roles that you as the designer put into the
game for the players to fill. While you could just let all the group
roles emerge based on the players' actions, designed-in roles are
valuable because they channel the players' efforts and actions to
make the game more fun for everyone. Players will inevitably do what
they are rewarded for (whether or not those rewards are intentional
on your part), so carefully designing in a variety of group roles
makes for better gameplay that is more appealing for a longer period
of time.

At the same time, as players become ensconced in the game world
you've provided, they will find and create their own types of
roles. These are valuable to them as they provide a sense of
ownership and thus attachment to the world. They're valuable to you
as they show you what the players consider important, and thus what
you might want to focus on expanding in the future.

There are a wide variety of social and group-related roles that have
emerged in MMP games. Some, such as UO's tavern-owners, appear
because of the unique combination of social and gameplay factors in
that game. But such roles are also pointers to more general types
that appear in all games, and which your game should support. This
may require little action on your part, but on the other hand, you
may find novel ways to include these emergent roles in your
gameplay.

The first of these roles to consider is the newbie -- the new or
unfamiliar player. While this type of person is almost by definition
not part of a group, how well your game accepts them in and provides
methods for them to access meaningful group roles will be a gating
factor to long-term play. People who come into an MMP game and don't
have an opportunity to interact positively with anyone else in the
first few minutes are likely to just leave and not come back.

Newbies need information and items -- they need help becoming
familiar with the game and becoming confident that they can have fun
within it. Some games like M59 and UO provide an entire "newbie
experience" in a relatively safe area, to give new players a gentle
introduction into a complex game. Others like Asheron's Call make
helping out newbies an important part of the game for anyone who
wants a strong allegiance (though this has to some degree backfired
as new players get pelted with unsolicited "do you want a patron?"
messages). Since every player will go through a newbie stage, this
is an area where future games can focus to greatly enhance most
players' experiences.

This also leads to the next set of emergent roles filled by veteran
players. The first of these is the docent, the type of kind,
patient, informative guide that every newbie hopes to find. Some
people gravitate toward this role on their own, and get praised for
it by the otherwise hapless newbies whom they help. MMP games are
beginning to include this role -- AC patrons are often docents, for
example -- but it is still largely unexplored as a formal part of
the game. There are many opportunities to strengthen the in-game
society by recognizing and rewarding those who act in ways that help
and guide others.

Another veteran role similar to the docent is the trail guide. This
type of person is typically an "explorer" in Bartle's typology, one
who knows how to get into and out of difficult and dangerous places
in the world, who can provide guidance on quests or other tasks in
the game. In some games like Everquest, this is the kind of person
who will often help you retrieve your corpse (a necessary task after
you die in the wilderness), or who will lead your party through a
dangerous zone. As with the docent however, this role is almost
entirely emergent. The trail guide is an important role that crosses
between many temporary and permanent groups, and yet one that has
not been codified in a way that makes the players' natural
inclinations more meaningful (that is, directly rewarded) within the
game.

Finally, there is a broad and diverse class of innkeepers -- social
instigators who run make-believe taverns in UO, set up scavenger
hunts in many games, perform marriage ceremonies between characters,
or find other ways to bring people together in some emergent fashion
not related to a guild, standing quest, or other designed group
element. These people are incredibly valuable as they really make
your game come alive for other players. They involve others in ways
that are both unique and are still part of the game world. This
increases other players' immersion and connection with the world,
and adds a valuable social role for those who may want a change of
pace from the primary gameplay. While various games have had
centralized volunteer programs, innkeepers (as a role, not an
occupation) have not been supported with in-game rewards. One way to
do this would be to expand the set of functional roles, as described
above, to include economic, political, and entertainment
roles. Various skills and reputation systems could also add in-game
visibility to the innkeeper set of roles.  Look to the Future

As MMP games innovate on current gameplay mechanisms and group
roles, what can we expect to see? Clearly parties and guilds work
for many of the existing players, but this and other aspects of MUD
heritage have probably been taken about as far as they can go. As
MMP games try to attract and keep more players, and as they move
into the mainstream of online entertainment, we'll need a wider
variety of groups and roles for players to fill and new synergies
among them.

Group Dynamics

As mentioned earlier, there are many ways player interactions within
groups can be made more rewarding, and thus more attractive. AC's
positive-sum reward for fighting together as a fellowship could be
extended to include guild members who group together, giving them a
bonus to their experience, skills, or treasure. This would tie the
two types of groups more closely together, and encourage players to
use their guilds as a springboard for adventuring together.

>From the guild point of view, players could be encouraged (via
in-game rewards) to select their guild not only for social factors,
but for the benefit the group brings to their character. In the case
of AC's hierarchical allegiances, they might be more successful if
characters gained a discount on skills they could earn based on the
monarch's skills, or the aggregate of everyone in the group's
skills. This would encourage the creation of groups focused on
archery, Life Magic, and other skill areas, and give players an
in-game reason to consider joining one group over another. Turning
this around, skills for running groups would also be useful. Using
an earlier example, a paladin could have leadership skills that
increase his party's morale or attack bonuses. The same principle
could be applied to permanent groups: a guild leadership skill could
increase the group's effectiveness -- in this case, the skill
discount each member receives. A guild leader with guild leadership
skills could increase each member's skill discount. Thus one
character's skill benefits everyone in the group.

Another idea along these lines is to provide skills that can be
gained only from within a group. Suppose that once the members of a
guild attained a certain average level of skill (perhaps even
coupled with a minimum level of group-leadership skill), new skills
become available to members of the group. So when members of your
archery guild show up and start firing guided-missile arrows, others
immediately know your group (which they can identify by the symbol
on your surcoats) is made up of true bow masters -- no one else
could have such a devastating skill. This sort of innovation in
skills and group management binds groups more tightly to the game,
and makes them much more than just another form of in-game social
club.

In terms of inter-group dynamics, there are many ways to think about
how groups might interact with each other beyond the simple guild
war' model seen now. It's easy to imagine quests or other tasks that
require a party to complete, but which pit two or more parties (or
guilds) against one another to see who can complete the task
first. Or, from the guild point of view, by making trade and
crafting skills more a part of the game and then linking these to
groups and group skills (analogous to the archery example above),
groups could enter into symbiotic relationships: one guild of master
smiths makes exemplary weapons and armor for others -- and in
particular for another guild that has agreed to protect them against
all foes for a deep discount.

Enabling symbiotic and other relationships between groups can also
help avoid some of the problems seen in current games with guilds
that overpower all others. That is, just as you want to provide
multiple character roles (to avoid the uber-role' as described
above), gameplay that allows one guild to outpace all others can
limit the enjoyment for everyone who isn't part of that select
group. Currently in Everquest for example, success in the endgame
depends entirely on being part of a large powerful guild. Players
simply cannot undertake a high-level raid on their own or with less
than a large, powerful group. Naturally enough, these raids tend to
yield some of the best, most powerful loot, which then makes the
guild even more powerful. This can create a positive feedback loop
that creates what players call an uberguild' that dominates all
others. If instead guilds depended on each other just as characters
do, rather than being entirely self-contained, there would be more
opportunities for different forms of success, and less likelihood of
one overpowering guild emerging.

New Types of Groups

With the example of the smiths' guild in mind, consider new types of
groups that MMP games might support. Right now a guild is a guild;
there are no real functional differences between them. Enabling the
players to focus their group on one skill area (as described above)
would allow them to differentiate their guild from others -- thus
also leading to guild specialization and symbiosis. But beyond that,
why not allow players to make permanent groups with explicit
business or political purposes? For example, in UO an individual
player can own a business that's run out of their house. But this
could be a group-level affair as well, with the skills of multiple
characters (the group members) affecting the quantity and quality of
what's produced. This would open up new kinds of trade and crafting
skills and add entirely new aspects of gameplay.

In the political arena, various games have tried player-run towns
with limited success. This is a complex area, but one that can
benefit from looking at neighborhoods, towns, regions, and other
political constructs as groups (and even as
groups-of-groups). Consider for example the group-related gameplay
(and new opportunities for players to interact) that would come with
a town-management group structure: the group leader is the local
mayor or baron, and the members of the group are the citizens of the
town. Among other duties, the mayor sets the tax rates on the
citizens, which in turn determines the number of NPC-town guards
protecting them. And of course, the citizens can remove an unpopular
(or over-taxing) mayor, just as they could remove and replace any
guild leader. This is just one possible example. There are many ways
to explore applying groups and group roles to the political and
social landscape within the game.

Beyond Individual Adventuring

A powerful way to move beyond current gameplay is to consider the
group, not the individual, as the main unit of the game. That is,
make the group the protagonist, not the individual character. You
can see parts of this in some of the ideas above, such as skills
that can be learned only through your group. But think of all the
aspects of gameplay that are currently focused on the individual
character and how they might apply better -- with more engaging and
meaningful results -- to the guild or other group of characters. Can
a guild gain experience via the actions of its members? This might
be a good vehicle for deciding when a new guild-skill becomes
available to its members. This also introduces a new dynamic in
players evaluating which guild to join ("nope, your guild is too low
level") and in guilds evaluating characters who want to join
("great, you have just the archery skill we're missing!").

Guilds could also be given quests to complete, just as individual
characters are now. When parties of guild-members resolve the quest,
the guild as a whole is rewarded. Similarly, the guild as a whole
could be attacked -- this could lead to interesting new ways to
think of guild wars, putting more at stake than just the individual
members' (recurring) lives. A political group (representing a town
and surrounding area) could lose territory and resources it controls
if it cannot defend itself against raids from a rival clan -- just
as an individual may lose possessions to the victor of a fight.

Finally, there are other unexplored areas such as skills that can be
used only as part of a group. Some fighting styles or skills might
be usable only with others -- consider the ancient Spartan phalanx
as a multi-person battle tactic, a skill that cannot be used by an
individual. You could also implement certain magical rituals that
require one mage from each school of magic to complete. Other skills
or abilities might be usable only in concert with other members of
your guild (along the lines of The Three Musketeers who were great
on their own, but dazzling together). These represent just a few
examples of how groups and group roles may improve MMP games in the
future.

Conclusion

Current MMP games struggle against turning into "massively
single-player" games -- that is, games where there are a lot of
others around, but you don't pay much attention to them. Creating
and supporting effective groups and group roles is a primary way to
address this issue. Better groups make for better social bonds and
increased loyalty to the game. We are still just scratching the
surface of how, with better designs, more varied roles, and broader
group support, players can create great social and group experiences
in MMP games. By applying and developing the principles discussed
here, you'll be able to find even more ways to make this happen.
--<cut>--
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