[MUD-Dev] Depth (was: MMORPG Cancellations: The sky is falling?)

[Sean Howard]

"Damion Schubert" <ubiq at zenofdesign.com> wrote:

> Nice definition/explanation of depth.

I made it myself. :)

> The answer, of course, is that in MMPs, the depth is other people,

Nature abhors a vacuum. In the absense of depth, people will create
it themselves. Have you ever seen someone try to beat game XXX with
only one man? People are adaptable enough to occupy themselves just
fine.

The problem is, they can't be trusted to create depth that is
healthy for the game or the community. Read the book "My Tiny Life"
about LambdaMOO.  There was a "rape" in there, and the community
created a political system to deal with such things. They created
plenty of depth, but it got kinda nasty.

> We'll stop trying to convert a single player RPG experience into
> an MMP,

Actually, you've got that backwards. MMORPGs already started with a
high multiplayer aspect (UO isn't a single player game), but it is
only recently with CoH that the single player experiences have
become massively multiplayer.

> a playground with thousands of people looking to each other for
> amusement and challenge.

This was the case as far back as Club Caribe/Habitat which is
probably about 20 years old.

> Dev teams will succeed by putting the most interesting toys on the
> playground, things that force and spur players to interact with
> each other in interesting ways.  That's when the really neat stuff
> is going to start taking off.

I don't think that is the future of MMORPGs. That's the past and the
present. I think you'll see some people work towards that goal still
- I think that the ultimate MMOG will be something which exists
beyond basic gameplay mechanics.

However, I think you'll see commercial pressures push towards games
like CoH and WoW. To even get noticed against the other MMORPGs
would require something unique and special - and it's easier to make
Star Trek MMORPG than it is Unique Idea MMORPG.

- Sean Howard
www.squidi.net
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