MMO Communities (was RE: [MUD-Dev] MMORPG Cancellations:Thesky isfalling?)

[Sean Howard]

"Aaron Switzer" <aaron at neteffect.ca> wrote:

> In terms of MMOG design I would argue that it is very important to
> make players feel that they are part of the top level community.

I would go so far as to say that you will have that
anyway. Community happens, and unless you go out of your way to
alienate them, you'll get at least some sort of top level community
there. Look at City of Heroes - almost no interaction with other
players in game (other than grouping and kill stealing), yet it has
a ton of people who are part of the overall community.

I would argue that it is more important - or at least requires more
distinct effort - to create smaller communities with more valuable
input on the player's behalf. For instance, some games FORCE you to
group, which feels like a poor design decision because one can
interact with other players without requiring them to play. SWG has
arbitrary crafting dependencies where making something like a droid
requires some object which exists for no other purpose than to be
used to make droids, but some other classes makes them (ie Master
Artisans create droid batteries, but Master Droid Engineers can't).

That kind of thing hurts games. Those are the decisions that
designers make to increase "community", but they fall flat on the
floor and end up ruining the game. Everyone being part of a global
community is just how it works. I mean, when you've got arguments
over whether DAoC is better than AO, you are going to fall on one
side of that line. It just happens and it would be difficult to stop
it. If it happens anyway, let's concentrate on the parts we can
screw up :)

> If too much effort is spent in helping players segment off into
> their sub-communities, then there is less connection to the game
> itself and therefore less holding that sub-community to the game.

I disagree. We need to make these sub-communities more important to
the larger ones, and we need to make it easier to get into the
sub-communities. For instance, Lineage II has guild vs guild combat,
but the concept of guilds and clans is kind of a hardcore attitude
that the average player won't identify with or seek to be part of.

> If a guild feels no connection to the larger game community there
> will be nothing to stop them from moving wholesale to a new game.

I would be surprised if that were the real reason they moved on to
new games. They've got a community and they are willing to take that
community - the whole thing - with them to other games. I don't
think it is because they don't feel connected, but probably because
the game itself got old and boring after they all max their third
characters.

> On the other hand if they feel that they have a real say in how
> the game and the game's overall community is run, then they will
> have a vested interest in sticking with the game, even if they
> have grown tired of the game play.

That's not neccessarily community. That's just a show of faith that
the problems they have with the game will be fixed because there are
people listening. I stuck around SWG for a while because it seemed
like they were going to fix Droid Engineer - not because I felt like
they were listening to my suggestions on how to fix it (probably
because I never offered any).

> I still believe that nationalism is a valid addition to this
> discusion, because people can get just as worked up about general
> gameplay machanics and specific games.  I think that there are a
> lot of parallels between the connection people feel to their
> in-game communities and nationalism.

There is. However, if the discussion devolves into a flame war, I'm
not sure anything will be accomplished. We can easily talk about the
same themes and ideas without bringing up a subject that some people
might feel very deeply about.

> But having said that I can also understand your reluctance to
> potentially muddy the waters with real-world politics.

I don't see nationalism as politics. It has more to do with self
esteem - probably another subject which is important for game
designers to understand. It's just that self esteem has so many
defensive mechanisms that the closer you get to the true motivations
behind actions, the more defensive people get - perhaps even
violently so.

> I agree with you based on the idea that "community" == "people
> that know each other personally".

Not just people. Entities, whether they are individual people or
smaller communities. And I don't think they have to know each other
personally, but maybe know OF each other? Or at least, can deeply
affect each other?

- Sean Howard
www.squidi.net
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