[MUD-Dev] DESIGN: The game with a thousand faces

[Mike Rozak]

I just saw an announcement for a new free-to-play MMORPG, "Ogre
Island". While browsing through the MMORPG's web pages, the
"game-play guide" page struck me as being very familiar. (See
http://stage.ogreisland.com/gameGuide.asp.) The table of contents
for Ogre Island could also be used by the documentation for WoW, EQ,
Runescape, etc.

In other words, Ogre Island has the same basic features as most
MMORPGs and MUDs. A typical MMORG/MUD has characters, classes
(usually fighter, wizard, cleric, thief), races (usually human, elf,
dwarf, halfling), combat, guilds, cooking, mining, magic, mounts,
land ownership, quests, etc. The differences between the games lie
in the specifics, quality, and quantity of implimentation, and the
amount/type of eye candy.

Only a handful of MMORPGs, like Second Life, ATITD, Uru, etc. break
the mold, and they don't seem to attract large audiences.

Does this strike anyone else as being disturbing?

Can all the uniformity really be blamed on "my venture-capitalist
made me do it"? Is there a single, deep local minima in the human
psyche that causes almost all VWs to be fundamentally identical? Or
are we so blind that we can't see/predict other local minimas
without stumbling into them?

Mike Rozak
http://www.mxac.com.au
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