[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs

[Lachek Butalek]

On 8/27/07, Michael Chui <saraid at u.washington.edu> wrote:
> Will Wright and Spore have a decidedly advantageous position. Everyone
> is expecting miracles and wonders etc. One thing I want to focus on,
> however, is his coinage of "massively single-player": the idea that you
> are affected and effect everyone else who plays, but the game remains
> single-player in its essence. Spore implements this by uploading your
> creations to a central server and pushing it back out to people to be
> controlled by AI. And I wonder... will we start seeing ports of this
> concept to more traditional genres, like the Strategy, the FPS, the RPG?
>
> ...
>
> The other is a kind of PBEM/Hotseat Civilization-type of approach,
> wherein there are periodic updates of changes. For instance, consider a
> game of Battlefield played across a couple dozen sessions of
> Counterstrike, each session involving different groups of related and
> allied persons. You'd have specific missions: essentially, "Capture this
> point." and the outcome would be saved and the next group to play would
> have to deal with it thusly.

You're talking about campaign play, no? Not unlike newer real-time
strategy game that often have two levels, the macro-game of strategic
territorial control and the mini-game of tactical commanding on forces
to win individual victories. Battle for Middle Earth (especially the
second installment, with War of the Rings) and Empire at War both did
this to great effect.

The same thing can be done with FPS's in the way you mentioned. Sports
titles could also be well set up for this, with a tournament being the
"campaign" in question. RPGs using this model could be non-massive but
still work much like Living Greyhawk (et al) in the world of tabletop
RPGs (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Campaigns).

The only issue I can see preventing this from happening - on a
non-technical level - is possessiveness of success. If I brought my
hockey team a victory early in the playoffs, I would want to see them
all the way through to winning the cup. If I capture a flag in a WWII
sim I don't want some other idjit losing a critical bridge later on in
the war - that's my success to lose.

If these concerns can be overcome I am convinced that "massively
single-player" games will be used to great effect in the future in
many different genres. It would be a free content generator, a
credible simulation randomizer, and a great community builder.

// Lachek