Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs)

[Damion Schubert]

On 8/29/07, Aurel Mihai <aurel.gets.mail at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On a different note.. the current trend of MMO gaming seems to be
> bigger is better. WoW certainly sees this effect with its huge raids.
> Even in EVE, bigger blobs are required to defend and conquer
> territory. Sure, a couple casual gamers are discouraged because they
> don't have 5 hours to devote to an action (of which 4 hours are
> undoubtedly regrouping, recruiting, and generally waiting), but these
> games are all growing which means more and more people are getting
> sucked into these huge events. It's just natural, isn't it? Everyone
> wants to be a part of something big. What's going to turn this around
> and convince everyone that it's better now to have small group actions
> contributing to a large group that nobody sees around all at once
> anymore?
>

A good MMO design has many different game elements, each of which
scale for different levels of investment and time allocations.  For example,
in WoW, quests usually take <15 minutes, Battlegrounds take 15-30
minutes, 5-man Instances take 1-2 hours, and Raids take 4-5 hours.
Players can pretty much tailor their nightly activities based upon how
much time they have available, which is good.

There are some variances in there.  For example, the Eye of the Storm
battleground usually takes 10 minutes to complete, whereas Alterac
Valley can often take 30-45.  There are raid instances that take less
than an hour to complete - Magtheridon's Lair, for example, has only
one boss in it.  However, the natural inclination for a raiding guild is
to do two of those shorter raids in a night, since the logistics for getting
all of those players logged on and ready to go is a pain in the butt.

I think many designers and observers underestimate the power and
importance of a high level, large-group endgame such as raiding or
sieging.  Such gameplay is, to most players, the horizon - the true
promise of what massively multiplayer gameplay is all about.  Saying
"what if there was a monster that took FORTY of us to take down?"
is a uniquely evocative statement.  It is, as you state, an earnest
desire to be part of something big.  It's big, and it's visceral.  Having
your small 5-man squad win a battle which adds a few points to some
global scoreboard is interesting, in a fantasy football sort of way, but
what players want from their massively multiplayer games are actions
which are viscerally... well... massively multiplayer.

---d