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

[Michael Hartman]

Damion Schubert wrote:
> On 9/14/07, Michael Hartman <mlist at thresholdrpg.com> wrote:
> 
> I didn't necessarily say that raids were evocative.  Just that the IDEA of
> raids are evocative.  And they are, extremely so.  Players want games
> that take advantage of what massively multiplayer means.  Designers are
> still struggling to do so, usually because end game content is the first
> to get cut when deadlines get tight.

That is true. I have memories of relic/keep raids in Dark Age of Camelot 
that were so spectacular that my wife and I still reminisce about them. 
They did massive content very, very well. It was the details 
(class/realm balance) that bit them in the butt. :)

The idea of very large scale, meaningful content is awesome. It is a 
shame that it is very rarely done well.

City of Heroes recently tried with their Rikti Invasions and they were a 
gross failure. They are totally repetitive. Nothing about them ever 
changes. If you beat an invasion, nothing good happens. If you ignore it 
completely and just let the Rikti run amok, nothing bad happens. They 
spawn the same way every time. They are very easy to defeat. There are 
no interesting rewards. You can earn an "accolade" from participating in 
  a handful of them at most. After this time, they are utterly pointless 
and just a frame rate killer. As an added bonus, they interfere with 
normal play of the game without adding anything.

> As for your commentary on raids: while its true that most WoW/EQ
> fanbois tend to be overly exuberant on how cool or important raiding is,
> it is equally true that far too many designers dismiss raiding is inherently
> lame without examining what's actually cool, successful, interesting
> or compelling about the experience.

I don't really see designers dismissing raiding as inherently lame. It 
seems like every designer out there is enthralled by the concept of 
raiding and makes sure to include raiding in their games. Unforunately, 
they just copy what they have seen before instead of trying to improve 
upon it. But I definitely do not think we are in danger of raiding going 
away. The tiny minority of players who really get into raiding are also 
the types who dominate the forums of every MMO out there. The developers 
always listen, and end up focussing too much on this aspect. So they get 
into the idea of items that only 5 people per server can ever hope to 
obtain, and then wake their epeens at others in whatever public space is 
most common for gathering. The net result is pretty darn negative in my 
view.




-- 
Michael Hartman, J.D. (http://www.frogdice.com)
President & CEO, Frogdice, Inc.
University of Georgia School of Law, 1995-1998
Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, 1990-1994