[MUD-Dev2] The Future of Quests

[Eric Lee GAMES]

John Buehler writes:
>
If you can't imagine tasks on that scale, take a look at EVE
Online.  There are always large tasks to complete, and they always break
down into things that can be done in a single session of game play.
>

EVE Online is an interesting example.  I know it's a successful game and there are lots of players who are fantastically devoted to it, but I think there are also a lot of players who weren't really able to "break into" the core player-driven stories.  I've dabbled in EVE off and on for quite awhile and my personal perception (which may be completely skewed) is that it's a *great* game if you got in on the ground floor, or if you have large amounts of time to work your way up to a place of importance in a corp.  I know there are stories that have been played out in EVE that beat any PvE quest storyline ever written.  But for everyone else it seems like they're just a very small cog in a very large wheel.  It can be very difficult to work your way into a position where you personally participate in those stories of conflict, betrayal, and heroism.  EVE Online feels to me like it has a classic pyramid structure where the guys at the top do all the interesting things while the guys at the bottom crank out the resources for the guys at the top to use.  In other words, too much like real life.

That perception is based solely on my limited personal experience in the game, so it's likely that I'm just a loser, or I had the misfortune to join lame corps.  But I do think that in general, player-driven sandbox-style games have a core challenge to overcome; if left to evolve naturally they can tend to be self-limiting.  That is, they tend to collect a core group of players who are deeply involved in the on-going storyline, and those players are fantastically loyal, but after awhile it becomes difficult for new players to break into that group.  Because there's nothing to do other than the player-driven story, new players get bored and leave, and the game population stops growing.  I believe you can see that pattern in a lot of MUSH-type games.

So how do you design a player-driven game to avoid that problem?  EVE Online hasn't stopped growing yet so I guess they're doing something right (even though it hasn't worked for me yet).  What is it that they do to include new players and let them feel like they have an important role to play in the game?

Eric