[MUD-Dev2] [Design] Dinosaurs evolve to chickens, MMOs evolveto massively single-player games

[Mike Rozak]

Cuise wrote:
> Generally I think it's tempting, and I've done this myself, to consider
> anyone you're not currently playing with as irrelevant, but that's not
> true - I know people unused to MMO's find the idea that all the other
> characters running around on the screen are being controlled by other
> people quite amazing, and I suspect that an element of that remains even
> once the initial awe is gone.

I think this is important too...

But then I play a typical MMO and all I see are parties or individual 
players running around and not interacting with anyone outside their party. 
As the mice in Hitchhiker's Guide wanted to replace Aurthur Dent with a 
robot that just complained about the tea (and no-one would notice the 
difference - except Aurthur Dent), I could replace most MMO players with 
NPCs that did pathfinding from point A to point B, occasionally killed a 
monster, and no-one would notice the difference.

My biggest gripe is "party chat", which turns a social environment where 
lots of people are talking to one another, into the tower of babel (or a NYC 
street), where lots of people are in an area and not talking.

Which ties into a larger point I keep harping on, about how 
achiever-oriented MMOs are. Party chat is a good way for a team to work 
efficiently together to achieve a goal. It's a lousy way to meet people.

As much as I like the easy download of FreeRealms, they don't encourage 
people to meet up either. In ages past, if someone was fighting a monster, 
you could join in and help them... But then people complained about kill 
stealing, so modern MMOs don't let you fight an engaged monster unless 
invited (which never happens). In FreeRealms, people fight monsters in a 
different instance, so you can't even see them when they're fighting, let 
alone help them.

To get back to my evolution theme, and to switch species: MMOs have evolved 
into specialized hunters (Sabre-tooth tigers). One theory for why 
sabre-tooth tigers disappeared is that sabre-tooths were designed to hunt 
specific large mammals. The climate changed (and humans appeared), and 
caused their prey to go extinct or disappear, so the sabre-tooths died off 
too. Their large teeth, which was their specialization, turned out to be 
their downfall.