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

[Mike Sellers]

Mike Rozak wrote: 
> ... I play a typical MMO and all I see are parties or 
> individual players running around and not interacting with 
> anyone outside their party. ... 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.

Except in things like the Auction House in WoW -- one of the best examples
of the asynchronous multiplayer that I mentioned before.  It's theoretically
possible to replicate this only with NPCs, but it wouldn't have the same
feel as it does now, given the vagaries of human nature.  

Or in how people toss buffs on others on the road, or sometimes help each
other out if they see someone having a tough time with a monster -- and of
course general PvP would be very different too.  

Now, a key part of my answer to this whole thing is that putting a lot more
intelligent, social NPCs into the world is an excellent idea, as it will
encourage players to be more social as well.  Right now, being social
doesn't matter -- it doesn't buy you anything except in the fairly rare
cases like those I mentioned.  As we make being social matter more to the
game, we'll see people being a lot more social.  

> 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).

Huh?  I see this in WoW all the time.  It's considered polite.  It doesn't
always happen, but it's saved me numerous times, and I've helped other
people like this too.  

> 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.

Well, in terms of the current generation of MMOs (and some of those still in
development) I have to agree.  Though I'd say WoW is a T. rex, not a sabre
tooth tiger (we're not up to mammals yet :) ).  I've immersed myself in the
social games space, and it looks to me to be a powerful descendant to MMOs
as we've known them.  As was pointed out in a recent conference, while
Facebook is not the end-all of social games, it is currently the eye of the
hurricane.  Facebook signs up more people *every month* than WoW and Xbox
Live have *in total*, put together.  Most them aren't gamers, and yet most
of them play social games.

Mike Sellers