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

[Sean Howard]

"cruise" <cruise at casual-tempest.net> wrote:
> Before anyone gets too far along the road of "this is why WoW got so
> big", I'd like to point out City of Heroes did all of these things way
> before. Solo-play is perfectly possible, quick five-to-ten minute play
> sessions, etc.

Solo play in City of Heroes is extremely boring. The highly instanced
nature of the world just makes it seem like playing a single player game
with a bunch of cookie cutter levels and inferior enemy AI. I think the
point is to play alone WITH other people.

> So I suspect the reason for WoW success isn't anything to do with the
> "heretical" idea of solo play and quick missions.

Though I agree here. Originally, WoW's solo-ability slowed in the 20s and
30s and stopped altogether in the 40s, and the sheer amount of fetch
and/or kill 10 foozles quests are amazing.

-- 
Sean Howard