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

[John A. Bertoglio]

> Mike Rozak wrote:
> > Most people WANT to play a single player game. Or, they want
> > to play a game with their close friends.
> 
> *Most* people want what they already know, if in slightly different
> packaging from the last time.  They want cheaper buggy whips, crisper
> black
> and white TV, better text games, or shooters with more textures.
> 
Clearly, people have no idea that they want something new until it arrives
on the scene.
>
> (And I'll pause here to note once again that in terms of MMOs, we haven't
> begun to touch "most people."  For a sense of scale, in the US there are
> more active birdwatchers than there are people playing MMOGs.  Our "most
> people" is far from a broad audience -- so far.)
> 
> A few people are willing to try something new, and sometimes that catches
> on.  Even then, we're talking about varying degrees of presenting
> something like what people already know.
> 
> 
> Beyond this though, I think you're seeing MMOs through a particular lens
> that isn't entirely accurate.  Many people like playing "solo" in MMOGs,
> but that doesn't explain the games' success.  It is the *potential* for
> meaningful contact with others, even if it is for some people rarely
> realized, that is part of the success of MMOGs.

This is the critical point here. My son and I have dabbled with MMOs since
the UO beta and have always played a fairly solo game using coop play when
it is required to meet goals or just happens to work out. But the ability to
join with others is critical to the fun. The designers of a true single
player game have total control over content. But at their best, the MMO
creates its own content due to a complex interaction of the game world, PCs
and NPCs. Very little happens in a single player game that would come as a
surprise to the developers. In a well designed MMO, this can happen all the
time.

> 
> This has some common roots with how we watch movies.  Watching a thriller,
> comedy, or romance by yourself does not have nearly the same impact that
> it does when you watch it in a theatre full of people -- even if they're
> people you don't know and will never really interact with.  It's even a 
> different experience from watching the same movie at home with family or 
> friends --> all three provide a different kind of social experience that 
> most people continue to find compelling.
> 
> In addition, I think your assertion about what most people want in an
> online game doesn't stand up to experiences ranging from the sprawling and

> hugely successful Chinese MMOGs -- where acting as part of a group is a 
> necessity at anything beyond the lowest levels -- to the more casual but 
> nonetheless
> compelling groupings occuring in many lighter games, from those like Mob
> Wars on Facebook (extremely casual, dead simple gameplay, hugely
> multiplayer, staggeringly successful commercially) to web-games like the
> RPG/RTS-ish Ikarium.  That's where to look for how MMOGs are evolving, not
> into re-treads of old concepts like Free Realms.
> 
> 
> On that note, what I think your assertion most clearly points out,
> interestingly, is that "what MMOs are" is not what they will be.  On this
> mailing list, people have said things like "MMOs are basically combat
> simulators" (Damion, I think, a while back) or "MMOs are primarily about
> the
> pursuit of individual goals" (Joe Buehler, just recently).  Prior to the
> unexpected rise of browser-based MMOs, people were (and many still are)
> striving to create even more graphically heavy MMOs that were also about
> individual goals realized mainly through combat.
> 
> MMOs right now have the potential to become like the hugely popular
> hex-based wargames of the 1970s and 1980s -- hugely popular, that is,
> until
> they were supplanted by something that more people liked even better.

As a hex-based wargamer in the 70s and 80s, I would suggest that this was a
very small niche hobby driven by huge numbers of young baby boomers with
youthful time on their hands. The decline of these games (I suspect)
followed the demograpic trends that simply produced fewer males, 16-25. The
time demands of face-to-face play was incompatible with family life and
jobs. The rise of computer and console gaming finished the decline, though a
strong niche market in hex-based computer games continues to exist. Computer
games solved (to a degree) the problem of opponents and the ability to pick
up the game at any point and not have to worry about a CAT attack destroying
the careful setup of the cardboard hexes on a map. (By CAT, I don't mean
Close Assault Tactics, I mean a real cat!). 

> Will
> they "shrink into chickens" and become MSOGs as a result?  Possibly some
> will.  My bet though is that more people now have more avenues for
> entertainment and socialization that grow beyond the current ponderous MMO
> structures (classes, races, quests, defined combat roles, etc.), and that
> these will become the next cool thing for playing games in online worlds
> together (even if they're not called MMOGs).

The technical limitations inherent in the existing MMO engines make the
rigid structures mandatory. Flat item models based on the limitations of
RMDBS storage are required to achieve reliablity and decent performance.
Therefore, the designers are forced to build structures that lack flexiblity

> 
> People in current popular MMOs "want" single-player gameplay because
> that's
> what the games reward -- working with other people is just a way to
> achieve
> individual goals (again, some of the Chinese MMOs aside).  This isn't
> necessarily what people truly want; it's just a reflection of what current
> games provide. Change the games, change the apparent set of "what people
> want."

The massive success of WOW has, sadly, influenced games that followed. Note
that WOW has a very powerful grouping construct. While I find the gameplay
shallow and way to close to work, they have done a pretty good job of making
world that allows solo, small or large teams. I have read that a very small
percentage of WOW players particpate in large scale raids.

I expect that the dynamic I describe above is still with us. Complex time
schedules make most planned interaction tricky if the numbers expand beyond
a few. Ad hoc teaming has long been a feature of non-Massive online games
like CounterStrike. Team play is not mandatory but in-game mechanisms exist
to make it possible for players to enforce some degree of cooperation. 

I suspect a game that made grouping and cooperation a natural extension of
the design would find a good audience but that this design goal would be a
major challenge. 

> 
> Mike Sellers
> 
John Bertoglio
503.330.6713
Consultant
jb at co-laboratory.com
www.co-laboratory.com
im: jbertoglio at gmail.com

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