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

[Aurel]

On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 5:07 AM, Mike Rozak <Mike at mxac.com.au> wrote:

> And now for something to spur some discussion...


Always appreciated!

>
> Why do people forgoe the "massively" part of these games?


 This is one of those few questions where a bit of formal research would be
really helpful. Does anyone know of anything like this having been done?
It's easy to throw out armchair theories and anecdotes regarding ourselves
and our friends and why we prefer one style of play over another, but it
won't explain away the trend.

>
> Which leads me to conclude, the "massive" part of MMOs is going away. The
> dinosaurs are shrinking to chickens.
>
> Maybe massive has always been a misnomer. Maybe epic should have been the
adjective used instead. Certainly the acronym would be more appropriate.
Anyway, my own armchair theory is that the massive part of MMOs only serves
as a backdrop to make players feel like their virtual accomplishments mean
something. Taking down an enormous capital ship in a one man fighter in
Freelancer is pretty sweet, but nobody cares. Taking down a capital ship in
EVE is not only sweet, it's an epic event that will be posted on youtube,
written about in blogs, written about in CCP's reports, and talked about for
a good long while to come.

To clarify, I'm using epic here to describe an event that people other than
the player or players involved actually care about. So I'd argue that while
Mike's point is an excellent observation, it's really no trend. For one
reason or another it's what most players have always wanted the game to be.
And of course it's important for an epic game to also be massive because the
more players exist in a world the bigger your audience when you get those 15
minutes of fame.