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

[Amanda Walker]

On May 21, 2009, at 5:07 AM, Mike Rozak wrote:
> As many people know, despite WoW's raiding, a large percentage of  
> WoW players also play it as a massively single-player game too.
> Why do people forgoe the "massively" part of these games?

Does "massive" require raiding.

My usual experience of MMOs is massive for socializing and exploration  
but solo for combat.  Similarly, back in the day of text MUDs, I was  
much more interested in the social/building aspects of things like  
LambdaMOO than in combat in DikuMUD.  Before that, doing pencil &  
paper role playing with friends in the 70s, I was more interested in  
storytelling and illustrating than in rolling dice and looking things  
up on charts.

> Most people WANT to play a single player game. Or, they want to play  
> a game with their close friends. Only a minority of the population  
> wants to play in a world with thousands of other players (for PvP,  
> raiding, trading, or other reasons). I wrote about this a few years  
> ago in "The player pyramid."

I would frame it a little differently.  Most people don't want to have  
to interact with thousands of other people, but many like having them  
around (i.e., empty worlds are not that engaging--other players don't  
have to be part of a raid team to be good scenery).  "Soloing  
together" in WoW is much, much better than it was in EQ, or AO, and so  
on, and games like Guild Wars take this even farther, where towns are  
social but combat is always solo / small group.

To draw a parallel: people like going to casinos, but most people in  
casinos don't play/interact with everyone else there.

> Back in the dark ages of MMOs (or at least the non-graphical ages),  
> modems were 1200 baud, a pain to use (slow to dial in, tying up the  
> phone line, disconnecting frequently), and MUDs charged by the hour.  
> Given such hurdles, the only people that played MUDs were people who  
> really-really liked to be around other (virtual) people.

Well, let's face it.  The driving force behind even text MMOs at  
1200baud has always been chat.  CompuServe thought that Air Warrior  
and Kesmai would be a big customer draw, but CB trumped them entirely.

> What kind of hybrids are possible? How about taking Guild Wars a  
> step further, and providing Bioware/Bethesda style single-player- 
> CRPG gameplay in an instance, with walled cities/towns being public?

That's effectively how I play GW already.  Its single-player arc is at  
least as good as most single-player RPGs.

--Amanda