MMO thoughts

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What do I remember being so good about MMOs?

Identifiers that say something about me (Race chosen, name, class, abilities, weapons, armour, appearance)

A 'home' - somewhere to idle after questing. Somewhere where it's likely to bump into friends, or other people I 'know' / recognise.

Meet people who are different but with shared goals.
"Group of friends that I met in game. Similar situations, complementing skills, similar attitudes, etc. Usually introduced by someone helping someone else out."

World effects (e.g. Weather) - something that happens on a regional scale that is noticeable by everyone nearby

Ability to form adhoc groups. Ability to form guilds (loosely, patron / vassal). No 'public chat' - it's all based on location, group chats, or one to one chats (whispers, patron / vassal). Less spammy

Unique items, everyone looks different. Not like WoW where everyone has the same gear to max out stats.

When I mentioned it on Twitter I was thinking about the World of Darkness table-top RPGs. Things specific about that I liked...

• Characters are never the most powerful things in the game - you're almost always the bottom of the food-chain
• The world turns without you - there's an overarcing plot that you may or may not be directly taking part in, but you see the effects of it. Contrast thing with WoW where the ULTIMATE EVIL DRAGON doesn't actually do anything but live in a cave and respawn for every party. If something as big as Smaug is killed then it should have a Battle of Five Armies type consequence.

Of tabletop RPGs in general....

• More interaction with other humans. The weakest part of all MMOs is that all of the interactions that lead to progress are yes/no conversations or just cut scenes with thin NPCS. In MMO land there isn't a problem that can't be solved with out going to a place and killing a thing or collecting 20 of a thing.
• Small groups. In WoW and the like it feels like everyone is an ant scurrying around seeing all the other little hero ants doing basically the same thing. Your party should be the center of the universe and, for the most part, the only heros. You might interact with other parties/individuals, but they should have their own motivations and goals - you shouldn't all be competing for the same prize all the time.

Interesting!

Asheron's Call accidentally stumbled over these points in a way that worked much better than Warcraft, that is:

Bottom of the food chain:
AC: At the start of the game, the story was that you were portalled in, and given a wooden sword. You can run about and hunt small animals nearby but if you stray more than say, 30m from the start point, you'd be destroyed by one of the bigger creatures. From here you can walk in any direction (monster death permitting). On PVP servers this was especially apparently as a level 50 mage would splat you when you logged in and steal your wooden sword and cloth pantaloons. Snort. (as an aside, I remember finding the guy who did that to me, still doing it to newbies when I was passing as a level 90. the splatter becomes the splatted!). The world was dangerous!

WoW: You start in a sandbox that is nigh on impossible to die in. You have one route out of the zone. Zzz.

The word turns:
Asheron's Call: You had a monthly storyline that would update, unveiling new quests and a 'main arc' that could only be completed once. Once it was completed, that players name would go down into the lore, meaning the players in the 'legends' actually existed on the server. Stories included, giant monsters raining fire down on starter towns, shadows invading every town.

WoW: Settlements are places you run through to get to instances. BORING. Woo, loot!

About the human interaction: You're so right

Smaller groups: I've long felt that MMOs don't actually do anything other than give the publisher a tag line 'x,000 players!'. I like the idea of a persistant character, but I'm not overly bothered about the persistant world (other than the visuals / exploration).

As I'm not a tabletop RPG player, I appreciated the 'game' style of MMOs to an extent. That is, combat doesn't come across as dice rolls, it looks like you're swinging your sword, depending on how you move your character (like an FPS) you get bonuses.

I'm still no closer to figuring out how all this would work in a game. I think I need to read more about desktop RPGs and see if there is a way to get the human parts combined with the online game parts.