Just saw this…

I just saw this article:

Designing for Community Grimwell Online – Sunday, 08 April 2007 © Grimwell Online

I think it kind of touches on what I wrote yesterday but from a design perspective. Anyway give it a look if you have a moment.

White Noise

MMORPGs are a funny thing. They are at one time the most immersive, most addictive and the most hated games. With so much going on in the mmorpg world now it seems the community is more splintered and bitter than ever before.

Since I joined the online community in roughly 2000 much has changed (or maybe just I have changed?). There was a time when the only real contenders for the MMORPG audience were Ultima Online and EverQuest, perhaps Asheron’s Call if we are being generous. Outside of that group were many many quality MUDs which still retained a meaningful audience at that time. There were many people who were vocal in the community, obviously Lum being one of the most well known, and a smattering of forums where mmorpgs were passionately discussed. It wasn’t organised and there was still a lot of unneeded whining but the community in some sense have a voice.

I may not have agreed with a lot of what was said back then but I did get the feeling that people were listening. Now it seems that it is more important for developers to appear that they are listening than actually do any listening and who can blame them? There are few rational voices left in the mmorpg community. Don’t get me wrong, there are some excellent mmorpg commentators and community leaders out there but the overwhelming feeling I get when I log onto a forum now is that it’s populated by a group of trolls who seem to have higher expectation of MMORPGs than any other consumer product. The communities voice is just white noise now where did those voices which could emerge from the crowd go?

Maybe it’s because MMORPGs have come so far since the early days. WoW has showed us just how successful an mmorpg could be (in terms of subscribers) and others have shown us how quickly they can fail (Horizons, Asheron’s Call 2). Maybe it’s because people woke up to the massive time sink that was EverQuest. The part that has me baffled is when did we become such whining children?

A lot of games offer a lot and really come through with very little so why does the community get so incensed when it’s a mmorpg that is not coming through with the goods?

Many people would respond that the reason is that mmorpgs require so much of our time. I tend to disagree. I think the true crime is that mmorpgs could be so much more than they are today. They have the power to unite people in common causes, allow people to communicate across the world and to relate to people on a non visual level. In many ways they could be the ultimate utopia. No one is judging anyone by how they look in real life, what country they come from, their sexuality or even what gender they are (well I don’t think anyone really assume people are playing a character that is there actual gender any more). Most of all they can unite players in one solid goal, a purpose in which people can unite and eventually overcome.

I do have a point. It’s taking me forever to get to it but I’m new at this so give me a break.

The best part of MMORPGs is not how many different ways you can spec or how many different faces you can make it’s the community. It is also the one thing we have total control over and I feel like we are slowly chipping away at it.