[MUD-Dev] Building a \\\'Deeper\\\' MMOG

[Damion Schubert]

From: Brian Lindahl

> When players act in accordance to their character's self-interest,
> rather than their own, they will be 'role' playing. Players who
> act in accordance to their own self-interest are 'achievement'
> playing.

I would think that an achiever would be a player optimizing his
character's self-interest.  If he were acting in accordance with his
own, he'd go out and get some sun. =)

I think a better way to describe it would be that players who were
roleplaying should be more prone to act as their characters WOULD
perform, as opposed to how their characters SHOULD.

> The trick to building a deeper MMOG is not adding more features
> for players to achieve, but bringing the players into the world of
> 'role' playing, versus 'achievement' playing by increasing the
> dominance of theme. When players who signed onto the MMOG for
> achievement begin to play as their character and incorporate true
> 'role' playing, then you know that you have built a deeper
> MMOG. The MMOG encourages players to become involved in the theme
> and become absorbed in the fantasy world.

Here's an alternative opinion:

I've seen 'theme' trample more roleplayers than it's helped to
guide.  Consider: in EverQuest, I was one of many people who wanted
to play Dark Elves that were sinister, brooding but not necessarily
evil.  There were players who wanted to play lovable, good ogres.
However, the 'theme' called for all of us to be evil, twisted sons
and the game should force us all to be hunted down and killed, and
the game systems supported that (we could only use evil schools,
worship evil gods and guards would attack us on sight).

Thus, the 'theme' was anxiously pushing all of us who had
interesting, complex and deep characters to be mono- dimensional.
We had to fight against the system and work within the code
limitations in order to roleplay.

At the same time, if you followed the theme, the game rewarded you
with an easy lifestyle that actually removed the theme from
consideration in your daily life, making the game much more
advancement-driven.

The 'theme' vs 'non-theme' battle is one I've seen over and over
again.  Consider: in Ultima Online, a large portion of the
playerbase roleplays being an elf.  They like elves.  They created
their own elf culture, added their own elf language, and put up elf
websites.  The problem, of course, is that there are no elves at all
in the Ultima theme (this is, of course, post ultima III, which is
considered the 'real' ultima timeline and is the core of the UO
backstory).  There are a lot of people who felt quite offended that
these players would dare to impede upon Lord British's vision of a
game world by adding pointy-eared vermin to the game.  But there can
be no doubt that these elf communities were in fact roleplaying,
adding a great deal to the world, being extremely imaginative and
having a lot of fun in a non-achievement fashion along the way.

--d
 

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