[MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s

[Damion Schubert]

From: Ron Gabbard

> Having played MMOGs almost exclusively for too long, NWN was like
> being parched and having a glass of water.  It was fun being
> 'significant' again and playing a game where the tangible rewards
> (loot and XP) were the by-product of achieving in-game goals
> versus being the goal in itself.  Are MMOGs destined to become
> 'Wal-Marts' where "level-appropriate" content is conveniently
> provided at the lowest cost possible or is there a way of
> achieving mass customization where every player can be significant
> in a game world of thousands?

Fascinating post, Ron.  A lot to think about here, but as an opening
thought, I think that comparing Walmart to EverQuest is somewhat
simplifying the process.  The truth of the matter is that the bare
bones experience that NeverWinter Nights offers and that games like
Ultima Online offers differ vastly.  In Neverwinter Nights, the
theme is "Be a hero (or part of a small group of heroes).  Save the
world."  Fundamentally, having hero-centric Massively Multiplayer
titles is difficult, given that you can have 10,000 active players
on a shard and can't make that promise to all of them.  You can't
even do that on a smaller mud of 200 people efficiently.

Online games have a different promise, and what that is can vary
from game to game.  In Ultima Online, it was 'be part of a living,
breathing fantasy world'.  In Ultima Online 2, we were aiming for
something closer to 'Be a part of an epic'.  We actually identified
the problem of getting people who were used to the single-player
tradition of 'be a hero' into a massively multiplayer game to be one
of our top challenges in tapping the mass market.

Fundamentally, a player's expectations towards MMPs are set by their
successful single-player experiences, be it Final Fantasy, Baldur's
Gate, whatever.  But overall, saying that MMPs should have the same
player-centric feel as a single-player or small-party game is akin
to saying that Civilization would be better served if every game had
a tightly wound, elaborate story.  I.e. that's not what the game is
about.

In response to that, I figure you can do one of three things:

  1) Incorporate lessons from those single-player experiences into
  your MUD/MMP as best you can.

  2) Conclude that MMPs are evil.  This choice does seem to be in
  vogue nowadays.

  3) Recognize the strengths of MMPs (communities, group dynamics,
  etc), and work with them as best you can.

While #1 has a lot of appeal (and is probably the direction UO2 was
most going in), the problem is that it is often done in a way that
creates unsatisfactory solutions that emphasize the differences
instead of helping.  Does a bad random quest generator help slake a
player's thirst, or does it make him long for Icewind Dale, where
the quests will all be specific, well-written, meaningful, and have
great rewards?  For those reasons, I've been focusing more on #3 -
identifying and creating features that would suck if you were
playing alone.

--d

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