My thoughts on why MMOs are the way they are.

Dedthom

Back when EQ* was the MMO many people played "virtual Reality" was a sci fi concept. EQ was raw, simple, and hard. The concept were born from a time when Dungeons and Dragons was still an RPG and computer games were constructed to be small because of the confines od the technology.

Now the virtual world is everywhere. From the smart phone you carry to the way we interact with your TV, everything now has a component that connects to the web and can take you away from your reality, in a relative sense of course. Bored at the dentist, surf the web on your i-phone. Attending a foot ball game, keep up with other games on your Droid. If the weather outside is cold and rainy, curl up in front of your TV listening to music while you read a good book on your Kindle.

Tecnology is everywhere and we interact with this technology constantly.

So back to MMOs. Because we are so used to the technology most players no longer view MMOs as stepping in to a "Virtual World" they view them as a game to be played. Now that technology has made our lives easier, most MMOs players also want the game to be easier. No immersion, no inconvenience,or hassle, going from point A to B to C killing monster M and N and O for reward X and Y and Zed.

There was a time when board games, paper and pencil RPGs and miniatures games where the poison of choice for those wanting to experience another world. At this time there was an arguement about playability versus realism. Playability meant that the rules were simplified from reality so the game was more accessible and general easier to play, where as realism often meant taking into consideration many real world factors so the rules were true to what would really happen, thus making the game more difficult and harder to learn.

This being said, these 2 factors are often at the core of many discussions about MMOs. One camp want an MMO that is easy and accessible sacrificing realism, the other camp wants realism despite the difficulty of play. Of course this doesn't apply to all MMO discussions, hard to make them apply to F2P vesus P2P.

Another thought is that video games in general and MMOs in particular have come full circle to their roots.

Let me explain, in Original Dungeons and Dragons** you went thru a linear dungeon killing mobs that often had no real reason for being there. Gather treasure and XP so you could kill bigger monsters and on and on, the grind. Now if you had a clever enough DM back in the mid to late 70s they may have come up with a story or lore as to why you were doing this, or you could have a DM who said :"There be monsters, kill them".

As time went on DND became more "Advanced" and adventurers left the dungeons to interact with the towns and villages in ways other then sell loot.

Computer games followed the same model as DND, sometime lifting their mechanisms whole clothe from the rule books.

MMOs today are more akin to ODND with a clever DM. The story is there but the Orcs standing in the field really have no reason for being there other then waiting for players to come and kill them.

So in the end, I believe that we are about to reach the same turning point that was reached for paper and pencil RPGs. MMOs will become more dynamic, more open, striking a balance between playability and realism that the technology allows and paper and pencil RPGs never really could. 

Just my thoughts.

* I know there were other MMOs before EQ but for me EQ was the first MMO where you could, in theory, feel like"you are there".

** Yes I know there were other RPGs at the same time DND was becoming popular but in such a small market DND was the biggest of the bunch.

Nekrataal

I disagree with your vision of PnP rpg... linear it was not, etc.

All I have to say is that your DM sucked.

Dedthom

Originally posted by Nekrataal

I disagree with your vision of PnP rpg... linear it was not, etc.

All I have to say is that your DM sucked.

 I would ask: when did you start playing Dungeons and Dragons?

Nekrataal

Originally posted by Dedthom

Originally posted by Nekrataal

I disagree with your vision of PnP rpg... linear it was not, etc.

All I have to say is that your DM sucked.

 I would ask: when did you start playing Dungeons and Dragons?

 Late eighties... 88-89. Something like that. I was around 11.

Dedthom

Originally posted by Nekrataal

Originally posted by Dedthom

Originally posted by Nekrataal

I disagree with your vision of PnP rpg... linear it was not, etc.

All I have to say is that your DM sucked.

 I would ask: when did you start playing Dungeons and Dragons?

 Late eighties... 88-89. Something like that. I was around 11.

 Well, at that time DND had changed considerable from it's origins. I was making reference to DND in the mid to late 70's.

Cephus404

Originally posted by Dedthom

Originally posted by Nekrataal

I disagree with your vision of PnP rpg... linear it was not, etc.

All I have to say is that your DM sucked.

 I would ask: when did you start playing Dungeons and Dragons?

I started playing from day one.  I played Chainmail in '74 before it.  He's right, your DM sucked.  D&D never had to be linear, some people might have played it that way, but that's not part of the system, it's how it's run.