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Interactivity with the Virtual World: The Evolution of MMOs?
twrule
Member Posts: 1,251
Just some passing thoughts - feel free to critique, and I don't claim any originality here:
It seems to me that one of the key features mmos are noticably lacking, and have been for a long time, is in the quantity and complexity of types of interaction(s) players can have with the game world. By this I mean, there are only so many ways that players can affect their vitual environments (even temporarily).
For example, the vast majority of MMORPGs allow you to engage in combat with MOBs - let's call that one way of interacting with the world (even though it can mean many button presses); there are economic interactions like crafting, trading, and auction houses (most games having a lot of the economic control in the hands of the devs) - most of which are relegated to pop-up windows. Some games allow you to jump atop objects in the world and thus 'climb' them (even though this is usually not a purposely integrated feature), some games let you fly or swim (i.e. move on a z axis), occaisionally games allow you to build/maintain and decorate a house or other structure...
That seems to be about it though. The core ways of really interacting with the world common to most MMOs are navigating it in simple ways (walking or riding a mount to your destination) and engaging in combat minigames with designated targets. It seems to me that one (of many) reasons players might bore of new MMOs easily is that the number and scope of ways to interact with the virtual environment are so limited, and usually about the same from one MMO to the next, regardless of innovations in combat, etc. So my (maybe overly ambitious) proposal is that the next generation of MMOs ought to maximize the number and complexity of meaningful ways players can engage virtual worlds, on the (approximated) model of the number of ways we can interact with the real world. Make crafting something more concrete than a minigame relegated to a separate window, give the player more natural ways to navigate and affect objects around them beyond simply clicking certain predesignated things to trigger scripted events and otherwise just jumping on or walking past things. Follow the thread certain sandbox games have begun to explore where terraforming, structure building, city planning, resource harvesting, etc., are much more involved and concrete.
Players always talk about how they want to feel at home in the virtual world of their chosen game, but this is a necessary step to achieve that sensation, I think - how can you feel at home in a world that you can only have a very limited range of relations with? Hence the fantasy of the ideal virtual reality MMO where you *are* your avatar and you're really *in* the virtual world. This is not all that is needed of course (there are various social/community considerations too, for example), but on the more mechanical side, it's a necessary step, I'd say. It'd certainly go a long way toward immersion. Thoughts?
Comments
Does it make a good game?
More interactions, with more people = more unpredictable. People will find new ways to grief others (if you think blocking vendors is annoying, wait till you can build a wall around them).
I am not opposed someone else spending their money to try. But i am skeptical and unless i see it, i am not convienced it will make a game more fun.
Some brief responses:
- I like first-person, but I want to do more than shoot things
- I want the world to continue (persist, to use the industry term) whether or not I am there
- The game should react to me, just like the game in "Ender's Game", in emergent ways that may be beyond the developer's ability to predict
That's some of what the devs are striving for in my game of choice, which is one of the reasons I continue playing although we are still a ways off from the "subete no yume"
/2c
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
The aim in this case would be to move away from a 'game' paradigm toward a 'virtual world' paradigm, but I do think it would be more fun; a wise man once said that "play is the exhultation of the possible", and more possibilities of interaction would, in theory at least, add more and deeper ways to play.
That's not to say that there would be a complete lack of dev regulation; but often griefing in other MMOs comes from exploitation of some of the ways players lack freedom as much as the opposite - so I think the set of problems would just be different, not necessarily larger.
Again, like I said, I think this is just one necessary element; it needs to be done in the greater context of a larger game system designed to organically mesh with and support it. If it's not, I'd agree with you that it alone may be merely an elaborate gimmick.
SWG had all of that almost 10 years ago. Or did you all start playing MMOs just recently. It cannot be evolution if SWG did it way back in the day. Ultima Online did a lot of that as well.
Thank you for the response.
Yes, it's unfortunate that I really only see small Indie devs experimenting with this sort of thing; it's admittedly a gamble, but I think this sort of thing, if properly backed, could really be revolutionary for the genre.
-I agree that first-person mode is a vastly underdeveloped feature in most MMOs; something simulating an embodied perspective (as some more innovative FPS's have been trying lately, and even the Elder Scrolls games have toyed with a tiny bit, could potentially add a lot.
-This (a persistant world) is one part of the ideal that I think even mainstream devs are beginning to understand; they are just making slow incremental progress in achieving it, when really something more radical is called for.
-This might be more ambitious than even what I had in mind, but I'd be willing to support it.
What, may I ask, is your game of choice?
And EVE, There, Second Life, Project Entropia... pretty much most of what was released in 2003 and before except for EQ and a few others.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Vendetta Online; I've devoted more time to that game than any other, and that's no exaggeration. Chess and Capoeira may come in second and third. Other video games are like grains of sand compared to how much time I've spent in this world.
Regarding a "reactive universe": listen to the lead dev's nine-minute talk on large-scale AI:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=691-NLeuhFo
Yes, it's far from perfect, but it's the best computer game I've found that offers a decent mix of what I'm looking for.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
Thank you both for your responses.
I used the word 'revolutionary' carelessly before; what I meant was that future MMOs should further explore, and expand upon, the paradigm that the games you both mentioned broke ground on. I specifically had SWG and UO in mind as I wrote this, in fact. Still, I'm talking about pushing interactivity even further than many of those games did, and introducing yet more dimensions of interactivity, for future MMO projects. 'Innovative' might have been a better word; I just meant to stress that this would be a paradigm shift for the industry, i.e. picking up the path things were on back then, but making use of the resources (and knowledge gleaned from any weaknesses/mishandlings in those games) available today.
Interesting ideas. I've been thinking mostly in terms of the number of direct player inputs rather than the cascading consequences of their actions, but the latter is certainly an important element that needs to be in place for what we've been talking about to work. I might have to check Vendetta Online out at some point.
That video reminded me of something else; with the growing prevalence of kickstarter funding for independently developed games, the sort of thing we've been talking about may actually happen sooner rather than later - I suppose we'll see.