On the most recent episode of SUWT, one of the stories brought up was about Darren’s recent experience in Eve.  The guests on SUWT talked just briefly about how those types of “risky” moments can really add to a game and build some great memories, even if you don’t come out on the winning end of the encounter.  The SUWT gang went on to say that a lot of MMOs are very predictable nowadays and just don’t have any real risk or danger associated with them.  You don’t really seem to find those moments anymore that make your hair stand on end and your palms sweat.  When death no longer has any sting, when there are really no penalties and consequences for your actions, and when everyone is “safe” all the time - haven’t we lost one of the main emotional drivers that, while frustrating at times, also gives us an excitement and vivid stories that really stick with us?

PvP can obviously bring a lot of this element to the table.  Playing with and against other human opponents is always more tense than even the most carefully crafted NPCs.  It’s unpredictable and fresh pretty much every time and there can be a real rush from beating your opponent.  Likewise, other game mechanics can add risk into the equation and make us be a bit more cautious in our gameplay.  In a game like WoW, there really is no real risk of anything bad happening to your character.  Consequently, you can play fast and loose and at the end of the day, there is no real price to pay.  But that also means there’s never any real tension (and yes, I raided a lot in WoW and even there tension was lacking).

Yes, sometimes those moments can be frustrating and really suck, at least at the point in time you experience them.  I’ve been through a lot of them - dying in a really bad place, with tons of mobs and a late night trek back to recover  your body and your stuff.  Dying in a PvP ambush.  Running through a really dark zone, feeling a bit nervous, and getting my clock cleaned by a ghoul.  But when I look back at many of those times, I now feel like I have stories that stick with me versus a litany of times I’d rather forget.  I think that, like in real life, the times where things are harder, riskier, and possibly went bad, ultimately help to shape us and imprint on our minds these terrific stories we’ll never forget. 

I just wonder if we’ve forever lost that sense of risk in MMOs - will we ever truly feel in danger again?  Will we ever struggle for anything again?  Will anything ever be epic because we overcame terrific odds and terrible foes?  I truly hope that future games will deliver this - whether they be mainstream or niche.  I want that risky feeling back - I want that sense of danger.  And maybe that fear is already present with me - the fear that we may never see those elements again in an MMO in a way that really means anything.  Now that’s scary.

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Life is hard.  Times get tough for people.  What happens to people who play MMOs when the hard times in life intersect with their favorite hobby?  Are MMOs capable of providing an outlet, an escape, a coping mechanism to people who are struggling with some of life’s more difficult issues? 

I know that over the years I’ve seen this happen via the various guilds I’ve been a part of -whether it be financial issues, martial problems, a breakup, a death in the family, the loss of a job or a serious health issue.  Whatever the case, you have people who play MMOs in the midst of the difficult times in life.  They continue to connect with their friends, guildmates, and the game at a time in their life when you wonder how they could possibly hang in there.  Why do they do this?

We often talk about the social aspects of MMOs and that for many of us, it’s the people that keep us playing.  Sure, we want a solid game that’s fun to play that can provide for our entertainment needs.  But we also want to experience it with friends.  The companionship in the journey makes the entire journey worthwhile.  It’s neat to see dungeons and boss mobs and find nice loot, but without that person to joke with and share the experience, it can feel a little empty.

I think that MMOs can provide something that people need in times of hardship and crisis - fellow gamers and friends that also have gone through hard times in life.  The MMO becomes the place to go that’s free from the stress and worry of their current situation, if even for a little while.  Over the years, I’ve seen this happen time and time again as guildmates and other friends have shared, via chatting in-game or on forums, some of the difficult situations they are facing.  The outpouring of understanding, sympathy, support and in some cases tangible help has been amazing. 

We live in a technology saturated world.  The more we grow connected, the more in danger we are of growing disconnected.  But I still see those glimmers of hope in these fantasy worlds we call a second home.  There is genuine human connection behind the screens and beyond the character models. 

Finally - and please hear me clearly - I’m not advocating that people try to escape or ignore RL problems and issues by playing an MMO.  Clearly that wouldn’t be helpful and could cause more harm than good.  In addition, in some cases “addiction” to an MMO has caused serious harm to people’s lives.  But I see far more benefit than detriment, and I think this form of entertainment has more to offer than just a new shiny or a few more levels.

So here’s the question - have you ever been in a tough situation in life and continued to play an MMO?  If so, what were you reasons for doing so?  I’d be interested in hearing your story.

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Permadeath.  Does that word evoke excitement or shudders of horror?  We got into discussing permadeath a little bit over at Strangelands a couple of weeks ago as it related to being “hardcore”.   Do we need to be hardcore to have permadeath for characters?  Or, can it be built into the fabric of the game in such a way that, while we are sad to see our character die, it’s not the end of the world?  In fact, permadeath could become the gateway into new stories, new adventures, and a legacy that we build in that world.

I’ve never played an MMO that has permadeath or even a “permadeath server” option.  And frankly, the idea scares the bejeebus out of me most of the time when I contemplate it.  Why in the world, after endless hours of playing a character, would I want to see said character die and lose all my stuff??  What’s more de-motivating than that?  In all the ways I’ve seen the idea brought up on message boards over the years, it’s always in this vein - total and complete annihilation of your character.  You start over essentially from scratch.  So I’ve always tuned out these kind of permadeath discussions because for me they seem to be pretty extreme, leaving no room for flexiblity in what happens post-death.

But what about ideas that could incorporate permadeath into the game design, and still leave you feeling as though you didn’t completely get the wind knocked out of your sails?  Are there ways to have permadeath at a certain point in gameplay, but not upon each and every death?  If you permanently die upon every death, that could be problematic due to the one huge issue that always kills these discussions - lag.  A hiccup in your connection, lightning strikes, your computer blows up, or your cable provider sucks - any of which would lead to your character, through no fault of your own, possibly dying a horrifc death.  That’s not even counting RL distractions that could cause death, like cats on the keyboard, coffee in the lap, kids fighting in the next room, or the dinner burning on the stove.

So how do we build this idea into a game, while trying to mitigate things like the “lag factor” and RL distractions?  Here are a few of my mostly-half-baked thoughts on the subject.

One:  Have some kind of “Generations” system - a type of family tree mechanic where all your characters in a certain character slot are linked together over time.  So your second character in that slot is the “son” of the first character, inheriting things from the first character.  These things might be experience, some bonuses or stats, some equipment, maybe a percentage of levels, etc.  It would really depend on how the broader system is designed.  But as you play the game, each successive character for that slot is the next “generation” in that family, founded by that original character from years ago.  So the third character is the grandson (or daughter), great grandson, etc.  Or you could go the route of saying, ”Fourth in the line of so-and-so”, or “10th son of the house of so-and-so”, or simply “Descendant of so-and-so”.  Maybe you could even pick from a variety of styles of how you would want your family history represented.

Two:  Don’t have permadeath mean irrevocable, permanent death upon the very first death a character has.  I’d rather see a “life force” type of system where over time, as you die and have to release (i.e. no rez available), your lifeforce pool slowly drains away.  Your tie to the world is progressively getting weaker.  So eventually, with enough deaths under your belt where you’ve had to release, your death will become permanent.  However, deaths where a player can resurrect you don’t affect your lifeforce totals.  And perhaps, just perhaps, there are rare things in the world that will increase your lifeforce totals as a one time event, prolonging your character’s stay in the world.  Things like this could potentially help to counteract the occasional lag/RL event induced death. 

Three:  Have an actual age to the character - at least a number that progresses if not the actual physical look of the character.  I’m really not thinking about having skills and attributes decrease over time to simulate the aging of the body or mind, but I guess you could go that route.  What I’m really thinking of is simply an age number that progresses, from say 18 to 100.  As your character ages, they will earn titles due to this, as most people probably won’t live a really long time with just one character.  So perhaps at 80 you get “The Elder”, at 90 “The Revered”, at 100 “The Legendary”, and after that perhaps “The Ancient”, “The Fabled”, and “The Mythical”.   Something that says, wow, you have really lived a looong time in this game and survived a lot of stuff.  And then when the character finally does die, you’ve got a pretty unique character as part of your family history and someone that people on the server remember.

Four:  Post-death, you should be taken to a special other-worldly, supernatural looking/feeling character creation screen where you can craft the next in your line.  You could choose to stay with the same class and professions (tradeskills), and perhaps receive some bonus to those if you choose to do so, signifying that you are following in your family’s footsteps.  Or you could go in a completely new direction with a different class all together.  This would also be the time when there might be choices about what to inherit in the various categories of skills, attributes, items, money, experience, etc.  Things like experience might be based on a certain % each time, while there would be choices to make about which things you want to inherit among the other categories.  While your characters might be able to always stash money in the bank that never goes away, you might only be able to select 5 items to take with you.  Finally, depending upon which age title you had earned, you would get some special bonus or honorific for that.  So the descendant of a Mythical character would get something pretty special, as opposed to probably nothing for a character who died at age 45.

Five:  This last idea ties in with idea three, and what sparked my thinking along these lines was a post over at Adele’s site.  The idea was that of a character morphing into a higher/better/or simply different version of themselves at some point.  The example used was the transformation of Gandalf the Gray into Gandalf the White in LoTR.  The MUDs I used to play used a system like this.  When you hit level 100 for instance, you would actually start over at level 1 again, but as a “prestige” class of sorts.  For example, if you were a level 100 Thief, you might start again as an Assassin.  So eventually you would have 100 levels of Thief and x levels of Assassin, each with their own unique skills and abilities.  So in this concept, you could tie it to levels.  Or you could tie it to age.  Maybe if you reach a certain status (i.e. Ancient), your diety gives you the option of being reborn into the world as a prestige type class.  Being reborn would also reset your age to a younger point.  Or you might simply choose to continue on with your character’s life hoping to reach an even greater milestone (i.e. Legend or Mythical).  At each milestone you’d be given the option.

I’m sure there are many other ideas and sub-ideas that could be fleshed out here, as well as many holes in my thinking.  I mainly wanted to get down some of my thoughts on a permadeath system that I think I could actually live with and enjoy (there are lots of other things you could add - family crests/tabards, paintings of past characters to go in your house or guildhall, a family history book that would contain it all, etc.).  Each new character would provide new stories and adventures, while remembering all the things that came before.  Each character in the family would take on it’s own life and history, with stories of the days of old told late into the night. 

Just as we remember stories and funny moments from characters in past MMOs, we would have those same memories here per character slot, over the life of the game, not just years after the fact.  Death would have a bit more sting, making things riskier and raising the emotional stakes, but it wouldn’t be so brutal that you’d be left with nothing.  So that’s my idea - keep it all in the family.

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I’ve stated before that when I play MMOs, I typically will end up joining a guild.  Normally I will do this through the normal course of the game, researching guilds and perhaps getting referred by people I happen to group with.  So I join a guild.  Now let me say that my guild experiences thus far have been good (except for one bone-headed mistake I have only myself to blame for!).  But no matter the guild, no matter what my personal experience has been, I always tend to move on when I leave an MMO and I ultimately migrate to join another guild in my next MMO.

Throw in all the guild related posts that Wife Aggro has had up lately, and it got me to thinking about the various ways I’ve left guilds, but also what I’ve seen happen in guilds over the years.  So without further ado, here is my list of ten reasons why and how players leave guilds:

1.  Going AWOL:  These are the folks who just drop off the face of the planet and are never seen again.  They likely never said anything to anyone but they’re going just the same.  They might have even deleted their character and canceled their account.  It’s quitting cold-turkey without a word to anyone.  It’s mystifying most of the time as no one seems to know anything.

2.  Taking a break/Leave of Absence:  This is the person who just needs a break because they are burnt out, or maybe school, work or family deserve some much needed attention.  However, the chances of this person coming back are iffy.  Half the time the person never does come back and the break or leave becomes permanent.  However, it’s at least a bit better than the AWOL scenario because the person told you they’d be gone for awhile.  It’s when you realize they’ve been going two months longer than what they said they were going to be that you start to wonder what happened.  Hopefully at least someone in your guild knows them in RL and can stay in touch and perhaps keep the guild updated.

3.  RL Emergency:  These you just can’t anticipate.  Health issues, job issues, family issues, you name it.  This person may have to completely drop out on the spur of the moment depending on what’s happened.  There is usually just a very brief explanation at the time.  Sometimes the person may be able to duck in and out of the game/forums for updates as they can, but they can’t really play.  Sometimes this person is able to come back, but sometimes they don’t and you’ve lost a guildmate. 

4.  The Graceful Exit:  This is the by-the-book way to leave a guild.  The person gives notice a few days/weeks ahead of time and leave gracefully on good terms.  Most of the time the person will take time to chat with people in the guild to say good-byes in game and on the boards.  A lot of the time the person may even give their stuff away to the guild or to close friends.  Often this person will stay in touch at least semi-regularly and may even rejoin the guild in future games.

5.  Drama:  This is either the player who is the cause of drama, or maybe it’s a player who is just sick of it swirling around them.  In the first case, the player will likely be booted (see 6).  In the latter case, the player will likely just leave just to get away from it (see 1, 2 or 4).  Regardless, people who leave due to drama (voluntarily or involuntarily) rarely come back.  Either the guild doesn’t want them back due to the drama they caused, or the player doesn’t want to come back due to the guild being full of drama.

6.  Getting kicked out:  Getting booted.  The person has done something that is bad enough for the guild leader or officers to opt to just boot you.  Sometimes this is accompanied by aforementioned drama, but other times it’s somewhat abrupt.  In the latter case, only a few will ever know the real reason for the boot, and speculation can swirl (which can start a new round of drama).  Other times the guild leader will make a post to inform the guild about what’s happened and why, and field any questions or concerns that may arise. 

7.  Identity Crisis:  This is the (usually drama filled) story of how a long time guild member is suddenly discovered to not really be who they say they are.  They may reveal that they are in fact someone completely different than who they’ve portrayed themselves to be (i.e. a girl when everyone thought a guy, or a forty year old when they thought a teenager, etc.).  Or this could go even deeper and you find out that the RL person who had the account left long ago, and some ‘usurper’ has taken over, masquerading as the guildmate everyone knew.  Often times this person will /guit or get booted as a result of the whole episode. 

8.  The Angry /gquit:  This is the scenario when someone gets insanely frustrated or mad about something and just /gquits abruptly, sometimes after having made angry outbursts in guild chat before leaving.  There is no warning, no chance to talk or ask questions, no chance to let cooler heads prevail.  Every time I’ve seen this happen it’s left a lot of “wtf?” and “??” in /gchat, with the expected flurry of private tells to officers trying to find out what happened.  Often this person will later actually want back into the guild, but is too prideful to ask due to how they left. 

9.  The Grass is Greener:  This player simply leaves the guild for greener pastures, whatever they think that might be.  They may leave in a good way (i.e. this was a really hard decision, you guys are great, etc.), in a bad way (the officers suck, this guild is heading downhill, you guys will never go anywhere, etc.), or sometimes without a word at all.  Seems like a 50/50 chance for one of these players to come back, and if they do, it’s with their tail between their legs (ask me, I know firsthand on this one!).  Sometimes guilds will let these folks come back if they left in a good way, but other times there’s more of a “you betrayed us and left” and they won’t let you back in.   

10.  “Me” Time:  This person quits the guild because they just don’t want to be a part of a guild anymore and all it entails.  They will keep a pretty healthy friends list, but they just don’t want to deal with /gchat, officers, message boards, raiding schedules, and guild drama.  They just want time to play the game, keep in touch with a few friends, and not have a lot of overhead. 

So those are my ten reasons of why and how people leave guilds, based on my experience and what I’ve seen over the years.  I’ve actually left guilds for reasons 1, 2, 4, 5, and 9 over the years, so I’ve experienced quite a few firsthand.  Would you add any others to this list?  Do any especially ring true for you from what you’ve seen?

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How old were you when you first got into gaming?  As I recall, I was probably the ripe old age of 7 or so when I started to find my way to things like the Atari and arcade games.  Then in 1982 the Commodore was released and it introduced me to PC gaming for the first time.  My dad brought it home and he was as thrilled with the possibilities I was.  We started out with some cartridge games but quickly moved onto floppy disks.  The game that really ignited my passion for PC gaming was The Bard’s Tale. 

I enjoyed many, many hours of playing that game and its sequels with my dad, and many other PC and online games over the years.  It was part of not only my childhood, but my adulthood as well.  At this point it’s a well ingrained piece of my life in general.  A lot of that is due to having a family and parents who not only allowed me access to games, but also put boundaries and guidelines in place to ensure that I didn’t end up the world’s youngest hermit.  There had to be healthy balance, and as a kid there are lots of activities vying for your attention.  I was fortunate to participate in many things growing up, gaming being just one of them.

So most, if not all, of you are like me - we are the first generation of electronic/PC gamers - the Traditionalists if you will.  Will we give rise to a “Baby Boomer” generation of gamers?  If so, how will these children be raised with gaming being such a predominant entertainment medium?  At what age will they “jack in” and start to discover the realms of possibilities that gaming can provide?  Will we, the parents of this generation, live up to the task of raising and guiding these kids into a brave, new, connected world which someday will outstrip our ability to comprehend and interact with it?  Yes, someday you may be the grandparent saying “Bah…these kids and their confounded gadgets.  It’s a bunch of gobbletygook!  In my day we double-clicked on an icon to access the internet, none of these fancy neural interfaces!”

What got me thinking about this topic was reading an article today about the rise in video game playing among children.  Today’s kids are spending more time gaming and the PC actually seems to be the gaming rig for most of them.  As the article points out, that isn’t too unexpected as most homes now have at least one PC in them.  So the kids of the next generation are playing games, and they are playing more games than ever.  Want to take a peek at the gaming lifecycle of your youngster?

“The gaming lifecycle starts with kid-oriented systems, moves into PCs for gaming, and continues with Plug & Play and the more established gaming systems,” said the NPD. “Then, at about age 10, cell phone gaming begins, and the gaming lifecycle culminates with Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable, and the three next generation console systems (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii).”

So there we have it - it’s all mapped out.  Your kid is destined to be playing games for years.  Which means we’ll have plenty of time to interact with our kids, enjoying the hobby together but also teaching them and learning lessons from our shared play.  So when does your kiddo actually become a “gamer”?

“When kids get to the 6 to 8 year-old age range is when we see them turn into more serious gamers. Not only does the amount of time they spend playing games increase the most dramatically, but they migrate from using ‘kid’ systems to using more portable and console systems as well,” said Anita Frazier, NPD’s industry analyst. “This appears to be a critical age at which to capture the future gamers of the world.”

Investors, publishers, developers, and marketing people everywhere - please note that last sentence.  There you have it.  Hook these kids right where you hooked me 26 years ago and your future looks bright.  Imagine what the 8 year old of today is bombarded with in terms of gaming options and marketing hype.  It really boggles the mind compared to what was around when I was that age.  I had the choice of a few games on big floppy disks, beautifully packaged in zip-loc bags at the local computer store.  Today, our children are confronted with multi-million dollar ads for everything from the latest consoles to Halo to every online game imaginable.  I think that’s enough to make any parent take a guiding hand in the “gaming development” of their kids.

In terms of online games, the article notes that 39% of kids play games online, which is helped by the fact that 91% of the games marketed to them in that space are free to play.  That struck me as a pretty high percentage, given that most of “us” have only been in the online space for the last 10 years or so.  But already almost 40% of our kids are doing it?  So the transfer of gaming knowledge and history must be starting to take place already, with parents sharing their love and passion for the hobby with their kids.  That’s great stuff!

So what does this mean for us??  Why do we need to think of the children of this next generation?  Because they will shape and influence the next-gen gaming that we will see and experience, particularly in the online space.  At some point, “us” old gamers will move beyond the demographic that is being targetted for gaming.  Now don’t get me wrong - I don’t think developers will forget about us - I think there will always be games that cater to what we are looking for.  But those things may one day no longer be mainstream as this larger generation of kids comes of age (projected to be 76 million verus “us” today of only 46 million).  Those kids - what they want and are willing to spend money on - will drive the face and culture of gaming for the next 10 - 20 years.

I think for the sake of our hobby - our passion for gaming and our love for our kids - we need to help shape that next generation with our stories, a transfer of knowledge, and guidance to ensure that they develop into healthy gamers.  How many of you are parents already?  Are you already seeing your kids gravitate to gaming?  Are you already starting that process of experiencing the hobby with them?  I personally hope to one day have a child and share my love of gaming with them as my dad and I have been able to.  It will be a brave new world we’ll wake up to one day soon, and eventually our kids will become the teachers on the forefront of gaming.  I look forward to that time, sitting around a virtual campfire telling my kids stories of  the gaming days of yore.  I hope you are looking forward to it as well, because it’s coming!

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With the recent hype over Halo 3, it got me to thinking about the brand power of a name – of the excitement, hype, disappointment, anger or apathy it can invoke.  What makes that difference?  Quantitative data of how the company has performed?  Experiential data from the players themselves?  Marketing gaffes, “nerfs” or quality of launch?  

In the MMO world, developer names often have as much or more influence and sway than an individual title name has.  A good example of this for me was Lord of the Rings and Turbine.  I love LoTR, have read the books since I was a kid, loved the movies, etc.  So I was completely sold on the IP.  However, having played Asheron’s Call, I knew what type of game Turbine made.  I had fun in AC, but it probably wouldn’t rank in my top 5 MMOs ever played.  On top of that, I love the D&D IP but didn’t like what they did with DDO.  So when LoTRO came around, it was the developer name swaying me not to purchase rather than the title name.   

On the flipside, we can take Warhammer.  I’ve never played the Warhammer miniatures game, never read Warhammer books, etc., so I know very little relatively speaking about the IP.  However, I know Mythic is developing the title.  I loved DaoC, playing it almost two years, and it would rate in my top 5 MMOs ever played.  So even though the game isn’t out and I know little about the IP, the fact that Mythic is developing the game has me sold already.    

So what types of emotions, reactions, and thoughts do the following developer names invoke in you when you see and hear them?   People talk about names like Bioware or Bethesda as being no-brainers – they make it, you buy it because it’s going to be top notch.  Here are my personal takes on just a few of our MMO developers: 

SOE:  I will always take a look at SOE products, though I might not buy and play them all.  Generally I have enjoyed enough of their games and had good experiences that they have a good reputation and credibility in my book.  I never had the “hate-on” for SOE that many EQ and/or SWG folks had.  I really like what SOE is doing these days with the top notch EQII expansions, the real investment in turning around Vanguard, and fun looking titles like FreeRealms and The Agency.   

Mythic:  Loved DaoC and had a very positive experience with Mythic in that game.  They have instant credibility with me and anything they make I will likely purchase and play.  

Sigil:  I guess I feel mostly a sense of “what might have been” when I think of Sigil.  I feel more disappointment and sadness about what happened to them, the layoffs, etc.  I had followed Sigil and Vanguard for a long time and used to have a great deal of excitement and trust in what they were doing.  A lot of that died during the first 3-4 months of Vanguard’s release.

Blizzard:  Blizzard has never failed me.  More than any other company on this list, they have made so many top notch games that I have played which sucked away years of playtime.  Polish, fun and excitement come to mind when I think of Blizzard.  I may have gotten tired of WoW after awhile, but boy was it a fun ride while it lasted.  Would definitely buy other Blizzard products in the future without much thought. 

Turbine:  Really apathy these days – I’m just not excited by what their company is doing.  Maybe I’m weird or my playstyle is on some extreme, but even with IP’s I love, I can’t seem to get into the style of game they make.  I would definitely read about future Turbine products, but I can’t say I’m chomping at the bit for what they do next.  Definitely would take a “wait and see” attitude with Turbine. 

Can an MMO ever escape it’s past?  Can it renew and re-brand itself in the eyes of both veteran and new gamers?  Newbies to the genre will only know what the company’s name stands for at that moment in time.  They will typically judge the company on what they know of it, that is, the games they’re immediately playing.  In that sense, most of the newbies to the genre will have higher opinions of things and won’t judge as harshly. 

On the contrary, veteran gamers oftentimes carry with them the collective history and baggage of these games and developers over the years.  SOE is the perfect example of this phenomenon, with legions of players carrying scrapbooks with them from EQ and/or SWG with all the nerfs and mistakes SOE has made over the years.  That information will forever taint SOE products for them, despite changes the company may make to it’s culture, management, processes, and future games. 

So what’s in a name?  An awful lot in terms of reputation and credibility with the playerbase.  Every developer should constantly be assessing it’s name brand recognition and acceptance within the MMO market.  It’s every bit as much of an asset or liability as anything on the balance sheet.  The name is either going to be an obstacle for a developer to overcome, or a golden ticket into the land of hype and insta-acceptance.

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My computer gaming habit, and my RPG habit, really got kicked off with the Bard’s Tale series back in the early 80s.  I don’t know how many of you played through that series, but one of the things I liked most about it was the fact that it was chock full of puzzles, riddles, dark rooms, “spinner” squares, teleports, etc.  Lots of things you had to figure out that were mysteries.  There were places in certain dungeons where you might find something scrawled on the wall, or a piece of parchment with a riddle, or even a “magic mouth” embedded into the wall itself.  The mouth oftentimes had important things to share if you could first figure out the answer to its questions.  The Might and Magic series had a lot of these same things.  Lots of various stories, puzzles, riddles, clues, etc. that you had to figure out in order to get into certain areas of the game and finish. 

That’s one thing that I really miss in MMOs - having puzzles, riddles, or true mysteries to solve that perhaps lots of people are working on to solve.  With the proliferation of the internet, and subsequently the explosion of game related spoiler/info sites, all the mystery has really died.  Any and everything is at your fingertips whether it be quest walkthroughs, maps, raid strategies or where to find an item.  It’s all laid bare.  Even if you choose not to look at such sites and want to play through the game without help, chances are you’re going to see people talking about things in chat, or be in a group where someone already knows the answer (or alt-tabs really quick to find out). 

I must confess that I’ve looked up my fair share of information on sites like Allakhazam, Thottbot, Curse, WoWhead and others over the years.  It is nice sometimes when you are really stumped to be able to just go, find the answer, and get on with your play session.  But I do sometimes wish we could have some of the old puzzles, riddles and mysteries in our current MMOs where it might take lots of people working together over weeks and longer to figure something out.  And then when it is figured out, it might benefit everyone.  Think of a Scholar profession that might really mean something - maybe you are the only one who can trasnlate and read ancient and magical texts.  Maybe the intelligence and wisdom scores would really come into play.  But I fear all mystery has been killed since all the answers exist within a click of the mouse.

Does anyone else miss the mystery we once experienced in single player games?  Will it ever be possible to have that in an MMO?  I hope so, because I miss that aspect.

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The SUWT podcast always provides interesting discussion and great viewpoints on issues that matter to MMO players.  Episode #9 was no exception and provided some food for thought for me.  In this episode one of the issues tackled concerned the social (and anti-social) nature of MMOs these days.  The points raised struck home with me as I thought about the nature of solo vs. group play in MMOs today, and how “social” MMOs really are when people refuse to group (or are elitist about it). 

Brent made a great point in that segment about WoW’s influence on how people perceive grouping and socializing in MMOs today.  The influence has been so great he states, that it’s actually recalibrated players expectations when it comes to grouping (or not) in an MMO.  When I think back to my two years in WoW, I certainly can see where Brent is coming from.  WoW is arguably the most solo-friendly MMO out there.  You can solo to max level without ever grouping if you so desire.  The negative effect of this however is that you wind up with people that may not know how to group effectivly in that game, should they be asked to 5-man or raid.  You also lose the element of helping others, sharing an experience, achieving a group goal and working as a team.  If everyone is empowered to run off in different directions and solo to 70, why group at all? 

Does there need to be some ability to solo in an MMO - absolutely.  There are times when you don’t want to group for whatever reason, you may be time restricted, or you may need to go afk often or at a moment’s notice due to RL.  So I don’t think soloers should be left out in the cold.  But has the pendulum swung too far in favor of “solo friendly” play, to the point where grouping seems pointless?  Obviously, if you want to raid on any level in WoW you’re going to have to group.  But if people have solo’d to 70, never really interacting with and using their skills in a group or raid setting, chances are they may be pretty poor at it when the time comes.  Generalization alert!

What’s lost when you have too much solo play?  When people don’t group, don’t randomly help others, but just run off and do their own thing?  The very spirit behind these games dies a little bit imo.  As Brent recalled on the show, EQ was a game where you needed to group early and often to really even survive, much less progress, in the gameworld.  Grouping was really almost required to get anywhere, and that forced you to learn, develop and use skillsets that were team focused.  People randomly helped each other in EQ when they didn’t have too, veterans taught newbies, and you felt like you were part of a real community of players that interacted with each other.  In addition, as Troy mentioned in the same segment, the internet spoiler sites that we have today really weren’t around in those early days.  You couldn’t just ignore other players and go look up everything on the web.  You had to actually talk to other players, ask questions, ask for help, and group up to go get things done.  I can’t tell you how many great people I met through that game due to the sole fact that I pretty much had to group. 

I think people are social in WoW - but it’s more of a glorified chat-room social as opposed to being social because of the game, and due to game mechanics.  WoW, more than any other MMO I’ve played, suffers from the syndrome of “we’re all playing a massive multiplayer game, alone!”.  I was fortunate to be in a great guild while I played WoW and did a lot of grouping and raiding, but I was aiming to have that experience.  But in general, WoW is in stark contrast to older MMOs like EQ.  It makes me wonder what will happen in future MMOs like TR, PoTBS, and even Warhammer.  I just hope the next time I yell “LFG!!”, that someone will answer and join me.

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I was reading Keen’s site as I usually do every day, and ran across his article by a similar title.  In the article he posed this question:

What 3 MMORPG mistakes will you never make again?

I thought that was a very interesting question and I’ll take a stab at answering that for myself.  While I’ve made numerous mistakes over the years playing MMOs, it was hard to narrow down the field to the three I would never want to make again.  But here goes nothing!

1.  Never accept an Officer position in a guild without a LOT of thought.  I would say I have been an officer in a guild in about half of the MMOs I’ve played.  Some of those positions I had thought about carefully, knew the leadership and the vision of the guild, and made a good choice.  Other times I accepted an officer position either because I was flattered at being asked or because I felt the guild needed some leadership and direction to keep from sinking.  So I would dive in and do my best to help fix things.  I don’t think I’ve ever had an officer position end badly, but I have resigned a couple of times due to burnout or expectations not matching reality. 

2.  Don’t always put yourself last.  I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to get completely beyond this one, as it’s part of my personality.  Essentially, this is the “nice guy” syndrome (Keen alludes to this as well).  A lot of the time I will do what’s best for the team or the guild, even down to playing whatever class is needed that no one else wants to play, but that is vital to our success.  Or passing on items in a raid because someone else *really* wants it and has been waiting forever for it to drop, etc.  I can remember a specific time in WoW where I won an item fair and square on a roll, needed it just as much as the other guy (same class as me), but ultimately I passed on it as he (supposedly) had been trying for it for like 20 runs and had never seen it drop.  Turns out he went MIA like two weeks later and we never saw him again.  Ugh.  As Keen stated, it definitely seems like it doesn’t pay off in the end.  Half the time no one seems to notice a nice gesture, and I’ve rarely had someone “return the favor”.  Not that I do it to have something recipricated, but it is nice to be acknowledge from time to time.

 3.  Don’t get guilted into grouping up for something you have no interest in.  This kind of relates to number 2.  I can’t count the number of times in EQ2 and WoW that I’d see a call go out over the guild channel about someone wanting to start a group for XYZ quest.  Or maybe they were just looking for a healer, and as I usually play a healer, that would get my ears perked up.  And you keep playing, thinking and hoping that someone will respond.  And no one does.  And the poor soul keeps asking - and of course it’s a guildmate that is rarely on, always seems to be behind the curve, and for some reason has latched on to me.  So then the private tell comes “Are you busy?  Want to group up and…”.  And that’s the moment of truth - do I give in and group, although I don’t really want to spend my time doing it?  Or do I take one for the team and go help a fellow guildmate?  Most of the time, I give in.  But over the years I’ve found that more often than not it ends up being a waste of time as the group doesn’t make, or it’s a bad PUG, or we don’t accomplish the goal, etc.  So I need to learn to say “No” when that’s the way I feel, and not feel guilty about it.  I typically help enough (via #2 above) that I can say No now and again.

So I’ll throw out the challenge to any of my readers to answer these same questions - let me know what three mistakes you’d want to avoid making.

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Were the MMOs of days gone by more complex, more challenging, harder to learn and took more “skill” to play?  Is the current generation of MMOs too carebear, too casual, too simple and too easy, where as long as you put in time and level your character, you can overcome any obstacle?  The question of whether MMOs are complex and challenging vs. carebear and easy is longstanding.  Each new MMO is put under this scrunity by a legion of players, wanting to judge and sentence it to the land of hardcore challenge where player skill matters, or the land of EZ-Mode, carebear goodness where everything is handed to you. 

I don’t know that I would label MMOs are simple or complex, hardcore vs. carebear, etc.  I think we as players are simply trying to express which gameplay mechanics we enjoy the most, mechanics that often times are contradictory and could not all be implemented within a single game.  Not only that, but it’s a result of hearing from tens of thousands of people with different personalities, different preferences, different playstyles and differing amounts of time they can commit to play an MMO. 

We know that he casual gaming market is huge - much much larger than what we’d consider to be the hardcore MMO crowd.  Companies know this as well - it’s a business at the end of the day - and there are a lot of companies out there focused on capturing the mass market.  Does this mean these games will be ”dumbed down”, “carebear” or “simple”?  Not necessarily, but then again, it all depends on your individual perspective.  I don’t know that one MMO can ever be all things to all people, although WoW is certainly trying and others will certainly try as well. 

So what about this notion of hardcore gamers having more “skill”?  Well, if you are one of the players that happens to be on the bleeding edge of content, figuring out the initial strategy for all encounters, quests, and raid bosses, then I’ll concede that there is definitely a challenge involved that other players will never go through.  There are no guides for you to go to, no one to ask.  No maps to print out that show where everyone needs to stand for a raid boss.  No list of what gear and consumables you need to succeed.  You pretty much have to figure it out from scratch through trial and error.  I will concede that this scenario is more challenging than the one where you’re attempting these same things after everything has been figured out.  But what about skill?  Does this take skill, or could anyone figure these things out given enough time?  Is that where our notion of “skill” comes into play?  That someone who figures it out in 10 attempts had more skill than someone who needed 20 attempts? 

What do you think?  Did oldschool MMOs like EQ take more “skill” to play than modern MMOs?  Was it significantly more challenging, or were there simply more timesinks so everything took longer?  Are MMOs today all “EZ-Mode”?  Or is all of this a false distinction and simply static from the playerbase? 

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