Its not often i get to sit down and even less often do I get struck with a sudden epithany … incidently no apples were involved or harmed in this situation. But I do have a funny story about that, but perhaps another time …. anyway where was I, ah yes epthany. It occured to me that there seems to be a trend in my mmo gaming, and one I’m sure you all have experienced. I join a mmo, start out as an individual, progress a little further in to the game and start looking / forming a small social group of freinds to group with. After more time passes I find that I move (re forced) from the small social circle in to a bigger social circle, guilds by the games itself.
“So are we discussing guilds then …. no and yes”
When you look at the current crop of MMO’s out there you will find 85 % if not more are really designed to be geocentric, that is to say you are the center of your gaimng experience, everything revolves around you and for you to experience the game in its entirity you have to join guilds. Ie. the game is dictating how you as an individual have to act to satisfy your want to experience the game.
Where as, and I hate to borrow astronomical phrases, but I have so far so what the hell, the minority of MMO’s are heliocentric games. That is to say the guild you are in revolves around the game concept itself, and through this ‘exploration’ of the game concept you interact, bump into, and effect other social groups with in the game, esssentailly creating your own content in the game through these interactions
“So we talking about raidng vs player created content and not guilds, iam confused …”
Well as a player and an armchair dev I would say that of all the things a game has to have it would be nothing with out a community and to me only one of the two models really has the ability to allow the community to really play with the game itself, be apart of the game and foster community growth, would be the heliocentric model.
Or to put it another way (i here cheering) when i play wow i play as an individual and one that is forced by the game itself to join a guild to expereince the game in its enitirty, where as if i play Eve I play as part of a corp to explore the game and end up creating content myself through the actions of the corp, which in itself fosters a community experience and helps further to build a community.
“So what is your point …”
Well if community is the driving force behind any mmo success, why do designers follow a geocentric path ? Is a large disgruntled community better business than a smaller happier community, more people = more money? Just look at the wow forums … or is it, we as players are happier / conditioned to play on rails as opposed to the more free form community centric model ? …. who knows but it is fun to speculate and a tough to be a community manger
I agree that there should be greater emphasis on community goals and community trials than there is now. MMO communities would be stronger and more enjoyable if content was less egocentric (ha! I see your astronomy and raise you one psychological term… yes, we’re nerds).
Even typical raid content, so far, is as much about individuals as it’s about community… since the guild is fighting largely for the sake of equipping and levelling individual players. For once, I’d like to see the epic beast taken down for the sake of saving an NPC village, with no loot reward.
I agree with Aaron that there needs to be a emphasis on community goals. I think they are great and was one of the coolest things in Horizons.. Wait did I just say there was something cool in Horizons? Anyways none the less that game had major community tasks that astounded me. As in the community had to build bridges to get into other lands, they had to dig tunnels to access other places for housing. The players had to work as a group to build houses and that is just the tip of the ice berg.
The problem with these community goals is that it only pleases the ‘few’. Many people “don’t have the time” or are too busy leveling up or just have the mentality of “Someone else will do it.” That can cause problems on a lower populated server as shown in World of Warcraft when they had the event to open I believe the Dark Portal (I had quit before that happened and came back well after the event) So it could have been something else. Anyways what I am saying is when it comes to business something like community tasks like that can actually be bad for the game as most people do not enjoy spending their time helping other people if there is not immediate reward for doing it.
damn you Aaron lol how can i compeate with psych …
Both of you echo my thoughts on this perfectly and I do remeber Horizons goal orientated community taks. When I played it I remeber how fun it was to actually have to do something as a community to open up new continents etc.
Was a great idea at the time and still is … I wish this type of community driven design occured more instead of the self centered game design … but alas as Tom points out ‘its bad for business’
Maybe it was bad for business in the way that it was designed before, but not all tasks devoted toward community goals must be only for gamers with a lot of time on their hands.
Even small, one-man quests can be community-oriented. Communities have small needs as well as large ones. And some large needs can be fulfilled piece-by-piece, player-by-player.
The trick to making such tasks fun is to ensure the payoff, the communal benefit, isn’t just implied. The benefit has to be seen and experienced by the player for him to really feel gratified.
that is a very good point Aaron, maybe thats what is being overlooked. the benefit to most quests is immediate to the player and has little or no relevence to the community. If the relevence to the community could be tagged on to the expereince in a meanigful way then we would have a winning quest system …