What Makes Online Worlds Fun To Explore?

Thanks to IGN RPGVault for their roundtable discussion on building satisfying MMORPG worlds. Rick Priestley from the forthcoming Warhammer Online argues that "There's no point in having a huge world if it's empty. Better to have a smaller, well-realized one with plenty of activity and player density", going on to voice "concerns with the idea that you should give large areas of the gameplay over to the players - building houses, raising taxes, leveling cities and so on", lest "anarchy" ensue. However, Gordon Walton from Sony Online addresses "lack of [graphical] richness", arguing that the "...primary business challenge we face with art is that the costs for first-class art continue to rise faster than our market is expanding, and that MMOGs require tremendously more art assets than the vast majority of standalone games."

Emergent Worlds

[jobbleberry]

I think a system where by the world is created somewhat on the fly as new areas are opened. You know a kind of procedural build. This way common assets can be used to create unique areas as players explore based on the surrouning world type. When these are discovered/created they can be saved to the world so other may follow. The other players should be able to add assets (within in reason) which will add to the richness of this world. They could then trade or sell these. You know like designing new models for houses and the like. Better stop now before I start drooling.

Hmm...

[NanoGator]

Personally, what interests me about MMORPG games is interaction with other people. I would love for a GTA based massively multiplayer game. Heh I get a smile on my face just imagining some of the mischief I can get into. That's what I used to do with Quake. Play little games with other people's minds. It was always fun making the other guy go "Son of a bitch!"

It seems to me that anything you can do to create a game where the humans are allowed to be human puts it on the right track. Pity they took the flipoff button out in Quake 3.

muds as an example

[deemah]

So graphics are what make MMORPGs interesting? Nonsense. MUDs/MUSHes/MOOs have been running for years with little more than the classic text adventure console style and are _still_ hugely popular. Of course, being for the most part free to play might have an additional acctraction.

The whole point of the genre must be player-player interaction - if a world is so large and sparse that my character wanders in a wilderness for vast hours of gameplay, i'm not getting the experience i've paid for.

Adding player-built features is a great way to hike up the amount of player interaction, as is the simpler introduction of player killing ( even with the associated possibility of abuse ).

In summary, I'd rather enjoy a text-based adventure than be bored of looking at pretty pictures.

SWG

[jafuser]

I only have one guy to pick on, since I only actively play one MMO game currently =)

Gordon Walton Vice President and Executive Producer Sony Online Entertainment writes:

Licenses, so long as they are more world than character based, can help tremendously in giving you the flavor and character of the world you are building. At the same time, licenses can end up dramatically limiting your freedom to add flavor and richness to the world dependent on the relationship you have with the licensor.

Seeing how SOE has so many licensed MMORPGs I wonder which one he's talking about? =P

Experiencing an area that is very similar to one you have already experienced for the first time is a letdown, because it detracts from the player suspension of disbelief.

• Starports. Apparently in the Star Wars universe, all starports are exactly identical and are only large enough to accomodate one ship (except for in Theed).
  
• Cantinas. All the same everywhere. Some have minor interior color differences.
  
• Caves. Many of them are duplicated, just with different enemies inside.
  
• Shuttles. All the same, not even any color differences.
  
• Player Houses. Some overall variety of house types, but very little can be customized about each house itself such as interior and exterior colors, exterior decorations, and lighting for example.
  
• Creature lairs / destroy NPC camps. They all the same set of five or six things (a warren, a dead log, a pile of bones, an earthen mound, etc), no color variations and they are all too small in size.

Having a living world (one with natural motion, an ecology and sensible physics) is also important for immersiveness.

Sensible physics apparently means:

• Players can't jump, not even an inch over a twig laying on the ground (see debris on Rori).
  
• You must enter a house by walking up one specific side of a ramp, even if the ramp is completely buried.
  
• If a hill separates you from your enemy, don't worry, you can shoot straight through it as though it's not there!
  
• A dead log will burst into flames and eventually explode in a huge Simpsons-esque fireball if you destroy it, even with melee weapons (i.e. a sword, fists, or a staff).
  
• You can *walk* up the side of a steep cliff, even if it's nearly at a 90 degree angle to the ground. Not only that, but with sufficient nonmagical skill, you can climb a 200m cliff instantly, since it seems vertical motion is not a component of space-time.
  
• If your enemies intend to you attack you, you better watch out! It seems that despite what was depicted in the movies, bad guys can teleport instantly to your location from over 60m away!
  
• Apparently mobs shrink when they go into their homes, because most creature/NPC homes are smaller than the creatures themselves!

Don't get me wrong. SWG is a cool game, but it has a long way to go to incorporate satisfying content to go with all of their fancy game structure. It will be quite a shame if they never live up to this, considering that they have a great framework in place to build content upon.

In the long run, I look forward to a game which has:

• the player creativity potential of Second Life
  
• a good player-developer connection like in A Tale in the Desert
  
• excellent graphics like Star Wars Galaxies
  
• an honorable FFA social structure (has yet to be done, though IIRC UO does a fair job of it)

Re:Murder

[PainKilleR-CE]

In a PvP server I would normally think that agreeing to a duel was the only implication of consent.

On the other hand, you could be in a PvP server and kill someone from off-screen (depending on the type of game this could be simply with a knife from behind or from a distance using a spell or a bow) without warning and it would probably be similar to murder.

There's a lot more to playing an RPG PvP than simply running around randomly killing people, and some games have more or less etiquette involved than others. People generally don't like to die when it causes some sort of penalty, so the level of etiquette and formality often comes with the level of severity in the penalties. At the same time, if there's no penalty at all, it becomes more like a free-for-all DM game, or maybe a team-based DM game (though the teams being enforced mostly by the players themselves in many RPGs). In that kind of situation you expect to die at just about any moment.