Every now and then, I see someone whose idea of the perfect MMO is one that works like real life. Where all of the experiences they encounter in an MMO are unique, created via algorithmic content or by a game system such as a virtual ecology. One thing I see come up a lot is that, when you kill the Red Dragon Above the Village with your guild, then by golly, he should stay dead. You should not be able to kill him next week. Another guild should not be able to kill him 15 minutes later. He’s dead.

Realism is one cited reason. Realism is the wellspring for about half the bad game ideas in the universe. Fun should always trump realism, so lets put that aside.

Another is to create a sense of history – i.e. “I remember when a red dragon roamed these lands.” But I don’t think this is necessarily abandoned by the current order of things. It was a momentous event on my WoW server when Illidan died for the first time. It was a big deal. Everyone knew who was responsible. (Sadly, it was not us)

But part of the reason this was momentous is because everyone knew who Illidan was. They’d seen the game trailer. They’d heard talk. They’d watched the strategy videos. Some of them, like my guild, had been defeated by him a few times. The fact that Illidan went down was notable to us because we knew who he was, and more importantly, we knew how hard he was.

And hearing about the kill made my own guild want to kill him that much more. We would have not been happy to be told, okay, now we have to go kill Billidan, or Pit Demon #3.

The thing about most modern MMOs is that they are really about parallel, shared experiences. Most people in WoW, LotRO, WAR will see roughly the same content – not in the same order, perhaps, or with the same degree of success, but everyone who starts a Witch Elf in WAR is going to see the same personal and public quests. This is not a bad thing. Some of the hidden upsides:

  • Good hand-created content is always better than algorithmic content. If you don’t believe me, go search for ‘SongSmith’ on Youtube.
  • You can create highly specialized encounters, because you know exactly how players got to where they are, and whether they should be prepared. The more likely a player will stumble upon an algorithmically-created Red Dragon, the more you have to nerf the dragon to assume someone who stumbles upon it can, at the very least, escape.
  • Highly specialized fights can also be orders of magnitude more complex and challenging, as players can actually share and discuss strategies.
  • You can help people on quests. I know Mankrik’s wife is a big joke, but the fact is that, when you were frustrated and sent a shout to Barrens Chat, someone knew what you were talking about, and could tell you where to go… well, that’s a socialization moment.
  • You understand what other people have been through. When you say you’ve completed the Plane of Fear, other EQ players know exactly what you mean… and how big of a badge of honor that actually is.

In short, mobs that respawn after you kill them may not be realistic, but it does all sorts of good things for the social fabric of the game. The downside, of course, is that the world of WoW, WAR, etc, feels static, because not much can change. This lack of change can be frustrating, yes, but at the same time, most of the magic of a good simulation or algorithmic content is lost on the player because he can’t see the whole board.

As an example, consider the classic “If you kill the sheep, the dragon will go hungry, and attack the next nearest food source — the village.” Most designers, when discussing this scenario, fret about the Tragedy of the Commons – i.e. that each person will act in his own self-interest anyway, and let the village burn. But that’s not the real problem. The real problem is that the player cannot see the simulation from a God’s Eye view. The average player will log into the village, be ganked instantly by the dragon, and wonder what the hell hit him. He doesn’t know that there used to be sheep. If he is new in town, he doesn’t know that there wasn’t a dragon there yesterday.

The designer can create the most wonderful anthill in the world, but if the player can’t see the whole picture, he has no idea how wonderful your Amazing Machine is – he’s only encountering the system from the ground level, and what he’s seeing is a world that feels chaotic and unpredictable – often undesirably so.

One idea to expect some to explore is to grant that birds-eye view. That’s what PvP-oriented games like Eve and Shadowbane do – offer up political maps that give players a sense of what the state of things is (and in Eve’s case, the ability to see a history). Does this player-facing approach open any doors for PvE algorithmic or ecological content? I’m not sure. I’m also not sure that, even if it did, the experience wouldn’t still be below good hand-crafted content.