The AI discussion that Jamie started has started to spread, and its leading some interesting places. One of my own random synapse firings: I think the need to provide a group puzzle is a huge reason why we’re stuck in the Combat Rut. Whether it be EQ’s AI model or another, it’s not that difficult to come up with an interesting Combat model that follows the following parameters:

  1. It differs (albeit mildly) from experience to experience.
  2. It is very social play, requiring cooperation
  3. It provides very clearly different roles between other players that must work in unison.

Hey, we can do better, but we have a good idea on how to create a combat system that matches these goals. Let’s just, for the sake of argument, compare this to crafting, which has been done by many different games, in arguably far more flavors than combat. Most crafting systems fail one or more of the above tests. For example:

  1. Even if the outcome is occasionally different, the act of crafting an item is almost always the same with little need to modify a play pattern to an unexpected event.
  2. While acquiring resources or selling items is social, the crafting event itself is usually not social and, in some cases, antisocial (requiring you to have UIs up that make it hard to tell what’s going on around you).
  3. Crafting roles consist of gatherer, crafter, and seller. These almost never happen in unison, and almost always happen asynchronously.

Crafting in most games is a strange thing that manages to be both hugely social (please bring me rabbit pelts, please come buy my stuff) and rabidly antisocial (I need to make 5000 long swords to gain 1% in greatswords– leave me ALONE!) simultaneously. Which is all good and well – there are players for whom these play patterns are a lot of fun. But it still doesn’t act as the social engine of fun that an MMO really requires for the majority of it’s customers, which is why no one has quite ditched combat and gone to a pure crafting game.* If you apply this logic to other systems in an MMO, you’ll notice that combat really does come out smelling like a rose.

One could argue this is because we’re all such adolescent little monkeys that we devote far more time and energy to synthesizing the action hero experience and let the other systems suffer. I’m not so sure. I think combat happens to be the activity that lends itself best to creating such an experience, and attempts to make other activities bend to these goals risks feeling forced.

This is one reason why I’m curious as to what exactly the Star Trek Online boys are cooking up. You see, the Star Trek universe isn’t really about combat, nor even really about exploring. To me, it’s about diplomacy and the human condition. Can you make a diplomacy experience that’s central to the game, and that captures the feel of Star Trek? Can you make one that requires 6 people working together simultaneously?

Of course, Puzzle Pirates has offered one answer to that question, which is multiplayer puzzles that abstract any activity. I think this works well for them. I also think that, ultimately, the first breakout MMO hit that isn’t going to be about combat is going to figure out how to offer a central social experience that replaces what combat offers.
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*Aside from A Tale In The Desert, who do an excellent job of punishing one for making sweeping generalizations.

Original comments thread is here.