While reading old threads in Terranova (who was kind enough to link my crack-laden pyramid missive from yesterday), someone asked ‘Why don’t players put up with failure in an MMO?‘ A shocking number of them respond with variations of ‘because players are spoiled, whiny little bitches who only like Everquest clones’. Which is to say, I found most of the responses to be incredibly close-minded about the existing player-bases of these MMOs and why they do what they do. The unwashed masses don’t seem to mind failing while playing Halflife 2 and Crash Bandicoot, but I’m supposed to believe that the MMO crowd is so much more coddled that they can’t take a few lumps? Please. There’s more going on here.
Players don’t like to fail in MMOs because failure persists. In Half-Life, you’re one quickload away from being back in the thick of things again. In WoW, by contrast, you lack the ability to get right back to the moment before failure (this is exascerbated in group situations where you have to get your party rezzed, rested and buffed. Failing isn’t what’s not fun (sometimes, in fact, failing is hysterical). The recovery isn’t fun.
Players don’t like to fail in MMOs because they have an audience. For those of us who live and breathe games, it’s often forgotten that there is stigma and shame associated with losing and learning in front of other people. I’ve known many people who were reluctant to play a new board game at a party because they were afraid of making an embarrassing mistake because they didn’t know the rules. In an MMO, that same dynamic exists, only the audience is not your friends.
Players actually don’t mind failing as much as you think — provided they know they’re taking a risk. There is a way to increase your difficulty level – it’s called fighting higher-level stuff. My friends and I do this frequently in WoW, going into instances we have no place being in, and laughing hysterically as we’re dismantled. Conversely, I’ve never been so angry at the game as when, in another instance I should have been able to handle easily, some designer thought it would be cute to put in a hidden trigger trap with no warning whatsoever which spawned more monsters than we could reasonably handle. If the game feels fair, failure is something that most players can swallow easily.
But most people will not choose to stay at a high failure level for long periods of time. Hey, if someone plays WoW for 500 hours, you really expect him to spend most of it in high-octane mode? It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and it’s dangerous to turn it into a full-time emotional roller coaster ride.
Of course, most of the presuppositions in the thread assumes, once again, that standard EQ/WoW combat is boring and easy. Which, if you’re soloing stuff that you can solo, is true. However, it bears repeating that combat situations in these games is very fast and furious when in a group situation, and failure is relatively common while exploring dungeons and instances.
The simple roles that each class offers is necessary so players can keep track of what’s going on when they are in a fight — what are they supposed to do, what are their teammates doing, who needs help, etc. In most MMOs, combat is simple. But people – they’re complex. And most failure stems from other people. If you make failure too punative or common, you create a world where players are completely unwilling to group with strangers. And that would most definitely be a failure.
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