User:Jette/mmo

=Imperfect MMO: Fascist administrators, noble trolls and the inevitable decline of friendly users=

Or, "why GW sucks and what ANet musn't do to fix it"
I thought I'd outline a few concepts that make an MMO good and keep it good, for posterity. This isn't really about game design or "lol shadow form/wail of doom/holy wrath/colored people sucks guise," it relates more to things like community policies, error handling, update schedules, etc.

1.) A good MMO should be free as in freedom.  Even if not all of the source code is made public, player should be allowed to host their own servers if they feel the need to do so, and just as importantly, players should have access to all of the same tools that developers have to do nice things like create new areas, new units, skills, etc.  This doesn't necessarily mean that they should be designed for end-user shitters to use, merely that a the tools should be available, with a brief man page describing the essentials.  I should clarify also that ANet (hopefully...) does not waste their time making 3-D model development suites or texture design platforms; they create models using third-party programs and then stick them into the game.
 * This isn't some "derp derp open sauce" bullshit like you hear plaguing the internet these days, I've listed this for a reason: if players can get the same game but better elsewhere, the company that owns the game must keep the quality level high enough to retain their playerbase. If changing servers is as easy as choosing a connection in a box, then you would certainly pick the best one.  If that isn't the original developer's, well, too bad.

2.) ...but probably not free as in beer. Games cost a lot of money to make if they have any content at all.  You need programmers and gameplay designers, sure, but you also need concept artists, level designers, 3-D modelers, animators, voice actors, composers, storywriters and a whole host of other things.  Put that on top of operating costs like the xbox hueg amount of bandwidth an MMO takes up and you get a whole crap-ton of money.  An MMO should have either A) a monthly fee or B) a real update schedule.  GW originally planned to release a campaign every 6 months, but then they basically said fuck this and sent 95% of their staff to work on GW2.  If they'd kept to their update schedule, they would have been financially fine as long as people kept buying.  Personally, I would rather pay $15 US a month for new content than pay $50 5 years ago and get jack.
 * This does bring up the issue of how the company would keep people paying if there were other servers available. This is largely a technical issue, but the general idea is to require a user to log in with their account and then choose a server, rather than connecting to a server and then choosing an account.  This keeps the burden of keeping personal information such as passwords and e-mails secure and private the host company's responsibility, as well as allowing them to enforce bans across all servers.  Naturally, a private server could ban people the same as any other, but the ban would apply only to their server.

3.) A good MMO should come with a sandbox mode. Similar to the idea of free as in freedom, people like to dick around with the game, and do silly nonsense stuff.  Have you seen how popular Gary's Mod is?  That shit is fun.  This kind of thing would ideally be a single-player, offline version of the game where the player has access to all developer commands and an additional suite of "stuff generation" tools, perhaps similar to the DM toolkit included in NeverWinter Nights.  I should hope someone would have the sense to include a script thing built-in, but if not, I'm sure someone can hack it.

4.) If something is wrong, do three things: 1; admit your mistake and apologize, the players are aware everyone is human and, unless it's a gigantic fuckup like irrevocably setting everyone's gold to 0 or something, we will understand. 2; fix the method in the most expedient manner possible and keep it from happening again and 3; recompense whoever is negatively impacted.  People appreciate free stuff, and tend to be more forgiving if they get some.  To me, this seems like common business sense, but ANet has for the longest time seemed entirely unaware of the general reaction people have towards various decisions, and although the odd apology is not entirely unheard of, it's rare to see apologies for the important stuff ("yeah, sorry we sent all our staff to work on another game" or "sorry the game sucks now, we're working on it, honest" come to mind).

5.) Encourage players to play for fun, not to grind. Grind makes some sense if the game is pay-to-play, as it keeps people playing longer, but honestly, there is a certain point at which it becomes excessive.  The simple fact is, if you cannot figure out a way to keep people playing your game without introducing arbitrary obstacles, you might not be cut out for game design.  A person who can't make things fly should not pursue a career in aviation engineering, a person who finds violence objectionable probably shouldn't try to join the marines.  When Zelda introduced the idea of an in-game economy (rupeeeeeeez) in '88 (or so), the point was to enrich the experience of the game: you could spend your money on either the health potion or the shield, but not both.  It added a sense of realism and encouraged critical decision-making.  In most MMOs, gold is used as a source for arbitrary grinding: you spend hours doing something you don't really enjoy to get something that doesn't mean much to you. Similarly, the concept of "titles" is a bad idea: it promotes two kinds of undesirable gameplay. The first is players who seek only to get the title in the most expedient manner possible, devaluing the work that would otherwise go into it. Second, in the case of PvP titles, it makes the experience for players who want to play for fun rather than points less enjoyable. Players should play the game because it is fun, not because they want a title.

6.) Announce the release date 6 months after you think you'll be done. Nothing makes players butthurt faster than a late arrival, but an early release is always appreciated.

7.) Don't spend all your income on hookers and blow. I assume this is the reason you can't afford to staff GW1 while GW2 is being developed, but I could be totally wrong here.  The general point is to make sure you can keep your current game staffed well while the second is being developed.

There are probably more I haven't thought of or found a way to properly elucidate.