Author: Suzina

In MMORPGS we always want things bigger.  We want bigger worlds, bigger cities, and of course we want a bigger server population.  We reason that if there’s several thousand players on a server, there’s sure to be people online in every area of the game at all times.  No one wants to live in a world which feels empty.

But there are certain design decisions which work well for a server population of a few hundread that doesn’t work for a server population in the thousands.  When I used to play MUDs in the 90’s, I would normally expect a grand total of 5 to 30 people online at any given time.  Everyone knew everyone.  Everyone knew everyone’s alts.  You hung out with the same people every day and you complained about the same people every day.  It was like living in a small village.

MMOs on the other hand, are cities.  They wouldn’t be “massively multiplayer” without being massive.  You have to make an effort to group with friends.  Unlike a MUD, an MMO character you meet is entirely forgettable.  This causes certain gameplay mechanics which work really well in MUDs to break in MMOs.

In the MUD I played longest, there was full player vs player combat, with corpse-looting.  Players who stole items after a battle were shunned and players who honorably let their victim reclaim their corpse were known praised.  Someone who picked on newbie characters or new players was held in especially low regard.  It was possible to round up a gang to chase a newbie-killer around the MUD and make the game practically unplayable for them.

I thought I’d have a similar experience when I started playing the Ultima Online beta.  But there were too many people.  Someone could kill you the day the servers went live, and never be seen again.  Someone who helped you defend your honor could also disappear into the crowd.  Perhaps it was a factor of the newness of the server that kept a set of norms from developing.  But ever since the dawn of the MMO, I’ve never known the name of every character on a server, as I once did.

If MMOs want to have servers where players form  meaningful friendships, alliances, hatreds, and enemies, then they may need to design their MMOs to function with smaller servers.

The Top 10 Reasons to go to Fan Faire 2009…

10) Las Vegas!!
9) Antonia Bayle & Firona Vie in your pictures.
8) Tournaments, Live Quests, and Prizes!  Oh My!
7) After hours fun in the Legends Lounge.
6) Late night LON and SWG TCG!.
5) Meeting your game’s Developers!
4) Meeting your in-game friends, in real life!
3) Brenlo singing Karaoke.

2) SMED singing Karaoke!
1) The Pink T-Shirt contest at the Banquet hosted by Brenlo!

Top Ten reaons to NOT go to Fan Faire:

10) It’s in Vegas!  Which means there’s dozens of places cooler than Fan Faire within walking distance.  You can’t even use the excuse “There’s nothing better to do” when at Fan Faire
9) You’ll be embarrassed when your friends find out you have pictures of yourself standing next to Firona Vie in your camera phone.
8) The “prizes” you get for live quests will suck so bad that you’ll cry.
7) Late at night, you’ll wonder why you thought it was a good idea to spend 200$ on a plane ticket, 150$ on a room and 89$ on an MMO faire, just so you can hear hype about upcoming updates 15 minutes before the people on the forums.
6) You’re still crying about the “Delux Sarlac Trash Can” and  “Improved Junk-loot Flower” prizes you got back in #8 of this list.
5) Playing a virtual card game like LON TCG and SWG TCG in their computer lab will make you feel more lonley than if you had just sat in your hotel room alone.
4) Everyone on the forums who said they will be there, won’t.
3) Brenlo singing Karaoke.  You’ll want your 10 minutes back.

2) SMED singing Karaoke!  When asked for another encore of “Achy Breaky Heart”, Smed will say yes.
1) The Pink T-Shirt contest.

I recently said in a kin-chat in Lotro how much I love the new Quest Guide that points me to where I need to go for each quest.  No more looking things up with google!

One of the people in kin-chat responded by saying, “That thing is for stupid babies, too lazy to read”.  I could sense an argument brewing in chat, so I quickly said, “Yeah babies like me! :)” in kin chat.  No one had any place to rush to my defense, and no one had any place to argue against the use of the quest guide.

What exactly gets people in Lotro so fussy about the addition of this quest guide?  The little arrows pointing you towards your goal goal are completely optional, and disabled by default.  Really, I think it’s the principle of the thing, more than the thing itself.  Quest guides make tasks like “Find treasure x” or “Hunt down mob y” much easier.  Newbies want things easier so they can rush to the high-end content, but old-timers want the game to be as hard today as the day it was made.

One of my kin mates took six months to reach level 50 in Lotro.  I took a little over six weeks.   Sure, he wasn’t the fastest leveler back then, but the speed at which I’ve gained levels has actually made his accomplishment seem trival.  The quest-guide, in combonation with the xp-curve readjustment, has left many old-timers feeling bitter.  To them, an all-too-easy game is getting even easier all the time.  And you know what?  They’re right.

The starting areas for Dwarves and Elves recieved a revamp in the last update.  New quests were added which enabled you to cherry-pick only the easiest and fastest quests on which to level.  New travel routes were added, which allowed someone to easily reach other starting areas for even more selective-questing.

New areas have opened with tons of quests.  Not only can you cherry-pick your solo quests, you can cherry-pick entire zones.  Want to skip the Barrow Downs?  Fine.  Don’t think you want to try Fornost?  No problem!  Don’t feel like setting foot in Angmar?  Just go somewhere else.

The truth is, the game is much easier than it once was.  But that’s unavoidable.  If there’s a new area, then it’s going to help someone level easier.  If there’s new raids and new loot, it’s going to make someone’s character stronger.  If the level cap is raised, it’s going to make old raids trivially easy. As these games progress, they get easier.  That’s just the way it is.  The alternative is that we go without new content.

The thing to remember, if you’re an old timer, is that the new folk are not stupid.  We know it was hard to reach the cap before they put in Evendim.  We realize that 24 level 50’s used to wipe at Helegrod.  We know someone had to find out everything the hard way before it was posted on Allakhazam.  You’ll just have to be satisfied that we newbies are still interested in your tales about “The old days”.

I’m a 27 year old married woman. I’m sure that gives you one impression of who I am. I’ll be finishing my degree in psychology next month, which probably only shifts your vision of me slighly. But here’s the rub: I’m an MMO player. I don’t have a lot of identity wrapped up in that. I don’t introduce myself to strangers as an MMO player, and rightfully so. Telling someone in the “real world” that you spend more than 40 hours per week in a virtual world isn’t going to win you any reputation points. I’ve sunk my time into Lotro, Star Wars Galaxies, Everquest 2, Final Fantasy XI, and Ultima Online. Three of those I helped beta-test. Oh… who am I kidding. I just played them early and called myself a “beta tester”.

Before graphical MMOs existed, I played text-based muds. Some summers in high-school I would play my favorite Mud so much that I had dreams in pure-text. When I was in elementary school, I used to play Dungeons & Dragons with my older brother and his friends. Maybe I’m just addicted to online grinding, but maybe there’s something all these games have in common. In any event, I find myself thinking about my virtual worlds enough to make we want to write about them too. That’s what brings me to Kill Ten Rats.