Interdependence and Communities

Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 11:11 pm

Continuing on my theories for creating a lasting MMORPG, I get to my final subject: Interdependence and Communities.

In a previous thread, I made the following supposition:

Quote:

The entire purpose of MMORPG’s should be to give a person access to players with similar interests while not being limited by your location. Developing friendships online, is the greatest potential aspect of these games, and should be encouraged. This was another area that SWG had the potential to excel at.

The wide open worlds, player housing, player cities, guilds, profession interdependence, etc. All of those acted towards building a community that has survived through the bitter loss of the game. It has been proven with the popularity of the SWG forums on MMORPG.com. If you go to the forums of other games, you will inevitably see a post asking if you are a SWG refugee. This site itself is a part of the community. Finally there are still people playing the NGE that do so only because of the friends they still have there.

This brings me to my theory on building a community in a MMORPG.

Interdependence

A great tool to encourage players to interact and form a community is to design the MMORPG game around the idea that no one character can do everything in the game. If a MMORPG creates a situation where you do not need another player to accomplish anything, then the game is essentially a single player game shared with multiple players.

Look at the current incarnation of Star Wars Galaxies, the NGE.

Combat is designed in such a way that groups are rarely needed, especially once your character has achieved the max level.
Almost everything that a combatant needs is given to them through the course of questing, and the quests are pushed on to new players as soon as they log in.
Even traders rarely need another trader in order to produce items. What is even worse is that there is much less of a demand for crafted items.

The result of this situation is the reduction of player interaction. Players are busy going from one quest to another, and see each other only in passing. In fact, there are really (at least on my server) only two places where you are likely to even see another player. Mos Eisley (a.k.a. the newbie area) and Restuss (the CL90 PvP area).

By limiting interaction, it is even harder for players to find a guild if they want to. Or to find a group if they actually need help.

The solution is easy. Make it so that players need each other. Places like the Death Watch Bunker, a high level dungeon, should require combatants to need other combatants to survive there. Combatants (as consumers) should be required to seek crafters (as producers) for items that improve their combat capabilities. Crafters should also need other crafters to produce the best crafted items.

In such a system, players will seek each other out and this will start the process of community building.

Communities

Once the system is in place for players to seek each other out, most of the steps towards building a community will be complete. What the players will mostly need are tools to help them find each other and to bind them together as a community.

Sense of Connection

A very effective tool to help players form communities is to provide them with player cities. A player house gives the player an anchor, a connection, to the location it is built/purchased in. A player city provides the same connection, but to the community as a whole. Not only does the community identify with that particular area, but also to the planet/country/state that the city is based in.

Large, Worldly Goals

Along with the small goals seen with player interdependence, a large goal will further enhance the overall community. A conflict will cause two or more sides to form, and communities within those sides will have cause for a greater alliance. This can actually take many forms besides actual PvP warfare, however that does provide those interested in PvP an excellent means of effecting the game.

How to find each other

Obviously, one way to help players to organize into a community is to provide a place for players to meet and greet each other outside of the actual game, like official game forums. In every single MMORPG that I’ve played, if there is a forum then there is a place for players to advertise their guild, player association, corporation, clan, etc. However, the downside with such a system is that it only accessible to players that are interested in going to the forums, which are not a part of the game.

A good idea for an in game recruitment is the ability to advertise in the game. Allow players the ability to purchase an advertisement in communal areas. This can take place in the form of “billboards” or NPCs that will shout out a particular message.

One idea that I had is the possibility is to have a community sponsor an In Game Event. Imagine having a server wide event where an NPC mentions, is located in, or headed to, your player city.

Finally, another idea that I have not seen any MMORPG company even comment on, is to offer a website for guilds to use. The website can be paid for in the form of in game currency (to provide a source to disperse excess credits) and might even require a set amount of multiple accounts (to offset the usage of such a website). Of course, if the number of participating accounts falls below a certain level, or if the community doesn’t meet their regular payment of in game currency, the website would be taken down.

Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 11:37 pm

You forgot to tap into the few uniques of SWG:

Social interdependencies, like medical centers and cantinas. Wich up to the point of hologrinders(read tumblers and general AFK play) was some of the major parts in not only creating crowds in the cities, but also helped with creating the massive ingame communities.

These, and entertainer alot, helped form communities in every city, and also created a whole new level in MMORPG's when it came to ingame events and gatherings. Haloween the first year of SWG, there were 10 haloween parties on Corellia(Wanderhome) alone, each having 30+ people attending, and most of the "civilized" planets had the same.

Not only important for interdependency and communities, but they(medical centers and cantinas) also did wonders with the immersion of a living breathing world in the game.