It is all about the players making a difference, isn’t it?

For years, players of massively-multiplayer online games (MMOs) have been asking – nay, begging – for the ability to actually affect the story and landscape of an MMO world. They want to make a difference by building and running quests, populating new maps with buildings and NPCs and missions, build out Guild spaces with more than just a pre-fab house, have a chance at having their stories integrated into the world’s overall story arc. In short, players want to have some control of how the world is shaped, grows and changes.

Damn near every online game already has these tools in some form; they just restrict them to the developers by making sure that only developers can use them. Sure, some tools require more knowledge to use than the average gamer possesses, such as using a scripting language, but many tools can be easily handed off to players with some simple modifications. Now, that list might look like a lot, but is that really so much to ask for, when most of the tools are already built?

Apparently. What players have been stuck with for the last twenty years is an endless series of mostly static worlds, where the most dramatic change they can effect is to place a house on the terrain somewhere. If you’re lucky, maybe you can buy and place a vendor to sell goods. And as far as having an impact on the storyline… “Take this to Jake the Innkeeper in Foobarville. He will give you a reward. Thank you for your service to Whocaresville. King EatMe will be grateful.” Woo hoo! I’m getting a contact high just thinking about it.

I suppose I shouldn’t be so harsh. For all that they’ve been around for 26+ years, MMOs didn’t really take off big until eight years ago; we are still young as an industry. One should expect a certain amount of calcification to set in before new blood comes along and reinvigorates the industry.