MMORPGDot Editorial: Worlds or Games?
Wouter "Hyrrix" Ryckbosch, 2003-10-31

At this very moment Ekim, your usual host for the weekly MMORPGDot editorial, is enjoying the sun in the Philippines, while I'm sitting here in chilly Europe, wondering what to write. Since Ekim was unable to write up one of his EGV's for this and the following week, I decided to give it a try myself. It's almost impossible to find a single aspect of MMORPG gaming that hasn't been extensively covered in Ekim's editorials before, but luckily Ekim and I don't always agree on everything so even if I touch some subjects that Ekim talked about earlier, there'll be differences enough. I hope. What has been on my mind for the last few weeks is the question about the current character of MMORPG's. Some people, like Dr. Richard Bartle, keep calling those games Virtual or Persistent worlds. But are they really worlds?

Virtual worlds? Where?

Isn't it a bit naive to call these products 'virtual worlds' instead of 'games'? It's not like most players will perceive the product itself other than as a game. In the end, the ultimate goal of most mmorpg's out there right now is to have a high-ranked character. Gaining experience has almost become a goal in itself, often making up for the large gap of content in the game. Sometimes I start wondering why I'm so excited about this genre - I usually do that while killing stupid monsters all alone, over and over again, while watching an experience bar fill at a snail's pace. You probably know the feeling. Does the background story, all the talk about lore, about role-playing, about magic, weapons, realism... does it really matter? Is there anyone who really cares about how great "the Greater Axe of Frost" is, if they find another weapon with better stats? If one could strip away all the lore, the background stories, the smooth NPC talk and names... would it change anything at the core of the gameplay? Is there anything that really matters for most players in those games, but the numbers?

But there are exceptions of course. And one of them is A Tale in the Desert. What it may lack in combat, it makes up for in everything that makes a real "virtual" world. It has culture, literature, arts. It has its own technology research, its own politics, a thriving economy and it has rivalry among players and guilds. As far as I'm concerned, it's about the only currently availably mmorpg that can be seen as a virtual place where people live their own lives. In other words, it's about realism, about consistency within its own game world.

But is this really what we want? Is this what players want in a "game"? Are virtual worlds still games, or in other words, still fun? When I come home from a busy day at work, I usually don't feel like getting involved in normal daytime activities or a political fight in a virtual world. Recently one of our forum moderators who used to play ATITD quit the game after a long time. Player politicians had grown egos, and serious discussions were carried out around in-game issues. However virtual and unreal the game may be, the stress and problems that came with those issues turned out to be all too real and frustrating.

To categorize...

It seems to be all too obvious that the current mmorpg-market is splitting up into two large groups. On the one hand you have those games that are really games. The ones that focus on the fun and try to simplify the gameplay experience a lot. AC2 could be seen as foreshadowing of this, but more is to be expected from games like World of Warcraft, Guild Wars and the yet un-announced project of Flagship Studios. And I don't believe it's a coincidence that those three games originate from the Blizzard stalls: Guild Wars is in development at ArenaNet (formerly Triforge) founded by three people who previously worked at Blizzard; Flagship Studios barely needs an introduction by now (If you do need an intro, four interviews with Bill Roper ran on major gaming sites yesterday). Those games clearly focus on the large markets and focus on the fun. Speed and adrenaline are important; not complicated political or economical structures and world lore.

On the other hand there are the games that possibly won't turn out to be games. They're probably the ones that look the most interesting on paper... but possibly aren't in reality. Typical examples of those games are Roma Victor (formerly known as Gladius Online) and Frontier 1859. Looking at the difficulty both games seem to have finding sufficient funding in contrast with the extraordinary hype around games that at first sight offer nothing new to the genre, such as World of Warcraft, this is the segment of the market that is the most obscure and "indie". These are the games (?) that focus on the realism, on creating a virtual world for people to participate in. They often try to recreate a certain part of history in a very detailed and meticulous way and try to have as much 'player-governing' as possible. Without a doubt, these products focus on a much more mature market than most other games out there. But they often tend to be more interesting as well, since they can become shades of reality, with some differences. Wouldn't it be interesting for anyone interested in history, sociology, ethics, politics or human culture as a whole; to look at how people react to changes in a given environment? Especially if that environment is much like our own, only with different structures? But then again, why would we want to live in a world inside a world? Why would we want to be living a second life (even if a virtual one) that brings the same troubles as the first one? Even though some people might disagree, I still think that gaming is for a large part simply escapism - which is not something that can be found in these virtual societies. But then, as I said, maybe these products shouldn't be regarded as games at all?

Then there are the in-between games. The ones that try to go for the best of both worlds, the ones that work out some world lore, try to get an economic system going but try to keep the fun-factor as the main priority. I'm thinking about Darkfall, Dragon Empires, Horizons and many others here. If successfully created, this might indeed be the perfect solution to the problem. Too much simplification often renders the gameplay quite dull and takes away the intrigue. Making it too complicated and "realistic" often brings a lot of frustrations and stress with it. These "balanced games" may be the standard tack taken moving into the future as leveling up games players begin to demand more depth and virtual world players look for more fun. It will be fun to find out!