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What Makes Online Worlds Fun To Explore?
Thanks to IGN RPGVault for their roundtable discussion on building satisfying MMORPG worlds. Rick Priestley from the forthcoming Warhammer Online argues that "There's no point in having a huge world if it's empty. Better to have a smaller, well-realized one with plenty of activity and player density", going on to voice "concerns with the idea that you should give large areas of the gameplay over to the players - building houses, raising taxes, leveling cities and so on", lest "anarchy" ensue. However, Gordon Walton from Sony Online addresses "lack of [graphical] richness", arguing that the "...primary business challenge we face with art is that the costs for first-class art continue to rise faster than our market is expanding, and that MMOGs require tremendously more art assets than the vast majority of standalone games."
I am not entirely certain of this since I haven't played the game myself but I think the MMO "Second Life" allows for users to create in-game objects that are saved on the servers.
The graphics in this particular title are hideous, but with a developer stepping back to allow the users to create their own world, litterally, it might be pretty cool in the future.
Just food for thought.
Pre-paid playtime cards are actually the norm in places like Korea and Malaysia, where the predominant MMOG audience is based in Internet cafes. In a cafe situation, it's not really expected that people would commit to secure, credit card based transactions over a public terminal. Besides, apparently there is a large population of transients playing these games in the streets of many asian cities -- making it that harder for them to get online if they've got to have a credit card for the barrier of entry.