The Secret Life Of MMOG Characters

An article at Gamasutra pines for MMOG characters to have their own lives. Specifically, the author wishes that over a very long period of time xp would accrue for parked characters. From the article: "Here's what I'd like to see: instead of Vanille Ice and all the millions of unused characters sitting on their collective tookuses, why not imagine that each day they venture forth and do some low-level crime fighting (orc slaying, etc.) just to, you know, 'stay in shape'. Now this workout wouldn't actually happen in any way visible to players logged on, but these characters would earn nominal amounts of experience each day. And in three months time, presto, a new level."

Comments

Re:Something for nothing

[Drogo007]

No, it's closer to "Concerned writer offers suggestions to Game Companies on possible ways to maintain interest in their MMOG titles on the part of casual gamers as a device to improve income."

If the MMOG Companies can figure out how to make it attractive enough for players to maintain their monthly subscriptions even if said players don't have time to log in every week or even every month to play, they've hit a potential goldmine of long-term subscriptions.

For instance, I played Asheron's Call for nearly 6 years. I was part of a good monarchy, had characters in various states of advancement and even had in-game goals I was actively working towards. I started playing before I got married, and even after I got married, I simply got my wife hooked on the game and we played together. So why did I cancel? Well, one-month old newborn twins will severely negatively impact both your wallet and your spare time. AC fell far enough down the priority list that I could not justify paying the subscriptions on the three accounts we own when we didn't have time and energy to log in for more than 5 minutes in a given month. Paying $40/month to Turbine for essentially nothing wasn't a worthwhile proposition.

But if Turbine had set it up so that some sort of advancement was happening on my character even if I didn't log in for 6 months straight but merely kept my subscription active, well, I might still have one or more active accounts.

In the end, it's not about Lamers wanting something for nothing. It's about Game companies maximizing their revenue streams (Duh). If allowing some sort of limited, offline advancement for players who merely maintain an active subscription keeps players like me who would otherwise cancel their subscriptions for lack of time and desire to play then the Game companies have found, in essence, a source of free money.

What WoW did was ok, this goes a little too far

[garylian]

Wow's idea that you could spend a week (at least at launch) with that toon being offline and end up with 1.5 levels of 2x experience worked. It was incentive to bring your alts out once in a while, and have them gain a level fairly quickly, then put them back in the closet for a week or two.

But you still had to do stuff to gain that experience, and quest rewards weren't doubled. Only actual mob experience doubled. You had to work for it. It was just easier to get somewhere on that less used toon.

But just gain experience while off-line? What's the point in rewarding people for doing nothing? Next you are going to ask that you be given a stipend for not playing that character? The character should get free currency because they weren't played?

No offense, but you play MMOs to accomplish something. I don't want to accomplish something by NOT playing.

Or, as Herm Edwards, former coach of the NY Jets put it, "You PLAY to WIN the GAME".

How about, you know, shortening the grind?

[cgenman]

I love how there are a lot of solutions to the problem that the basic act in most MMPORPG's is boring. You grind away, killing baby spiders of tenderness or sickly sewer rats until hours and hours later you level, at which point you can go buy a bunch of new spells and some new abilities. Then you test them out in combat, and head back out to grind for another 6 hours to level one more time.

Combat always seems to be too straightforward. I've been playing world of warcraft dwdfor about 80 hours, and so far I've found one enemy that I couldn't kill with a default strategy. Sure, towards the endgame I could group up and do interesting things, but for now it is a grindfest. At least they don't make you sit down for a half hour like Everquest did: 60 seconds or so of wasted time is enough in WoW.

If your game can be easily scripted, you haven't made an interesting enough game. Every single MMPORPG out there suffers from this.

Free leveling would be a great way of drawing people back in to play if they haven't been on in a while, but it doesn't solve the fundamental problem that what you're asking the player to do should be fun.

Not Working Out

[kentyman]

It'd be funnier if they *didn't* work out, and grew a bit broader around the midsection as a result.

What's sad is the ammount of players who would frantically try to keep their character in shape, while completely ignoring their real body!

Motivation and Content?

[genx88]

Having never played CoH/CoV but having RTFA, it seems like the author has proposed a strange solution to a simple problem. His problem is motivation. There's no in game content availible to him at the moment that's enough to make him keep playing personally and that's understandable. I've had friends quit because they feel they can't keep up and their characters aren't strong enough to do anything. I don't blame them because if you keep staring at the same mobs or you're in the same place that you've been stuck in for the last six levels of your characters life and know that you're going to have to do that for two levels more it just isn't motivating.

What would be fun and cool is if you could get new skills or new quests every level and that you could easily do reach said level in a few hours instead of a few months. It wouldn't even have to be a set skill or rewards. Maybe one level you get a new spell. Maybe one level the reward is a new shirt or a bundle of cash. Perhaps give the player a choice of keeping these Quest items or turning them in for something else so it doesn't feel like you're nothing but a Fed Ex service for medicore gear. (I still maintain the Fulborg rod quest is one of the coolest thing in WoW and it serves no purpose whatsoever.) Perhaps they do nothing to improve your stats or gear but you can get cool things to change or improve your appearance. Vanity works in a lot of games why not MMOs?

If you keep a player busy enough and keep them focused on the short term goal they casual players will be content with the level they're at now and want to reach the next level soon without ever thinking about end game.

"Real Fights" ? ? ?

[airos4]

"This is not 'real'. In real live the heavy would take on the heavy and the low levels would take on lower level enemies. One on One. Just imagine how different fights would look. Rather then a dozen models all meshed together they would be spread out more. Rather like a big fight in the movies."

What real fights do you watch, where people end up slugging it out one on one? Beatdowns in the street are usually gang vs solo. Police and other people trained to fight wait until they have overwhelming numbers before going in to subdue even the weakest prisoner. Military tactics emphasize dropping one enemy through mass fire before turning to engage others. Even barfights turn out to be "gang up on one guy" rather than the bare knuckles stuff you see on TV. Your last line says it best, there - "Rather like a big fight in the movies" That's because movies need to be entertaining, not realistic.