This is a personal opinion review. I've been in beta since '07. My interest has dropped to almost nonexistent - not because the game sucks, but because it wasn't really designed for a player like me. I'm still considering getting the game, mostly because I tracked it so long.

I'm a 60/40 PvE player, with PvP playing an extremely big secondary role in my game life. While there's some nice innovation to the PvE, it's really designed for the PvPer who wants an easy level grind - no need to think, no need to locate things or overcome extraneous challenges, specifically designed to avoid interruptions. It's made for an easy grind - whether you're doing a series of "kill five of these and come back" quests or repeating a single PQ ad nauseam until you level past it and move on to the next PQ. There was some fun in there, but the image in my mind whenever I received a quest was being pointed at a herd of "creature x" in a coral five feet away, and told to find and kill 5 of the herd, all shackled and cuffed to avoid unnecessary difficulty. Great for the 60/40 PvPer who wants to get leveled up real quick doing something a little more interesting than grinding in the wild before getting back into the PvP fun, not so much for the 60/40 PvEer who wants the PvE to be as fun as the PvP.

The second killer for me is the linear nature of the game and game world - I like to get out, wonder around, find things, choose my path. Each location, each major hotspot in the game, is like a wonderful ride at an amusement park - well designed, most are interesting, some even thrilling. But leave the ride and you find the path goes one way, to another well-designed ride ten feet away. Try to step off the path for any reason and you find yourself herded along by obstacles just a few feet off the path, or stepping into areas that are so far outside your level range the exploration is suicidal. Again, great for someone who wants to level up and play a game (and I mean great - it removes the long travel times between hotspots, gets you from one action point to the next with absolute minimal hassle), but the complete lack of space, choice of destination, and points of interest between hotspots is pretty immersion shattering for anyone who wants to enjoy themselves in a believable virtual world.

Most of the individual quests are so limited in scope and challenge I'm always left asking myself why I had to put in the time it took to get there just to do this piddly little thing. The PQs are usually fun, if repetitive (the imperials have a entrenched themselves, destroy the camp! Fight, win. The Imperials have entrenched themselves, destroy the camp!) and not as well developed as they could have been (most really need 3 alternating PQ variants - a neutral one, one that gives the PQ a reasonable starting place if the enemy was destroyed/driven out last time the PQ ran, and one that gives a reasonable starting point if the PQ was failed the last time it ran).

The scenarios can be a blast, and the battlegrounds are always fun - even though most of the action consists of the dominant group driving the smaller group to their spawn point and then camping the spawn point's exit until they lose enough people/the enemy gets enough reinforcements to return the favor and camp the opposite spawn point's exit. Sieges can be really fun, but again come down to who has the larger force. In each case the fun is in the moment to moment battle with other players more than battling for an objective - it's usually pretty obvious whether you're on the winning or losing side.

Again, I may get the game and play out of a "I've tracked it for years, I should at least have a pre-order box" mentality, but I would likely play it only to hang out with friends who play.

A thought I've been considering a lot lately is the limitation of personal space on MMOGs. In most games we're lucky if we get a barren personal "home" - with few features and few customization options. Some games give us a bit more, and others throw us a bone with more or less useful guild space of some sort.

Personal space being such an integral part of getting personally invested in something, it seems like MMOG developers would pay more attention to development in the area.

The two recent developments in the area come from the games "Age of Conan" and "Gods & Heroes", both still in development. In Gods & Heroes we see a personal encampment, where each character's followers keep busy, along with personal suppliers. Not much in the way of personal customization there, but an interesting idea. In AoC, on the other hand, we see instanced Guild Cities, where guild members share an instanced space with a hostile NPC city and struggle to build their own community under the hostile and competitive attention of their neighbor.

The goal, to my mind, is for developers to eventually offer each player and each player group their own customizable space - an instanced stage that they can customize to their own needs, complete with inanimate props and NPC actors. Imagine, as an individual player, the ability to access a customization tool, and select a space type - hut, house, oasis, wood glade, forest with stream, dungeon, etc. Then enter that space and start placing props - furniture, tools, plant life. Then add actors - guards, animals, servants. Create a completely personalized space into which they can invite friends, but a space within the basic confines of the MMOG's theme. A space that can be wiped and rebuilt at need, allowing the player to design and build a personal environment to fit his needs at any time.

Expand that idea for clans or guilds. Allow large groups of players to share resources - to build shared instanced spaces that grow as the guild does, with ever more space as new members join, as existing members level up or as the guild achieves goals set by the developer and earns a reward. Just as customizable as individual space, with access privileges defined by the guild leadership - including larger options like areas to practice raids, enemy cities, or hostile dungeon infestations. Each guild suddenly has its own community stage, a place that they can build to fit their organizational or RP needs, and redefine at will.

With that development, we suddenly have massive individual investment in the game, along invaluable tools for building community.

Its a dream that's probably a long way off.

Looks like more and more of us are discovering the Daedalus Project and its assessment.

My results:

Advancement: 3%
Mechanics: 4%
Competition: 60%

Chat: 67%
Relate: 26%
Teamwork: 40%

Discovery: 80%
Role-Playing: 79%
Customization: 89%
Escapism: 9%


If you're not aware of it, the Daedalus assessment examines gamers for 3 main motivation components - Achievement, Socializing, and Immersion - broken down into 10 subcomponents:

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Achievement:
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Advancement: Gamers who score high on this subcomponent derive satisfaction from reaching goals, leveling quickly and accumulating in-game resources such as gold. They enjoy making constant progress and gaining power in the forms offered by the game - combat prowess, social recognition, or financial/industrial superiority. Gamers who score high on this subcomponent are typically drawn to serious, hard-core guilds that can facilitate their advancement.

Mechanics: Gamers who score high on Mechanics derive satisfaction from analyzing and understanding the underlying numerical mechanics of the system. For example, they may be interested in calculating the precise damage difference between dual-wielding one-handed swords vs. using a two-handed sword, or figuring out the resolution order of dodges, misses, and evasions. Their goal in understanding the underlying system is typically to facilitate templating or optimizing a character that excels in a particular domain.

Competition: Gamers who score high on this subcomponent enjoy the rush and experience of competing with other gamers on the battlefield or economy. This includes both fair, constrained challenges - such as dueling or structured PvP/RvR, as well as unprovoked acts - such as scamming or griefing. Gamers who score high on this subcomponent enjoy the power of beating or dominating other players.

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Socializing:
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Chat: Gamers who score high on this subcomponent enjoy meeting and getting to know other gamers. They like to chit-chat and gossip with other players as well as helping out others in general - whether these be less-experienced players or existing friends. Gamers who score high on this subcomponent are typically drawn to casual, friendly guilds.

Relate: Gamers who score high on this subcomponent are looking to form sustained, meaningful relationships with others. They do not mind having personal and meaningful conversations with others that touch on RL issues or problems. They typically seek out close online friends when they need support and give support when others are dealing with RL crises or problems.

Teamwork: Gamers who score high on Teamwork enjoy working and collaborating with others. They would rather group than solo, and derive more satisfaction from group achievements than from individual achievements. Gamers who score low on this subcomponent prefer to solo and find it extremely important to be self-sufficient and not have to rely on other gamers. They typically group only when it is absolutely necessary.

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Immersion:
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Discovery: Players who score high on Discovery enjoy exploring the world and discovering locations, quests or artifacts that others may not know about. They enjoy traveling just to see different parts of the world as well as investigating physical locations (such as dungeons and caves). They enjoy collecting information, artifacts or trinkets that few others have.

Role-Playing: Players who score high on Role-Playing enjoy being immersed in a story through the eyes of a character that they designed. These players typically take time to read or understand the back-story of the world as well as taking time to create a history and story for their characters. Also, they enjoy role-playing their characters as a way of integrating their character into the larger ongoing story of the world.

Customization: Players who score high on this subcomponent enjoy customizing the appearance of their characters. It is very important to them that their character has a unique style or appearance. They like it when games offer a breadth of customization options and take time to make sure that their character has a coherent color scheme and style.

Escapism: Gamers who score high on Escapism use the environment as a place to relax or relieve their stress from the real world. These players may use the game as a way to avoid thinking about their RL problems or in general as a way to escape RL.


Keep in mind that the assessment rates us compared to others who took the test - 50% being average, higher being notably more motivated by that component/subcomponent than most people.

Roleplaying has become, more and more over the years, a niche activity in MMOs. The early MMORPG playerbase had a huge segment of roleplayers and saw a considerable amount of roleplaying. As the years passed, the roleplaying segment of the MMORPG community didn't grow nearly as fast as the playerbase itself. Non-roleplayers were drawn to MMORPGs for the mechanics, the sense of achievement, the competition. Roleplaying was was left behind, a niche segment of the community usually recognized well enough to deserve its own servers, but without the kind of feature development time dedicated to other facets of MMO gameplay.

Roleplaying in today's MMORPGs is an uncommon activity - even on most roleplaying servers. Some of the reasons are obvious - there are no rewards for roleplaying - it actually takes you away from earning experience/faction/realm points; fleshing out a character requires downtime, actually takes you away from in-game playtime; talking funny and emoting while playing is a difficult task for most players, not something easily done on the fly, and just kinda weird - and besides, it can distract from mastering the mechanical elements of combat.

Roleplaying offers no reward, actually takes you away from "playing the game", is difficult and makes people uncomfortable, disrupts other elements of gameplay, and has no game systems in place that facilitate it. Now that's a niche activity!

And roleplaying will stay a niche activity - until game designers dedicate resources and development time into making it mainstream. Mods and addons have started to provide what's needed, but until roleplaying is actually designed into games, it will stay a slightly strange niche activity.

Brainstorming. What kind of design elements and systems would better support the RPG community, remove the stress, and make Roleplaying part of the game without interrupting the instant gratification of being able to log in and just play - what systems could pull roleplaying activity into the mainstream and make the gameplay more fun for everyone?

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Customization - Include customization tools, right there beside the body and face customization when the character is created, that allow players to define how their character's fit into the context of the game. Elements with real in-game effects - reference the lists of characteristics, traits, advantages/disadvantages developed by tabletop RPGs for ideas. Some examples:

* Pick "hated", pick an in-game faction. In game, npcs of that faction are hostile to that character, showing a tendency for attacking him first.

* Pick "hunted", pick an in-game faction. Have members of that faction show up occasionally trying to kill that character.

* Pick "faction" and select an in-game faction. In the game, be recognized as a member of that faction - "Goring City Guard", complete with ranking systems and recognition by members of that faction. Give the character access to areas only open for members of that faction.

* Pick "mentor/patron", select an in-game npc. In game, be recognized as a member of that individual's group - "Red Arrow Inn, staff" - pick a job, and be recognized by the npc/establishment, even spend time there dealing with npc and pc customers and earn an income. Give the character access to areas only open for members with that mentor/patron.

* Pick "addiction" then select a malady. In game, suffer debuffs when not regularly using the substance of choice.

* Pick "friend" and have a particular named npc recognize the character, greet him appropriately and treat him differently.


Allow more advantages/disadvantages to develop during gameplay - a characteristic tree where elements that effect your in-game context can be selected as you level, just like ability traits.

Give similar options for guilds - choices that will define the way the guild fits into the game world. Factions that the guild is especially friendly with, factions that hate the guild, special skills and special disadvantages - characteristics that expand as the guild grows/levels.

Allow players to define background elements while playing. NPCs ask questions about family and personal history as we game - either giving choices along wide trees or recording text responses - questions that require short, direct responses and explanations, with options for longer responses for those with the desire. Let those responses influence in-game elements - perhaps a player "house" that's filled with the family he defined, going about their daily business, with "puppet" controls so that the player can stage plays by jumping between the members of his household.



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Player-Made Quests - Systems that facilitate player-made quests.

Ways of listing active storylines in which your character i...

More and more I've been noticing the lack of a clearly defined OOC environment in MMOGs. Back in my days playing MOOs and MUDs, a lot of games used OOC areas for the experience of "getting to know each other" that they engendered. They were areas clearly designated as outside the "gameworld" (often with visually divergent descriptions to reinforce their separation) where players went to interact, player to player.

While you might be tempted to dismiss the idea as only useful for RP servers, take a moment to consider the possibility that the inclusion of an established OOC environment and persistent player presence might have a positive impact on community everywhere. Imagine an OOC environment attached to each server, where the player exists with a single recognizable avatar attached to their account (and where all character's that player makes can be identified as belonging to that OOC avatar). Less anonymity, so reputation could develop through word of mouth (since new characters could be tracked back to the individual and identified as someone you already know), but no direct commenting or rating systems.

An MMOG could include an environment designed like a giant Pub or a massive sidewalk cafe, complete with some sort of web interface, scheduling systems and public guild resources (pages, recruitment tools, forums, rosters, etc., - much like GuildCafe is offering), integrating external resources and reducing the need to alt-tab out of the game. Player avatars could wait for each other, gather together, hang out, conference in private rooms, and then step through a door into their character of choice when ready to start playing.

How valuable would a persistent identity for the account be? Should MMOGs include OOC environments? Are they irrelevent, or overlooked? Do you think such an environment would add anything of legitimate value to MMOGs?