Comments on: MMORPGs – Acknowledging Our Existence

By: Playing Alone « Likely Story

Playing Alone « Likely Story — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 16:06:43 +0000

[...] head over & read this blog entry from WE FLY SPITFIRES. As I teeter on the edge of leaving WoW and going back solely to single player console games [...]

By: Twan

Twan — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:40:44 +0000

I’m going to quote you on a few things you said here for my blog if you don’t mind (giving proper credit of course!). My problem has always been that since none of my RL friends play MMORPGS I am constantly defending my waxing/waning addiction to WoW to them. I could never explain succinctly why I played them. I always just tossed out buzz words like “perpetual world” etc etc and watched them eye roll. This article sums up what I have been meaning to say in a concise manner, thanks!

By: Twan

Twan — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:34:53 +0000

Great article!

By: Persistence: ourstory « Stylish Corpse

Persistence: ourstory « Stylish Corpse — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:52:40 +0000

[...] persistence we want, but persistent impact. As Wolfshead eloquently put it in a comment over at We Fly Spitfires: The other component to all of this is the sense of “persistence”. The idea that the world [...]

By: Gordon

Gordon — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:10:25 +0000

@Wolfshead Starting to play EVE has giving me a renewed appreciation of sandbox games. The problem with them – or at least EVE and the original SW:G – is that I don’t have enough direction sometimes. I wish a MMORPG would come out that has all of the quests and ‘content’ of games like WoW but the complete freedom to do anything and actually change and affect the virtual world.

By: West Karana » Daily Blogroll 7/8

West Karana » Daily Blogroll 7/8 — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:11:41 +0000

[...] lastly (since I have just been paged to GET TO WORK), Gordon at We Fly Spitfires writes about why single player RPGs can never give the same sense of satisfaction and accomplishment found in an … — accomplishments mean nothing if there’s nobody to share them with. I agree with every [...]

By: Wolfshead

Wolfshead — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:21:45 +0000

I too feel a sense of pointlessness and loneliness when I play single-player games. Nothing can compare to the immediacy and impact you get when you play a game with other people.

However MMOs should be striving for more acknowledgment of the player. For example, who really cares if I slay a dragon in an instance compared to slaying a dragon that just burned down a village that had a lot of questgivers? Nobody will care.

But if that dragon was causing food shortages and other problems? Suddenly killing that dragon will positively impact other players. Then you’d be a true hero!

Focusing on the player is why I wrote a recent article about players being the focal point of an MMO — not the storyline:

http://www.wolfsheadonline.com/?p=2272

This is also why I’m a strong advocate of grouping and player interdependency. All of those things strengthen the idea that players should be able to impact and affect each other in a virtual world.

The other component to all of this is the sense of “persistence”. The idea that the world persists, lives and grows even when you are not logged on. This allows players to create their own history and help shape the history of the world they play in. Without a robust sense of persistence in MMOs accomplishments are almost worthless and definitely cheapened.

Sadly many MMOs have a very small persistence quotient. WoW’s is about 6 minutes which is the average respawn time of an NPC. But that’s another issue for another day.

By: Gordon

Gordon — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:14:40 +0000

@Tesh Stories are definitely an advantage of single player games over MMORPGs. I really enjoyed the storyline in Mass Effect for instance and I haven’t experienced much like it in MMORPGs. That’s not to say that it can’t happen one – Tortage in AoC was a great example of good storytelling in MMOs – and I’m keen to see how SW:TOR turns out. Of course, when I finished Mass Effect I felt kinda sad because I had no one to share my experiences or achievement with.

By: Gordon

Gordon — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:11:58 +0000

@Eric That’s a very good point and the biggest disadvantage to MMORPGs at the moment – we have no real way of changing the world we inhabit because everything get’s reset. I’m sure more sandbox orientated MMORPGs offer opportunties to conquer and control but games like WoW have pretty limited scope. Nothing an individual, or even a guild of individuals, can do can really effect the world.

By: Eric

Eric — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:11:11 +0000

I put more hours into WoW than I do Fallout 3, for example, but I find Fallout 3 to be very enjoyable.

One thing Fallout 3 has that WoW doesn’t is that I can have an actual and lasting impact on the game world. The main storyline is all about that but aside from that, I’m just delighted by the simple fact that when I set an object down, that’s where it stays until forever unless I move it again, even when I zone out and come back to it weeks later. Corpses stay where they are. In a way, I can tell where I’ve been. I’ve made the world different.

It’s a little thing, but it’s something that WoW will ever really give me: The ability for -me- to permanently affect the world in a tangible and immediate way.