Why play MMOs?

Why do people play MMOs?

As an escape from reality? Sure, but you can get the same thing from any game, or any form of entertainment, really. So why play an MMO when you can play the latest FPS or any other genre? Well, it's a Massively Multiplayer Online game, so it makes sense that it's the social factor that brings people in. Being able to play with your friends, join a guild, group up and achieve things even with random strangers.

You can get some of this from a typical FPS. You play with and against other people, you can talk to them, it's a community. Usually this is done in fairly small groups and not typically with the same people every time. When you exit the game, that's it. Others might be playing the game still, but their game doesn't affect you, so the next time you log in, the game continues right from where you left off. For an FPS, this is all great, but they're designed to give you fast-paced, upredictable combat, because that's what they are.

The second thing that typically defines an MMO (although there are some exceptions) is that it has a Persistent World. When you log off, unlike in an FPS, the server doesn't shut down until you load the game back up. The world continues it's existence, time passes, things might happen while you're away. When you finally do log back in, you're logging right back into the same world you were in before, except things may have changed since you were gone. 

So that's an MMO. A Social Persistent World. Is that what brings people to play these games? I think so, atleast initially. The chance to do things with your friends, meet new people, form guilds and other groups. Experience the world that the designers have created and explore it, make an impact on it, affect the lives of the game's characters (both NPCs and PCs).

Here's the kicker - I think most current MMOs fail at both of these.

They don't provide sufficient tools to allow a strong community to develop. They create the world, throw in 'content', package it and sell it. Sure, they give you the ability to talk to each other, team up, etc. similar to how an FPS does, but that's it. These systems have been available since the first MMOs and are available in games like FPSs which aren't as focused on the community as an MMO should be.

Most MMOs also don't capitalize on the power of a Persistent World. They put in quests, like saving a farmer's daughter from the evil troll down the road, and every character that's ever made, from the game's initial release until the company goes under and shuts down their servers, will get that same quest. What is that woman doing to get herself captured by a troll a couple million times or more over the lifespan of that game? Admittedly, if the quest can only be completed once by a single player, you'd run out of quests pretty quickly. Developers can only create a finite amount of content, even if development continues after the game is launched, players will complete any content faster than it can be developed.

What can be done about these?

Some recent MMOs have taken great strides towards solving these issues. Guild systems have been improved, allowing players to develop their guild beyond just a name above their head. A couple examples are Warhammer Online's "Living Guilds" system that allows your guild to level up, and Age of Conan's guild cities and keeps that provide a guild-wide investment and encourage guild events like keep sieges.

Some games are implementing player-made content. Second Life is the king of this, and some other games such as City of Heroes are implementing player-made quests.

Lots more needs to be done though. These games need to focus more on providing tools to the players that encourage them to be social and to support their communities. They also need to rethink the way they provide content to their players. Is the quest-based MMO ideal? or should dynamic, replayable, or player-made content systems be designed? Obviously I have some ideas, but this post is already getting long so I'll make new posts for each of them later.