What follows is the full transcript of the interview I gave a University of Texas at Dallas student regarding the decline of social interaction in MMORPGs which was the basis for my previous article. The format of my answers is in no way as cohesive as I would have liked and is presented in “as is” stream of consciousness format chronicling my thoughts on each question.
It has been a while since I have thought about the state of social interaction in MMOs and this interview gave me a chance to explore many of those thoughts in greater detail.
Why is social interaction important in MMORPGs?
To understand socialization it is important we need to reflect on human history and some anthropology. Humans by nature are tribal and thus are social creatures. From the beginning of history humans have banded together in tribes to survive, thrive and fight off adversity of all kinds. Social interaction is the byproduct of the human experience. History has favored those individuals who have the ability to develop and master their social skills.
Today’s team sports are remnant of our tribal past (for some in the world today tribal reality) and involve teamwork, camaraderie and socialization for a team to be successful. Socialization can be very rewarding whether it be for survival and or for sports.
It is important to note that that socialization is rarely seen as a goal in itself and often results as a pleasant result of humans banding together to address a collective threat or challenge. Socialization also occurs when tribes engage in rituals, ceremonies and commemorative events such as marriages, harvests, etc.
Social interaction cannot be expected to result on its own just because people are involved. Take a ride on any subway system in America in rush hour and you’ll see little if any social interaction despite many people being crammed together. (An alternate view of the subway ride could be that there is an unseen social interaction and imperative as everyone is being quiet so the goal of getting from point A to B is as efficient and stress free as possible).
Fantasy virtual worlds and MMORPGs are different in that the creators have to make a conscious effort to simulate adversity and conflict to make their worlds interesting and challenging. In order to address these challenges players naturally band together to pool their talents and resources. So we see that socialization is a byproduct of a virtual world just as it is the real world.
When humans are together – even as characters in a fantasy virtual world — it is only natural that we expect to realize some kind of synergy when we leverage our social skills to achieve objectives within that world. The good MMORPG designer knows this and creates appropriate challenges that have the effect of bringing players together with complementary skills to fight shared adversity.
You can’t simply create a Utopian virtual world and expect socialization to occur without giving players conflicts and challenges to solve and overcome. This was tried by Second Life and largely failed. Therefore, most successful MMORPGs end up being based on the premise that the world is in trouble and only you and your friends can save it!
I believe that everyone derives value from social interaction in a MMO even if they can’t personally appreciate it. There are no hard and fast rules on the direct value of social interaction for the individual player. Social interaction is a means to an end for certain types of Bartle archetypes such as achievers and killers. But for socializers it can certainly be an end in itself.
If there is one feature that separates the single player video game from a MMORPG it is social interaction. Social interaction is the unique feature that differentiates MMORPGs from single player RPGs as social interaction is impossible in a single-player RPG. Yet too often the importance of social interaction is ignored by developers in favor of more quantifiable things such as combat, animations, artwork and game mechanics. It is a tragedy that the greatest asset of MMORPGs has been forgotten and under developed.
The inventors of the MMORPG genre in the 1990’s like those that came before them that invented the various non-graphical virtual worlds called MUDS understood the importance of social interaction and created their virtual worlds accordingly. I think that many of these creators believed that technology could bring people together and that virtual worlds were a force for good where people could come together and cooperate with each other and transcend their human frailties and shortcomings and don the anonymous guise of the mighty warrior or wise wizard.
These inventors hearken from a generation that was weaned on the table top RPGs such as Dungeons & Dragons where the players would have to be physically present in order to simulate adventuring. This happened before the advent of single player video games and the game consoles of today.
It is worth mentioning that the grandfather of the concept of banding adventurers together to face adversity is of course J.R.R. Tolkien. The characters from his beloved classic The Lord of the Rings trilogy became the fantasy adventurer archetypes that we know and love today. These include the rogue, the wizard, the warrior, the ranger, the healer and so on. This group of characters (known as the Fellowship of the Ring who traversed the Mines of Moria in Tolkien’s books) is the prime example of the classic dungeon crawl that the creators of D & D used as a basis for their pen and paper table top game.
Since the advent of the Internet in the mid 1990’s suddenly it was technologically possible to bring players together from distant locations to play together. So it was only natural that the inventors of MMORPGs like Ultima and Online would take advantage of this technology to bring people together to adventure in virtual worlds via their computers and the Internet.
Do you feel that MMORPGs current mechanics and gameplay have driven away social interaction? (Ex: Solo Questing, Auction House, Looking for Dungeon/Raid, Lack of Guild features(in some cases), Matchmaking systems (For PvP and PvE), etc.)
Current MMORPG mechanics have done much to destroy the need for socialization. The ability to easily solo to the level cap in most MMORPGs and the ability to organize groups and fight more powerful adversaries without using any social interaction skills via features such as World of Warcraft’s Dungeon Finder have created this problem. This kind of design ethos that places player convenience over mechanics that promote player interdependency is misguided and bad for the long-term health of the MMO and the industry. The result is that content is less challenging, consumed far too fast and rewards are given far too frequently. We see evidence of this when the subscription numbers significantly decrease for Blizzard’s World of Warcraft in the year previous to each expansion.
It seems today’s MMORPG designers see socialization as a customer service problem. What I mean by this is that, not all socialization has good results. Invariably verbal/behavior/territorial disputes occur between players, player guilds, and player races. The natural tendency of a modern American corporation is to make their customers happy by solving these problems. As a result, MMORPG developers unwittingly keep restricting player freedom so much so that the world becomes overly regimented, sterile and predictable. Yet I contend that drama and conflict is the point and main premise of a fantasy virtual world. Players need to be given the freedom to solve these problems on their own within the confines, limitations and tools available to them in the MMORPG itself.
Most MMORPGs today are designed with monetization and customer retention as the ultimate goal. Gameplay always takes a backseat to this design ethos which is enslaved to the tyranny of metrics. Anything that drives away subscribers or customers is seen as a negative and removed or played down in importance. Anything that retains customers is seen as virtuous. This helps to explain why video games and MMOs have become dumbed-down over the years.
I shudder to think what the result would be if today’s game developers were tasked with designing venerable board games such as chess or card games such as poker. Those old games were created with good gameplay being the highest virtue not profits. In a perfect world profit would not be a factor in designing a game.
A lot of MMORPG players believe that older MMORPGs (EverQuest, Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Shadowbane, Dark Age of Camelot, etc) were much more social then current MMORPGs. Do you believe this to be true? If you do or don’t, why? (Can you provide some examples, please?)
The older MMORPGS were much difficult to survive in and therefore they were more social as a result.
Additionally there was much more player autonomy and self-determination allowed by the devs and less interference and hand holding either via features that restricted freedom. This was all by design. In MMORPGs like EverQuest you could not really progress your character unless you formed a group with other players. Player interdependence was the order of the day. Socialization skills were highly valued and players behaved more civilly to each other because the ability to cooperate with others was necessary for groups to form.
The pacing of the older MMORPG was much slower –- at least between battles –- which allowed for players to get to know each other and form bonds and often long lasting friendships. The deepness of the socialization created a large degree of player retention as players felt bonded to their fellow adventures far more than is the case in today’s convenience solo-friendly MMORPGs.
If you had to express and define what MMORPGs are, what would it be?
What MMORPGs are and what I’d like them to be are two different things. The tragedy of the modern AAA+ MMORPG is epitomized by Blizzard’s World of Warcraft. It has transformed the MMORPG into a single player, fast paced, narrative driven MMO where players are alone together with thousands of other players. The design of WoW is flawed because Bartle achievement archetype has been put above all other Bartle player archetypes. The meta game of player efficiency and the improvement of character stats have become the goal.
Other aspects of single player games such as a reliance on a heavily scripted narrative via quests have infected WoW as I briefly mentioned above. In a recent interview, WoW Creative Director Alex Afrasiabi has lamented that his push to introduce narratives has eroded the socialization in WoW. So there is some hope that the top creative people in the MMO world are finally understanding the Frankenstein monster they have created is now coming back to haunt them.
The interesting comparison about WoW to EverQuest is that there were barely any quests to speak of in EverQuest compared to the hundreds of thousands of quests in existence right now in WoW. Back in the original MMORPGs, players were themselves the quest. Players created their own stories. Players created their own memories too. Basic survival and progression in a harsh and unforgiving world was the ultimate goal and it was a priviledge to be a part of it for a brief few years.
The fantasy virtual world I would love to see is where player choices actually impact the world. Each server would have its own destiny to be forged by the collective actions or inactions of its players. Socialization and player interdependence would be critical to advancement. I’d like to see a virtual world that has NPCs that actually have needs and wants similar to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. SOE’s upcoming EverQuest Next has made some promises in this area so I’m excited about the possibilities of my dreams coming true.
Finally, language matters. I prefer to call MMORPGs virtual worlds. When you talk about a creating a virtual world rather than a game, suddenly more possibilities open up. The duties of a virtual world designer becomes more than just about creating “fun” and become more of a sacred vocation where the designer has to consider the complexity and interactions of an entire world not just pandering to the wants and needs of the player.
Is there anything else you want to add about social interaction and MMORPGs that was not covered in the previous questions?
There is a epidemic in MMOs right now that I call the silence of the guilds. The state of socialization has gotten so dire in MMORPGs like WoW, that in the last few years I have noticed in that chat activity within a guild during non-raid times is the exception rather than the rule. This is because people are usually off pursuing self-interested solo activities and under the spell of the quest narrative Pied Piper. Even in dungeon groups — thanks to so-called innovations like the Dungeon Finder tool — where you would think that player to player communication would be instrumental in success, chat is almost non-existent.
New features that were created with the intention of bringing players together has had the unintended consequences of tearing us apart and preventing us from even getting to know each other.
A few years ago I pondered that given the trends of decreasing socialization and convenience driven game design, if the future of MMOs would even bother to have chat capabilities at all. As MMO companies strive to incorporate console gamers, I believe that forecast is due to become a reality.
(Note: some part of the interview were edited to improve grammar and clarity).
Thanks for the holiday gift(the full interview) Wolfshead! Merry Christmas!
After reading through about half I kept getting interrupted by my own thoughts. They were mainly about what kind of MMORPG I would want the most, one that “could” be possible with the technology of today. What kind of MMORPG would you want to see the most? Care to share anyone? Wolf? 🙂
A short explanation on what I would enjoy would be a Highly Immersive First-Person-View Fantasy Survival Role-Playing Virtual World with a setting similar to the Middle Ages of the real world… *cough* Well, it’s not “that” different from a lot of what we see today. The main difference is that I didn’t call it a game, mainly because I want it to focus on the virtual world aspect.
I like having the focus on the virtual world instead of the game because of what that provides. If it’s more world than game, we’d have to survive in a harsh world that isn’t so forgiving, we’d have to help and rely on each other, we’d have to learn to socialize. I also don’t want characters to be “balanced”, I want them to be useful to each other, so they can really live in that world.
[SURVIVAL]
In this world, I would only want a couple villages that are big and prosperous at first. New characters would only be able to start at those, when the world first starts out at least. Before doing anything else, people would first need to learn how to continue staying alive, get their basic needs under control. Characters would require food and water to actually stay alive in that world.
A normal character would want to try for 2-3 meals a day, but they could still live with one small meal a day, possibly causing faster fatigue. Water would also be pretty important important. If a person is dehydrated their screen might blur or become wavy, perhaps sounds could become fuzzy. Characters can also become sick or catch diseases as well if they aren’t careful.
When new characters are just starting out at one of the villages they would want to begin hunting small wildlife for food, searching the areas near the village to gather water/berries/fruit/ect., or learning to socialize in some way to find menial tasks to assist in for money/food. Most of the villages should already have some kind of water well or nearby stream.
Basically I would want people to follow something similar to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. People already start with air, basic clothes, and “shelter”(the streets!) in the village. Well, the village provides some safety too. Anyway, they need to obtain food and water before they can brand out towards everything else.
The next challenge is actually being able to branch out. It’s a very dangerous world, and in that place… the species/races that we can play aren’t at the top of the food chain. I would want all of the playable characters to be as weak as humans. It’s possible to learn magic in that world, but it would only be able to augment ourselves to a certain extent and partially enhance weapons/armor.
In that world, a human just beginning out in that world would barely defeat a fox.
A human with a little bit of experience at fighting, a weapon, and maybe bits and pieces of leather clothing would barely be able to defeat a wolf.
An experienced human with magical augments(buffs), a magic enhanced weapon, and magic enhanced armor would barely defeat a tiger, if even.
A human with all that magic gear and buffs -by him/herself- would most likely die to a rhino, elephant, or any monsters basically bigger/stronger/faster than lions, tigers, and bears. Oh my!
What I’m getting at is that a single human or human-like character can’t do everything alone, they’ll need help because that world will be full of dangerous creatures. Those creatures won’t give up immediately either, especially if they are hungry. If a person is going to travel the world alone, they’ll need to do some major preparations… but even that might not be enough depending on where they want to go.
[IMMERSION]
So I’ve talked about people hunting and gathering for food, but the real kicker is that they would have a weight. Everything would have a believable weight to it. If a group of people killed an elephant, they’d need someone or something to help transport it. That means either tons of players with bags, donkeys with bags, a couple horses pulling carts, or maybe even another elephant that’s been tamed.
In that world, all the inhabitants themselves are the “drops” instead of money dropping out of invisible pockets. The body of the hunted elephant from earlier would be the spoils of the hunt. Characters would need to obtain materials from the body itself such as meat, bones, skin, tusks, ect. One elephant could feed an entire village for a month, the challenge is actually hunting it.
Another thing is that there should be limited resources. There should be a limit to how much metal is in the world. That means not only money/gold would be limited but also metal to make weapons and armor. If someone or some”thing” is hording it all, this means war!
[DEATH & DEITIES]
Speaking of drops and inhabitants, depending on which deity/god a character worships, their death is handled differently. Unfortunately, even if a character believes, worships, prays, and/or donates to the temple of a their god, they will still not be completely immune to some of the dangers that death presents.
Perhaps if a somebodies character believes in the god Farugih, after death Farugih will turn the body to dust and resurrect the person. The problem is where and what happens to that persons belongings. Because it’s Farugih, they will resurrect at the closest temple of Farugih. Unfortunately, the belongings would still where the pile of dust is.
However, if that person decides to pray or donate to the temple, all the belongings are blessed by Farugihs power for a day. This blessing not only wards away most wildlife for a period of time, but also causes a curse on anyone who dares to take them off the ground. As long as the belongings are blessed, they can also be tracked by certain people who belong to that temple.
(Just making up random god names by the way, hehe)
As I mentioned, different gods would handle death differently. Perhaps the god Barradt can resurrect a person at the temple with their belongings, but he is a troublesome god. He may eat some of those belongings and he is too lazy to fully restore your mind and body. Praying and donating to the temple may heal your body, but the mind is a tricky business. No matter what, you will forget some of your expertise in whatever you have trained in.
Death will always be dangerous no matter which god a character follows, but those gods and their temples are important. Even if people travel together and socialize, those temples will help ease their burden.
[MORE BRANCHING OUT]
If people want to branch out and explore the dangerous world, they not only need to travel together, they need to build. Temples allow characters to resurrect, so those are incredibly important for travel. Villages are also important because they are far safer than trying to live in the wild. Once villages progress to a certain point, new players can even start at that location.
I mentioned it much earlier about “doing more”, branching out I mean. It doesn’t just refer to exploration though. You can definitely try to explore immediately, but it will most likely result in death. Doing more refers to choosing what you want your character to do, and maybe specialize in. You can try to learn how to make buildings, craft items, tame wild animals, hunt better, improve on gathering, et cetera. Basically your role.
[TAMING/DOMESTICATION & TRAVEL]
I mentioned earlier about horses with carts, donkeys with bags, and tamed elephants. People will need to domesticate wild life in order to transport goods, as well as people. Since it’s a world, those animals will need to be taken care of. Just like characters, all of the living creatures in that world require food to survive or they will die. Everything in that world will be trying to survive and be driven by their desires.
[DESIRES & QUESTS]
Once NPCs and players alike reach a certain point, they will be more likely to follow their desires instead of just trying to survive. Players may be more inclined to help others in need because they too suffered from the same situation not long ago. A character who already has all his basic needs handled and even learned how to improve his hunting abilities may want to take advantage of those skills.
That hunter doesn’t have to worry about himself now, he can go out and help those in need, help himself, or do both at the same time. The world is harsh, so people are always going to need sustenance. He could go search for players or NPCs that need more food and sell it to them. Perhaps on his travels he may come across a village dieing of famine, where practically all of the villagers are unable to move. This particular village is controlled by NPCs… a quest!
In this world, quests aren’t just automatically accepted by clicking on things. They also aren’t always incredibly specific, most are fairly open ended. A character has to actually type to the NPCs. Since we are still limited in the technology department, we can’t talk to them just yet. Anyway, when typing to an NPC they will tell you what they know, possibly dropping hints as to what else you can ask them.
Since quests are open ended, and may even be from an entire village, you’re left with a lot of options. After speaking with many villagers, they said that if you are helping to provide large quantities of food, you could hand it over to the Village Elder if you want. The Elder would distribute all the food to the villagers. So what would you do?
The entire village needs food, any food, and you don’t specifically have to give it only to the Elder. It could be possible to give food to all the villagers yourself in hopes of improving relations with them all, most food to certain ones, or most food to the Elder. Well, before even deciding that, you need to actually get food.
In order to find food you could try asking some of the villagers if there’s a food source nearby so they mention an orchard grove to the north and buffalo roam to the east. Now what? The orchard grove would be fairly safe and not need many people, but it would take a long time to get enough food for the village. The buffalo would provide a ton of food, but would require a lot more people to kill and transport the food.
Something to think about is [why] that village was starving to death in the first place. Maybe before, during, or after they get enough food you could ask around and learn from the Elder that a curse was cast on the village. Even if the villagers are healthy, they still wouldn’t be able to grow anything in or near it. They also don’t have any domesticated horses or carts to transport large quantities of food.
There are so many options to slowly and eventually solve the famine quest. Would you look for a character that could cure the curse or ask the NPCs where it came from? Perhaps one way to lift it is to defeat a powerful undead dragon living in the caves to the south. Although, even if the curse is lifted, the quest still wouldn’t be completed. It would just speed things up.
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Ok… well I rambled on for a long time. After typing for like 2 hours I think I’m done trying to think up what kind of MMORPG I’d want. There’s a lot more I could add but it would just take way too long.
Oh darn, I forgot to mention the size of the world… BIG! 😛
…aaaand when I spoke of magic I didn’t mean magic could ONLY enhance/buff things. Oops. I would definitely want a lot of magic in the game but I also don’t want it to be all-powerful. If someone managed to become incredibly skilled with an attack spell, it would take time for their character to finish speaking the incantations out loud. Since the character would actually be saying the words, they can still walk/run, but they could get interrupted through a variety of ways. Basically, magic would be strong but it would take time and be fairly to stop. The weaker a spell is the quicker the incantation and harder it is to stop.
Ok, definitely done typing for the night. Gah!
Excellent post! So much to digest here.
The virtual world should be a living and breathing autonomous world. No two servers would ever be the same.
I love the idea of having cause and effect determine how the world turns out. The world itself should be able to change and react to the actions or inactions of players. Even small changes in climate could cause famines, disease or bountiful harvests and over population by animals and humanoids.
I could write for hours on this as well…
There are the kinds of discussions that we used to have 10 years ago when MMORPGs were new. The problems is that with the dominance of WoW, people stopping dreaming about what is possible and only accept what has been given to them. What a shame.
Well now… I feel pretty dumb. I just finished reading the second half of your interview and you mentioned what kind of MMORPG you’d want. You even mentioned Maslow’s hierarchy of needs… /bonks myself
I would say great minds think alike but I know mine is pretty bad. 😛
This article resonates really well with me. I’ve had similar observations and find that the culprits are also the same.
However, I am not sure how best to solve them in some games. Look at Wildstar. The population is in decline. There’s plenty of challenge to the content, but legions of people drawn in by WoW’s much more simplistic solo gaming experience never wanted that. Those of us who prefer this kind of content are a dying breed, and it’s only made worse by existing social structures.
I think another big part of the problem is another sort of tribalism that has sprung up over the years that early MMOs didn’t have to deal with. It’s the idea of the multi-game community. If you find yourself in one of these, you end up game-hopping with them a lot. If players can’t get their friends from the real or virtual worlds to stay, they won’t stay either, even if the game really is right up their alley and they’re enjoying themselves. This creates mass exoduses from titles when the more well known gaming communities throw in the towel because few want to get left behind or have to meet all new people in order to keep playing. This leaves all sorts of weird little holdout groups who try to keep their chapter of a multi-game “community” running through recruitment drives. The pride in their tribe makes them flatly refuse to merge with other guilds and lose their identity. They quit instead. What do you suppose can be done to minimize the damage that other meta social structures around MMOs can do to the games people play?
Thanks for the reply!
I think a big part of the problem is that 10 years ago when MMOs were far more social there were far fewer virtual world choices. So naturally most players tended to gravitate to those worlds. Now there is almost too much choice and unfortunately players tend to gravitate toward MMOs that offer the path of least resistance. In other words, they go where the world is easy to survive in and where there isn’t much challenge and rewards are far too plentiful.
In my opinion, MMO developers have been giving away the farm for far too long. Back in the old days, leveling was tough, progress was not guaranteed. The leveling system offered the player the promise of more power, new abilities and the priviledge of being able to adventure in new lands. I remember speding months in a particular zone or dungeon with my character. Communities would spring up in those places and you’d get to know people and bond with them.
Part of the problem is that the MMO developer see players as “consumers” and once you cross that bridge, the consumer must have their needs met, be satisfied and pandered to. You start giving them everything at the expense of the health of the game/world. We know where that leads in the realm of parenting when you give a child everything — they become spoiled. This has been an incremental shift in design philosophy since Blizzard released WoW.
Devs have to man up and start learning to say “NO” instead of always saying “YES” to players. Players will always demand the that everything be made easier. MMO devs have to be good parents and stop giving in to their children all the time.
The MMORPG must return to its group based roots for greatness to return to the genre. WoW was designed to be everything to everyone. That is the cardinal mistake and what we see today the lack of socialization being one of the biggest casualties is the result.