MMORPG Food

Ideally, in an MMORPG aiming for realism, nourishment should be encouraged. Forcing players to eat could be bad, though, since that could mean some players would find themselves in a downwards spiral, with no way back up. That's what we call a Bad Thing.

The way it works right now, more often than not, is that food is an optional bonus. At best, food bonus is a nice thing. Most of the times? It's just a useless side-effect that has no real significance in the game.

How do you make food realistic? By having a morale stat, of course. The higher the morale, the more wondrous feats you can accomplish. And the better the food you eat, the more your morale increases (For a time). So, starting players will not invest too much into foodstuffs; they have other things to care about. Experienced players, however, will prepare feasts for every meal, complete 5-courses sets that send their morale through the roof and makes them that much more dangerous to the local dragon population. They will be sure to always carry the best rations in their bags of foodstuffs preservation + 2, always have a bottle of fine elven wine handy, "just in case", and be sure to bring a picnic golem with them, to really enjoy their mid-raid snack fully.

I think food buffs should last longer, too. Something like 24 in-game hours sounds good, so you can afford to eat a modest dinner or something; just as long as you have a full, 10-pounds breakfast. Wouldn't want you to starve halfway towards the deadly dragon den now, would we?

To Serve And Protect

What do you do to prevent ganking in an open PvP MMO? On the one hand, if you don't allow player PvP in the open world, your game ends up as a glorified single-player game; on the other hand, too much PvP with too few penalties lead to a world populated by player-killers. What's the right middle point?

Obviously, you'll want to have some level of PvP, but limit the capacity of malicious players to harm their fellow sentients; either of them is missing and you lose credibility as a MMORPG. There are things players can do to prevent being killed, of course, including staying in the main cities. If they never leave it, then they'll be safe; they just won't be adventurers. Many people want to be adventurers, however, and few of them want to deal with evil players.

One solution is to designate areas where PvP may happen. You'll want areas near your main cities to be safe, so that adventurers can get some good, clean fun bashing goblin skulls away. You might also want to protect areas where players may be weaker, such as when adventuring, so gankers don't use the fact that they're weakened to slaughter them. Finally, it's a good idea to be sure that wherever a new player can go is safe; they are the easiest targets, after all.

Another thing you can do is penalize griefing. Player killers can be declared criminals, and be pursued by armed forces whenever they try to enter lawful settlements; by making sure they aren't safe in most cities, you decrease their power, and make other players safer. Merchants can look down on people of low morals, and decide to charge more for their services. You can add some supernatural penalties as well; players with a negative Karma get penalties on many things, to a point that evil players will have to expend resources trying to negate these penalties. Finally, you can forgo any kind of excuses and just add meta-gaming penalties for player killers, such as harsher death penalties, limited skill usage and, in the most extreme cases, character deletion by the developers, if the player's action are against the out-of-game rules.

Griefers can be penalized by the players themselves, of course; many will not hesitate to pursue evil characters simply to rid the land of them; but you could also have the ruling NPCs pay bounties on criminals, such that they would never feel safe, even in cities that accept them. Players who decide to go hunting evil characters could also receive a bonus to their game Karma, improving their standing with certain factions, or possibly deities.

There may be other ways to protect the average player's game experience, for example by making death penalty almost non-existent, but more extreme cases need to be considered more thoroughly; you don't want your penalties or compensations to get exploited, after all. If you can't agree on a good way to prevent player killing, however, it might be better to take it out entirely. Better a fully cooperative game than a ganker paradise, after all.

Sand Boxes

The term "sandbox" gets thrown around in MMO discussions sometimes; in this case, it refers to games that do not force players into the normal treadmill gameplay of gaining power to get access to the next area, by instead offering an open world which players are free to explore as they wish. This has the advantage of being more immersive, but is often confusing to new players. World of Warcraft has proven that a low barrier of entry is a good policy for games aiming for a mass appeal.

But why would it be called a "sandbox"? True enough, a pit of sand is hardly the most exciting thing to expose players to, but it does offer a good analogy as to how to make a simple world be open.

Take a swing. Kids can swing from it. Inventive kids will try jumping from it, or maybe standing on them, but in the end, that's all there is to it. Swinging. Same thing for a slide. You slide down the slide. Trying to climb the slide just doesn't work. It's just a slide.

In a sand box, however, things are a bit different. You're not limited to only one thing. Most kids will want to play with the sand; building cities and castles. That's the core of the gameplay; most people who play MMOs do it for the adventuring. Some other kids will go sculpting faces and animals, practicing their crafting skills. Some will just sit in the sand and chat with other kids. By their very presence, they make the sandbox a more social environment. Try chatting with a kid going down a slide, or building a castle out of a swing. Yeah, poor results.

Of course, there can be more to it. Kids will bring their trucks and dolls (sorry, action figures) and make-believe great stories. Stories of heroes going out to kill evil dragons. Stories of explorers finding new lands. Stories of imaginary people having great, imaginary adventures. That's what kids want, and it seems there's a bit of a child in all of us. A child who just wants to play in the sandbox again.

Item Identification

Phil the Barbarian was fighting a ferocious demon, one that has been ravaging his homeland almost without stop for days now, yet showed no sign of fatigue. The demon wielded a powerful sword enveloped in flame, which seems to faze in and out of existence almost continuously, making it hard to fight against. Just the same, Phil was able to summon his natural berserking abilities and added new orifices to its body. The demon fell, like all of the barbarian's previous adversaries.

Searching its remains, Phil found a twisted long sword. That the sword was magical, Phil had no doubt about it; he was so well-attuned to magic that he could easily tell such simple things. What the enchantment did, however remained a mystery, and until the spell was identified, the sword would remain useless.

Trekking his newfound weapon and glorious victory to the nearest town, Phil joined the line to get the quest reward for killing this powerful enemy. That formality out of the way, the barbarian headed to the nearest identifier, who informed him that the sword was in fact a powerful Flaming long sword of Fazing; seeing now that the sword was immaterial and emitting flames, Phil thanked the identifier and went on his way, wielding his now-burning acquisition.


If you can count all the things wrong in this story, congratulations, your IQ is probably higher than the average MMO player. That being said, I have only one question remaining : why is it that items which have an obviously-identified magical property cannot be used until you ascertain that it is indeed what it obviously is?

Ponder that one, young grasshopper. Find the answer, and ye shall receive a king's ransom of gold; that is, 9 silver pieces. It seems kings aren't as valuable as they used to be.

Second Hand Sword

In MMORPGs, there is only one way to get an item; usually, that way is to kill the one who owns it (sometimes more than once). If it's not a drop, it's a quest reward, or a craftable. Yet one is left to wonder, who made that sword in the first place? Ophelia is so great, that the gods appeared in front of her to give her the sword? Or maybe she was BORN with that plate helm on; we all know what happens with all that chaos magic...

And what about quest givers? You would think that he would run out of wands of incineration eventually, but it seems he's always willing to hand it to adventurers who slay his life-long enemy.

In a more realistic world, items are created by someone for a purpose. When not created by players, the sword has to be thought by an A.I. somewhere, who will decide that with the materials at hand or easily available, the best sword to make is one with fire and speed enchants. Then the NPC will simulate playing the smithing minigame, and create a sword according to those results.

That's how you get a new sword; and if an NPC can make it, you can bet that players will be able to do it too. There's no reason to limit what they can do just because they pay the monthly fee.

Pack Yak

Your party's inventory space is limited. The barbarian is already knee deep in priceless artifacts and the rogue has run out of room in their bags of holdings. You found plenty of bags, but the only animals around are bulls and yaks, and those can't be used as pack animals. Why? Because the programmers didn't think it would be useful.

In real life, anything from a dog to an elephant, and then some, has been used to carry stuff around, and that works great. Cheap to feed, quadrupedal animals have always made an easy living by carrying humans' stuff on their strong backs. Not so much in video games, which have yet to acknowledge the carrying capacity of anything beyond mules and llamas.

And that is common practice in video games, to give each object a single purpose, ignoring all others. Hammers are for hitting things, not building them (Or the other way around; but never both). A vegetable is to be used in recipes, never to be eaten. And don't you dare suggest that axes can cut trees. Trees are for decorating, and sometimes burning down for your enjoyment. You can get wood at the general store over there.

Objects are for much more than just their primary scripted purpose, but it seems people think it too hard to do more than one thing at once. I certainly hope that trend disappears sometime soon, otherwise those points spent in animal taming and leather working would have been for nothing. No pack yak for me!

Metaplace MMOArrPG

Metaplace is a service that allows you to build your own virtual world or MMORPG; just like Multiverse, but Metaplace has the name Raph Koster tackled to it, so it's going to be good, right?

The goal is to allow anyone to make a virtual world, big or small, if they feel like it. You can put it on your web site and have people look at your latest projects, or make a whole game out of it and see people swarm to it. And that is interesting. That speaks to me.

It means I could start coding a world, and have natural selection decide whether it's good or not. It means I could be part of a team, and help make a virtual world become true.

So what do you say? Does the prospect of building a world after your own mind speak to you, or will Metaplace go down in history as yet another ambitious project that didn't work?

On Market Analysts

In MMORPGs these days, the one best way to make money isn't always to kill stuff or get some kind of resources; often, you can make bundles by playing the market. People make their living in the virtual worlds by buying low and selling high; indeed, sometimes, people play for no other reason than to make more money. Even gold traders get some of their supplies from virtual market traders.

But not everyone wants to play the market. Not everyone wants to care about the price of copper in their cities. Sometimes, people just want to make an honest profit. So I suggest a "sell to market" feature.

For a nominal price, players can put their hard-earned goods for sale on the market, tweaking some bits about desired profits and wait time. The goods are then put for sale automatically at a variable price, determined by factors only market analysts would dare delve into; the player's hands and mind are free of caring about whether or not they got a fair price, or whether or not someone is going to make a quick profit from their hard work.

Then players can go back to playing the game like it was meant to, whatever that happens to be in their case; but not playing the market. Market's doing very well on its own, thank-you-very-much.

Traditional MMORPG Progression

In a traditional MMORPG, the player is expected to put some inputs in the system. First, you usually give some cash; sometimes more, if the game allows real money trade for in-game resources(Or if it has a black market). Then you give time. Time is the primary input resource of an MMORPG; you input time, and the game outputs progression. Better knowledge of the game means you can output more progression for the same amount of time, but in the end, it's still the same time => progression graph.

In any other type of game, where there is an ending, progression means much less. Nobody will care that you have collected all the sparkles of power once you've defeated the final boss. Your progression becomes meaningless once you have uninstalled the game, so the developers have to make sure every moment of the game is enjoyable.

In an MMORPG, however, there is typically no ending, meaning that to keep you hooked, the devs have to give you more progression. They will give you harder and harder bosses all the time. After a while, it won't be possible to progress anymore all by yourself, you'll have to team up with more progressers to defeat bigger, nastier bosses to get more progress points. It's always about progress; never about fun. It seems that you can't have fun anymore, because fun doesn't sell.

If you need me, I'll be playing progress quest. Wake me up when there's a progress-less MMORPG out there.

Good versus Addictive

MMORPGs sell well usually because one of two things; either they're good, and people enjoy playing them, or they're addictive, and people can't bring themselves to stop playing them.

Most people who have played MMORPGs have some insight in the nature of addiction; it's what happens when you see something you don't overly enjoy, but you can't bring yourself to stop doing it. (Technically, an addiction is a "compulsion or overpowering urge to use a substance, regardless of potential or actual harm", but who's counting?) Addictive MMORPGs will offer you a fun and easy start, where everything is smaller than you and gives you great (relatively speaking) rewards. They'll hook you up to leveling, loot and quests so that you have a feeling of accomplishment when those happen, thus insuring that you will WANT to play the game. Then you're hooked.

Good games, however, will present you content that is thoroughly enjoyable all along, and let you decide how to spend your time - thus ensuring that you enjoy the parts you like most while minimizing the tedious ones. Good games don't need to bribe you with levels and big loot, they only need to present you with activities you might find enjoyable, and let you play them. Then you're hooked.

The big difference, in my opinion, stems from the fact that you are better off after a Good game - you've enjoyed yourself, and are happier. Addictive games, however, will try to present you with more goals to reach, with less regard to the actual enjoyability of reaching these goals.

Some of the upcoming games right now seem to have understood the distinction, and seek to give you an enjoyable experience with innovative design and non-repetitive events. They might not be the skill-boasting free-to-explore MMORPG of tomorrow's dreams, but they try their best to entertain the players, rather than hook them, and that is certainly worthy of mention.

Choices of Advancement

Now, I've talked about a pure PvP advancement, but that doesn't mean it's the only form of non-regular advancement. Players can be whatever they want in the game, including simple civilians.

Some would find buying resources and making items boring (even with the great minigames), but that's normal; different parts of the game appeal to different people. The important part is that one does not need to kill anything to progress in the game. They can be crafters, of course, or gatherers, but they can be much more.

For one, with an open market, they can be merchants or traders, buying low and selling high. Or they can be bookies, taking bets at the arena. They could provide various services, perhaps scouting new ore deposits for harvesters, or maybe taming exotic pets and selling them to city dwellers. And if all this is not enough, they can be politicians or activists, where they wouldn't need any skills for their characters, simply the support of the population, and be able to make a difference in the (virtual) world.

It doesn't matter what one likes to play, there is something for everyone; that is, after all, the point of a role-playing game.

Pure PvP Advancement

Sure, there's plenty to do on the PvP side, but would that be enough? Is it possible to play the entire game, as some kind of adventurer, fighting other players almost exclusively?

On the one side, starting players don't offer much to a confrontation. They would have to take odd jobs or join a mercenary group; which, hopefully, should be possible. Battlefields can be won with a heavier purse, should one side have no head for finances. Beyond that, however, when characters gain more power, reputation and allies, what options open for a pure PvP increase system?

The main concern with players fighting only other players, of course, is that the resources stay within the system. You might have gatherers mining, cutting and harvesting their fortune from the land itself and adventurers bringing home the loot from their latest conquests, but those who PvP have only their own skills to count towards income. They can form groups of mercenaries, fighting for the highest bidder and recruiting aforementioned newcomers, or they could join standing armies for a regular income, but can't slay evil and take their stuff, since player looting is just out of the question. A Pvper's income has to come from non-PvPers, even if it just means their harvester friends.

If demand for mercenaries is good, however, it's absolutely plausible that someone who doesn't like to fight NPCs could both make a living and have some fun playing the game simply by posting offers or checking the latest want ads; and since they will be fighting all day (and most of the night), their skills will increase by themselves. So yes, it's possible to gain power by fighting only other people, it just might require some more work than the regular adventuring would.