MMOG Design: Player Interaction

I've been thinking about MMOG design lately and in particular how to create an effective player interaction model that is fulfilling for a large portion of the player base. The player interaction model, as I'll term it, defines the methods, rules, and limitations on player interaction with not only the gaming world backdrop of non-player entities but also player-managed entities.

In my view the primary goal of the player interaction model is to support a fulfilling player experience that will encourage players to continue playing in pursuit of new and exciting content (keep an open mind with the definition of content).

One secondary goal should be immersion. There will be times during game design that immersion may have to be sacrificed to support other aspects of the player experience but with each such sacrifice the player experience can feel less authentic and cohesive. Whenever possible the player should truly feel a desire to be in character. Game design can facilitate character development as well as support the development of a character back-story (perhaps even playing through some aspects of the character back story as part of an optional interactive character creation process) along with in-game effects based on this back story.

Another secondary goal related to immersion is consistency. When possible it should be possible to interact with each player-managed world entity in the same way as a similar non-player-managed entity -- the point of this consistency is to aid player immersion within the game world. This can be particularly troublesome when dealing with the illusion of balance within the realm of player-versus-player (PvP) competition. Internal consistency within the realm of non-player entities is equally important (perhaps even more so), if I can kick one rock on the plains why can't I kick another off of a cliff -- indeed why can't I try to kick that huge rock and deal with the pain in my foot afterward. If the game can support it, interactions at least loosely based on real-life physics can aid in immersion and the authenticity of the gaming experience.

When it comes to player interaction the player imagination is truly amazing. Given the most trivial of in-game actions players will make YouTube movies of everything from corpse humping to music/dance videos. I wouldn't be surprised to find classic drama played out on the liquid-crystal screen.

Player-Player Interaction

This is a broad category which includes solo and small-group players as well as guilded or raid-oriented player. It covers everything from a player-driven economy to game support for player-crafted goods and services and original player creations that can rival the best content the game developers can create.

For some players engaging in PvP competition is important while for others it is considered harmful. How can a game designer be expected to satisfy each of these disparate view points? Additionally, the term "competition" provides sufficient leeway to include contests ranging from various non-combat accomplishments, organized combat, impromptu combat, and others.

Many games find it necessary to add PvP elements to an otherwise player-versus-environment (PvE) game. This has led to some games where PvP "balancing" negatively impacts the existing PvE elements despite many developer promises to the contrary. Now some of these PvP-derived changes will be described as fixing inherent PvE balance issues highlighted by the addition of PvP -- while this may be true in some cases the pessimist in me believes it is far more likely to be marketing hype.

One criticism of many past MMOG releases is a lack of support for large-scale player-player interaction. In some cases the beta promises of guild support never became a reality while in other cases there is a simple lack of low-level raid content. While many players will argue that a lack of low-level raid content is reasonable due to the expectation that power gamers will race through low-level content I believe that it is important to represent as many aspects of the game experience at each level of play to reward players for rich interaction with content at all levels of the game instead of only at the ever-moving end game. Indeed this low-level content tends to amount to a shared experience for all players (although the majority of the time played will not necessarily be occupied with this content) and this level of play is typical of where most casual players will find themselves for their entire career in the game.