MMORPGs

I have always looked away from MMORPG. While I do find them interesting on a sociological and/or academics aspect, they are almost always presented on the same level as addictive drugs.

But then, if they are so bad, why are they so popular? What drives people to play these games?

From a developer stand point, it makes a lot of sense:

• It's a constant revenue stream. You don't provide a 'product' anymore but a 'service': access to the virtual world.
• You don't have to spend much time on A.I. : you can simply make players competes against each others.
• The world is dynamic by itself: you don't have to 'pretend' a lot of traffic, exchange, price fluctuation ,etc.
• Etc.

And so, I decided to try one for myself... I decided to go with EVE Online: There is a free 14 days trial, It's space-based (more of my type) and it's one of the biggest universe of all the MMO I can think of. But what surprised me the most is that It's a 4 year old game and people are still playing it after 4 years!

At first, the game felt odd. The controls aren't direct. This is not Elite, Wing Commander Privateer or Freelancer. It is not even close to Allegiance. It resembles more Homeworld, but with one ship: yours.

This game is different from WOW or EverQuest in that, skill aren't gained with XP but with time and training. You must buy books, and your character learns or perfects the skill even when offline. In theory, this systems sounds nice, but it only replace length of play with frequency of play. While you can just choose a 10h-to-train skill, you have to log on to switch skill since you can't queue the next skill. I found myself checking the game every 2 or 3h to make sure I wasn't losing training time. Annoying. Especially when you have to go to work or sleep. Or if you want to have a life.

Since I have never played any MMO before, one things struck me: The social aspect is the most important part of the game. I know It may sound like common sense, but really, it is the most interesting aspect. You can't do much alone. To really enjoy the game, you have to work with others, organize in groups and split the work. Even if the game didn't provide the basic methods to form groups, people would.... With just chat, people can organize clans, raiding parties or even start a pirate group. Just like in real life: Cooperation and Competition drives the game...

It made sense in Ultima Online in 1997, and it makes a lot more sense with any modern MMO. It gives those games a depth that can hardly be achieved with a single player experience. For example, in EvE, I found the market quite developed. Since almost any object can be user-built, there is a whole virtual economy around ore, refined materials, and manufactured products. And since skills determines the amount of Ore used or obtained, you could, like I did, buy raw ores, refine them better then the original seller could and then sell back the refined ores for a profit.

But, as I found out, this depth of experience comes with a price. As one user wrote in a in-game chat "Patience! Loyalty! Dedication! Three things required to really play this game"... You have to invest time (and monthly fee) to really enjoy the game. And at the end of the day, it's just a game.

And it should stay that way.