The social MMORPG?

What is this creature you speak of Jonathan?: a spewing of impression

People who know me well know of my obsession; the development of something like an MMORPG but is very different from an MMORPG. Given the genera as it stands now and has stood for over 16 years and with conceptual interference from spaces like facebook, Myspace, and Second Life (which, in spite of popular identification, is not a game in its design), it is incredibly difficult to communicate my idea.

What is my idea? A space where game is present, even partially dominant, but is also transformed into something more accessible. I would evoke the idea of casual gaming or playing if that too were not so polluted with flash games and free to play systems like Club Penguin, Habbo Hotel, and Free Realms. The casual I speak of is more or less a kind of “laid back” form rather than a “play once in a while for only an hour or two” that is implied by the term “casual game”.

It is a virtual world as a destination, a place to partially live, a community of Explorers and Socializers (in the Bartle sense) but not absent of Achievers and even Killers. It is a destination where in a user has more opportunity for truly individualized recreational time but not so strictly bound to kill ten rats, cap your stats, or gank the noob but allowing for that regardless.

It is a game environment with a massive amount of latitude  in which you are provided ludogic reward for going out into the world and conquering NPCs and PCs alike. Users are also rewarded for just hanging out at the local pub, haggling over the price of player made goods, or acting as a tour guide to a developer created city or player constructed town. It is a world where in satisfaction can be had from taming the wild places of the world to farm, create an outpost of safety and reprise, or establish a fully functioning player run social and economic community.

It involves skill leveling but not adventure leveling. Ahh, the skill tree, such a beautiful and neglected schema in the MMORPG genre. Yes, this is a “leveling” schema without levels. Adventures and Achievers would not be limited in their actions by a lack of that pesky numeric value that is a “level”. A user is only limited by what they want to do not by what they can do. Over time more tools would be made available in pursuing ones interests but the tools are just that. as the saying goes “you can pond a nail in a board with a rock but a hammer works better”.

I want to make a world in which all player types can find common ground. The Socializer would never have to go out into the dangerous world of PvE/PvP but could sit down with those who would and chat for a while. A world where the “game” is not the only thing in town to play. in the furthest reaches digital authors, aspiring designers, will have the ability to express them selves in a way that they can share their works with the whole community.

One server, one world. think EVE online with a single server for hundreds of thousands users on a single server, with population growth potential. We are not talking WoW numbers here. I don’t think such a proposition could draw millions of users, though i may be wrong in that assumption.

With this conception of one server, one world, space is an issue. When i talk about such a massive population potential there is a need for space for them to reside. This is why I have planed the creation of an entire planet with continents and oceans. As such I have developed such a place that requires and explorers desire to “see the world”. traversing an ocean takes a ship, a real ship that can only be built by a community of artisans for a sailing adventure to places unseen and unknown to be colonized over time.

Yes, this is the briefest of explanations. It is only a hint, a mental suggestion. The reason is my obsession has taken the form of actual development. I have been working on this idea for about six years now. I have put a lot of thought into it, I have written a good amount of it down. Much of it is still in my head mulling, mutating, and reacting favorably to constant input. Soon I will be putting most of it on paper. There is a design document in the near future attached to a masters thesis.

All i need is for a developer to listen to me, an untried unproven aspiring developer/produce. I think i could do it in 4 or five years with the right staff and the dreadful amount of 30 to 50 million dollars. A dream that needs to be reality because i have found, after describing what I am thinking to people, over the years, that this is something people want, very badly.

The current trend in MMO development is moving away from this amid the screams and protests of players and potential players of the genre. The MMO developers are moving into pure adventure designs and losing users as a result. As the generations that have been playing MMOs age and have kids, their priorities change. Their interests are altered. They move towards emulating some of their real life in a virtual world. fighting is not  necessarily part of that transfer.

This proposition is a step in the evolution of MMORPGs that propels beyond the confines of MMOG as game to a world that is a living community beyond that of stat mongers and people trying to not be adventurers in a system that only fosters adventuring. It is a fostering of a kind of digital authorship. It is the creation of a fictional life. in that it is living as an actor in a huge community of actors. It has been said that in a world of heroes there are no heroes. I counter that with the idea that in a world of people there are only people who pursue their wants an needs… this is Providence, my dream.