Could smaller be better?
by Mike Schramm 
Nov 19th 2007 at 5:30PM
Filed under: Game mechanics, Raiding, Opinion, Maps
The great Raph Koster and Anyway Games' Aaron Miller have a little conversation going that inspired an interesting question for me: when it comes to MMOs, could smaller actually be better? Raph started it-- he put forth the idea that most MMOs these days are designed like theme parks-- they're designed to keep you around for as long as possible, with twisting passage ways, lots of checklists, and a certain sense of desperation: "please, please stay and grind. We've got content!" And Aaron continued the thought and suggested an MMO like a bar-- a place that you went to because it was fun to go sometimes, not that you went to because you couldn't leave.And both of these posts point towards the same conclusion: that in a social situation like an MMO, smaller might actually be better. Currently, most games are fascinated with being as big as possible-- a "world" of content to explore, or "millions of players," all in the same space. MMOs have "expansions," and ever larger instances and battlegrounds-- the bigger the world can get, the better the selling point sounds.
But should it? Blizzard, the world's most famous MMO maker, has determined in the past year that a group of 40 doesn't work nearly as well as a group of 25, and that doesn't work as well as a group of 10. And as much as players say they want to play with their friends, just how many friends are we talking about?
So imagine this. You live in a town with about 200 people in it. You play the game within that town-- some people are crafters, some are merchants, some are law enforcement, and some are criminals. You stay in the town you start in, and eventually, you come to learn the names and personalities of everyone playing in that town with you. Instead of a gigantic world in which you continually pass people you don't know, and which there are places you haven't seen yet, you're instead placed in a world in which you can meet and know everyone, and become familiar with every inch.
Now, there would probably have to be other towns, and ways to travel between them-- not everyone likes staying in their own small town. But a smaller, forced local population builds familiarity, builds relationships, builds everything we play these "massive" online games for in the first place.
It's an interesting idea, to say the least. There will always be players who can't wait to span across the blackness of space, and there will be players who want to look far across the world to a mountaintop that they can climb to, and there will always be games for both of those groups.
But when it comes to building relationships between players and developing groups in game, smaller might actually be better.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
luchifer said on 6:35PM 11-19-2007
Dungeons and Dragons Online try that approach.. I liked the idea on paper, but it wasnt executed properly. Outlands (in WoW) for example is a relatively small place, but is cleverly designed and it has content for everyone.
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Juxe said on 9:38PM 11-19-2007
Actually this is a fantastic idea, but it's really really hard to do
I used to play on a private server for RO, and it was a relatively small one, with 30ppl online it's maximum, I knew everybody on, I was friends with everybody there, it was a great time. It really builds up relationships with people you see everyday instead of the passing stranger you shall never see again, except maybe once or twice by pure coincidence.
To replicate this sort of experience MMO's would have to forcibly seperate people and that just wouldn't work out, eventually a community would die out by people leaving and others just not playing anymore, a couple core people would remain, but the population would be slaughtered and nobody would be around anymore
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Ghen said on 10:10PM 11-19-2007
The old generations of MMOs delt with largely groups of strangers. More and more though, people are building lasting friendships with other people who also like to play MMOs. Eventually we will come to a point where games catering to this small town environment flourish from groups of friends leaving the big city games.
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rmckee78 said on 8:20AM 11-20-2007
We used to have this when games had meaningful travel. You got to know the other people from your starting city in Everquest, and in FFXI because it was dangerous to travel too far. I still keep in touch with many people from the Lakshmi Windhurst NA launch.
Everquest Online Adventures also had smaller servers (due to not being super popular) and long travel times between cities. There were no zones and without help it was very easy to get lost.
I think what you are suggesting would in many ways not be moving forward but moving back to something we have lost.
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Ryan Henson Creighton said on 11:14AM 11-20-2007
Not long ago, i came up with a decent way to group teams of five players together in an MMO - you just stick 'em on islands and give each player a crucial role.
Check it out:
http://untoldentertainment.com/blog/?p=41
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