Massively^™

Chances are good that if you read Massively, you either currently play or have played multiple MMOGs in your life. Whatever your reasons are, you're one of those players for whom "MMO" is a genre instead of a game. Not all players are like this. A lot of players get their start somewhere and then stick to that game for years, denouncing all other games as being incapable of being better than their chosen virtual playground. I used to be like that with EverQuest (can you tell?). For four years I played it pretty much exclusively, not even trying other games. But eventually, I got bored.

Thus started my lengthy and storied history of game-hopping. Traveling from world to world like some sort of virtual nomad, fueled by my love of the online massively multiplayer game, I sampled much of what the genre had to offer. While I eventually found a new home and anchor in World of Warcraft, it only served as a nice place to return to every few months. I still ventured out into each new and exciting world that various companies served up to me. They all had things I liked and didn't like about them, and I honestly have yet to play a game that I couldn't find something good to say about. Every online game has its own cool quirks that are pretty neat from a design standpoint. This is why it's tough to identify an objectively "best" game -- they're all so different! I thought today I'd talk a little bit about what I've played over the years and how I ended up with the many and varied opinions on the MMOG genre that I have.

Botting -- the act of using a program (a 'bot') to kill mobs, perform quests, harvest nodes and so on -- usually is explicitly banned by a game's EULA, and at least ethically gray even where it wasn't directly ruled out. Right or wrong, botting has been with us since the very dawn of massively multiplayer games, in MUDs -- text-based Multi-User Dungeons.

Raph Koster -- Ultima Online developer, Star Wars Galaxies architect and CEO of game-development-for-the-masses Areae -- brings us back to the days of yore when MUDs first met botters -- and how they dealt with it. It's a stirring tale of autohunters, deathtrap rooms, trigger phrases, healbots and the devs who loved them.

Just over two weeks ago I wrote my first impressions of Dragonrealms, a text-based MUD that was recommended to me. Here I am, knowing a bit more about the game, and more importantly still engaged, still having fun, plotting my next steps, and interacting with a range of characters on a regular basis. Following on from the comments to that post I plan to dip into Gemstone soon as well.

Dragonrealms has a lot of subtle design features under the hood, many of which I am still getting to grips with to be honest. However, a few things have emerged quite clearly since my first post: things that make the game quirky, interesting and good in my eyes - your mileage may vary.

A week ago I wrote about my wish for a new style of MMORPG and got a few comments. One of those comments directed me towards Dragonrealms and I promised to try it out.

Dragonrealms was recommeded as without classes, purely skills-based role-play. It isn't, but it is, for me, engaging. This may, to some extent, be the age of the players, which I suspect is rather older than on World of Warcraft in general (certainly from the comments I saw). That works on two levels: I don't feel uneasy when people say "I'll be in late tomorrow, I've got detention after school" and, like in so many things, being older gives you a reasonable chance of being more skilled - certainly more skilled at role-playing. In Dragonrealms everyone has access to the same core skills, but your character class (the guild you join) affects how quickly your skills progress. Every class has a primary, two secondary and two tertiary skill sets. Each skill has a series of wall ranks which are harder to learn. For tertiary skills that's every other rank, for secondary every four ranks and for primary every eight ranks. That isn't the only place that the class makes a difference. If you are a warrior mage, you get access to a special set of spells, as do moon mages, priests and so on. A ranger gets a different range of spells and a couple of special skills. Thieves get special skills, as do barbarians.

The most defining characteristic of a massively multiplayer online game is the very fact that it's massively multiplayer. Until the advent of the MMOG (and yes, I'm including MUDs as MMOGs) playing video games was either a solitary experience or one you experienced with a few existing friends. MMOGs are wonderful in that they allow us to meet new people across the globe; breaking the physical boundaries of our real-world environment that would otherwise prevent our interaction. The relationships formed and fostered during our time gaming often end up transcending the game itself.

Take my friend Rob, for example (Please! Ha!) Rob and I have been friends since middle school and went to college together in Florida. After college Rob got married and eventually moved to Atlanta, Georgia. MMOGs have been great for us because they've allowed us to stay in touch while enjoying a hobby we both love. When we started to play Dark Age of Camelot, Rob met a guy online named Josh who lives in California. Josh played a tank class and Rob played a healing class. Since both of these guys are arrogant goofballs with a similar sense of humor they hit it off right away. As they played together, learning their classes as they went, they became excellent players of their respective classes. Over the years they've stuck together through Star Wars Galaxies, City of Heroes, Everquest 2, Lord of the Rings Online and, of course, World of Warcraft. Although they do mix it up occasionally they almost always stick to the same roles of healer and tank. As a result of knowing their roles, and knowing each other so well, they typically dominate whatever game they play; whether it's in PvE or PvP. But more than just becoming great gamers, they've become great friends.

With all the crazy MMO games we're playing nowadays, do old, traditional videogames matter any more? Anyway Games, suprisingly, says no-- just like black and white and silent movies, he envisions the game industry abandoning the old formats and standbys and moving on completely to these new heights. When the last Pac Man gamer has moved on to MMOs, AG claims that while the old games will be preserved, there will be no need to play them.

I'm not so sure that's true-- online, multiplayer modes, and persistent worlds aren't necessarily something that's mutually exclusive with "classic" gameplay. Xbox Live is a prime example, even though it isn't traditionally thought of as an MMO-- with achievements and leaderboards, Microsoft has turned old games like Pac Man into games that players can actually play socially, and advance their avatars across games.

In other words, just like movies, old games don't die-- they just get remade. This world of MMOs is a newer one, yes (even compared to the already relatively new world of videogames at large). But nostalgia isn't the only force fueling the drive to push old games into the new worlds-- good gameplay is a forced to be reckoned with as well.

BatMUD first opened its virtual doors in 1990, and has been a solid online presence for the last 17 years. Initially text-based, and accessible only via telnet, the Finland-based game introduced a new graphical client in February 2007. Unfortunately, their original site was hacked in October, but they've since come back stronger than ever.

Whether you wish to play in standard or hardcore mode, there are plenty of options to satisfy every gamer's wishes. 44 races, 100 levels, character respecification ... it's all here, and it's all free. This begs the question, though: when we consider what makes an MMO an MMO, at what point do the lines blur between MUDs, MOOs, and what we traditionally consider MMOs? With more MUDs introducing graphical interfaces, and with the ability to utilize text-based commands in MMOs, is the divide between the two categories shrinking?

While pondering the answer, take a look at BatMUD and give us your opinion: do you feel that a well-written MUD can provide the same level of personal interaction and character development as can the average MMO? As for BatMUD, specifically, the web-based forums provide a plethora of information on game play, and some of the players have been involved in the virtual community for its social networking capabilities since the game's inception nearly two decades ago. All things considered, regardless of how you classify it, an evening of high fantasy and good friendship is nothing to sneer at: there's nothing batty about that idea at all.

Starting tonight, and running every Wednesday through December 19th, you need to make sure your TiVo is pointed to the Discovery Channel at 8 p.m. Eastern/Pacific. For gamers of any stripe, they're covering a gaming retrospective that will be as sweet as popping a Power-up right before stomping King Koopa, and as comforting as the first level of Pong. For those of us with an interest in MMOs, however, we have one episode -- Level Five, premiering on December 19th -- dedicated to our obsession.

The final episode of Rise of the Video Game covers the first MUDs from the late 1960s through the latest MMOs today. They'll be discussing everything from Ultima Online through World of Warcraft, and they'll include interviews with both Richard Bartle of MUD fame and Cory Ondrejka from Linden Lab. So make sure you have your popcorn ready and your recorders running: we've got us some game history to uncover.

[Via GamePolitics]

A red sun set over the ashen wastelands of Searing Gorge. Three shadows crept up a snaking path toward the encampment on Firewatch Ridge. The first shadow struck her victim hard in the back. The second pounced in cat form, lacerating and stunning her prey. The third finished off his hapless victim with a combination of quick stabs to the chest. The Twilight Idolater dropped silently to the ground. The trio continued to their next target, but this time their prey called for backup. The druid morphed into a vicious bear, drawing her enemies' attention to herself to take the brunt of the attack. The rogues tried to sap the reinforcements into submission or cut them down from behind. Despite their efforts the added numbers of the enemy overwhelmed the heroes and they fell.

"Hey Silvanna," said the cute, brunette rogue named Mystletoe. "Do you mind if I get my friend Barbi to help us. She's a 70 priest."

"Uh, OK." agreed the druid. It wasn't long before a beautiful, blonde priestess arrived. She revived her allies from the brink of death and with a few simple flicks of her supple wrist, slew the band of Twilight cultists without chipping a nail.

"Sweet, lets turn this quest in," said the rogue named Twojoints.

"So have you guys tried out the new voice chat?" asked Mystletoe. The druid began to sweat noticeably.

"Uh, no, no. I don't think mine's working quite right yet," replied Silvanna. Suddenly there was audible giggling from somewhere near the party. It was as if the air around them had come to life and was laughing at the group.

"So let's hear your beautiful voice Barbi," giggled the very feminine voice of Mystletoe.

"Hey guys," belted a baritone. Barbi was a man!

"Oh-my-God, Barbi's a dude!" laughed Mystletoe with an air of false surprise.
The druid sighed, somewhat relieved.

"That's OK Barbi," Silvanna replied. "So am I."

Storytelling in massively multiplayer games usually occurs only in footnotes. You might read a lore item's description here, get a hint in the quest text there, but it's almost always an ancillary part of the experience. In the olden days of text MUDs, that wasn't necessarily the case. In some MUDs, players and wizards engaged in communal storytelling, as in the best pen-and-paper roleplaying sessions.

If you look at today's mainstream online games, it seems as if that art has been lost. There are some smaller communities out there that still herald that kind of experience, though. The Escapist focused on one of those in an article titled "The Ending Has Not Yet Been Written." It's an excellent piece about how players and developers alike have fostered a unique, niche-storytelling experience in Cyan Worlds' Myst Online: Uru Live.

Myst has always been an eccentric in the gaming world. It was a groundbreaking success for computer games, and it spawned countless clones, but no one ever recaptured its magic. Now the series is treading a unique path in the online world, despite past setbacks.

Clockwork Gamer has a good juicy post up about how MMOs first learned how to do things from MUDs, and since today is Old School Day, I thought it was appropriate. Wait, you haven't heard of Multi-User Dungeons? If you've never played one, you'll probably be shocked that they used to fascinate people-- imagine an old-school computer, with its green text on a black screen, dialing into another computer and entering a text-based virtual world. As in, you dial up your favorite BBS, and a message greets you "You are in an inn. There are exits north and west," and from there, you type in words telling the computer what to do, while other users play the game with you. You can try the whole thing with the java client here if you want.

A far cry from the virtual worlds we know today, yes, but that's where it started. CG actually focuses on the higher level of things (in many MUDs, players could actually form guilds, and wander around the world together-- "go north"-- killing dragons-- "attack dragon with great mace"), but even the most basic of MMO thrills was originated in the MUD world. "Seeing" a virtual character pass through the room you're in ("Kingofworld enters the room. Kingofworld leaves the room.") was a thrill, because you knew that there was someone else, looking at a screen just like you, behind that character. On the other hand, as CG points out, there were a lot of things that MUDs could do that graphical MMOs can't nowadays.