Massively^™

With all the changes and additions in MMORPGs over the years, you'd think there would've been more improvements to how people interact with one another. It's strange to look at arguably the cornerstone of this genre and see the least advancements in relation to other features, but that's seemingly the case.

The visibility of other people who you want to hang out with in a game is of the utmost importance -- even more so is the ability to converse with them. Why even bother playing an MMO for more than a few weeks if you can't grasp the feeling of being around, and interacting with, at least several people on a consistent basis?

One of the main things that keeps us playing MMOs are the communities that populate them. While some players can, and do, play their chosen game solo, for most it's the social component of these titles that pulls us away from those stunning graphics of consoles games and RPG titles for the PC. By comparison, while they're beautiful, many of those games seem 'empty' after having spent time with a massively multiplayer title.

Communities in whatever form they take -- be it a guild, alliance, or corporation -- are essential to the success of an MMO, but interest in playing a given title can wane over time. Likewise with the social aspects of these titles, tempers can flare and patience wears thin. Sometimes you find you just don't have that much in common with the people you're playing with and it's time to move on. Bearing that in mind, are the people you choose to play with in your MMO of choice the same people you started out with? Do you see any parallels between how the company you keep in-game changes over time and how your real-life relationships with friends is always changing?

Earlier this month there was plenty of talk at the ION conference about community-related issues. Those discussions were great and if you missed out on reading them when they were first posted, then you should check them out now. One thing often touched on during those discussions was the community manager's goal of reaching out to as many people in their community as they can. Or in other words: communicating with the silent majority.

Grimwell has recently posted a tightened up dialect on that very topic of reaching the silent majority for any given game. He expresses his own thoughts and methods about forging lines of communication with the people who're not being vocal through forums, blogs, podcasts or even in-game chat. And if you're worrying about a drawn-out read, don't. Grimwell keeps it short and sweet, ending the post with the affirmation that we're all still learning about the communicative process.

We reported on the closing of Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom the other day, and at the time, it seemed like business as usual -- Disney had created the virtual world for an event, and the event was over, so it was time for the world to close. But the comments thread over on this Virtual Worlds news post about the closing has to be seen to be believed: fans of this place loved it completely and are painfully heartbroken over its closing. There are tons of eloquent, emotional comments lauding VMK for its sense of community, the friends made there, and the opportunity to connect on a virtual level with other people and Disney's attractions when, for various reasons, the same can't be done in real life.

What's most amazing here is that, from these comments, it seems VMK was one of the strongest virtual communities out there. This is why we play these MMO games -- to connect with others online, to experience things that can't be experienced any other way, and to create connections that otherwise wouldn't be there. It's an amazing story -- here's an MMO that worked perfectly in terms of building community and developing social connections between players, and yet Disney chooses to close it down.

There is a petition online, with 11,000 signatures as of this writing, to keep VMK open. Disney has responded to this emotion with a short statement only saying "we hear you," and the game itself is still set to close down as planned on May 21st.

[Via Waxy.org]

Relmstein has an interesting post up about how players develop their identities with the classes they play, and while he marks it as players connecting with the various classes they choose, I actually see more of an effect on me, the player-- when I play with my Shaman in World of Warcraft, I'm more measured, careful, and helpful, and when I play my Rogue, I tend to do a lot more ganking, cheap tricks, and sneaky stuff. My Shaman would never run up to a flag in Arathi Basin without support, because that's his thing-- he supports others with totems and helps groups. But my Rogue loves sneaking off to a flag by himself, hopefully with a clothie there that he can sap or gank.

In exactly this way, classes can help the playerbase form communities and connections of their own-- you start to identify with and support those of the same class around you. Players specialize in one class, and grow more and more familiar with and attached to it. A straightforward skill system (like that in EVE Online) doesn't have that-- you still have races, but no one identifies with the traditional class roles. Miners may stick together, but when everyone can mine, that doesn't mean as much.

And new games can learn from this, too-- we've already seen some great class ideas come out of Warhammer, and there's no doubt that if those are implemented as well as they appear to be, we'll see players stepping up to identify with the roles in that game as well.