Cutting the Apron Strings

My recent return to Azeroth has brought something firmly home — World of Warcraft is a single player game.

Oh sure, there are thousands of people wandering around in the world at the same time I am and they do impact my experience, both positively and negatively. Upon occasion I find it necessary to group with a few of them to accomplish one of my goals and there are times when I am pleasantly surprised by a positive experience. Times like this morning for example:

Paigho, my level 24 Draenei shaman, was killing Furbolgs in Ashenvale when a Blood Elf ran through, trailing a sword wielding Furbolg behind her. Needing one more warrior to complete the quest I was on, I reacted without thinking, engaged it and quickly finished it off. As I rhythmically tapped my spell and totem shortcuts, I thoughts that it might be nice if Blood Elves were a little more careful when traipsing through areas a bit above their level. Then, as I looted the corpse, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Quickly turning, my finger reaching for the Frost Shock button, I saw the Blood Elf. She had returned to issue a /thanks for my inadvertent help before running quickly off again.

Of course, other interactions aren’t as pleasant. Whether a ninja-looter grabs the resource or chest you were fighting next to, or a well intentioned high level passerby kills the mob you were fighting in order to train up your new weapon skill, the social nature of MOG can cause as many rant opportunities as rave ones.

So how can I saw that WoW is a single player game? Because it’s comprised of single player game design elements.

The quests I complete remain available to everyone else. The named mobs I kill return moments after death in preparation for the next eager player. The flowers I pick, or the ore I mine, momentarily hinders the next player who only need wait for the resource to reappear in the same spot as before.

My Reputation within the game is quantified, not by my treatment of other players, but the quests I fulfill for various factions and the mobs I kill. The haughty high level elven Priest who watches Brecht, my gnome Rogue, die as he’s being frenzied by the claws of several vicious birds in the Blasted Lands, loses no Reputation with the Exiles of Gnomeragan. Likewise, the humans who suffer under the barbed tongue of grammar obsessive Brecht, do so without the comfort that Brecht’s Reputation with Stormwind will suffer.

Even when I join a group, although every kill counts against the kills I need for a quest, I’m essentially playing a single player game… with a little help. For all I know, the help is coming from very well coded NPCs… in fact there are times I wish it was an NPC fighting along side me as they’d be more reliable and have better typing skills in many instances. In a great many ways, playing World of Warcraft simply isn’t dissimilar enough from playing Obsidian.

The Honor system, which is probably the only WoW gameplay element truly designed for multi-player play… I haven’t experienced yet. Perhaps I’ll engage in some PVP one of these days, but the idea that my only quantified interaction with other players is to kill or be killed doesn’t thrill me.

Craig Perko theorized yesterday that social play is not enough to sustain a game (link). As with much of what Craig says, I agree with him whole heartedly (and the rest of what he says I tend to agree with conditionally). It seems to me, however, that we could make huge strides in designing multi-player game spaces to take advantage of the inherent social elements of the platform. For example, a few ideas I’m working on for the Honeycomb Engine include:

Players will be members of a family, or tribe. They can also join Guilds, both professional and social, join religions, gangs, armies, or town guards. Not only do the player’s actions affect their Renown within the organization, but they reflect on the Guild/Family/Religion/Army’s Renown as well. Being a member in good standing of an organization with high Renown provides extra benefits.

Players will be an active part of the economy, up to and including opening store fronts and shipping goods across the continent… which would necessitate hiring transport and protection, which could be comprised of other players.

In order to achieve some of the above (as well as a few other fun professions such as Soothsayer), players can become Quest Dispensers, setting goals and deciding on rewards for other players.

Players of a certain age will be able to enter into mentor relationships with other players. This relationship will provide positive, in game, benefits for both players.

I know other teams are working on similar approaches, or towards similar results, and it’s exciting to me to watch them while PJ’s Attic moves towards our goal of an online space which is intentionally social and genuinely multi-player.

Please visit the Round Table’s Main Hall for links to all entries.

This post has been a part of a monthly Round Table. This month’s topic is the relationship between single player and multi-player games. The posting deadline is Thursday, the 15th of February and you can find the details for submission on the Game Blogs of the Round Table page here at Man Bytes Blog (link). Thanks for visiting!