A Quote
Damion Schubert tossed out a great quote in the MUD-DEV list that to me encapsulates something that only an MMO can really deliver:
“Nothing your NPC
is going to say is going to be as interesting as the fact that your raid leader is cybering your guildmaster’s girlfriend, and everyone knows but him. Creating an interesting context to make the space sticky is great, but at the end of the day, an MMO’s real content is other people. If it’s NOT — well, then your MMO probably shoulda been a single player game. Woulda saved a lot of money.”
That’s why I want to figure out how to design mechanics that allow for emergent behavior systems rather than ones that define behavior. The kind of storytelling that will work in MMOs is not going to be like in the movies, or in books, or in choose your own adventures, or in tv shows, or in single-player games. Storytelling in MMOs will be like herding cats. At best. And on occasion, if not on all occassions, you’re going to find it better to change the story as it unfolds… keep changing things as players respond to the story… take that to the limit and you have what amounts to you actually being drawn into the in-game world and behaving as what amounts to an in-game faction or entity. Heck, let’s just embrace that and have several each GMs controlling some given faction of creatures or NPCs in the game. Better yet, let them be able to control members of their faction in a way that approaches a Real Time Strategy game, albeit at a slower pace. That could result in some good stuff.