Ryan Shwayder talks about how it *is* possible for modern MMOs to bring social interaction back without losing accessibility – in fact, he hints that Copernicus will be doing just that.
Of course it’s possible to bring social back. Let’s look at how people use the web today – everything is social. From connecting with real life friends to conversing in real time during news events on CNN, to meeting friends in virtual spaces. Human beings are drawn to two-way communication with others and the web is shifting more and more into less soapbox (blogging, personal Geocities sites) and more conversations (Twitter, Facebook). Studies are even showing that the Facebook crowd is growing older, because the web is all about being social. Everyone on the internet wants a piece of the social action – and why should multiplayer games be any different?
Let’s look at how virtual worlds (such as Second Life) enable social connection without hindering accessibility:
- Rich user profiles
- Multiplayer newbie areas without instancing
- Ability to ‘own land’ and share it with others
- Ability to link others to your location (with web URLS in Metaplace, or SLurls in SL)
- Freely transferable currency with legitimate sales to each other
- Voice chat integration
- Ability to email snapshots/screenshots from the world out to the web (auto upload to Flickr, etc)
- Helper/mentor systems
- Group functionality with group chat
- Offline messaging
- the list goes on….
What’s the secret sauce that 38 Studios is adding to their meaty stew? Let’s hope they’re looking at the web, at asynchronicity and real-time communications and pulling out the strengths of both. Let’s hope there are mechanisms for connecting with people you know in real life, as that is what drives the 30+ age bracket with adopting and sticking to social products. Let’s hope that unlike EQ2 where I cannot summon my friends to a dungeon or teleport to a friend – that user interaction enhancing the experience will drive mechanics. Allow, encourage, and enable people to connect but don’t force them. It’s not rocket science. Connect with existing APIs and successful services that ALREADY enable people to communicate with each other.
Tami Baribeau is the Associate Producer for Metaplace, Inc, currently working on Island Life. She is also the Lead Editor of feminist gaming blog The Border House, and the National Facebook Games Examiner for Examiner.com. She can be reached on Twitter or by email.
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“Allow, encourage, and enable people to connect but don’t force them” — Bravo ma'am…I couldn't have said that better myself.
Excellent points, the greatest barrier for me regarding the social side of an MMO is the US/EU server divide (and other regional divides depending on title)… The number of times I've wanted to play with a person or group but been unable, frustrating really when you are interacting with people on Twitter and cannot then join them on say, Azeroth.
No MMO can hold me unless it secures the loyalty of people I really know, when they leave I tend to lose something. On many levels the quest structures become stale, it is the social aspect that allows me (and perhaps many others) to overlook that.
One key thing a subscription MMO could provide is a lower rate or free service for communicating when you are forced to drop the subscription for a month or two. If you can keep in touch and be reached even when you aren't paying for that month it may draw you back or remind you about who and what you are missing. It also means that if you haven't had much time to notify people of your absence that they can be reached and vice versa. Combining in-game mail with a web available service on that particular games portal is inspired and something that would be valuable to many. Even if they provided a single month of communication after the subscription drops, it would do wonders.