Future of MMORPGs: Your Thoughts

[jaendra]

I am starting this thread as a response to the letter the Creative Director, David Cohen Corval, wrote to us on June 16th 2005 about his vision for the future of MMORPGs( http://www.ryzom.com/?page=news&id=797). I want to keep the discussion alive on this topic here. What are your thoughts on the future?

Here is a copy of my post to jumpstart discussion:

I hope you all will forgive my long post and that my insight outweighs my rambling

First of all David, I must confess that I signed up to SoR because I wanted to be a part of and observe the "social experiment" that is Ryzom. I too aspire to create games that rise to the level of literature; diversifying our experiences and exploring our humanity. You see, without diversity of experiences and ideas, humanity stagnates and our actions become driven by ignorance like sheep in a herd. For example, in the middle ages Europeans cloistered themselves behind walls; never venturing further than a mile or two from where they were born for fear of the unknown. For centuries society was crippled, ignorance prevailed and was perpetuated unquestioningly for generations. More recently, we have seen monolithic societies with totalitarian governments that murder individuals who stray away from the herd. In monolithic societies questions and education are a threat, whereas in diverse societies questions are vital and strengthen us. Ignorance is the absence of diversity and it weakens humanity and our evolution as animals. Ignorance is like asexual reproduction, perpetuating copies of itself and all its weaknesses. A virus can make an entire species go extinct. Sexuality is the single most important leap in evolution because it introduces diversity into a species, enabling it to develop more quickly. And the internet is the equivalent leap within humanity, connecting the entire globe and spreading the ideas and experiences that drive the evolution of our culture and our species.

These are vital, yet seldom asked questions: What drove us as a species to create the internet? What drives us to play MMOs? To seek out communities and social experiences? Could we be cells in the larger organism of humanity?
The internet and MMOs are not just what we do in our free time, they truly are a major force that shapes our personalities with experiences and incubate the seed of what humanity will become. This may be hard to see as the internet has only just begun. Just think: with these new tools we can create experiences, relationships, cultures, governments, ideas. We can play characters, situations, and make mistakes without the consequences of real life. We can learn and create freely what makes us human. That is the power of the Web, the MMO, and our future. The internet evolves with us, through natural selection. Already some MMOs have gone extinct, but the impacts on the people that played them remain. For instance the Ballistic Mystix guild started in the now extinct MMO Earth & Beyond but the experiences they shared were powerful enough to have recreated their guild on Atys.

The experiences we all share on Atys have meaning too, especially since SoR was created with the spirit of nurturing culture, and having us create our own futures for Atys. So we can learn much from MMOs and Ryzom. We are not simply subjects of a "social experiment"; we are what make atys enjoyable and alive. We are the lifeforce of the culture; we decide whether Ryzom survives and evolves. And with developers who genuinely understand and support our endeavors I think SoR has a great chance of having a full life.

Thanks David, for being my example

~Jaendra

[acridiel]

Wow.. simply wow. O.o
(awed)
Too tired atm to respond more...
later... *yawn*

Acridiel

[trenker]

Well table top role play has far more potential for the full-filling of all that inter personnal philosophy and analysis. As to why did the internet and massive online games evolve?: Well, nothing glorious I'm afraid: The first was to improve military IT infrastructure so we could better kill our enemies and survive their attack and the second, using Ryzom as an example, is so that we can endlessly kill creatures and occassionally each other by the look of it.

Yeah yeah, and both also provide lovely chat tools.

"You see, without diversity of experiences and ideas, humanity stagnates and our actions become driven by ignorance like sheep in a herd. For example, in the middle ages Europeans cloistered themselves behind walls; never venturing further than a mile or two from where they were born for fear of the unknown."

So true, that is why I have half left SoR and tried a couple of other games. When I find my favourite I shall migrate there.

[hans1976]

What you seem to be asking here is the question about Life, The Universe and Everything. And that is too much an existentialistic question to be applied to MMO's only.

You mention sexual reproduction yourself as a mean of diversity, and then make a parallel to teh internet as a whole.

My view:
Actually you look too monolithic to my taste. Not the internet, but innovation through sharing can enable huge leaps by making small steps. Any MMO is only a product of innovation and reproduction of idea's, not the vehicle.

The true vehicle does not seems to be a product but a philosophy that drew me to SoR. It is called Open Source. SoR uses the NeL engine (which I will not discuss here), runs it's site using php and servers on Linux.

Open Source and sharing knowledge for the sheer joy of sharing accelerates innovation more then communication alone.

Throw away your blinds, as the internet is nothing more then the gas, innovation is the road and MMO's are the exhaust fumes. Time is as always a constant factor. The true bike of evolution we ride is called Open Source and the efficiency and seed we go at is depending on how well we construct the concept and believe in that sharing of idea's.

[defalgar]

sharing those ideas happens through communication not through inovation. inovation then again comes from sharing information.

edit: lol read it wrong nvm

dont ask me i know nothing