The ecology of a MMORPG

drt.gif (46685 bytes)

The ecology of a MMORPG

20 July 2005

Once again, I've spent my time trying to understand how/why MMORPGs (and MUDs) work. The thoughts contained herein are a conglomeration of elements from Richard Bartle's Designing Virtual Worlds, some of my writeups (such as The player pyramid and Intertwined relationships), as well as my wanderings through MMORPG message boards.

What I noticed while exploring MMORPG message boards is that (to no-one's surprise) there are several different "factions" of players, with each faction requesting a different set of features:

Solo players - People that wish to mostly play the game by themselves, but occasionally join up with friends or other players they meet.
Guilds - Players involved in guilds request better guild-management features as well as raid content.
PvP - These players like the challenge of competing against other fighters, usually by fighting with them.
Role players - They wish role-playing specific shards, as well as a few features to aid their role playing.
Crafters - This groups wants an elaborate economy as well as the ability to build any item in the game.
Creators - Creators want to design/build parts of the game, and are interested in artistic expression. Creators are different than crafters because creators aren't happy with creating the same Sword+2 over and over again. Creators want powerful level-editing tools, modelling tools, and scripting languages.
Traders - These players wish to trade virtual goods. In some ways, traders are a combination of PvP and crafters.
Change the world - A sizeable group of players wants features so they can change the world.
Experience - One segment of players is always complaining that combat (and virtual-world life) is not realistic enough. They want encumbrance, body-part wounds, carrying weight limits, eating, etc.

Other feature factions are also present, either as faint murmerings or theoretical possibilities:

Socialisers - Socialisers rarely show themselves on the boards because most of their requirements are readily met by MMORPGs. "More emotes" and in-game message boards are sometimes requested though.
Politicians - MMORPGs provide an opportunity for politics that no other games allow for.
Explorers - Players that like to just wander around the world and explore the scenery, back story, and physics.
Puzzle solvers - By in large, puzzle solvers have given up on MMORPGs since Uru Live was cancelled.
Story - Some people just like the story aspect of a virtual world, either the back-story, in-game events, or gossip about other characters.
Exploiters - These players derive more fun from finding exploits/flaws in the game than the actual game.
Griefers - These players enjoy making life miserable for other players.
E-bayers - Some players find they can make real-life money by selling virtual goods to other players.

The ecology

What's so important about feature factions?

They can be used to explain why a MMORPG/MUD exists and is stable...

If I begin with a CRPG that's tailored for single-players, add multiplayer ability, and extend the length of gameplay, I attract the following feature factions:

Solo players are attracted to the CRPG aspect of the world. They tend to enter the world, play through its content, and leave. Some of the solo players "stick" (as Richard Bartle puts it) to the world because they join another feature faction. Not as many solo players are attracted to MMORPGs as single-player CRPGs because (a) MMORPGs require too much time for most players, and (b) MMORPGs offer an inferior solo experience compared to a specifically-designed solo CRPG.
Explorers find it interesting to explore the massive world created for CRPG players. Once they have explored through the world and understand it at a sufficiently deep level, they leave.
Socialisers show up because the worlds inherently support socialisation features, but the stream of players coming into the game for the CRPG content brings along some new socialisation opportunities.
Because it isn't that difficult to add, many worlds add PvP. The PvP faction takes advantage of the environment (physics, geography, weapons) produced for the CRPG players as a setting for PvP. They also rely on the CRPG players for new recruits. PvP can become contentious, so it's often moved off into its own shard.
Guilds form as a defence against PvP, as well as a way to better exploit the resources of the world.
Griefers take advantage of the PvP features (and any other they can find).
Exploiters similarly thrive in a PvP environment.
Crafters latch onto the huge demand that solo players and PvP players have for in-game equipment.
Traders, similar to crafters, exploit the huge world and abundance of demand, to partake in a trading game whose complexity is impossible in a single-player game.
E-bayers take advantage of all the levelling, crafting, and trading in the world to make real-life incomes.
The more PvP a world allows, the more that players can change the world. Those people who want to put their mark on the world are then attracted into the game.

Unfortunately, the more that players can change the world, the less well that quests and other solo-player CRPG content works.
Once the world is filled with guilds, city states, and is changeable, players interested in politics suddenly have a new game available to them.
Role players take advantage of the world for their own purposes. Because role players often disdain non-role-players, and vice versa, special shards are constructed for role playing.
Players who like story are attracted to all the gossip about events happening in the world, as well as the occasionally live-team event.
The money generated by the large player base is pumped back into solo CRPG features, as well features for all the factions.

Some things to notice about this ecology:

The CRPG is the core of the ecology, like plankton in the sea. If not enough solo players are attracted by the CRPG, the rest of the MMORPG's ecology crumbles.
Solo players spend the shortest amount of time in the world, since they only stick around until they've used up the content.
If a world doesn't have enough content, the solo players won't stay around long enough and the ecology won't form. A 50-hour anti-MMORPG will have solo players, maybe some PvP players, but not much else.
MMORPGs are becoming shorter. Some factions are adapting to the shortening by annually migrating from one world to another. Guilds, for example, jump en-masse to the latest MMORPG, like birds flying from north to south with the food supply.

Other ecologies

Some feature factions are left out of the traditional MMORPG.

Most MMORPGs are designed around 500-ish hours of CRPG content. Most solo CRPG players want less (50-ish hours). However, a 50-hour anti-MMORPG will have solo players, maybe some PvP players, and not much else.
A few MMORPGs are based around the ability to change the world. Around this core set of players are added all of the other players factions listed in the standard ecology, except for solo CRPG players; they don't find the open-ended experience very compelling.
Creators aren't allowed to create because their creations would imbalance the CRPG, PvP, crafting, trading, etc. Consequently, traditional MMORPGs severely limit creation. Creators often move into their own world, like Second Life. A world based on creation attracts socialisers, explorers, and E-bayers.
Some people want an authentic experience, such as to know what it's like living in ancient Rome, with citizens, slaves, and public toilets. Unfortunately for them, most players want a "fun" version of ancient Rome that only has the colosseum and occasional street riot. Those players wishing an authentic experience are forced to move into smaller (and cheaper-to-make) text MUDs. They often team up with role players, who wish to assume an authentic personality within the authentic experience. Players from other factions might also play, but many fewer would be interested than the "fun" version of the world.
Single-player adventure games attract explorers, story fans, and puzzle solvers. Puzzle solvers are ignored by most MMORPGs because even though puzzles are easy to add, players from most of the other factions will cheat at the puzzles by following walk-throughs. Furthermore, puzzles are expensive to create and don't work terribly well as group activities. A world based around an adventure game will attract puzzle solvers, explorers, and story fans (who will all leave as soon as the content is used up), as well as some socialisers.

Ecology == Genre

In case you haven't noticed, the different ecologies correspond to "genres". The key (according to this theory) to a successful world design is to develop a successful player ecology.