I still don''t understand why the players have to have different stories. If thousands of players can happily play the same story in a single player RPG, why not in an MMORPG? I think you would get the highest quality, most fun game by making one excellent story and letting each player play through it at his or her own pace. A clever designer could come up with a way to do this while still makig a game with strong socialization and community elements.

Because... then it''s not personal. You''re not your OWN character, everyone will have played the same story (as is iwth current MMOGs).

While I agree with you valkyr, a back story to your character would enchance the experience, I also feel that you may be overlooking the bigger picture.

I played everquest for a little over a year a while back, and what I found was that in the process of leveling up and mindlessly beating creatures to death, you create your own back story. Through your experience with real people, and their ability to help or hinder you, and vice versa, those same people become your allies and enemies. Heros emerged sometimes during battle, and othertimes after the battle by lending a hand to a group that needed it. Retrieving corpses, sending a heal to a dying player, leading a large group through a dangerous dungeon to kill a huge creature. These were all pretty memorable things. Reputations were built and destroyed by these events, and that could be more rewarding than finishing any single player rpg.

Characters generally adapted the behaviour and values of the person driving them, so maybe role discovering game would be a more appropriate title than role playing.

If I were to recomend anything to the game makers it would likely be to give players more ability to interfere (in both negative and positive ways ) with each other. Of course, as Ultima Online proved back in its first iteration, the population of people doing "evil" things certainly outweighed those doing "good" things. But could there be any more appropriate place to find a real hero?

Sun, I don''t know if it''s so much that people want different stories as they want to feel actually *involved* in the story.

I grew bored with DAOC because no matter how many mobs I killed, no matter how far I explored, no matter how many quests I took on...the world didn''t change. Even my involvement in RvR and guilds didn''t change the world itself - although it was the closest I''ve come to that feeling. I''d help out my fellow Hibs in getting relics, taking keeps; great, we all benefited from it. But did things change, really, in the game world?

No. The same thing in SWG; I became a declared Rebel and spent plenty of time in combat with Imps, but ultimately did our battles change what was happening to the world itself?

I don''t want different stories, I just want my actions to *matter*. I want to feel the consequences of my actions on the world itself, I want others to feel those effects - both positive and negative. If I and my group does something that impacts the world, I want that effect to ripple. I want to see quests and news spawn based on the actions of individuals, not the same random or static level-based quests happening over and over.

Valkyr, I don''t think it isn''t that designers haven''t considered it - but I do think we''re talking about some serious AI here, which is why it hasn''t been done. We''re talking not about a dynamic "physical" world, but a dynamic backstory!

And AP - individual backstories work for hardcore role-players, but ask the casual or power gamer to come up with one and they''ll ask "why?" You can talk about "epic" battles you''ve had, but in the end it''ll be a battle you''ve shared with hundreds of other people - because it''s the SAME battle. Someone might be impressed if you managed to kill the Red Dragon that spawns in the underground cavern, but it makes for a better story if that dragon just appears one day, makes a home in a town, kills and plunders it, and there is a quest to destroy it.

Once the dragon is killed, it never spawns there again. THAT would be a memorable event, to be part of the party who snuck into the dragon''s lair, killed it, and saved the town. Perhaps the people of that town remember you and your party, and shower you with gifts or heavily discount your costs while purchasing items there. Roaming npcs from that town may recognize you in another city, and sing your praises. You may get work from npc government officials because they heard about the work you did helping to rid that town in the north of it''s dragon problem, and they want your help.

THAT would be memorable.

Nice post, Eric. I couldn''t have said it better myself... Especially how I end up blundering around and get off track. lol

One thing I would like to do in an MMOG is to create monsters.

In Final Fantasy Tactics you could win enemy monsters over to your side and then breed and raise them to fight alongside you.

So, some players could choose an occupation like Monster Breeder or Evil Sorcerer and then start raising creatures (they would probably need to gather the right spell ingrediants or find a suitable area to train them).

Then a high-level Beastmaster could unleash his vast army of Red Dragons, Rock Trolls, Fire Ghouls or Invisible Zombie Warewolfs upon the land.

I mean seriously, giant monsters don''t just pop out of thin air, somebody has to raise the things.

see: Star Wars Galaxies
reference: Creature Handler

One thing I think would be neat would be putting the actual game world at stake. For example, an army of monsters might attack a town, and if the player characters don''t defend it, it will be taken over and the vendors, trainers, quests, etc. at that town will no longer be available. It would probably make sense to be able to re-take the town, but it should be very difficult. As more and more towns are taken/destroyed, players would be forced to establish their own locations to meet to trade and plan, like the top of a certain cliff, or on the shore of a sea. To keep the game from ending, the antagonist could be like Sin from FFX, where it invariably comes back. Perhaps every incarnation could be somewhat different, to keep the game from getting stale? Balance would be hard though. If the invading monsters are too hard, the players will be fighting a frustrating losing battle. If they''re too easy, the players will repeatedly and easily thwart the enemy invaders. I should think keeping it on the difficult side would be best, since the powers that be (the game''s creators) could put a specific device for defeating each incarnation in the game, but hide it well. Obviously, this idea would require continued updates, but not overly major ones if sufficient thought and preperation were made ahead of time.