MMORPG In Depth

By Jonathan

Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game

• User created identities (characters)• Persistent world• User driven world

Business model

• Box price: $50-$60• Monthly subscription: $12-$15• Extra content/services: $5-$20

• Millions of players• Deep connection with their online character

and other players keeps them paying.

Where did it come from?

• Text based Multi-User Shared Hack (MUSH)• Table top (pen and paper) • Live improvisational story telling• Ritualistic performances

The MUSH

Modern MMORPGs started out as text based games. Rather than a profitable business users could play for free at the host’s expense.

Pen and Paper

Before computers made it big, people would gather around a table to role-play. Books filled with rules set the groundwork for the worlds they would create and the other lives they would live in them.

Though the format is different all these share the same core elements of characters created by the players living an alternate life in an alternate imagined world. Sharing experiences with each other that are not possible otherwise.

Improve Storytelling

• Improvisational theatre dates back to the 1500s

• In many cases the characters and settings would be the same, but the story would unfold differently each time.

• Vaudeville included audience participation into the story, bringing further randomness and emersion.

Rituals

As far back as you can look, Roleplaying took place. A Shaman would put on a bird mask and dance around the fire, bringing others from the tribe into the dance through the night. While they wore their costumes they were in the role of that god and treated as such.

Nothing New

• Only the scope and rules of the games have changed.

• “Massive” is a relative term. 5000 years ago if your whole village was acting out that was most of the people in the world to you.

• Some people will always be drawn in to these kinds of games for whatever reasons, and always have been.