It’s all just Everquest with extra sprinkles

I have said this before, but early on the MMO basically had to tree branches.

Gamey MMOs: Diku -> EQ -> WoW

Worldy MMOs: LP -> UO -> SWG

The problem is, WoW was a smash hit and Star Wars Galaxies was a terrible failure. That stench of failure colored all potential worldy MMOs from that point forward, so all the money and investment stayed in the Gamey branch.

That’s the way in which UO/SWG following the LP path and EQ/WoW followed the DIKU path.

In fact I do not know of a popular MMOG that offers the ability to be “re-coded” – cloned and modified – in the same way as the early MUDs. I honestly think something like Second Life may be the eventual end for both the DUKI and LP roads. A place where it is possible to create new content (avatars, models, *and* new ways of interacting (programming, LSL).

@Muckbeat re: EVE — It is a virtual world, and it can be just as dangerous/exciting as the wild west, and just as boring as everyday work. It depends on the group you’re with and what’s going on politically. Like the real world, the drama (good or bad) happens with other people.

RE: Looking up quests and solutions in MMOs
Coming from a MUD background myself, I have to say – how much I look up varies with the game for me.

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World of Warcraft
In WoW I basically looked up everything because I didn’t give a fig about the storyline and basically only did the quests for a) xp and b) if they had a cool item. I was actually (ironically) pretty proud of NEVER reading WoW quest text.

I recently went back to WoW as a sort of ‘farewell to the old world’ on a trial account, since I will not be resubbing with Cataclysm. (Didn’t buy WotLK, not currently playing.) I must say, WoW quest text sucks. Most of it is boring as Hell (to me anyway), and while I did get some enjoyment from challenging myself with the trial account and ‘how far can you run and live at your trial gear and level’… I didn’t enjoy the quest text at all. And this time around, I read it all. Just to be ‘fair’.

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Guild Wars
My first time playing through all the campaigns of Guild Wars (which I dearly love), I would do the mission without looking things up. Expecting a WoW-like experience in terms of Accept/Reject quests, I started out not reading them.

Then I realised that every quest had custom (and usually sassy) Accept/Reject buttons… so I started reading them… and I was surprised, amazed, and amused. GW quests are *entertaining*. Well their quest text is. Which really, as MMOs stand right now, is most of the quest. ^_^

In GW, I would only look things up (such as missions/vanquishes/specific quests) after failing repeatedly, and needing to see what I was doing wrong/missing. This is something that, in MUDs at least – since cheat pages didn’t really factor in those – I accomplished by asking other players. Somehow in MMOs, that’s not really much of an option. You know people are going to send you to the Internetz to look it up anyway – may as well look it up by yourself right away.

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Jade Dynasty
Currently having a fling with this English-localised Chinese game by Chinese publisher Perfect World International. In JD, I read all the quest text, because I am a Wuxia nut – and because this is localised from a Chinese game based on a Wuxia novel… the storyline (which you can track the progression of through your quests) is extremely typical of the Wuxia general, and to me, that’s just wonderful. I love it.

As a side point, one of the things I’ve noticed about JD and GW is, as a whole ALL the quests serve to reinforce the overarching storyline. I never got that feeling with WoW. Oh yeah sure, Sylvanas is working towards something, the undeads want more plagues made but honestly… it’s disjointed and what do I care? Nothing.

In GW, I want to see the end of quests (especially towards the later part of the game), because they have interesting ‘easter eggs’ of information on different characters you see during the course of the storyline. In JD, so far it seems I’m basically on the ‘trail’ of the anti-hero, trying to follow along and patch up behind him, so I *want to know what happens next*. In WoW? I don’t care what happens, gimme my shinies.

Back on topic – in JD, I look things up CONSTANTLY. Not because I am too lazy to figure things out, because I don’t want to think, etc etc. But because JD is F2P, and their payment system has highly influenced their game design choices. For example, in JD, you can’t respec without paying USD$30. >.> And there are 150 levels. They provide a (good) in-game bot as a feature, but it still is incredibly grindy. So instead of boxing myself into the possibility of shelling out USD$30 for a freaking RESPEC… I look things up, I research.

A lot of JD’s quest items etc are pretty opaque – if you don’t look them up, you’ll have no idea if this thing you fished up is junk, or something a high level will pay a lot of gold for. Ah, gold. JD is the ‘poorest’ game I’ve ever played, in terms of mob gold drops. From what I’ve observed, if you don’t learn the game economy of your server in JD, you’ll end up paying real cash for gold. It seems to be one or the other. This is why I look up every strange item that lands in my inventory.

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To conclude the spam =) :

“Do the majority of players just want the cookie at the end, rendering depth/theme/complexity a perceived waste of developer effort?”

I’d say that’s not a question that you can ask in a general sense. You have to look at the game, and how the design decisions influence player desires. Once you know (or have an idea of) what those desires are, you can then more accurately ask why players in any given game are looking / not looking things up.

Peelosopical nugget:
Players all want the cookie. But – what is the cookie? HOoOOooOOoOM.

Then again, I remember putting in a lot of time on quests and exploration as a MUD player and creator. From both sides it was pretty frustrating to know that people could always look up solutions online. That phenomenon is -much- more prevalent now I think. Do the majority of players just want the cookie at the end, rendering depth/theme/complexity a perceived waste of developer effort?