The last stand, as the servers chug to a stop

When the World Ends

Has anyone hung around an online community long enough to see its last moments?

Enjoy some highlights from the last 24 hours of Tabula Rasa:

http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2009/03/analysis_tabula_rasas_final_mo.php

This article first caught my attention through another article:

http://www.collisiondetection.net/mt/archives/2009/03/teleportation_t.php

Which has links to the writer's observations on the death of the Asheron's Call 2 community.

Some developer's blogs, ex post facto:

http://t-machine.org/index.php/2009/01/16/we-need-to-talk-about-tabula-rasa-when-will-we-talk-about-tabula-rasa/

http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Caveat-Emptor/The-MMO-Crash-of-2008

Picture from here

Some thoughts about MMORPGs

I'm old enough to remember the plain text communities; I didn't play in them a whole lot, though.  I used to do it more to talk to people, although I did participate in combat a few times.  Anyone who is tired of the combat in many modern MMORPGs (the slow, I-hit-you-and-you-hit-me style of turn-based, hands free conflict resolution that people are trying to break away from now) would instantly recognize their origins.  You watched text scroll, talking about hit results and damage, while you talked with some random person about the weather in a strange disconnect from the events.  Not much tension there.

Once I read up on a true role-playing server, where when you log on you have to act the part of the creature you were playing.  I tend not to like that too much, but I was willing to try because the game seemed to be high quality.  I forget what character I started as, I think I was trying to be funny and rolled up a Leprachaun just to see what would happen.  Well, I started up, walked into a new room, and was immediately killed by some people around the starting area.  I figured it was a fluke and tried again, twice.  The third time I remember respawning at some other, neutral entry point.  One of the characters that continually killed me sent me a private, out-of-character message saying that I should probably stay away from them, as I guess I was of a different faction than them or something.  To me it was unwelcoming and rather rude, so I just gave up.

To me the fascination with MMORPGs comes from the community aspect.  I think the game side of things tends to lag behind the rest of gaming, so while everyone is hailing the era of multiplayer, I think there's still a lot of innovation still possible (and necessary) in these massive gaming communities. 

I'm also interested in just how authoritarian the rulers of the servers are, if you'll pardon the term.  Some set up many rules to protect players, even going so far as to eliminate the ability for people to fight each other, or to curse, or to go into areas you're not high enough level for.  Even EVE Online has safeguards, including increasing the bad consequences for people who try to kill innocents in high-security zones.  I think they do this because the community still matters, even if the game itself might suffer from a drop in realism. 

Further, I think some people regard their fellow avatars in the world they're in as not quite real.  People who would never give people a rough time face to face are blowing up escape pods and looting corpses of player-characters online. It's a strangely animistic way of looking at it, as though the other players are more spirits that inhabit these bodies that are fully corruptable if that's what it takes to get what you want.  If you lie to, cheat, or kill this being in front of you, there are few consequences you're not prepared for, and the profit is much greater than any associated risk.  Never mind that the community might be diminished if that person gets disgusted and refuses to play.  But it also has something to do with the way the game is structured, since some games make this sort of behavior attractive, while others make the profit negligable or all but impossible.

Eh, but like I said, I mostly went there to chat, and in chat rooms that were derivatives of those old text-based, multi-user dungeons were where I met some interesting folks, including some who would later become important in my little life.  There were also tons of freaks there, (and some might have included me in that group) but that's to be expected.  I did witness the death of a community once.  It was strange to see all my friends suddenly scattered when some stupid drama brought down an entire chat environment without warning when its designer pulled the plug.  It was frustrating, but also intruiging in that we were all trying to make our homes in new places.

As far as chats with games, I did play through a bit of Everquest (see my tiny gallery), and played the free versions of a few games like Dofus (I was a shovel-wielding prospector, which probably limited my fun somewhat, and that game reminded me with their spam just why they wanted my email address in the first place).  The MMORPGs that excite me are the ones that break the mold, and most of them don't.  Stuff like A Tale in the Desert,  Atriarch, Seeker, and the Skotos community seem to really want to try new things on the game side, but I wonder if there are ways to shape the way a community interacts on a fundamental level, and have that be the game, perhaps.

Oh wait, I remember one:

http://tale-of-tales.com/TheEndlessForest/