This is worth a read

I’ve been doing my best to read more out in the MMO world to inspire me here and give me more perspective. I came across an interview on MMO Gamer with Craig Morrison that I think every player and developer should read. He, more or less, flies in the face of a lot of the current acceptable practices in the industry. This interview alone almost inspired me to go back to Age of Conan now that he is in the captain’s chair. Take the time and check out part one and two to get the full effect.

For those who might not want to read the whole interview I have pulled out the things that I took away from it and included them below.

The MMO Gamer: That’s interesting… How do you appeal to the “hardest of the hardcore” without giving them that edge for putting in the extra effort?

Craig Morrison: I think even they don’t necessarily want it that way. They still like to be challenged. I think the hardcore, the players who really like crunching the numbers and getting down to the core of what they can be, they actually get a great deal of pleasure from sometimes increasing their power by 1%.

In my experience this is quite accurate. Those of us who were at the top end were always stereotyped as wanting to be so over powered that we could destroy anything at any time. The truth is that we just wanted something that differentiated us from the average player who doesn’t go the extra mile. It could be as simple as a unique look with a slight stat increase. It was never about the power for me and my guild. It was about the recognition. We wanted our Super Bowl ring.

Craig Morrison: I honestly believe that if you make the content fun and interesting, everything else falls into place. It’s very easy in design to get stuck into what people believe is right, and what people have told you is the right thing to do. You know, “You can’t do that in MMOs!” You have to put lockouts in dungeons, and you have to prevent the player from doing this, you have to prevent the player from doing that.

You know, I think in normal MMO-and anyone who’s worked on an MMO will probably tell you the same thing: You spend 90% of your time on the last 10% of any design, preventing players from doing stuff. [Laughs] Because players main disposition is to break things. And I think that rather than looking at things like that, I prefer to ask the designers to embrace the thought of putting their minds into the minds of a player, rather than seeing it as a challenge almost like, “We must police them, we must force them to play the way that we want them to play!” I hate that. I know hate’s a very strong word, but I really do. I really, really dislike that approach to design.

I could honestly take that little bit there and write quite an essay. Morrison expounds on this further and really talks about design in a way I never imagined a developer would. If you liked that taste you seriously need to read the whole interview!