As a MMOG game designer and developer, I see this problem a lot. The difficulty is providing content for that many people, reasonably. While not everyone has the need to be an actual 'mover and shaker', there are some that do. But *everyone* wants to at least have the ability to put their mark on the world, to change it in some way that they can point at and say 'I did that'.
What we do in A Tale in the Desert (ATITD) is put the story as firmly in the hands of the player as we can get it. We run active events, active story plots, and the choices (good or bad) are based on the players' actions. We have an active law system, where the players can vote and change the game in some way. Technologies are researched by the players, rather than being opened on the timetable of the developers.
I'll be the first person to say we have failed in several key elements of some of this implementation in Tale 3, which has gone overlong, but we're learning, and trying to implement it better the next time. Each telling has been better than the one before. After all, how many other games reset themselves every year or two and start over?
For MMOGs to survive, the content must be player driven and player created. You give the players the tools to make their own world, how they want. You then add an active storyline that drives this, that acts as a catalyst, and the story comes together. It's collaborative - you tell a story with the players, not tell a story *at* the players. This is the key to true roleplay.
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What we do in A Tale in the Desert (ATITD) is put the story as firmly in the hands of the player as we can get it. We run active events, active story plots, and the choices (good or bad) are based on the players' actions. We have an active law system, where the players can vote and change the game in some way. Technologies are researched by the players, rather than being opened on the timetable of the developers.
I'll be the first person to say we have failed in several key elements of some of this implementation in Tale 3, which has gone overlong, but we're learning, and trying to implement it better the next time. Each telling has been better than the one before. After all, how many other games reset themselves every year or two and start over?
For MMOGs to survive, the content must be player driven and player created. You give the players the tools to make their own world, how they want. You then add an active storyline that drives this, that acts as a catalyst, and the story comes together. It's collaborative - you tell a story with the players, not tell a story *at* the players. This is the key to true roleplay.