MMOG's What are they?

I remember, there was a time when the common taboo term in the industry was Persistent Online World. This was back in the day when RPG's like Final Fantasy VII was ballooning into massive popularity, Meridian 59 became the first Graphical MUD, and the anticipation of another graphical mud was as sparse as a fart in the wind. 5 years ago when SOE's Everquest became Evercrack and Asheron's Call was a Garage Developer success for newly formed Turbine Games, the term, Persistent Online World was “The” catch phrase to describe this niche market that was emerging from the brilliant minds of various vets in the industry.

But what is the state of affairs now? What is a Persistent world and why do we continue to create Static copies of hard coded Environments. Developers say that to create dynamic content for 24hrs to 15 days of event gameplay would accrue very little ROI (return on investment). Game development is not trivial nor is it cheap so I completely agree with this notion. However...

One would say that building a website would have no parallel to developing a game. In my experience they are both very similar in actual fundamentals. A website is an experience. Users can book flights, read user generated content, play games, or see what's going on in the world. To view the world through a window. Features that allow new content to be updated efficiently to enhance or change that user experience in some cases is built in from the beginning. Data tables are designed so that the applications can pull the necessary data required to change the experience for the user. Someone correct me if I am wrong on this one. In any event my point is that this dynamic content creation functionality is created before the site goes live. What does that tell you? Web developers think ahead. So why doesn't the game designer let alone the online game business?

Now in an online game, what is persistent? Well traditionally it was content. Let's add new weapons for the rogue class, let’s add new stories to the story line, and let’s put a dungeon where there was no dungeon before so the player can have something new to do. Why did we feel we needed to add persistent content? Well an MMO was in theory supposed to emulate a changing world. The best way to accomplish this task at the time was to create and update the game using patches. Patches are not persistent. They are repetitive static events created by the game gods to add new stuff.

But persistence in content does not necessarily create a persistent world, it emulates the idea in a band-aid fix type fashion at best. If we are to emulate evolution in a virtual world as it happens in the real world. Things change in our world all the time. GM comes out with a new car to buy, in comparison, the hunter will have a new gun to use. The real answer to our question is another question. The answer is Why? "...but that's not really an answer," you say. Actually it is. You need to answer the, “Why does the hunter have a new gun?” in order for you to understand what is persistence. Persistence is the evolution and exchange of ideas and ideologies. Persistence requires very little encouragement, it just happens. How do you encourage the exchange of ideas and ideologies of a game? The answer is that you don't.

Let’s think like a web developer for just a moment. To create dynamic content we would take basic content requirements and design a robust data system, and application to work together. so when the exchange of ideas and ideologies turns into new information which would translate into a new experience, that dynamic content would be more efficient to develop and upload. Now we are getting somewhere.

The evolution and exchange of ideas and ideologies comes from the user who will experience what they are expecting or unexpecting in some cases. They are your target market. They are your customers. Persistent virtual worlds are created, developed, supported, and maintained by the service provide, Turbine Games, Sony Online Entertainment, Blizzard, CCP. These are service based software companies. Your business mode, product development methodology needs to cater to the needs of your customer. Great games come from great ideas, yours as a game designer is not necessarily the answer. Which is odd because that’s why they pay you and not the gamer. This is not an easy balance to figure out.

So what is an MMOG? Persistence.