Minecraft: The next step in MMO?

zytin

Before Everquest, there were muds.  Muds were text based adventures that allowed people to play online with eachother.  They were the origional MMORPG.  From muds came MUSHes amd MUXes and MOOSHes, where code was used to impliment actual RPG's through a user interface that allowed people to roleplay together online, with GM's and DM's controlling story and what not.  From there came the likes of Diablo and Everquest, and then WoW and many others. 

 

Much like how MUD's are the forefathers of what we see today in MMORPG's, I think that Minecraft is much the same.  Like MUD's, it is very limited is scope and graphics, but presents a new idea:  Players can have total control over their enfironments and create new worlds (Like ZZT did back in the day when BBS's and were the only source for MUDS).  I think Minecraft presents a sort of ZZT/BBS/MUD thesis for a new era in online gamming:  MMOPDW (Massivve Multiplayer Online Player Driven Worlds).  Think along the lines of  Otherland by Tad Williams.

PTED

Minecraft: The next step in MMO? - I hope not.

Games with the freedom that Minecraft presents us with would benefit more from a number of smaller communities than a single massive one. People are unreliable; chaos would ensue. (Unless restrictions are put in place)

The more restrictions that are in place; the less creative freedom the player has.

There is most likely a sweet-spot where creative freedom is concerned that would work on an MMO-scale, however, looking at Minecraft may not be the best place to start.

Adamantine

Is Minecraft even a RPG ?

Quenchster

Originally posted by Adamantine

Is Minecraft even a RPG ?

It is whatever you or that griefer wants it to be.

Archid

Rofl!

Blackbrrd

I have played in a community based around Neverwinter Nights, with real-life GM's controlling NPC's so you can actually have an intelligent conversation instead of just dialog boxes. It would be really interesting if somebody would develop that idea further or merge it with something like concepts behind Minecraft. I do agree that it probably works best with small communities, but linking them should be possible.

I haven't actually played in NWN lately, but it's actually still up and running http://www.alandfaraway.org/

Adamantine

Originally posted by Quenchster

Originally posted by Adamantine

Is Minecraft even a RPG ?

It is whatever you or that griefer wants it to be.

No.

Just because I call Doom a RPG doesnt make it one.

Quenchster

Originally posted by Adamantine

Originally posted by Quenchster

Originally posted by Adamantine

Is Minecraft even a RPG ?

It is whatever you or that griefer wants it to be.

No.

Just because I call Doom a RPG doesnt make it one.

In Minecraft you have two modes. One mode is a "creative" mode, which is for building, and the other mode is a "survival" mode with RPG elements. Either way a griefer will try to find a way to ruin your experience to make neither of those modes fun if you play online. The online part of the game heavily relies on the community to add additional RPG elements and anti-griefer features to the game.

MumboJumbo

The OP has an undeniable motion here, I think the influence of minecraft or voxel-like applications will likely carry through to mmorpgs, some time... and about time as well! The other idea above:

• 
  Communities interactions more integrated into the game by selection/rules/rpg-like balance & checks in the game design
• 
  Devs/GM's as NPC's

All the above could add much more dimension to mmorpg imo: World-interaction and Community-interaction improvements, it's surely redundant to state there's (lots of) room for improvement?!

Loke666

while it is possibly that some of the crafting part might actually show up in a future MMO most of Minecraft is built on there only being you in the game and doing whatever you like.

In MMOs the whole point is interaction with other people so while a minecraft build could be added to the guildcity or playerhousing I don´t think it would work for an entire game. Just letting players build more and more stuff would create a game that would be a huge junkyard after a month.

Letting other people destroy what you built is not minecraft.

Disdena

What would making it into an MMO add that doesn't already exist for normal multiplayer Minecraft on a private server? I think it takes away more than it adds. You'd lose the ability to restrict the server to just the kind of people you want to play with. If you dropped some items, you'd have to worry about someone else taking them. If you built something cool, you'd have to worry about someone else taking it down. You'd be susceptible to lag and downtime based on how the company's servers are doing.

How much would be gained? I think it's already pretty clear from the deluge of incredibly awesome Minecraft videos that a.) people are already able to collaborate on enormous projects, and b.) there's already a venue for showing off awesome things that you've created or accomlished. So there goes the two main incentives for MMO-izing right out the window.

Aethaeryn

I get what you mean byut I think it has already happened in a sense - and people don't love it as much as you might think.

 

First off I get what you mean as a precurssor.  I think games have tried to do this already (Sims Online, The Second world etc.).  Xsyon is much the same actually and is a more likely candidate for a "next step".  The problem is that they are all building with no game.  If you allow the freedom then you have two options.

 

1)  You have to let everyone build in peace and then you have to deal with everyone else's "art" and "beautiful" creations which in Xsyon once was a swastika made from camp fires that you could see burning away on a hill at night or 3)

2)  You let people destroy each others things in which case it becomes a griefers paradise

Yes, I know this could somehow be be balanced out but Minecraft is not about the PvP as much.

New games are also indtroducing player made content all the time (Star Trek Online, SWG (did), etc. etc.)

 

I won't argue about Diablo or NWN being massive (not the original (AOL) or the new one mind you -although they were not really "massive" either).

I like those kinds of games and can see something come out of it but I don't think Minecraft will be the precursor.  An element of it maybe.

Axehilt

Minecraft:

• 
  works as singleplayer (and small-scale multiplayer)
• 
  works better as a better game (Terraria)
• 
  won't work at all as a MMO -- at least not without extensive reworking and limitations

Contrary to popular understanding, there are some game experiences which work well specifically because they are singleplayer.

 

Still, over the next 3 or so years I definitely feel we're going to see a lot of developers take a stab at that space.