Most MMORPG’s (Massive Multi player Online Role Playing Game) have based their game interaction experience in three pillars:
Players Interaction
Job/Level System
In-Game Events
Players Interaction: The first pillar is considered the main reason why players choose this kind of game. Playing alone is becoming more and more boring because of the same repetitive schemes and plots developed by the game industry developers. Since no new challenge has being offered to this kind of player, they searched new experiences in Multi player Strategy and Sports Games. These games could offer real time confrontation and interaction between players.
When the first MMORPG appeared, this players migrated to the servers in order to check the so called “new player interaction”. The success was immediate. Countless players began to spread the news about these games over the internet and with the job/level system very well implemented in the acclaimed ULTIMA ONLINE, the genre conquered its space among the other game genres.
Job/Level System: The Job and the Level System could show the improvement of the character by raising its power and will. Although this system was not originally created for this genre, it adapted very well for the new game experience demand. The Job system enable the player to choose new jobs (sometimes with a range 2 or 3 jobs at the same time) to create a unique player. An example is Star Wars Galaxies where you could be a Sniper, with Hunter skills and also a house objects creator. This system is more simple and fit well with more role playing MMORPG’s. The Level System is adopted by many MMORPG’s, because it is the basis of “Rack and Slash” MMORPG’s, famous because of their simplicity and quick learning that caught the attention of the majority of casual players.
In- Game Events: The third pillar is very important and MMORPG’s that have different job/level systems share the same common use for it. In-Game events, or quests, are very important because they can create new quick experiences for players. Expansion Packs contains lot of new maps and features, but they take time to develop. The In-Game events can be easily created without programming and offer countless quick challenges for the community. It is already proven that these events can bring more players into the game, because they have more than what the game can offer to them, like fame and glory within the community, or rare items and off-game prizes.
We can categorize the quests in many ways:
Number of steps or length. (In our case, small length quests)
Unique components, such as activities, knowledge, or mini games.
Overall complexity or difficulty. The difficulty may be due to how hard individual quests, or the sheer number of them.
Easy execution by the writer/designer: how fast they can be constructed.
Repeatability. Always used but with a change on the story.
Affect on the world. An important factor that can influence all aspects of the world.
Usefulness in storytelling of primary interest to the writers.
Value of effort versus reward. A group of quests that are easy to execute, but have little impact on the game might have equal value to a single massive quest that significantly changes the game world.
