Nathan

I don't think user created content is the only way to go to make MMO stories have actual conflict. EVE has no player created content (at least of the Player Made Quest variety). The players are the story, as you say, and they ARE role playing.

The genius of EVE is that the player and the role they are playing are indistinguishable. A player who likes to mine is a miner. A player who likes to steal is a pirate. A player who likes to play tricky financial games runs a corporation. And doing all those things changes the world. In other words roleplaying is a mechanic that is built into the game, and affects the game, and other players experiences in the game.

This, I think, is the mechanic that needs to be translated into other MMOs. For roleplaying to mean anything, it has to have some impact on the game - and being a paladin who goes and fights a monster that respawns for the next paladin has no impact. For MMOs to have real conflict, what the paladin does has to do something to the game. The players must become the story.

I know this is harder to code than +5 armor or fair and balanced loot drops, but I think it can be done. Here are some suggestions.

1 - Voting. Create a working economy and a system of government in the game that can impose tariffs on various crafting resources. Let players or guilds own some of those resources, and then let them vote on which resources get the most beneficial tariffs. Players and guilds will soon be making deals with each other to influence each others votes. Bribery will run rampant. Dirty deals will be made. In short, create a system that can be gamed, and players will game it, resulting in conflict - which results in story.

2 - Leaderboards with in-game meaning. The best PVPers and the wealthiest grinders get the biggest piece of the economic pie. They are allowed to control the resources and set prices. The only way to break up these monopolies is for smaller guilds to band together and topple them from the top of the leaderboard. But there are always traitors and in every alliance there is always one or two players out for themselves. Conflict ensues. Story follows.

3 - Expansions that change the economy. The devs open up a new mountain range and suddenly iron is plentiful. The bottom drops out of the market. All those Iron Guilds are suddenly scrambling to maintain their power. Where are they going to get it from? Three months later, a plague breaks out, and suddenly healing herbs are incredibly valuable. Wars are fought over the forest where the herbs grow. Conflict and story again.

None of this would interfere with character progression or PvE grinding, but would add another layer of gaming that would allow players to rise and fall based on their interaction with other players, rather than play out set stories that remain static no matter how many times you play them.

What do you think, sirs?

So, that big shoulder pad switches sides when he turns around?

Driving and customization. I sucked at shooting, I sucked at winning, but driving around, smashing through stuff, hitting ramps, taking skidding turns in a car that looked exactly like I wanted it to look, with a character that looked exactly like I wanted him to look, was a stone gas, and I'll miss it.

And I didn't get a screen cap before they closed the doors! Damn!

My problem with role-playing in MMOs is that it is always irrelevant to the actual mechanics of the game. It doesn't affect the rewards you get or your progression. If there was a mechanic that gave tangible rewards for good role playing and tangible penalties for bad role playing, then role-playing would mean something in the game and more casual players might actually care.

Here's a suggestion.

As part of the character creation process, a player would select various personality traits that his character would have in the game, and the game would reward the player for sticking to those traits and punish him for playing counter to them. For example, let's say you decide to play a noble paladin who never starts a fight. The game will note every time you attack without being attacked and give you less experience points, and will also note when you attack after first having been hit and give you more. Or say you are a greedy thief. The game will only give you experience for the gold you collect, but not for kills or victories.

Basically its a behavior contract that the player makes with the game as he or she is designing their character, and you get better rewards for abiding by the contract, and less for breaking it.

Whaddaya think?

3 - I guess I meant RP/in-character smack-talk, not being a jerk.

Hmmm, I care about almost none of the things most people are complaining about. What I want to know about are the social aspects of the game.

1 - Did the area-specific voice chat work well?
2 - Did the last-fm tech work well?
3 - Was it cool talking smack with your enemies?
4 - How was the community?
5 - Did you join in a guild and compete with other guilds?
6 - Did you see inter-guild rivalries? Did people get into that stuff?
7 - Was the music editor easy to work with?
8 - Did certain people develop reputations and fame, as has been claimed in the hype?
9 - Did you do any buying and selling of items on the marketplace?
10 - What were people doing that didn't involve combat?

I see your point, SirNiko. I suppose it would have to be optional. Something that players wanted to do, not something that was forced on them. Maybe, as some of the other commenters have said, an option that gets you extra rewards for choosing a harder path.

I like Lizard's suggestion. A sort of "Nine Lives" approach. You get nine lives a month (or a week?) and there is permadeath on the tenth death. That way you have to be cautious, but not too cautious, and there would be a lot of tension and excitement as you started to get close to your ninth life.

WB won't own all the LotR game rights. Games Workshop still owns the rights to the LotR table-top miniatures game.

I wonder how you can have a fully voiced MMO, and at the same time, an MMO where the player's actions can change the world of the game. If, as they claim, player choices can affect the world at large, what happens when the players' actions create a situation they have not recorded any dialog for? And if it is impossible to create a situation they have not recorded any dialog for, then the players aren't really changing the game, right?

One of these claims can't be true.