- Little or no presence of story-driven events
- No true "ending" of the storyline
- Game economy is mostly user-generated
The main difference between single-player games and MMOs are basically in the storyline and gameplay. In contemporary games, the player will more or less follow the storyline, which has a definite beginning and may contain multiple endings. However, in MMORPGs, there is no other storyline besides the introductory story. Players are encouraged to play together from the start to solve quests, kill monsters and other things, but may not get involved in the storyline any further than that.
As a matter of fact, the game's focus is not to follow through what little there is of a storyline, but to have fun with others online. Many of the quests of an MMORPG require 2 or more people to complete, mainly because the monsters are powerful enough to kill an individual player without support from his team members. An MMORPG actively encourages players to work together and socialize to build relationships as they progress to the maximum level. Players of MMORPGs do not have real fun until they establish strong relationships with friends and acquiantances.
The lack of an in-game storyline means that most MMORPGs basically use the users' social interactions online to generate and maintain interest in the game. In layman's terms, no friends, no fun. An MMORPG is so dependent on social interactions that they usually have features most games and single-player campaigns of games do not have. The most prominent, of course, is the chatbox. In every MMORPG, from the most sophisticated like Everquest 2, to something as simplistic as Runescape, has a chatbox. No MMORPG will not feature this element in the user interface. Another feature is the ability to create guilds and teams in-game.
An example of chatting while online. The sharing of information is crucial for success
Apart from the user interface and functions, the game mechanics themselves are adapted to encourage contact with other players. Game characters in MMORPGs are much more versatile than their counterparts. In addition to being able to fight and interact with NPCs, Players can open up their own shops, perform a variety of social actions(known as emoticons in-game) such as dancing and laughing, register other users as friends online and invite them into teams to help each other take down monsters they normally could not on their own.
MMORPGs have also given users the oppurtunity to go beyond just chatting and hanging out with friends online by introducing servers which are designated for role-playing only.This is targeted towards players who prefer to role-play their characters and experience the game in more detail than they could in normal servers. By mutual consent, all the players are to act "in-character" at all times in order to maintain the atmosphere of the game. Similar behaviour can be seen in online chatrooms and forums in the form of fanfictions and role-playing stories some users write. MMORPGs are more powerful in this area because it provides players with powerful imagery and a static world in which they can involve themselves more thoroughly than in a forum.
Wars in Space Cowboys got very intense sometimes
Another aspect of social interaction online games encourage the most is competition between players, which most often takes the form of PvP (Player versus Player) action and opposing factions within the game. In some MMORPGs, PvP goes beyond two-person duels and pits players of an opposing factions against another. They can be something as small as guild battles between 2 or more rival guilds to a server-wide war between two factions. Two examples of these include World of Warcraft and Space Cowboy. WoW gets players to join one of the 2 factions, the Alliance and the Horde, which are at war with each other. Once they are of a high enough level, WoW introduces them to PvP action and encourages them to battle by enticing players with Honor points, which they can then use to buy rewards like rare weapons and armors that do not drop off monsters. Similarly, Space Cowboy also puts 2 factions, the ANI and BCU against each other. Players collect Nation Contribution Points by killing members of the opposing faction. Once the points reach a certain amount, the opposing nation's mothership appears and the nation that triggered the event will have to kill it within a set time. Once the mothership is destroyed, all the members of the nation will gain boosts and special rewards. This usually results in aggressive nation-wide raiding into enemy territory and promotes camaraderie amongst members of the same faction.
Asda story encourages strong bonds between 2 people
Some MMORPGs, in particular the more recent ones, introduce extra features that promote closer cooperation and contact between players. Asda Story, a new MMORPG by MaxOn Soft, features a "Soulmate" system, in which players can become "soulmates" with each other. Using this will unlock a set of skills which do anything from grant skill bonuses to being able to resurrect your partner from the dead even if your character is normally incapable of doing so. Another game, Dream of Mirror Online, has a matchmaking system incorporated in it. Even though in-game marriages is not news, DOMO takes the concept even further by "matchmaking" in-game characters based on the birth date and zodiac sign (chinese zodiac) of the character, which is entered by the user at creation. Audio and visual effects cue the user whenever someone compatible is nearby.
Lastly, when people review and try out new MMORPGs online, one of the aspects of the game they will pay particular attention to is the game's community. Games with an active and friendly community, attentive nad helpful GMs and plenty of players will often score much higher than games with better graphics and effects. In the discussion forums in mmorpg.com, one can almost always find that the word "community" will appear in comments about any of the games being featured there.
In conclusion, the social aspect in online games is very significant, because social interactions make up the main attraction and greatly affects the quality of the gameplay. MMORPG developers have to make sure that people can interact with each other easily and in good ways, as the games allow like-minded people to play together and forge friendships in an environment that is both encouraging and conducive for it.
Pictures taken from: http://www.gametribe.com/gt/games/domo/, http://asda.gamengame.com/ , http://www.mmorpg.com/, http://sco-forum.gpotato.com/
