Roll Your Own MMO

I'm officially excited. Issue 13 of City of Heroes/Villains - one of my favourite MMOs - is coming, and it could turn out to be a milestone in MMO history. For in Issue 13, true power is handed to the players.

That's right: players will be able to create their own missions for other people to play.

I can't tell you how long I've been waiting for this moment in an MMO (well, probably since I played Counter-Strike and wondered why more games weren't made by the people who played them - then played Neverwinter Nights and wondered why more developers don't cultivate those gamers).

The details of the Issue 13 mission creator, called the Mission Architect, are still sketchy, but this is the lowdown according to the official site:

First the City of Heroes Character Creator set a new standard for player creation and customization. Now, Issue 13 takes another giant step, allowing players to design their own missions and story arcs to share with the entire City of Heroes community. Using an intuitive interface similar to the game’s detailed Character Creator, players can create missions from the ground up. Players will determine details ranging from environments, mission objectives, and enemies, to written fiction and character dialogue; giving their stories nearly infinite depth and personalization.

Among other rewards, authors and architects who create the most extraordinary content will garner acclaim and reputation. Community feedback will be paramount and some missions will elevate in status unlocking new rewards and benefits for their creators.

Lead designer, Matt 'Positron' Miller, goes on to elaborate a little more:

With virtually no information to go on, some people very much underestimated what would be possible with the Mission Architect. Some got it spot on, and some people wanted features that were simply impossible to get into the system at launch. Even so, we are very proud of the system as it stands. Players can make their own story arcs using a customized version of the tool used by our mission writers, in some cases rivaling our own internal tools in ease-of-use. I am really looking forward to playing the stories you all create with this amazing tool!

So far, player response has been overwhelmingly positive. And I can see why. I'm overwhelmingly positive about it! And I rarely use exclamation marks outside the covers of magazines!

I'm not only looking forward to playing other people's missions - and if they're anything like the calibre of the awesome Penultima series for NWN, then it'll be worth keeping the subscription going for another several months, at least - but I'm looking forward to making my own missions.

But most of all, I'm keen to see what types of missions people make, and which ones prove the most popular. It'll be like natural selection - the weak, lame and boring missions will be trampled by the strong, fast and fecund ones. That alone would be worth a mint to the developers, who I'm sure will be watching closely to see what players really want to play.

In fact, here's a hit prediction. No-one will use the caves map.

Also, there are a few things I fully expected from a mission creation tool in the hands of players. One was some clever, humourous, imaginative and fun missions. Another was a plethora of crap. And last, but far from least, was a mountain of Farming missions (which I capitalise to distinguish from the other, even less dignified, form of farming).

Already in CoX certain end-game missions are preferred over others for Farming. These typically include large open maps that are easily navigable, with large spawns of non-mezzing mobs that deal a highly resisted type of damage and don't include Bosses. Hence the phenomenon of the fire/kinetics controller, who can singlehandedly mezz then devastate entire spawns with impunity.

Yet, thankfully (for some, not for the Farmers) the devs are one step ahead. According to Positron:

I should probably take this moment to talk about what the Mission Architect is not meant for. It is not meant for “easy leveling” or “badging” or “farming”. Those are things that we specifically wanted the Mission Architect NOT to do. This may be a disappointment to some, I know. The goal was to give creative minds an outlet to tell the stories they have in their heads. We didn’t want the system clogged with Farm missions, so actually finding someone’s story that they lovingly crafted became more a chore than it was worth.

As such, the devs have tweaked the rewards to dissuade Farm missions being built. We don't yet know how they've tweaked them - and hopefully they haven't watered down the rewards for the non-Farmers.

Anyway, this'll be big, people. And if it works, it could well set the scene for future developments along these lines. Imagine - and entire MMO 'platform' where players create the content. Oh yeah, there's Metaplace, but no-one really knows what that is yet, so it doesn't count...