There are essentially five driving forces for MMORPG players. These games, by their very nature have numerous (or at least multiple) activities and each player is motivated by the following:

1. Progression - Experience to level, or obtaining gear at Endgame.
2. Rewards - Gear, currency, notoriety or any other status-symbol or in-game possession.
3. Fun Factors - Is the activity just plain fun to do, or awe-inspiring in some way?
4. Competition - Many players are keen to compete and compare their performance with other players / groups / guilds / factions.
5. Social Interaction - At the core of any multiplayer RPG is the basic social satisfaction from hanging out with your friends & guildmates, teaming up in a cooperative way and meeting / interacting with new people. Human desire to be accepted as part of a group should not be overlooked.

Each of these can motivate players in different directions. For instance, an activity could be fun, but the players may feel discouraged if it doesn't provide experience. It's great to be social, but if solo'ing is the fastest way to level, players will shun teaming up.

The first two motivations can be considered incentives in their purest form, in a way they are both rewards although it's important to separate them because one will motivate a certain type of player whereas the other may not.

In an interview with Ten Ton Hammer, Mark Jacobs repeated an established adage in MMORPGs:

I'd call this more truthiness than truism, because it's missing an important element--

Add Convenience

Convenience is the sixth motivator and it's the trump card. You can take any combination of the above and mix in convenience and whatever the activity is, it will go over in a big way. One example is if quests are trackable on a map, most players will naturally complete the quests that are closest rather than any sort of story-progression.

Players will always find the shortcuts.

For Warhammer, Scenarios match multiple categories, they're certainly competitive and fun and if the queues are short the experience is good. But above all, they're super-convenient.

Mythic may try to nerf Scenarios, or more likely boost the incentives for other activities, but the fact of the matter is that they need to boost all of the motivators, not just exp and rewards if they hope to make their game more well rounded and get players deeper into RvR and Public Quests.

Well that's one hope shattered.

It looks like Star Wars: The Old Republic will have you choosing sides when you create your character. I haven't been keeping up on details for TOR so I've been caught with wishful thinking that BioWare might let players reach their destiny through gameplay and story, but here you go: pick a class, pick a faction.

I'm not fond of the two-faction this-side-or-that system that's become the defacto norm for MMORPGs. Horde versus Alliance, Destruction versus Order (why couldn't Chaos be a third faction?), Freeps versus Creeps (okay that's mostly one faction), and now Republic versus Sith.

At the very least, I was thinking players might be able to switch sides, or have some sort of ambiguity, but that doesn't seem likely if your class choice also selects an allegiance.

Jeff Kaplan's GDC talk is making the rounds. Tigole (Kaplan) roasts WoW from the inside, trying to explain lessons Blizzard has learned. Except some of the elements he disparages, were the best parts for me.

Lum the Mad deftly pulled out some notable quotes. I'm going to follow his lead.

On Quest text:

I don't know about you, but when I'm playing an MMORPG, I'm not seeking my inner-child. In some console games perhaps, but when it comes to an RPG I like to be treated like a literate adult.

It's not like I want to see a wall-of-text on quests, but there's a difference between rambling on and well-written (and concise) progression of story.

I'm all for putting the story into the action too, but I'm going to be bored and disappointed if I feel everything has been dumbed down. If it's going to be in the action, why bother with quest dialogues at all? In that style of game, action should just happen by entering into an area or encountering an NPC, etc..

You know what else children like? Fast Food. Ask most children where they want to eat and the answer is McDonalds. I asked my niece and she answered "Candy!". I'm not much for candy myself except in small doses and that's the same way I am with games that try to appeal to kids.

Showing a flow chart of Loch Modan's quests:

I loved Loch Modan. Yes it started with almost randomly clustered quests as he described, but those quests funnelled into a few distinct directions: Like the wonderful questline to prevent terrorist dwarves from blowing up the dam. Most importantly I felt like I was leading these quests, rather than the quests leading me.

On mystery:

The Stalvan mystery quests are among my favourite, spanning Elwynn, Westwood and Duskwood. The quests that awaken Stitches in Duskwood are also great. Both of these started with the sort of mystery he describes here.

Oh, that quest:

Worst... quest... ever.

Honestly I think Jeff Kaplan is / was a good quest designer. I believe he's responsible for some of the better quests, especially in Duskwood, which still stands in my mind as the best zone of the game (or any MMO for that matter). At least as it was on launch. Duskwood has been pretty much butchered since TBC sadly, it's been poorly maintained to keep up with changes in the game. Apparently it doesn't fit into what Blizzard considers good questing now.

Duskwood's downward trend pretty much sums up what I feel about WoW overall. Much of the great leveling content has been trivialized. Kaplan has transformed from starry-eyed quest designer into a sort of head honcho that's ripped apart many of the good things that were and replacing them with watered-down lowest-common-denominator content and gameplay.

Using another paradigm:
I loved U2's earlier music, it was full of passion and oomph. They've progressed further as musicians, but in the process they've become less impassioned and more of a machine.

WoW is now mass-market, for sure. It just doesn't appeal to me as much as it did.

Jeff Kaplan's opinions here and his effect with them on the game, are pretty much why I no longer play World of Warcraft.

I'm not sure what the magic formula is that makes crafting special, but what I am sure of is it's not really gameplay in the traditional sense. It's closer to the bliss I see in my roommate when she has to file a bunch of things.

Sorting, collecting, storing, building and sorting again. Watching a progress bar as you boil 78 leather. To some, this is tedious. It should be to all, if you're thinking it terms of gameplay, but oddly crafting remains one of the most popular activities in most MMOs, regardless of how poorly it's done.

It's satisfying, do we know why?

Today, I'm farming Pristine Hides, for both Harhm (trying to max Artisan Tailoring) and Bellobrahm (my alt, trying to get ahead of the curve with Metalworking). This morning I was killing Auroch's for Sturdy Leather, grabbing the odd Rich Iron Ore node along the way. Tomorrow, no doubt, I'll be hunting down crit reagents and shards for special items.

Crafting in LOTRO is similar but better than WoW. It's not the best system I've seen, but it's pretty good. I like the tier unlocking system, the crit gear and the crafting guild recipes. There's room for a lot more though.

Crafting could always be better. It's one of the oddest things neglected by developers and I think I've got my finger on why: They try to hard to make it gameplay, or to link it into gameplay, generally as a carrot. Sometimes, it's treated as a skillset (ala WoW's BoP recipes).

The classic gameplay carrot example:

Almost every game I've played it's nigh-difficult to create items for yourself as you level, you're constantly chasing that dream, where the materials drop from mobs you'll kill tomorrow for the gear you should be able to wear now. This usually culminates at Endgame in a crafting profession better suited for alts, either twinking them in gear or supplying them in materials so they can try a little better at the same crafting ladders.

I'm of the opinion that's an oft-repeated mistake, or perhaps an unfortunate compromise where the alternative would be much more involved (and development consuming) crafting. MMOs lately seem to lean toward these sorts of compromises. In this case, I would bet that crafting is fulfilling on its own, to most of the players that prefer it. And the players that don't? That's where crafting integrates into an MMO's economy, put it beyond the players who wouldn't want to craft anyway. They can buy it from the crafters / AH.

It's been past a decade or so, but I'm still waiting for crafting to get done right. Meanwhile, I'll happily farm my leather and get some satisfaction out of making what's available to me.

You can't go back to Ultima Online. *

If that's what Darkfall is designed to do, it will fail miserably.

I'm not talking about launch screwups (although they've probably unseated Anarchy Online for the distinction of worst MMO launch). I'm talking about gameplay.

Where Darkfall might succeed is in the differences. I haven't played it, and in fact I'd say nobody has played it in proper form yet. But their model isn't entirely a clone of UO's wild west 'glory days'.

Near as I can tell, they're going for the same feel, but that's a mistake too. It's chasing a ghost. UO's 'glory days' are some phantom PvP paradise that never really existed. It's been pumped as legendary, the bullshit stacks up and up and up. And that's why Darkfall is getting trashed by the likes of Lum the Mad. If that's what Aventurine is chasing, they're just adding another shovel to the pile.

I really hope they've had more than that planned. I can only assume there must be some kind of common sense at Aventurine, somewhere. It's just math, they can't all suck as much as whoever's in charge of servers and accounts.

* Technically you can go back to UO, it's still running, but in terms of going back to a mythical era, no you can't.

I admire Keen's persistence and passion, he so badly wants WAR to be the game he imagined it would be. He's created a map and an outline for what he hopes the Land of the Dead update will be.

The past few months WAR has seen a lot of changes, big and small. Some of it goes with the territory for any MMO release. The more game-changing stuff has been accoladed while my mouth is agape. If the game didn't need the changes so much, the playerbase might have revolted, but like Keen they're a persistent lot: They want their RvR that bad. And it still has a long ways to go.

WAR is so obviously broken to me. It can be fixed and it probably will be fixed, possibly over and over again. I'm not predicting any sort of gloom and doom, but there are frustrations and those will continue. Let's face it, this game hasn't just been beta-tested while we play, it's still being designed. Or redesigned, depending on how you'd like to look at it.

There's a school of thought prevalent in the community, that DAoC (Dark Age of Camelot) was closer to the mark in RvR goodness. In that case, this community is even more stubbornly sticking with Mythic, because that taste is still with them and they want it again.

It does beg the question though, why didn't Mythic just upgrade DAoC? Aside from the updated graphics engine (with many of its own problems), is WAR a downgrade from their previous game? DAoC v0.9?

I burned out waiting for the outcome, but I find myself ever curious where this game is going to end up.

(Related: I Has PC has an article up regarding incomplete MMOs and the possibilities of commercial betas.)

Relmstein points out that lag and WoW's raid encounters don't mix. Even better, he identifies it as a design issue. I think he's got that bang on.

The Theory:

I'm a firm believer that wondrous things can be created while working within limitations. When you're aware of where your walls and ceiling are, that's when you know your craft. You can create truly great things by exploring and filling that space, using much of the volume available, because you've measured it. That's how most things solid and worthwhile get made.

There are many fans of 'pushing limitations'. I can see the merits, I've accoladed the boundary-pushers too. When you see someone come up with a new paradigm, it's exciting. But I wonder sometimes how many of those paradigms are just creative ways to fill the space, with the boundaries still intact.

During the 'dot com' era, I worked in an environment where my boss often said "get it done". He didn't want to hear about any technical obstacles. I call this the Captain Kirk approach to creativity, where Scotty is expected to pull a rabbit out of a hat at the end of the day. In the real world the rabbit comes out limping from the sheer exasperation of trying to achieve the improbable.

Networked gaming:

I have a bit of an interest in latency, packetloss and all of the other issues of network connectivity. Maybe in some other lifetime I'd be a game-related network coder (my math skills lack in this incarnation), those guys have my utmost respect for working within their inherent limitations and delivering the improbable for these games.

Playing Air Warrior smoothly via a 2400 baud modem on GEnie, that fascinated me, especially when I compared it later to the laggy experience during the launch of Ultima Online, or Quake before Quakeworld. The Internet is a difficult network for games to work in, even though some things have become standardized and better understood over time.

Game designers naturally want immediacy and fluid action to work with, but when you push the limits in a networked environment, any sort of lag is going to screw it up.

There must be a ton of clever ways content can be approached with lag in mind, but most of these games just build on what's tried and true, so pushing up against the walls is inevitable. I guess we need some new paradigms. ;)