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.

It's very refreshing to hear that Blizzard won't be going with one of their existing IPs for their second foray into MMOs. I was both wondering how they could manage with their somewhat derivative existing choices, but I have to admit I also assumed they would, given their history of game design and IP choices.

I'd just finished listening to an interview with 38 Studio's Curt Shilling and Steve Danuser and was equally encouraged with their take on the advantages of going with an original property. Just so long as it's done well.

Games we've seen recently have delved deeply into the most revered universes. As a player though, even if / when they recreate the world well, it's still a recreation and just lends that Theme Park feeling even more. I'd love to immerse myself in something new and well crafted from scratch.

My first impressions of Free Realms aren't likely to lead to second impressions.

Have you ever walked past a Lush or a perfume counter and the sheer assault on your nose makes you blanch? The word fragrance lacks the weight of pure evil that is unleashed upon the world (or at least the immediate area) from these high dosage overloads. That's what Free Realms feels like to me: an affront on my senses from the sounds and visuals.

The combat is, in a word, lame. I think most people are enamoured with the minigames, but combat as the base activity shouldn't suck. Even as a kid's game I wonder why they think kids should put up with inferior gameplay?

I have a complete rant prepared on the optionless web-based install, but I'll leave most of this post at gameplay. Suffice it to say they've dumbed things down in ways that are counter-productive. It sucks to be you if the default settings don't work.

Loading screens galore. Is the whole world this segmented? Imagine how much better things like derbys would be if you could watch from the sidelines or just jump in and go.

The minigames will probably have people accolading Free Realms for awhile, but even there I'm sticking with my adamant opinion that we don't need a Cooking Mama clone as an MMO, it's already a great game on its own. Minigames are available elsewhere in spades.

(Edit: I'll clarify that I think minigames would be a great addition to existing MMOs, but they aren't working for me as the main content.)

I'm sure someone will say I'm not embracing my inner child enough, but to me this is just not the environment I'd do that in. Pick up a DS and/or a Wii and these needs are met.

This ain't my game.

How do you want your PvP?

There's this perception, it may be correct: PvP'ers don't want obstacles between them and the action.

Are all PvP players like that? I don't think so. If I'm in the mood for deathmatch, I want to jump right in. For something strategic I'd prefer to take some time laying down foundations before the blood spills. And for tactical, I want good scenarios and tools / planning to coordinate inside my team.

Keen has highlighted his thoughts on the downsides of Darkfall and the summation seems to be that players aren't taking the time to build before the blood. So the PvP / gameplay is more shallow than it should be, players are skipping anything that looks like an obstacle.

Two things come to mind:

1. Darkfall isn't guiding players in the right directions. Maybe the balance is off and the grind is too much for things like battle ships. Sieges are too big, the world doesn't have enough sand or maybe it's too sandy? I haven't played the game so I won't pretend to go over the finer points, but it's not the PvP utopia we've all been waiting for. Just throwing players at each other and enabling PvP isn't automatically fun and fulfilling. As Jeremy T commented: "Good PvP doesn’t simply happen in a vacuum - the developers have to make it happen."
2. Many PvP players want all of their progression via PvP. They're not builders. This lends credence to Lum the Mad's persistent musings that you cannot go back to Ultima Online. A game where PvE worker bees ran around doing all of the grinding and PvP players farmed the honey from them. Can that be replicated? Should it? Maybe there's another formula that provides the honey, the deeply fulfilling and tasty honey of satisfaction that comes from taking someone else's stuff.

Number #2 is the bigger picture I think. Whatever you wish to call it, whether it be Hardcore PvP, Impact PvP, or Risk / Reward PvP, no matter how you want your PvP, if it's within an MMORPG it should be part of a bigger game. That includes *gasp* non-PvP activities and players too. Otherwise, why not just go play other non-MMO games? I can get instant action from Team Fortress 2 that's more entertaining to me than what I found in WAR or what I've seen from Darkfall, because Valve chose to concentrate on PvP directly rather than bullshit us with the pretense of creating a world.

Do you want all-PvP instant action? MMORPGs are probably the wrong place to get that. Especially if you want equal balancing.

Do you want territory claiming & defending, ala sieges? MMORPGs are still struggling to do this and frankly sliding backwards in the process. Probably because it doesn't work in a vacuum. There's not much incentive to defend something pre-built, that doesn't hold much relevance to anything else.

Do you want to be the Wasp that snatches honey from Worker Bees and other Wasps? We'd need an MMORPG with a great big outdoors of more than just bee hives and nests. It's got to have some flowers and fields, but preferably far more than that too. And there has to be some mechanics to keep both the Wasps and the Worker Bees happy and buzzing around, because if it's brutal on the Bees they'll just go elsewhere. Maybe my insectoid example is wrong here, but what I'm saying is I'd love to see some great PvP that matters within a full gameworld, complete with economy, exploration, mobs with decent AI, all of the trappings found in the glorious holy grail of MMOs.

It would be best to combine all three above. I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of other PvP possibilities. How do you want your PvP?

We've got a competitive culture of money. Oddly as I complain about nickel and dime schemes, someone else comes out to defend the peddlers. Because taking people's money is so damn respected.

Pay-to-Pee.

Now here's an airline proposing that they charge patrons to use the toilet. It's funny at first, but then someone is bound to realize that if they're there, on that plane, they'll pay it. And then they'll say it wasn't so bad, the airline has to make money after all.

What's so fun about spending in small increments for things that should be included? Especially when the increments add up to large numbers quickly. Maybe that's even more respected: Stealthily taking as much money as possible. That's clever right? They're great for being so clever and taking our money so much. Love the con man for the artistry of his con.

Why do we put up with this? Isn't it theft to be charged again for part of something you've already purchased? And shouldn't we expect maintenance, updates and improvements on services we're paying subscription fees for? We're already paying.

What's next, paying for the barf bag, or the lifejacket or oxygen mask? They'll call it insurance of course. Hell, isn't there already insurance for losing your luggage? Shouldn't that be a responsible part of the service in the first place? A little disclaimer takes that out, so you don't have much recourse when they lose something valuable. It was your fault, even though they lost it, you should have known better than to trust people you paid to transport you and your things. So get the insurance. More nickels. More dimes.

Pay for a Service twice?

Services within other services are treated like the new revenue stream. Is this really the future, whether we like it or not?

Why am I charged a system access fee for my cell phone? I already paid a startup fee, a connection fee and I pay for each and every individual feature my phone uses. What the hell is the system access fee for exactly? That's not a real actual thing, it's mumbo jumbo for let's charge you something extra so your $40 plan comes as a $50 billing.

Have we just gotten used to being double-dipped?

Why should MMOs start micro-charging for individual in-game features and items? Because it's the quickest way to bigger profits? Seriously, are they struggling? We pay a monthly fee for a game that's updated and maintained, including features and content that we patiently wait for that should have been in the release. Charging more should be a breach of trust, so why does it seem like players are ready to take that in stride? Taking more of our money is respected. Too damn respected.

Except I don't.

I don't respect it.

It pisses me off. I end up using the same product, paying more, but looking for a competitor that doesn't piss me off. If all of the competitors do it, I get pissed at that entire industry, for being corrupt. I'm not the only one.

The carrot and the bait-and-switch. The handling fees but no guarantees for how it's handled. The micro-you-won't-notice-if-its-in-small-payments-transactions on top of a subscription I'm already paying.

Charge me up front or charge me per service, but don't recurse and reiterate those charges.

Game Payment Models.

Microtransactions? Maybe if that's the only revenue you're tapping, but I'm probably not your market because I expect I'd get overcharged that way. Even the name for it: 'Free 2 Play' is a bit of a marketing scam. You pay as you go, it's not really free. You may start with a small trial at first, but should we label every game that has a corresponding demo as 'Free'?

Boxed? Great. I almost referred to it as the old-fashioned way. Pay for a game, there you go.

Boxed + Subscription? Fine, I'll even gladly pay for expansions if they're significant. I'm happy to pay fair prices for good services. I'm even thrilled by ongoing content updates (if they actually include content, after all, I'm paying). But I loathe being tricked into paying more (or getting less) than I expected. Don't bullshit me that my subscription pays for playing online, I can do that without paying monthly. My subscription pays for you to update your game to a reasonable degree. In exchange, you get to launch while still missing a feature or two. I accept that, even though I almost shouldn't.

Boxed + Subscription + Expansions + Microtransactions / DLC + Promotional Extras? C'mon, seriously?

I'm a self-confessed consumer whore. I am happy when you're making an honest buck, but stop ripping me off with all this extra dinging. Pick one revenue model, don't try to sneak all of them in.

I don't want to order a Steak and get charged when the waiter uses the pepper mill, but sadly I expect that'll probably happen eventually too. And someone will happily explain that pepper costs money too. Maybe we'll even get charged for every ingredient in our meal, after paying for the meal itself of course. That's all perfectly reasonable to someone, just so long as it's a clever way to make money.

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.

Maybe Darkfall is more of a social experiment in how far people will chase a cloud. It's as if someone wanted to reinvent the word vaporware to include an officially released game. Experiments in paradox?

Either that or someone at Aventurine thought that MMO players are such suckers for rare items that they'll try making the game itself rare.

This puts a whole new spin on MMO launch fuckups. It's the anti-launch.

Update: Apparently some people can actually play now. So I'm back to my wait-and-see in 6 months or so.