Could Spore call time on MMORPGs?
On the 6th January 2007 I reached the level cap for the first time in an MMORPG game.
That game was World of Warcraft.
I have fond memories of the game from my initial time through. The game was entertaining & well thought out, I also found a few like minded souls playing the game that made the whole experience a fuller one than anything a single player game had ever offered.
Do I venture back to Azeroth now? Hardly.
In July 2007 I hadn’t been using my PC for gaming since I initially stopped playing WoW & I made a post about how Spore may be the game that turns me back on to PC gaming. Of course other games have come & gone since I made that post, some of which I have tried.
None of MMORPGs that I have tried have had the same impact on me as WoW did or Meridian 59 did 12 years ago in 1996.
I made this statement in the fore mentioned post about Spore:
“So Spore could lead the way here in giving the player a vast fun sharable gaming experience without the need to be cooperating with other players at the same time.”
The ingredient that pulled me back to playing WoW & M59 each time was the social factor those games had. When that is lost you may as well play solo & if you are playing solo then why play online?
Looking back at what I said then, Spore may have something that looks a solo game but could also provide a vibrant social community.
To explain, as a Spore player you will be able to experience what other players have created & to pit your creations against theirs:
“The creatures, vehicles, and buildings the player can create will be uploaded automatically to a central database (or a peer-to-peer system), cataloged and rated for quality (based on how many users have downloaded the object or creature in question), and then re-distributed to populate other players’ games”
“The game would report to the player on how other players interacted with them (for example, how many times other players made alliances with their race or destroyed their planet). The personalities of user-created species are dependent on how the user played them.”1
¹Taken from Spore(video game) Wikipedia entry.
It is not however a multiplayer game experience but what has been called a massively single-player metaverse. Interaction between players would not be direct via the game itself, instead the interaction will be via the objects that each player has created.
Spore may not be the line that is placed through MMORPGs but with so many players on the look out for the next big WoW, could it be an alternative to the tired & tested PvE/PvP/Raid coma?
§Related Posts ¦ Spore
This entry was posted on January 7, 2008 at 10:15 am and is filed under Gaming, MMORPG, Massively single-player metaverse, Meridian 59, PC, Spore, World of Warcraft. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.
Tags: WoW level cap
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January 7, 2008 at 12:55 pm
By all accounts Spore will be a great game, but I see the “multiplayer” aspect you’re talking about as more of a built in mechanism to prevent things from getting too stale. It’s just a very clever way to ensure you’re always seeing new units and new places. A very interesting thought though.
I’m surprised a fellow such as yourself hasn’t tried some more single player games that have come out last year, there have been some very very good ones. But I suppose there’s only so much time in the day for games! Maybe that’s why I’ve focused more on single player games lately and have completely ignored MMOs, I’m not beholden to anybody else to make the experience enjoyable.
January 8, 2008 at 12:40 am
Ah time precious time! Bioshock & Call of Duty 4 were big games I did try…you can bet I will be getting Spore too.
I think you underestimate what Spore will bring to the table with regards to the MSPM element in the game. Many MMORPGs have dealt the social & guild elements of their games in a bad way. If Spore gets it right then you may see players move away from the traditional MMORPG to what Spore has to offer them.
January 8, 2008 at 12:43 pm
We shall see. I hope you are right, but I haven’t seen anything to suggest in any Will Wright interviews that the mechanics there are quite what you’re talking about. You could theoretically explore the universe *I* made, for example, but beyond different units/buildings what does that really give you? It’s freakin’ cool, WAY cool, don’t get me wrong.
January 8, 2008 at 1:22 pm
I believe the planet you create could be included but I don’t know if that’s been confirmed or denied. As they are making a big thing of the planet you create is ‘home’, it makes sense that others could visit it?
I take it you’ll be buying it then robust’? hehe…
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