Synopsis: An MMO design can be thought of as being a set of character roles that relate to one another. Each role is supported by a complete entertainment system, and the interactions of those systems establishes the way the roles relate to one another.
This article is about examining MMO system designs by considering character roles and the way that they relate to each other. The purpose of looking at system designs in that light is that it underscores the multiplayer aspect of the game genre; if players are not interacting, then the value of having the players in the same virtual environment is squandered.
The examination begins by considering a supposed role for a character. As an example, the Crafter. If you want a design to contain a role for Crafters, then you must have a complete entertainment system devoted to crafting. Crafters must be able to be using that system every moment that they are in the game. They should not be obligated to do things unrelated to crafting.
But what does related to crafting mean? Part of the challenge of design lies in finding the set of activities that someone enthusiastic about crafting wants to experience. Critically, the designer of the game is focused on ensuring that crafters have a game experience of their own. That experience is not polluted with warrior tasks or political tasks or animal husbandry tasks. It's about crafting. A player who enjoys crafting can enter the game and do nothing but the activities of crafting and be happy.
That's the key to creating a role: that there are players who enjoy doing a specific set of activities.
Now comes the second part of our examination, which is the way roles relate to each other. It's great to have a crafting role, a political role, a fighting role, a shipping role and many more roles besides, but unless they are related to one another then the multiplayer element of gameplay is not fostered.
To relate roles is again an exercise in design. No magic recipe exists that I know of to ensure that any two characters with different roles will interact. However, there are some natural ways in which character interact. There is the producer-consumer interaction. There is the cooperative interaction. There is the competitive interaction. Undoubtedly there are others, but use those three as a starting point.
Returning to the example of crafting, we'd pretty quickly look to a producer-consumer interaction. A crafter creates things that characters of other roles consume. At that point, we have to do something very important: we have to make sure that the producer wants to produce for the consumer and that the consumer wants to consume what is being produced. If bakers are making bread for warriors and warriors don't want to be bothered with the maintenance task of eating bread, then the relationship between the two roles is not a sustainable one. Players with warrior characters will attempt to minimize or eliminate that relationship every way that they possibly can.
If two roles are going to relate, we want them relating in mutually enjoyable ways. Crafters who make warrior tools are liked by the warriors. This is the case in Eve Online where the people piling all those goods into the economy in support of the corporate wars are appreciated by those fighting the corporate wars. Both sides are entertained by the interaction.
The last part of the examination is making an interaction sustainable. If a certain character role involved providing a one-time service to another character role, we don't end up with a sustainable interaction. We want an interaction that players will continue to use time and time again. Eve Online implements a marvelous structure where corporations chew through equipment in their bid to play the corporate war game, causing a constant demand for harvested goods as well as crafted goods. That is a system that has all three elements of a good role
1. An entertaining system for the role
2. Mutually-entertaining interactions with other roles
3. Sustained interactions with those roles
I should note that interactions between characters do not need to be live. Being able to drop off an item with an offline crafter so that he can repair it later may be perfectly acceptable. Selling crafted items on an automated market does not involve live interactions, but the interactions between the members of the different roles are certainly present.
If you are hoping to create a distinct role for a certain activity in your game, be sure to devote a full entertainment experience to that role. Players who enjoy that activity will spend time there, and you will have created that role in your player population. By relating their activities to other players' activities in a sustainable way, you will find that your player community will strengthen. This is true whether the interaction is designed to be cooperative, competitive or some other variation. So long as both groups enjoy the interaction, you're golden.
