Game design questions...

Two aspects of MMORPG design that I see omitted in modern iterations of MMORPG releases.

1. Social areas - One or many places in game where players hang out with intent on interaction with others.  Common activities are drinking, dancing, mini-games, and in general BSing with others in something other than trade chat.

2. Player housing - A place to go to get away from others and work on personal activity such as crafting, storage, etc.  Player purchases or builds a house / apartment / condo and personalizes it to their liking.  Also can be enterable by others with invitation for entertaining, BSing or perhaps trades, enchants, etc.

These two areas are some of the reasons I'm looking into an urban environment for an MMORPG.

Social areas could be setup as bars / nightclubs, coffee houses, etc.  Add mini-games and music.  That would be cool. 

With 20 to 40 story apartment buildings player constructed housing can be avoided (something I'm not prepared to tackle) and player housing could be done by looking at sample apartments and then purchasing the appropriate key for a vacant apartment, with the key being a tool to enter an apartment and used to grant access to others.  Just watch out to lockup before you leave or you might find vagrants living in it  *grin*.

I've been spending a ton of time researching The Matrix Online (RIP).  Old reviews, videos, blogs, and a few other things have sort of given me an understanding of the game.

My problem:

For the most part, this vast cityscape consists of office buildings, apartment buildings, and shops.  Gameplay seems to have revolved around:

1. Running missions - A sort of questing where one is given the task of entering a building, killing person X, stealing an item, and then escaping with the item for quest turn in.

2. Grinding gangs for collectors - This is like the collector system in Guild Wars where gang members drop trinkets. Kill gang members, gather enough trinkets, and trade them at a collector for gear.

3. Exile hidouts - Closest parallel is a public dungeon.  One enters the hideaway (I'm guessing with a group?) grinds to the end of the dungeon (they look like industrial boiler rooms?) kills junk mobs, mini-bosses, and an end-boss, then teleports out of the dungeon back to the entrance.

Am I misunderstanding this?  It seems a little incomplete.

My thoughts:

Cyberpunk would be great for roleplay, especially with a deep clothing system and character customization.  Player housing in pre-constructed buildings seems reasonable to achieve.  Dividing the city into three major districts each with its own faction could make for some cool city-street fight style PVP, maybe throw in contested areas for territory control.

Endgame I have two ideas.

Make a bunch of high end dungons perhaps in their own area, or

Remove levels completely and make the whole game endgame.

The PVE side has me stumped.

Grinding gangs for XP and collector items might as well be "collect 10 rat tails" *ugh* or group grind like in the old-school games.  I find tha latter more appealing than rat-tail quests, but I know some would not.

I'm not sure how I feel about the implimentation of missions (quests) as they did it.  In modern MMOs, it's "go kill 10 pigmen because we don't like them".  You go to the pigmen camp, pop 10 and leave.  Doing this in office buildings just feels odd.  I can't pin down why.

At best I'm 50-50 on if this would be worth pursuing.  The biggest advantage I see is apartments.  The PVE sounds meh.

Are you asking for clarification on how the original MXO worked, or trying to create your own formula to it's original scope, or something?

Can't really give any input, though, since I never played it.

Originally posted by GTwander

Are you asking for clarification on how the original MXO worked, or trying to create your own formula to it's original scope, or something?

Can't really give any input, though, since I never played it.

To answer, yes and yes... at least considering it.  I never played it either.

I like the cyberpunk aspect, and a mix of Matrix and Blade Runner styling could make for a visually impressive world.  I just don't seem to grasp a way to make the PVE even remotely interesting given normal MMO mechanics.

Originally posted by ActionMMORPG

To answer, yes and yes... at least considering it.  I never played it either.

I like the cyberpunk aspect, and a mix of Matrix and Blade Runner styling could make for a visually impressive world.  I just don't seem to grasp a way to make the PVE even remotely interesting given normal MMO mechanics.

It's a natural consequence of having a wide-open world that players can explore, and wanting things (such as combat) to happen as a result of walking around in that world. If there weren't hostile mobs, it wouldn't be as exciting to explore.

Hostile mobs make sense in a fantasy MMO because of a.) monsters, and b.) Fantastic Racism (i.e. all ogres are evil, so whenever you see an ogre, it makes sense for you to attack each other). In a cyberpunk genre, you're not going to experience this in the same way. If there are mobs standing around waiting to kill you or be killed, you would need to establish a reason for it. "It's a monster, duh" or "It's an ogre, duh" works for fantasy. "It's a miscreant, duh" doesn't work as well—a cyberpunk setting is too similar to our own world so we look for justification because we know that human beings don't fight each other to the death on the spot for no reason.

Superhero MMOs kind of get away with it. You can have people getting mugged on every street corner and it can be justified very easily by establishing that it's a tongue-in-cheek comic book-y, supervillian-y game world.

  Ohhh I thought The Matrix Online was coming back , i liket that kung fu fighting game

Originally posted by ActionMMORPG

Game design questions...

 

Two aspects of MMORPG design that I see omitted in modern iterations of MMORPG releases.

1. Social areas - One or many places in game where players hang out with intent on interaction with others.  Common activities are drinking, dancing, mini-games, and in general BSing with others in something other than trade chat. - Most Players Found places for socail in MXO  Be it maria Central and Tabor West  Of majority of the PVP/Rp social public gatherings  on non pvp servers. Also small clubs factions/Crews Claimed

2. Player housing - A place to go to get away from others and work on personal activity such as crafting, storage, etc.  Player purchases or builds a house / apartment / condo and personalizes it to their liking.  Also can be enterable by others with invitation for entertaining, BSing or perhaps trades, enchants, etc.

A point point in development, Ships were classified for player housing never used. At some point near the end a private Faction controled area for your Team was opened up you could get and use for private meetings and gatherings and minor rp.

 

These two areas are some of the reasons I'm looking into an urban environment for an MMORPG.

Social areas could be setup as bars / nightclubs, coffee houses, etc.  Add mini-games and music.  That would be cool. 

With 20 to 40 story apartment buildings player constructed housing can be avoided (something I'm not prepared to tackle) and player housing could be done by looking at sample apartments and then purchasing the appropriate key for a vacant apartment, with the key being a tool to enter an apartment and used to grant access to others.  Just watch out to lockup before you leave or you might find vagrants living in it  *grin*.

 

I've been spending a ton of time researching The Matrix Online (RIP).  Old reviews, videos, blogs, and a few other things have sort of given me an understanding of the game.

 

My problem:

 

For the most part, this vast cityscape consists of office buildings, apartment buildings, and shops.  Gameplay seems to have revolved around:

1. Running missions - Missions were run from A to B to C fight mobs in between Usally gangs or enemy factions

2. Grinding gangs for collectors - I don't remember all the mechincs behind this but a system was in place to get certain Code Drops and Certian gear through trade vendors.

3. Exile hidouts - Closest parallel is a public dungeon.  One enters the hideaway  Could be solo'ed , Special gear as well  clothing mostly

 

Am I misunderstanding this?  It seems a little incomplete. MXo Was designed by Monolith to be sold. So yes it was incomplete on many levels. The Game was Fun on alot of levels, it was the community that kept it that way. Though do to lots of missing content and development the devs decided player liasons were needed , Players that worked with GM's to push the stories and provide a depth to missions. Sadly this is very bad idea on so many levels., lots of reasons for that but I will not write a wall of text on it. You can check archived MXO forums and look anything under "Lesig" the group for the player/dev roleplay.  Idea is great in concept.

 

Endgame I have two ideas.

Make a bunch of high end dungons perhaps in their own area, or

Remove levels completely and make the whole game endgame.  Check out UO for a game with out levels. I am sure there are others not sure what.  old SWG maybe.

The PVE side has me stumped.

Grinding gangs for XP and collector items might as well be "collect 10 rat tails" *ugh* or group grind like in the old-school games.  I find tha latter more appealing than rat-tail quests, but I know some would not.

I'm not sure how I feel about the implimentation of missions (quests) as they did it.  In modern MMOs, it's "go kill 10 pigmen because we don't like them".  You go to the pigmen camp, pop 10 and leave.  Doing this in office buildings just feels odd.  I can't pin down why.  The later MXO missions that came were more then jsut killing mobs , Sabotage , Spy, Etc. They did start to understand the possiblities if only a company with more vision then SOE developers had the game and wanted to invest in. Monolith had great idea but they made code that did not lend itself to modifaction (which is bad in MMOS) 

 

At best I'm 50-50 on if this would be worth pursuing.  The biggest advantage I see is apartments.  The PVE sounds meh.

I don't post as much as watch . But I played MXO from beta and quit before the end of game. It was more fun then it sounds I know there is a emulater running somewhere if you can find it you can experance kinda of what the game was like in the beggining from what I understand.

StaticZero

In that case, I'll give my take on a couple of these things;

1. Social Areas

First of all, only diehard RPers tend to hang around in a game and chat, and every instance of trying to create a social hub for a game falls flat because only those people will waste time there instead of playing the game. MXO is different, but only because the remaining few players relied on them to meet up, and it became a haven for those still 'believing' in that game. So in essence, they were popular there because signs of life were hard to find, not so much in other games. I may have seen some blabbing going on standing around in Ironforge, but never have I actually seen people sitting in chairs at an inn without just being afk. Never, but I have seen plenty of comic strips portraying the lie.

To make a social area work you need to have 'reason' to be there, and here's a couple with some following examples;

a.) Necessity - Say you need to go to a restaurant and eat, or a bar to drink. Even if your just there for a moment in order to proc an hour long-buff, it's likely that other facets will move to the same location because of the traffic (trade, etc). Hub-nature, and proven in SWG with doctors/entertainers at starports and cantinas.

b.) Lulls - When a game is slow-paced enough as is, it will tend to create places where people meet up and hang out... while the others get thier shit together and finally get things moving. FFXI was a good example, where people would have a favorite spot and hang around there for god-awful amounts of time while others finally show up. Eve would be great too, if they could finally let the pilot avatars leave the damned hangar. This method relies on a sloooow-paced game anyway, where sitting around not-doing-much is pretty standard. Face of Mankind crafting *heh*.

c.) Isolation - Much like the point on MXO stated above, but can also be attributed to games like GW1 and HG:L. A hub with a few players in it can be a welcome sight after playing most of hte game completely alone, and on the flipside, seeing other players can throw you completely off once the expectation of being alone sets in. HG:L sparked more of the latter for me. I would work with this idea, personally, if a post-apoc kind of game. Seeding player encounters to be somewhat rare, so that when it does happen, you are inclined to be much more invested in the interaction (whatever it may be), and meeting places to connect to the few you may have met might work much better.

~So, in essence, a perfect social hub has a needed activity, or primer to starting one (efficiently), is distant enough from other places and travel times high enough to consider waiting there, and even better if you rarely see anybody in the first place (which in itself, can be seen as a bad thing to most).

Mini-games aren't really a match for social areas, if you think about it. To add solo attractions such as slot machines or something to the environment is just asking people to take up room in the place only to stare at a window and ignore everything else. It may add the crowded factor, but that's not really the working angle here. If mini-games were part of your game anyway, I would have them attached to items you can carry on your person (dice, cards, etc), and it can only be played with others, and can be played anywhere. That way, it becomes a diversion that is not solely done in a social area, but can be done so there if need be.

2. The PvE side that has you stumped

a.) Missions - I had a cool idea a while ago about using a world map similar to CoH-style, but every building is a mission interiore that opens it's doors (literally) and allows players to come in and swarm the content, not an instance. When a player has an access code he can enter and let any number of people in behind him, basically making it a race if others jump in unannounced. I have problems determining the difficulty level because of that, but it could be looked at more as a PvEvP thing and worked from there. I always liked APBs matchmaking system and cycling missions, I would do something similar with this concept.

Otherwise, there is a big difference in how a player will look upon mission structure by simply omitting needed facts. Don't tell them "enter the warehouse and kill X snipers", tell them "enter the warehouse and wipe everything out". DDO showed a great methodology by having the focus of everything on a goal structure other than "kill this and that", usually just by getting from point A to point B, really. A good disguise is all you need, use inbound waves instead of reseeding spawns, etc.

b.) Gang grinding - Cyberpunk settings wouldn't be anything without a black market to sell organs/implants on. I'll lend you a tidbit from a cyberpunk of mine where if you overkill a mob you'll pop a fatality animation (ala AoC), but the animations will depict you ripping some goods out of the enemy itself. In my setting you would rip the spleen out of a mutant insect, or the skin right off a mutant, and these things can be crafted with to edit your physical appearance, as well as latent stats. I'd prefer you not copy the "what's yours is mine angle", but any cyberpunk setting has a fitting place for ripping out someone's gizzards and selling it for credits (or favors). Maybe your's can deal with needing clones to constituant extra lives, which could have those organs go to use (or something similar). I've dealt with basically the same thing though, in the same universe, where you have a 'controller drone' that is your physical avatar in social hubs, and the active combat ones you control while linked into them (they fight for corps and all that).

~I also liked how AO had the 'grid' as a kind of allusion to the matrix, and it would be fitting if you could jack into such a thing at terminals, or even anywhere in the open, but it kinda depends on what your personal swing of it is. If you were going with a real Matrix homage, I would have both the city-scape in the matrix, and then the 'sewer shark' gameplay of living in ships and ruins in the real world. If it was your own personal take of 'jacking into a new reality', I would suggest getting creative with a particular ruleset applying to it... and those rules would be determined by what you plan to do with it. Can it be used to travel from one place to another quickly? Or maybe it uncovers things hidden from the naked eye? Maybe it can attract unwanted attention when used?

Lots of things to think about, and some of it (if a guy like me have the reigns) could end up with horror elements. Feel free to discuss your idea, I love to tie mechanics and logistics to plot... that one thread I did about the "information warfare mmo" came out with some great shit in the end, of course, with some help from other thinkers in the dev corner.

Here's my advice.  Research MXO as best you can and then DON"T do what they did.  It was HORRIBLE in every aspect.  I played for a day before uninstalling hastily as the game was an insult to MMOs.  Only game that comes to close to the feel of MXO gameplay is City of Heroes.  What with running into static buildings to run missions, over and over and over.  One of the worst grinds I have ever seen implemented. 

Originally posted by Disdena

It's a natural consequence of having a wide-open world that players can explore, and wanting things (such as combat) to happen as a result of walking around in that world. If there weren't hostile mobs, it wouldn't be as exciting to explore.

Ah, I disagree.

Using Silent Hill as a platform for pacing you'd see there is a lot of tense lulls that make the action segments much more anticipated. The use of sounds/camera/etc act as an intermediate that keep you on the edge of your seat, even without something even being within a clear mile of you... and thusly, there is no *rule* that MMOs have to have this trite method of respawning world mobs. There are plenty of ways, whether via timer or trigger, to pace combat out to where it's uncommon enough (and hopefully, difficult enough) to be welcome as few times as it can be found in any given amount of time.

Besides, combat in most MMOs is completely marginalized by how grindy it is. How many mobs can you really grind out in an hour and say that each encounter was more interesting than the last? Granted, my proposed method will not please the crowd of instant-gratification folks, but anyone who enjoys a well-paced game (whether they know it or not) will take notice.

On the other hand, a few overarching themes can determine if a setting is actually suited to meandering world mobs that let you pound on them and just keep coming back. Example; zombies.

@Elocke

How is it the worst grind ever if you quit on the first day? Did they send you into the very same instance over and over again, like DN or Vindictus? Games like AO had the same randomized instance maps as CoH, though I dunno if that's exactly how MXO's was... but they were great and add tons of longevity - so long as you are willing to overlook the module nature of everything. It's strange how the same random dungeon thing still applies as genius for games like Dark Cloud or .Hack, but it's only with online games where people will get together and complain about it instead. Have people noticed they are running through the same dungeon corridors over and over again in Skyrim yet?

I truly believe that online interaction only leads to a negative consensus - about *everything*!

Originally posted by GTwander

 

I always liked APBs matchmaking system and cycling missions, I would do something similar with this concept.

I never thought of APB as a parallel.  Thank-you.  That gives me something to explore as I work this out.

On yours and others comments.  This is going to sound bad, but I feel like a grade schooler listening to professor types kicking around ideas about chemistry or some other esoteric subject.  Other than I can whip engine code into shape, I'm not even close to qualified for the discussion.  I'll try to keep up, I promise.

The social interaction as a rare and hence valued event makes sense.  It fits in well with a low population density world and soloable content (isolation as stated) with group content being the exception (the fun part) rather than the rule.

Tieing social in with pacing is tough for me to see working.  The rush through content mindset seems very prevalent anymore, and from what I've seen developers are catering to it by any means possible.  It's not "go to the explorers guild, try to gather a group and head out for adventure".  It's push 3 buttons wait a few minutes and pop-in to the adventure and run through it as fast as possible in order to repeat the process most quickly.  "You mean I have to find a group and then travel with them to a dungeon?  WTFBBQ"  Fortunately I don't have any intent to cater to this as others have.

Making the social area useful to performance is something I've never seen.  In a way WoW parallels this with bank and AH being central points where population is often seen.  I could see social areas applied as quest hubs* also.  Another reason to be there that's a necessity.  Add player provided content, even if just buffs or potions, and interaction will happen.

* = longer and more significant than go kill 10 rats

PVE and bug body parts.  That reminds me of Existenz and the trout farm.  Raw materials for bio-manufacturing.  There was a sci-fi film where the predator went around killing people to extract some rare biofluid from the brain.  Dark and creepy, I like it.

RE: "enter the warehouse and kill X snipers"

I agree.  I've always felt that these would be easily avoided by placing an objective in the back of a linear dungeon, and to retrieve it the player would be forced into (or to evade) combat to achieve the goal.  I can think of several quests in Oblivion where this was used.  Personally I would prefer to have these as daily quests, or even just repeatable.  I'd rather see 200 quality quests in a game than 2,000 fedex missions.

My idea for mini-games is a little blurry.  It would revolve around multiplayer... the simplest I can think of is tic-tac-toe.  Something like solo tetris would only be useful waiting in queue, and wouldn't promote interaction.

In general, what I've seen of social contact in games has been pretty weak.  It's not like I can go to a friends in-game house, catch a buzz and watch movies on TV.  It just doesn't translate well in an MMO... there is no buzz and there are no movies.  In game dancing to me seems pointless other than perhaps trying to flirt with a potential cyber-chat partner only to find out the person and character are not similar.

The best application I can see for social space is looking for guild, looking for group, looking for people for friends list so they can group-grind.  Another is shopping / crafting related... the possibility of finding a crafter/vendor who is human enough to give a person a price break when needed, or perhaps help out a newb with game related questions.

Cool post, thanks!

Originally posted by elocke

Only game that comes to close to the feel of MXO gameplay is City of Heroes.  What with running into static buildings to run missions, over and over and over.

I'll take a look even if just to see the design.  I installed one of the super-hero games on my GF's computer (mine at the time was still running Win2k and it required XP).  She didn't like it.  I wasn't ready for an OS switch.  It got uninstalled.  I don't even remember which it was.

 

@Elocke

How is it the worst grind ever if you quit on the first day? Did they send you into the very same instance over and over again, like DN or Vindictus? Games like AO had the same randomized instance maps as CoH, though I dunno if that's exactly how MXO's was... but they were great and add tons of longevity - so long as you are willing to overlook the module nature of everything. It's strange how the same random dungeon thing still applies as genius for games like Dark Cloud or .Hack, but it's only with online games where people will get together and complain about it instead. Have people noticed they are running through the same dungeon corridors over and over again in Skyrim yet?

I truly believe that online interaction only leads to a negative consensus - about *everything*!

Touching base on this because of Anarchy online , I thought thier missions system within MXO would have a been a better use. MXO mission system was very much like everyone else . I haven't played AO in um 8-10 years but what I remember as it was kiosk that you had sliders to adjust the mission settings. I played a fixer built around pure speed and stealth.    Being able to get and our usally with out having to fire a single shot was great.  MXO system would been more instersting with that style.

Mxo failed on a lot of levels, Runing from building to building is not much different runnign to way point to way point. Also we had mission teams., mixed levels on all fronts from 1-50 all in one team .. Well level 10 when you got hyper jump.

I agree researching in what MXO , COH, AO. Each had strong points and weak ones.  MXO Faction set up was one the best IMO. Each person in charge of CREW that crew (ship) joined a faction, and that faction picked a side.  In most games I played I ussally get put in place of GM or Leader I found that set up to be the best and easiest to deal with as a Crew leader was in charge of thier crew/ship.

Originally posted by Staticzero

 

 

It was more fun then it sounds I know there is a...

I met a guy in a game (can't say which) who told me much of the same.  He rolled a red pill first and after a couple run-ins with others (he was still noobish at the time) he rolled on the machines side to kill red pills.  From his description it sounds like what he liked most was PVP and RP.  Based on discussion he was into it big-time.  Still is, in a way.

UO level-less?  That's interesting.  I didn't know that.  I'll check it out... curious how they managed it.  I've done test servers where the only stat gains were from gear and ability skill ups.  Mobs still had levels but with no player levels there was no level-spread fudging (like where attacking a +5 was certain death or -5 was certain win).  I watched a player drop an endgame dragon solo based on his own skill and playstyle.  By design it should have smeared him.

Cool info.  Thank-you for the post.  MxO was only my to-do list but by the time I got there it was gone.  When I saw the first movie, I was thinking that "I could do this" as a Quake mod.  Actually did one but it was just players and bots running around in the streets shooting at each other.  Funny how times change.

Originally posted by Disdena

 

 

 

Hostile mobs make sense in a fantasy MMO because of a.) monsters, and b.) Fantastic Racism (i.e. all ogres are evil, so whenever you see an ogre, it makes sense for you to attack each other). In a cyberpunk genre, you're not going to experience this in the same way. If there are mobs standing around waiting to kill you or be killed, you would need to establish a reason for it. "It's a monster, duh" or "It's an ogre, duh" works for fantasy. "It's a miscreant, duh" doesn't work as well—a cyberpunk setting is too similar to our own world so we look for justification because we know that human beings don't fight each other to the death on the spot for no reason.

In a way I find real world environment combat, especially against civilians, psychologically creepy.  I was running around in "a game" that is mostly non-functional.  In the buildings there are non-monster, non-faction people.  The idea of killing them just for points felt really disturbing.

I think it relates to immersion.  I know I had the same issue in Morrowind.  Afterwards I slaughtered an entire town just to see what would happen.  Of course I had to walk home since I killed the silt-strider lady...   not the smartest move on my part.

Originally posted by eddieg50

  Ohhh I thought The Matrix Online was coming back , i liket that kung fu fighting game

Fraid not.  From what I've heard both WB and SOE have been approached.  Answer was a solid no, with no intent on even discussing it.  I think SOE paid a good amount of money to license the IP.  Turning it off was cheaper than keeping it running.

UO was based around Stat points (24 ) I think in three stats, and 700 Skill points around 30 Skills . At 100 You were GM something.

I could be wrong about the skill point total I seem to remember 3 max gm skils I had sword/parry/Anatomy and some misc points.

SWG (pre NGE) had similier system, 

Look up Tastee Wheat  or MXO emulater. MXO Archieve websites for forums.

When everything was based around skill points  it was self balancing between pvp/pve like most games now have two gear types one for pvp and one for pve. UO didn't need it that much.

To combat alot of what people want Socail tools in games . UO had tons of social items that weren't used much. MXO had none but it had small clubs that people gathered. Gamers RPers if they like the basics you offer them will find ways to work with your system.  Another example STO has Dabo . Despite the low numbers now .. Dabo has allways been the same 10-20 people playing shouting Dabo.. Despite being shouting game I see no Socail game development from it.

People find places that like and will hand out in them MXO break down between Tabor west and Maria Centeral . RP  and PVP areas

Maria had plenty of cover/buildings/Bridges/low underpasses  Made pvp interstating lots of areas to fight when you flagged up.

Tabor west. Was a court yard with 3 big buildings it was an open area  benchs and the buildings had roof top areas as well meeting rooms.  and PVE mobs were far enough away never to cause a problem 

Both areas  became a popular location through luck of design not forced intent.

Something you should shoot for is plan the area for Socail / PVP / PVE players will figure out what the area is best for.

Socail items are nice but not that required.

Player business is another good idea, it is a strong useble concept in MMO's hard to pull of in a city but if might beable to figrure at method it worked. UO system was very well with Vendors at your house or guild house. Same with SWG .

Originally posted by ActionMMORPG

 In a way I find real world environment combat, especially against civilians, psychologically creepy.  I was running around in "a game" that is mostly non-functional.  In the buildings there are non-monster, non-faction people.  The idea of killing them just for points felt really disturbing.

If you really consider almost any MMO's design, you are nothing but a genocidal nut.

Maybe that is the epiphany needed to move out of this rut MMO's have been in.  Perhaps instead of endlessly being "heroic" like Mao Ze-Dong we should try being "heroic" more like David Livingston. (kind of random examples, but IMO they serve the point).  Such a switch requires a radical departure in almost every game system.

GT's list of encouraging socialization is good, but it would take a great alchemist to get the mix right.  There are downsides to all of those reasons being designed into a game, and it would likely kill a game to use one of them exclusively to create a social hub.  I simplify it to 2 factors of the design, opportunity and need.  WoW is a perfect example of removing both.  To keep up as a player with RL commitments (ie you cannot play 6-8hrs a day, maybe less now), it's go go go in the limited play time you have (opportunity killer).  At the same time, there is very little need to actually converse, if I can see you, I know your class/spec/ and gear (and likely know where you need to go too).  That info is the "how have you been/ how was your day?" of the MMO world.

I'd go on but I'm too tired to put the jumbled thoughts racing around my head into coherent text.