I got up and spoke as one of Tim O'Reilly's "alpha geeks" at ETCON about massively-multiplayer games. And immediately afterwards someone rushed up and asked me in the hallway 'Do you think there will ever be another successful MMORPG after Everquest?" Well, yes I do. But there is a reason most of the second generation (2G) MMOGs are failing - namely that they deny the existence of the games that came before them.

In the "original" crowd of MMOGs like Ultima Online and Everquest, players went there having never seen one before. It was brand new. And while you might have played with a small group of friends from work or home, the games threw you together into larger groups (ie "guilds") to take on end-game content. This was 5-7 years ago.

The problem with the 2Gs is that they mistakenly assume that players are once again going to trickle in by ones and twos and want new groups. That is not my experience. Instead, as guilds get bored or outstrip the content of their favorite games, they look for places to move en masse. The colony is looking for a new hive. This means that when I enter a game, I *have* a social structure already - I *know* who the leaders are, who I turn two for organization of raids and distribution of loot. I *want* a game in which, regardless of game power, my position in the guild community is maintained. But none of the 2Gs are offering that - they only offer the ability to "start fresh" - we want new games but we also want to continue playing that game with the hundred other people that we know and love - and that's what is causing the next generation to fail, a callous insensitivity to that simple fact.

An exampe: I was playing Shadowbane with a few players from my EQ days. My friends and I formed a "group" which is a little construct that is well known to us all. But we were also in a "guild" by virtue of which city we started in. I didn't want to be in some strange guild, I wanted to be in *mine*. So then we level up some characters by exploring the world. And one of them levels up faster than the rest of us by virtue of the fact that he doesn't have to teach a night class . And he hits the magic 'player-killer' level and *woosh* - he is no longer in our guild and can't be in the same area as the rest of us. Hey Mr. Game Designer - you just separated me from my friends that I want to play the game with. Mistake.

Now I'm sure that there is a world-balancing reason for this, that it makes sense within the game. But the gaming community is looking to get people onto their second-generation games (with the exception of Sony, who likes to release expansions for EQ).

The next successful MMOG will be one that realizes 3 things:

1. There were two generations and a series of MUDs/MOOs before those. The game should make it easy to transfer my existing social fabric from whatever game I am playing now to the new world. It doesn't matter if I have a level 1 character than can be killed by a wet mop, they should still be able to be an officer in a guild structure that can all be created on day 1.

2. We want to communicate with people in the game, even when we're not. This is the reason that player groups have message boards and phone trees. People want to be able to find out what is happening on their lunch break, that even though they weren't there the guild beat the big red dragon. That's still a victory, however vicarious. The player community has hacked tools to do this - putting IRC and AIM inside of EQ, for example. Most game companies try to stop this - why?

3. The experience of some players matters a lot more than others. Sorry, but its true. If I buy a game, try it, and don't like it - then the game developer is out one customer. But if I log in, try a game, and decide it isn't a good fit for my guild - then all of a sudden I've turned off a whole lot of potential customers. Most guild websites these days for Asheron's Call, EQ, etc. have running polls on other games, about whether or not they are any good. When one of those games is percieved as "better" than what the guild is doing now, they "hop". I've seen this when an a very large guild left my server on EQ for Asheron's Call. It means that the group is making the decision, not the individual player - but game companies are pitching to players, not to groups.

Stop trying to design my social experience - instead pay attention to the fact I already have a very complex one. I want better tools to communicate and facilitate the actions of that group, not a change in the group or the rules by how it is formed.

ETCON was a lot of fun. I'll have more stuff up in the next few days.