Exploring the theme park

Having spent a good portion of my early adolescence as a DM (Dungeon Master for the uninitiated), I still take great delight in being able to journey in a virtual fantasy world. Even a theme park world, where even the most delicate leaves remain on the baobab trees when one explodes a corpse right beneath them.

When exploring, there's a thrill to chewing up the new territory, to taking it all in and feeling the digital wind in your hair. Since the individual bushes may be a little cheap (especially in classic WoW), the pleasure comes not from seeing the individual denizens of the digital playground, but from taking in the vistas the developers created. This applies to questlines and story arcs just as much as to the pleasure of being able to move (mostly) freely through a digital world like Azeroth (Warcraft's main planet, which were it to be real, would probably be a sphere the size of Toledo, OH. There's stats on that, if you're feeling niggly). The Azeroth theme park, like Six Flags or Disneyland, isn't made to support a long-term relationship. It's cotton candy.

Even after three years of play, I still get some of that pleasure, just tooling around the world. However, by now I've leveled through much of the game's content (no, I don't have a Loremaster title... leave that to crazy folk like my guildmate, Pookiezoom), and killing Gorlash down by the seashore is no longer new. Not even refurbished. The stories I could take a bite out of and move on from, like chocolates in a Whitman sampler, become redeemed pretty much only by their sense of humor.

In the venerable AD&D world, the DM could certainly buy worlds as content products from the game's developers, such as the world of Greyhawk, and later the Forgotten Realms, etc. etc. In so doing, the DM could have the theme park pleasure of taking in great swaths of newness. But because much of those worlds was left open, there was also room for him and his friends/players to create all kinds of interactions they found engaging. Who supplied that town with lumber for houses? Who was the king's brother, and what were his motives? What might happen if a portal to another dimension were accidentally left open in his palace? The purchased world framework not only accomodated further content products from the developers, but allowed enterprising 14-year-old DMs to make up their own stories, their own characters. A magical battle could cause not just the leaves to fall, but the king's brother to be transmogrified into a new villain. Rumors of a very powerful sword might set the players off on a standard dungeon, but with the monster brother's troops in pursuit. Etc. etc. etc.

What if there was an MMO that allowed one to create narratives of one's own? Where is the DM function in WoW, or any other MMO? I imagine a game whose opening zone is a preset group of characters, each with embedded story stubs, and an interface that allows the player to essentially become the game's writer. Prefab concepts could be put in sequence like stickers--

"player must find [8] [Worm-eaten Rat Skulls] at [Old Man Dirtchewer's] [Rookery] and bring them to [Sabrina Sassenach] for a reward of [1 Sword of Titanic Awesomeness] and the next leg of the chain,"

and then post their adventure, just as many online Flash games allow one to post levels, to a forum where other players could try them and post comments on them. Or, the player could have access to a more complex group of menus, and make up their own characters, position them in the world, etc etc etc. Perhaps this would make use of instancing--players who want to try a "DM"'s dungeon would type in its address while in-game, and port into an instance of the town or what have you.

Virtual worlds hold so much promise, so much possibility. Part of the thrill of exploration of a world like Azeroth came from the search for those possibilities, the desire to see what new stories and opponents the developers created. Part of the theme park disappointment of a world like Azeroth comes from the eventually finite nature of such a world when it is the creation of just one entity. I want to be a part of games that crack that open--games that are willing to let the leaves fall from their precious digital trees.

Questions

Following are questions that I've been sitting with over the last 3 years of playing Warcraft. There's nothing like killing 100 Borean Rhinos and finally, finally getting one Arctic Fur to make you question the meaning of life.

What kinds of relationships do we form via MMOs? What is novel about them? What are the difficulties these attenuated relationships face? What kinds of relationships are not possible via MMOs?

What kinds of learning do we participate in within MMOs? What human capacities are we increasing via our use of these new virtual environments? What human capacities might we be dulling in these new environments? How might these environments be used in US schools, or other educational venues?

What use do we make of MMOs that is not in some way educational? What relationship do we create between our use of the virtual world and our concepts of Sin? Witness Caprica's vision of the hacked V-Worlds--spaces for teenagers to view and/or perform human sacrifice, engage in orgiastic sex, kill other players or become mob bosses without legal consequence.

What would we like to see change structurally within the MMOs we currently enjoy? What does the virtual environment do currently that we like, or dislike, and why; and what could it do, and why?

What ideas do we have for alternative MMO universes, on any level: in terms of game mechanics, programming possibilities, platform choices, storylines, characters.

What other game systems shape our thought on the subject of life, the universe and MMOs: pen n' paper RPG systems we've grown up with, explored later in life, or hated? Scrabble? Tic Tac Toe? How has Pong shaped your life? How did playing Space Invaders on the TRS-80 my dad built shape mine?

What is it like to be a member of the first generation to have grown up playing videogames? What kinds of memories do you harbor of videogame fun--did you beat Mario Bros? Did you beat Donkey Kong? How odd is it to see Donkey Kong touted as a titanic cultural icon 30 years after we experienced his low-res roots?

Please post your own questions about your use of, interest in, fear of, etc. the virtual world. I hope that we will find ways to get Meta on this material's ass.