Now that we’ve moved on from account cre­ation and account man­age­ment as a bar­rier to entry in MMOs, it’s time we talk about another impor­tant bar­rier to entry: the game mechan­ics sur­round­ing the MMO you’re play­ing or try­ing out.

As a term, “game mechan­ics” has cer­tain con­no­ta­tions, so let’s define the term for use in this arti­cle. In this par­tic­u­lar arti­cle, “game mechan­ics” shall refer to both inter­nal (in-game) and exter­nal (relat­ing to the game) aspects of MMO that a player can per­ceive and pos­si­bly use but not directly influ­ence or change.

One com­mon fac­tor among MMO enthu­si­asts is that each has his own set of needs and expec­ta­tions when it comes to play­ing a game. Because they are needs and expec­ta­tions, sat­is­fac­tion from the player can be derived when those needs and expec­ta­tions are met through either research of the game in ques­tion or actual play. These needs and expec­ta­tions also change through time, some­times neces­si­tat­ing either an inter­nal change from the player or an exter­nal change in the type of game played.

What am I talk­ing about? Let’s take a look at the game mechan­ics of a cou­ple of MMOs I’ve been through and how they relate to player needs and expec­ta­tions for fur­ther insight.

I first started play­ing MMOs in 2003 when Rag­narok Online had a Philip­pine ver­sion cre­ated for it and released as an open beta. Now, as I was a col­lege stu­dent then and money wasn’t exactly rolling in, a free open beta of an MMO was a god­send. Also of great import was the fact that, at the time, I did not have a ded­i­cated gam­ing com­puter, so there were lim­i­ta­tions regard­ing what I could actu­ally play, hence no high-graphics games for me.

The game­play was more or less a skill-mashing fes­ti­val, and forced a lot of grind­ing upon the indi­vid­ual player if he wanted to get any­thing cool, but at the time, it didn’t mat­ter so much. I had free time, and I also had patience, so acquir­ing 120 pieces of a spe­cific type of lum­ber that could only be acquired by killing undead trees in a zone filled with other peo­ple wasn’t a big­gie, even if it was annoying.

When it finally became ready to release the game a few odd months later and pre­paid cards were dis­trib­uted to stores for play, I was less than enthu­si­as­tic about pur­chas­ing the time cards because my needs and expec­ta­tions remained the same. At first, I accepted an inter­nal change, which was to suck it up and use my allowance to play. When it became evi­dent, how­ever, that the grind­fest was becom­ing more of a prob­lem than an annoy­ance, I stopped entirely.

In this case, the needs and expec­ta­tions were for essen­tially free play, regard­less of the qual­ity of the game­play involved. When an aspect of the game changed and some­thing had to give, I chose to adapt by leav­ing it.

In 2006, I gave World of War­craft a spin, and spent seven months straight play­ing the game for approx­i­mately five to eight hours a day. I was fresh out of col­lege and look­ing for a full-time job, and I had some dis­pos­able income through a part time job tutor­ing.  Because I had dis­pos­able income and a gam­ing com­puter as a grad­u­a­tion gift, my expec­ta­tions changed some­what. I didn’t want the grind­fest of Rag­narok Online Philip­pines but some­thing new, and some­thing with a good story that would keep me pre­oc­cu­pied when the jobs weren’t forthcoming.

Again, it was a fresh new world, and I’d grown to be part of a guild, one that also helped define what I wanted from the game: a sense of com­mu­nity.  For a new­comer to WoW, the game was every­thing I was look­ing for. When I hit level 60 though, the game started to have shades of Rag­narok in it, with the weekly runs to Zul’ Gurub for loot and progression.

I left the game in August of 2006, not only because I was get­ting tired of the grind, but also because I had found a solid full-time job. As a per­son, I had changed, and because the game could not change with my needs and expec­ta­tions, I also chose to leave. (Note: I did come back for the expan­sions, but always left after hit­ting the level cap.)

Now that we’ve dis­cussed WoW, we can move on to a very short phase in my MMO life: two weeks of Age of Conan. I was swept in by the fer­vor of a friend at work, and for all intents and pur­poses really liked the game and could play it in bite-sized chunks. The thing was, Age of Conan at launch had one of the most awe­some start­ing areas and my favorite type of com­bat mechanic… but it then tapered off in terms of qual­ity after Tortage.

This time, the game fit my needs and expec­ta­tions per­fectly, but did so only to a point, and when that point was reached, it couldn’t sus­tain my interest.

And so we come to Lord of the Rings Online, and my cur­rent set of needs and expec­ta­tions. In its cur­rent incar­na­tion, LotRO def­i­nitely holds my inter­est not because I’ve read the books (I tried but failed), but because there’s lit­er­ally an epic story for your char­ac­ters to fol­low out­side of the source lit­er­a­ture. The War­den class I researched on plays almost like AoC’s com­bat mechanic, plus it’s enter­tain­ing regard­less of how much or how lit­tle time you spend on it. Also, Turbine’s cus­tomer ser­vice and devel­oper blogs show that they’re pur­su­ing their customer’s inter­ests to the best of their abil­i­ties and actively lis­ten­ing to their base. More impor­tantly, I’m part of a mature kin­ship that under­stands I can only play when the sit­u­a­tion allows me to.

The bar­rier to entry here may not be as evi­dent, since I’ve played some of these games for longer than a pass­ing glance, but the basic premise is there: the game mechan­ics of an MMO must appeal to an individual’s set of needs and expec­ta­tions, oth­er­wise, that indi­vid­ual may choose to adapt to the sit­u­a­tion by leav­ing the game entirely.

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