Playing MMOs offline
Lately it’s come to mind that MMO studios are lagging behind when it comes to expanding their games’ scope to outside the box — the box being, in this case, the actual in-game experience. Sure, it’s all well and good to have an MMO that you play, but the fact is that we aren’t always in a position to play the game, but we still might have a couple minutes here or there to focus on it. So how can studios take advantage of that and keep their players connected?
In the past, players have more or less done it themselves. This is why we have podcasts, fan sites, forums, and (yes) blogs. These player-run projects are meant to extend the experience outside of the game for when you can’t log in. But recently we’re starting to see a slight uptick in movement on the studios’ behalf to follow what corporations have known for years — that if you can keep the customer involved in the product even when they’re not using it, they stay a loyal customer longer.
For MMOs, I’m just looking at the fun aspect of it. Sometimes it’s really hard for us to carve out a good chunk of time to game, depending on the day and circumstances, but there’s still that desire and passion to do at least a little something. This is where extra-curricular activities come into play — something I’d love to see studios do more of in the future.
For example, take LOTRO’s lottery. It’s no big deal, not really, but every day there’s a reason to log into the site, enter into the drawing, and feel like you’ve done a little something to help your characters. Or Fallen Earth’s iPhone app, which allows you to not only monitor crafting, but chat with any friends who are online. Or the new golden child of the week, Glitch, which allows you to juggle your skill training while you’re not playing.
I think we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg with this. I know ArenaNet has made some serious noise about an “Extended Experience” that will allow players to engage with GW2 outside of the PC, and The Secret World has a whole alternate reality game-type system set up for those who want to dig through fake websites and treasure hunt all over the internet in an effort to assist in-game goals.
It just seems like there’s so many possibilities here. Flash games that could let us earn in-game currency or items. Being able to craft offline. Monitor chat channels out of game. Heck, why not give players tools to create mobs offline that could be uploaded and used in-game, as a type of player-created content?
What say you? Do we need more ways to engage with our favorite MMOs offline, and if so, what would you like to see?
- Posted in: Fallen Earth ♦ Lord of the Rings Online
I’ve been playing Glitch off and on. They make it so easy to play. Then I thought I should log in to LOTRO and pay my house upkeep and just the effort required to do that simple thing really bothered me.
Launch, check for patches, patch if needed, splash screens, username and password, more splash screens, character selection, more splash screens, finally in game, open menu, change tabs, click buttons to pay upkeep. Log out. Sigh. 15 minutes later…
Then I REALLY won’t get anything done at work!
But honestly, it is great to have little things that you can do offline (or in a few spare moments) and the LOTRO lottery is awesome – I’ve even won horses through it before!
Yes and No. It would be nice to have access to at least aspects of the game if I’m interested, but can’t log on. But it quickly becomes a matter of “needing” to log onto some site or app whether I’m interested or not, like your example of the LOTRO lottery. Maybe I’m too old-school, but the attempt to draw my attention across multiple media platforms is irritating to me: Comic books or web comics that extend the story of a movie or TV show, blogs protrayed as being by a character on the show, that sort of thing. It’s overkill. Fan blogs and referenc sites are different because they encapsulate and discuss the story or game. They don’t necessarily try to extend it. LOL, then there’s fanfiction, of course, which I am guilty of writing.
One thing I always liked about Star Trek novels was that they are (usually) self-contained, and while they may take place before or after a significant episode, they are not canon. The Star Wars Expanded Universe, OTOH, is a hot mess of novels, games and comics, all of which are “canon” to some degree. There’s no good place to jump in, IMHO.
Wizard 101 has their minigame suite on the website that also helps characters with small bits of coin or items. I’m baffled that Puzzle Pirates doesn’t have phone versions of their games; the puzzle minigame system is perfect for mobile play. When the gameplay is based on “bite-sized” gaming, it seems a perfect fit to me.
That said, though I’ve argued that combat in DIKU MMOs is really a mini-game of its own, shunting it to a mobile app or Flash site would be an admission of just how shallow and grindy it really is. I think the most we’ll see is a crafting or market suite (like the mobile Auction House in WoW)… though those are certainly a good idea, I think.
…tangentially, I agree with Rowan that the Star Wars EU is a mess.
I would take this to the extreme, and would allow the player to craft, use auction house, read and possibly write mails, etc.
I remember Final Fantasy VIII had something (a USB kind of dongle) you could plug into the PS2 and it would train a Chocobo and let you play a minigame on it. I thought then it was a great idea (similar to those pet games where you HAD to feed it every so often and so on) that was before it’s technology time. I certainly wouldn’t want to HAVE to pay attention to the game, but you’re right, those little things outside the direct game experience only serve to immerse me more into the world.
I also would like some interaction outside of the game. I have been going to much more of a casual gaming style as I and my family get older. So anything that I can do while not sitting at my PC would ROCK. I like the idea of offline crafting or maybe status updates from my SWTOR companions on their mission progress, for instance. It would be cool to get an email or an app notification that they are done and ready for something else. Then you could open the app, get the details and assign them something else.
This would be a great compliment to any MMO.
out of curiosity, what is that iphone app you have pictured in this post?
@coppertopper
I believe that app pictured is from ArenaNet’s as of yet unreleased GW2 extended experience.
How about a pedometer tied to the grind somehow?
Long ago when many of you weren’t even born, there was an online gaming system named Sierra Online. On this system was a RPG game called Yserbuis. You could play Yserbius either online or offline up to Level 20…after which you had to decide if your character was going to be Online-only or Offline-only. The game also required that your party had to include other classes in order to advance through certain Doors into the harder portions of the dungeons….early gating of content.
All these new ideas have been done before…if you dig deep enough to see them!
TQQdles™,
Dolnor Numbwit
Eternal Newbie
P.s. Look up the INN Revival. Play Yserbius online today! -)
I think we have more serious problems right now. Your proposals wouldn’t add much to my experience.
Man, being able to craft and write in-game mail or use kin/guild chat out of game would be awesome. I mean, in LOTRO, whenever I need to do some crafting, I just set my 50 ingots or whatever and then walk away and ignore the game until they’re all done. It leads me to do less crafting than I would otherwise want to, because my limited game time would be much better spent actually playing!
There are obvious reasons to avoid out-of-game crafting and auctioning, though, mainly goldfarmers.
On the other hand, there’s really no reason not to let us hang out in our kinship’s chat channel when we’re not actually in the game client. Or even the public chat channels. It wouldn’t require any more moderation than MMOs already do, since a spammer or goldfarmer won’t be especially inconvenienced by having to open the client, and certainly would be less so than an honest kin leader who wants to keep tabs on their members.
However, I think the best use for “offline” minigames would be something like LOTRO’s housing system. Houses could still be in-game locations, of course, but you could have a (dare I say it) Farmville-style browser game where you manage your housing decorations, maintain gardens, watch people visit and leave gifts, etc. I don’t even like that style of game, but if an MMO I liked had it, I’d at least give it a try! And it would certainly be more of an investment in your house than “pop in occasionally to mount a new trophy”.