these notes have been sitting on a little text file on my desktop for some time now, was brought about when someone reminded me of the beginning of Guild Wars Prophecies.
One thing that needs to be considered in MMOs is a tutorial area for the new recruits. You're going to lose a lot of starting players if you just drop them in the same area the level 100s are running around in, without letting them know how the world and the controls work (see FF11...).
So one way of combating this which Guild Wars Factions actually did is to have an offshore island, a training island that only spawns for you. You start your journey and some NPC reminds you how you just got the ship over here to learn the ancient techniques of [character class] and how you should go talk to [character class master] and he'll let you know how to get started. So you do that; you learn the controls, you learn how skills work in a completely safe environment, how the inventory works if you've never played before, and you get some small experience in battles and maybe even some starter weapons/money. Then some friendly NPC lets you know that you've completed your training and you're free to get the ship home again. Done.
I can only speak for Guild Wars (and FF11 a teeny bit) because it's the only MMO I've really played so bare with me here.
The first Guild Wars, on the other hand, employed a variation of the training island. Instead of starting completely on your own on your own island, you start right smack in the middle of the main city in the game - Ascalon. You stand there with level 5s and 6s running around you, an NPC with a giant green arrow pointing at him above his head and a friendly little box telling you to press the W key to move forward towards him. The NPC remembers his superior telling him about this new recruit and if you like he'll meet you outside the city gates to begin your training.
So the difference here is that already you're in the middle of the city, there are people running everywhere, there are merchants selling things, there's a big archway you can walk through leaving the city. Go ahead, nothing's stopping you, the game's already told you to do so. The game gives you enough hints to actually walk around and interact with things, and when you leave the city, there's your friendly NPC telling you how fighting works.
But actually this world isn't very scary, or dangerous for that matter. There's flowing green hills, a clear stream to the west, some farmlands with little houses a little further north, beautiful trees with their autumn-touched leaves, and bunches of colourful flowers all around. Unarmed merchants walking to and from the city gates greet you with a smile, they've nothing to fear, and the city behind you towers with it's grandiosity, flags billowing from the walls. Just beyond some soldiers continue a deadlocked battle with the Charr, maintaining a hold over the Great Wall which stops them from reaching this peaceful country. There's maybe a few monsters floating around near the river if you head over that way, but they'll probably only hurt themselves if they attack you.
So after learning the basics on skills and fighting, you go about doing a few tasks for a few people. Exploring, collecting, delivering messages, learning backstory if you like. You meet a little girl named Gwen who you help collect flowers, and if you fix her flute she follows you around skipping and playing it (which heals you, not that you'll need it). You help a guy find an engagement ring for a girl he's going to marry, after finding out from her her favourite stone. You can explore as little or as much as you like, but once you're ready to take the New Recruits Test (or something) you can just talk to that NPC from the start and he'll let you take it. But with a warning: Are you sure you don't want to explore a bit more? You'll be taken beyond the Wall on a small mission against some Charr, and YOU CAN'T COME BACK HERE. Are you really sure?
So alarm bells, right? But fine whatever, I've done everything, I've seen everywhere, let me sit the damn test. So you sit the test, you go and battle a few Charr, collect something, bring it back, well done! You passed! And then the cutscene.
A voiceover tells you that it was that day the the Charr discovered a way around the Great Wall, a way to bring it down. And as you receive your congratulations, meteor (things) crash into the walls of Ascalon. Stone flies everywhere, fires start, trees burn, people scream, soldiers run to fight the onslaught but it's simply not enough. This is called the Searing, and the voiceover tells you that this is where the true story begins.
Two years later and your character stands in the ruins that were once that bustling Ascalon. You walk through the remains, get your mission from your superior and explore like you did only a few hours before. The world is different now, all you see before you is endless wasteland, the stream has dried up, the trees are but charred stalks, the small farm villages have been reduced to rubble, it's inhabitants missing and there are no flowers.
You never find Gwen again (or at least until a few expansions in the future) but you do find her broken flute, near where there once was a river, where you first met her. You speak to the guy you got the ring for, and he asks you to find his fiancée, it's been two years and he hasn't heard from her; eventually you find her ghost.
This whole story is just to illustrate my point about world immersion. You walk through this wasteland and you find things from pre-Searing, you see how things have changed, how characters have changed, how some have died or gone missing. This kind of disaster attaches you to that world, so you feel a reason to go on the missions to try and restore it. It not only serves as a tutorial area to teach you the basics in a training environment but also shows you and let's you get attached to this beautiful world where everything is nice and everyone is friendly. You meet a little girl who skips around you and a guy who's wanting to ask the love of his life to marry him - progression through life, people expressing happiness. And then it all gets destroyed, and better yet, it gets destroyed by one collective group (whom you frequently get to take your rage out on).
Besides MMOs, surely this technique can be applied to other games as well? Heavy Rain does it with the sons, you wake up with the sun shining into your bright, happy home and you spend the day playing with your kids outside in your green garden. Then well, it rains, so to speak. I want to apply this technique to the world, like Guild Wars. Instead of a single person the player is fighting to save, it's the world the player "grew up" in which has been destroyed.
Now, is it dissertation worthy?
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