Tribal gaming

Gamasutra last month had a very long article with game "academics" discussing that MMORPGs are tribal, with players often moving from one game to the next together with their guild. Unfortunately being tribal can also work against these games: For example my interest in LotRO declined when most people of my guild went back to WoW. And tribalism is also the reason why I cancelled my EQ2 subscription today.

I restarted EQ2 some weeks ago, because my original experience of the game had been interrupted by 2.5 years of World of Warcraft. I was looking forward to playing the new content added since then, especially Echoes of Faydwr, having been a big fan of the original Crushbone in EQ1. But now I found myself as a noob in a world full of characters at the level cap. Not only had Crushbone changed a lot from EQ1 to EQ2, but more importantly there was nobody to explore it with. It's a group zone, and there simply isn't a big queue of people waiting outside to form a group. In short I had a MMORPG, but I didn't have a tribe. You can't just join a 3-year old game, find a guild, and expect people of your level to be around to play with you.

I find MMORPGs make rather bad single-player RPGs. I played many of the classic single-player RPGs: the "gold box" D&D series, the Might & Magic series, the Wizardry series, the Baldur's Gate series, the two Neverwinter Nights, and some more. And most of these were better single-player RPGs than WoW or EQ2 are. They are *designed* for single-player gameplay, they don't lock you out of group-only content, and more importantly they have a far better story-telling than any MMORPG. It is only the interaction with other players that makes MMORPGs better games than single-player RPGs.

So now that I found I don't like Tabula Rasa, and that Pirates of the Burning Sea's release has been pushed to next year, I have to think what to play for the rest of this year. Beta MMORPGs certainly for some part. Maybe get back to Lord of the Rings Online, I haven't even explored book 10 yet, and book 11 is to be released soon. I could try some of the cheap browser-based MMORPGs, there are thousands of those. But I was also thinking of playing some more single-player games. I can't just sit still and wait for WAR.