Social Systems

What are social systems? To me they are the various tools used to create a thriving community. This could range from the chatbox itself to the crafting system and economy set up of the game. Though there is another part of this system that I feel most newer MMORPGs have ignored these social systems to instead further the leveling and combat systems.

The problem with this, is simply put, that all new MMORPGs have proven that they can make a great combat engine. So why not take a simple design for combat that has been either done before or reworked, such as in Age of Conan, and then create a new bar for the various social systems.

This is generally my focus in MMORPGs since they recieve the least amount of attention in order to draw the lowest common denomenator to recieve the highest subscription numbers. The problem with this mentality is that a "small" subscription base of say 200,000 people at $15/month is still an extremely large amount of income every month for any company. Sure, a company would love to be the blockbuster hit World of Warcraft is with their 10 million subscriber base, but that doesn't mean they got it all right. It just means they got their game in as simple terms as the general populace could understand.

Whatever the end result, I'll always give a game a chance to show its true colors before shelving it.

~Xi