Persistance

(This is the first of a series of posts that will outline my own game design philosophy. These will be a work in progress and I may go back and edit them in the future)

How does that quote from that guy from that movie go? "If you let them build it, they will come...and then stay." Yes, I know I am slightly misquoting, but the quote I quoted fits better than the quote I didn't quote. Got that?

Gamers should feel connected to the content. At the end of the day, there has to some sort of tangible gain. MMOs and RPGs use many forms of this to keep players coming back. There are levels to gain, currency to acquire, and gear to obtain. After a long session of gaming, most players can see how their character has changed, whether it be visibly with a new piece of armor, or intrinsically by learning new, more powerful abilities. There is a sense of accomplishment, a sense of gain. More importantly, those gains are there to stay.

EVE Online, one of the greatest sandbox MMOs ever created, is by definition a persistent world. What you do on in game one day could not only effect you, but the hundreds of other players across the server. Systems are conquered and reconquered, reputations are built and destroyed, and billions of ISK are earned or lost every single day in EVE. There are no server transfers, no rollbacks, no respawning with all of your gear in a friendly station after having been ganked while mining. Your actions, your triumphs, your failures are all permanent fixtures in the game. As a result, you write your own history as you progress through the game. There is no NPC telling you have earned the rank of Supreme Galactic Overlord, it is the playerbase itself that bestows (or strips away) the titles to other players.

The game I am looking to design will most certainly include an experience that persists for the gamer from the time they create their character to infinity and beyond. A sense of growth is what will keep players playing. I feel it is important that players feel as though they are invested in the content they are creating. The player should be able to connect to the units that they create and the battles that they fight. Every time they log in, their deeds and actions should be accessible to them, whether it be their winning percentage, that new unit they had just unlocked due to a victory the day before, or simply a skill that has finished that took a week to train. This will be their army, and although there may be many like it, this one will be theirs.