MyMMOG

What would MySpace crossed with a MMOG look like? Questing while blogging? Guildchat crossed with IM? Levelling up by .. friends accumulation (urgh)?

Maybe it's the other way round. Bring social networking elements into MMOGs (I mean, it's obvious, isn't it?): SMS direct to avatar inboxes. Import music. Friends-of-friends name colours. Automatic upload of screenshot snapshots. User-generated artifacts, like the Black String Society's piece of black string...

WoW is a social fad like MySpace is a social fad. Both will be replaced sooner or later with the next social fad, and I'm wondering if it might take the best of both worlds...

Comments

[kim]

AOL has an API for msgr to do this kind of thing. Not sure what kind of uptake it's had. I think Matrix online was planning on using it :-)

Everyone's enthused about messaging from "real world" to game world, but from inside one game world to another? Perhaps enticing you out of one and into another? That's when the biz heads start having beads of sweat appearing upon them. All those issues about who keeps who's user identity info, etc.

There's also teh Xfire approach - just bolt it on top of the game. I agree with you though, more compelling stuff is possible when it's an integral part of the game.

[Eben]

I guess Second Life is kinda like MyMMOG. In fact the "user-generated" visual aesthetic of Second Life is probably pretty similar to the "personalized homepage" aesthetic of MySpace. Quality is variable as most people aren't artists, but the tools are there to make genuinely beautiful (and/or clever) things.

[Andy``]

"AOL has an API for msgr to do this kind of thing. Not sure what kind of uptake it's had. I think Matrix online was planning on using it :-)"

Yup, MxO used it, and it was good for a while. Being able to chat to people that are ingame while you're out of game was nice, and being able to chat to people who didn't even play the game was better. Except it liked to break from time to time, limiting you to ingame tells and the main chat formats. Xfire's a much better solution imo, since it covers more games and keeps your gaming list of friends seperate from your other lists of friends in other progs.

I think MyMMOG would mix the features of both worlds directly into the game world, and to be honest we're not really that far off. Email systems are already a standard, or close to being a standard, in MMO games - Eve even has an ingame mailing list system (although I have no idea how that system works yet). Ingame browsers are around, usually somewhat basic, and I wouldn't be surprised if they become more complicated over time, and more compatible with more sites. The only thing I'm really worried about is TV becoming commonplace in MMOGs, bringing advertising with it...

[Rossignol]

Eve has some of these features already - in game messaging, both chat and email, between players. Standings between corporations so you can see who is a friend you'll want to help out and who you'll want to avoid/kill. There's even an in-game browser that folks can build out-of-game websites for.