A couple of weeks back, MOP reader and Elite Dangerous podcaster PhoenixDfire dropped a comment that leaped out at me – so I want to amplify it today!
“Exploration is Elite’s biggest strength and weakness,” he explained. The game has 400B (that’s B for billion) star systems, and yet players have managed to explore fewer than 1% of them in the last 10 years of play – and not for lack of trying. It’s just that big, and a lot of it is, well empty. In other words, at that rate of exploration, it’d take Elite players hundreds of years – several generations of humans – to map it all. Your grandchildren’s grandchildren’s grandchildren’s grandchildren won’t even see it done, even if the game somehow survived.
I want to talk about the idea of a single type of content being both the biggest strength and weakness for an MMO. Pick an MMO you know well – does your game have anything that is both a crowning achievement but also a major problem?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
