The Digital Continuum: Daringly duo

There were a great many things I took away from my experience at ION 08 this year. I learned how amazing community managers can be. I also learned how much they put into their communities -- if you're wondering, it's quite a lot. Among all the waves of information I soaked up there were little leaks of ideas to take away as well.

During the "Online Games in 2013" panel there was a point of Damion Schubert's presentation that piqued my curiosity. It was his prediction that MMOs will see far more "Duoing" content. The fact that playing with a friend or two -- along with playing solo -- could become much more ubiquitous fills my heart with hope. If you're wondering why, I'll be more than happy to explain.

The idea of duo content or duo play isn't entirely new. In fact one thing I've noticed about World of Warcraft over the years is that it's become increasingly small-group friendly. No MMO has taken the time to fully support duo play just yet, however.

I don't want a developer to simply make the leveling and quest systems duo-friendly. I want everything about MMOs to be more duo-friendly. For instance, why not design a crafting system that allows for one-to-two players? Make it so that two crafters working in tandem can produce items of better quality or at a faster pace. There could even be an engaging mini-game set around duo-crafting.

While two person crafting is a big system idea there's also plenty of validity in putting in plenty of small duo-friendly ideas. Something simple like having NPCs who recognize two players in a "duo party". This would allow said NPC to react and interact with both players at the same time. Maybe Grinny the goat farmer needs a couple daring adventurers to find out what's been killing his goats. When one player clicks on the goat farmer, Grinny greets each player in a slightly different way. Making sure the players see this is important, at it reinforces that the game knows they're playing together.

It can be taken even further. Maybe after finding out that some well-overgrown "Wereweasels" have been slaughtering Grinny's livestock, the players are tasked with beating down the massive mustela. Not only should Grinny have different sets of rewards for each player to choose from -- which would be based on their classes -- but he should also have some kind of alternate dialog for two players as opposed to just one.

Another idea (and one that I think WotLK is implementing) is to let players share one mount. Maybe a husband and wife are playing and they want to ride together. It's important to let the players do this as soon as they have mounts, as the act is more about giving duo players as many little extra "thumbs up" moments as you can.

Incorporating special quests for duo groups would be a good idea as well, though making sure they're few-but-good is important. Well thought out duo quests can involve all sorts of neat and simple cooperative tasks. Something as basic as having player "A" pull a distant level to open a locked door so player "B" can move through the door and flip a switch to lock the passageway open.

While MMOs may be about massive groups of players working together, it really doesn't hurt to help foster that kind of gameplay at every possible level. Giving players strong duo content should hopefully cause them to participate in strong 10-man or even 20-man elements of a game.