The Digital Continuum: Lost in worlds divided part 2
The power a good map wields should never be underestimated. In an MMO, this rule goes double. A map should always be more than an image -- it should be helpful, inventive and highly communicative of what information it has to offer.
I've seen so many terrible world maps that when I find a good -- or especially great -- one, I tend to freak out a little bit. One mistake I see a lot is when a developer fails to understand that certain basic functions go into the world map first and foremost. I want to know where I'm currently located on a world map, within whatever zone I'm in. Don't just highlight whatever zone I'm in, which is only semi-useful. Second, make sure I don't have to use a drop down list of zones to move my current view from the world map to the zone map. Let me click on a zone to open it, because that's simpler and far more intuitive than wrestling with a list.
Speaking of simple and intuitive, the same goes for zone layout. Not too many games make this mistake, but there have been times when I reach the end of a starting zone, move to the map and immediately wonder where the next area for my level is. There are some very easy solutions to this issue, such as effective zone linking. To link a zone effectively, two things are necessary: premeditated world design and logical instance swapping, which is only needed if a game uses instances. Personally, I favor the method of keeping each continent on a single server but many genres don't allow for this approach to zoning. How is a space game supposed to put multiple planets on a single server without sacrificing most of its features? It can't, not in a world where technology has limits.
So, if instances are present, when I'm traveling make sure I know where I'm departing from and where my destination is at. This seems like such a simple request -- even one that could be described as a minor issue -- yet it makes all the difference in a game where persistence is the axis which everything spins around. Hell, it'd even be great if a developer were clever about it. When I hit up the spaceport to leave Mars in "Hypothetical Space MMO" give me an interactive map display and let me browse the available locations I can travel to. This display could give information readouts on known locations, which in turn would spark curiosity of places I've yet to visit. Then, when I do travel to my chosen location, how about something more than a canned animation of me leaving my destination? Keeping that interactive map up while I "travel" (IE while the game loads data) would be pretty nice, especially if there were tons of content to read about in there.
These aren't game changing ideas. None of my suggestions are going to revolutionize an industry or blaze any sort of trail. And sometimes, that's exactly what we all need. I'm all for reasonable changes to formula for an experience that's better executed over anything else. The more I know about the world I'm playing in, the more I'm likely to stay. And as they say, knowing is half the battle -- that is to say, the battle to make me pony up cash every month.
