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Lessons in online gaming circa 1997 hold true today

A lot of things change with the passage of time, but something that hasn't is this post over at Lost Garden. Written by Dani Bunten Berry over then years ago as kind of primer for making sure your online social space was fun. Many of these little snippets of knowledge are perfect for the massively game-space. For instance, the "Norm" effect is a very important aspect of making players feel welcomed into any game. It's named after the character Norm from Cheers, who upon entering the bar is greeted by everyone saying his name in unison.

It's a simple thing to do, but having some NPC characters who exist in the game world that will always greet players with their chosen name shouldn't be too tough to pull off. Beyond the Norm effect, there are several other golden rules to consider as well.


Everything from staying away from lots and lots of numbers to keeping the features down are covered by the list. Stuff that some developers seem to have forgotten (or never knew about) in the past ten years. However, one particular item really stood out to us on the list in regards to MMOs.

  • Include cooperation. Even in basically competitive games you can allow for alliances, collusion or at least less cutthroat behavior. In M.U.L.E. I used an interesting trick that would not allow a "Winner" unless a certain threshold of colony success was reached. In order to win players had to sometimes help each other out so the whole colony would thrive thus making the balance closer and play more interesting.

It's easy to see how upcoming games like Age of Conan and Warhammer Online could benefit from this mantra. Probably the most important thing in any massively game is the facilitation of friends, groups, clans and alliances. In other words; make sure your players actually want to play together, especially if it involves playing against other people.