Behind the Curtain: Too much information
So, just the other day I hit level 30 on my latest World of Warcraft alt – a Dwarf Priest. I hopped on the nearest Gryphon to Ironforge to train up some skills, and noticed that I had unread mail. Skipping gaily towards the nearest mailbox, I was most surprised to find a letter from Ultham Ironhorn, the Dwarven Riding Trainer, letting me know that I was now eligible to purchase a mount from his fine establishment.
For those of you unfamiliar, originally in WoW, you had to wait until you'd hit level 40 before you could buy a mount. Patch 2.4.3 changed that, and lowered the level requirement for a standard mount to level 30. I hadn't read anywhere though, that, upon reaching level 30, your character would be told about it.
Back in-game, I checked with my guildies to see if they knew anything about the mail. They didn't, none of them having levelled up an alt in some time, so it was news to all of us. We all agreed that Blizzard must have implemented it to point players in the direction of a mount, when they might otherwise have missed out on the early availability.
It got me thinking about information and the availability of it in game.
How much information do you want to see being given out to players in MMOs, and how much should be left for us to figure out for ourselves? Should we be left completely in the dark, finding our own way around, or should we be led by the hand from content to content, pointed in the right direction unerringly by the developers? The answer likely lies somewhere between the two.
When I was younger, I played a 'Play by Mail' game called Monster Island. The idea behind the game is that you're washed up an a relatively unexplored island, and pretty much left to fend for yourself. The starting rules give you a broad outline of how to move around, fight and generally take care of yourself. The onus is on you, however, to discover the world around you, and also to discover all the ways in which you can interact with it.
I wonder if similar gameplay could be applied to an MMO? The very nature of Play by Mail games means that the information you're discovering isn't easy to share with others – not so with a modern MMO. WoWWiki, Wowhead, Curse and HammerWiki all give us pretty much everything you could want to know about whatever game you've chosen to play.
Is it even possible in this day and age to keep content under wraps? Regardless of a developer's intentions, players are likely to simply share information, hints and tips in one way or another. More inventive people can datamine content before it's even released to Beta, let alone Live. You might end up having to rely on players' own conscience preventing them from hunting down spoilers. I'm not sure how well that would hold up.
I realise that in the past, things were not always so. I missed the bus with MUDs, stumbling on to the Internet just a little too late to experience them. I did flirt briefly with a Battletech MUD, but gave up quickly when I realised it was difficult. Given that I don't know much about them, I'm hesitant to talk at length, but they bear mentioning. As I understand it, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, things in MUDs were a little more different. The player was expected to go exploring, and discover the game through imagination, trial and error. With the Internet still (relatively) in its infancy, it was harder to freely share information the way we take for granted today.
Personally I prefer to struggle a little bit with my games. Having things handed to you without working for them feels like a cop-out to me, but I can understand why you'd feel differently. To paraphrase myself, a happy medium is probably best. Give your players enough info to be going on with, enough to get them on the right path, but leave enough to be discovered that they feel they're accomplishing things on their own.
What about you? Which side of the fence are you on? Complete carebear-style with pointers every few steps of the way, or vicious insta-death, sheep-among-the-wolves hardcore?
