by ConfigSys.boy!

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My friend and fellow raid leader, Greg, posts that he is looking for alternatives to WoW and is trying to figure out what sorts of questions to ask in his exploration.  There are some obvious ones of course: Price structure, initial cost of ownership, playerbase, etc… but many of the questions will first come down to what the pre-suppositions that you bring to the table are.

Why do you play?  What are your primary motivators?  Are you a collector?  Explorer?  Socialite?  Competitor?  I think most of us who play MMOs probably engage in some of all these behaviors (and others) but there are always primary driving influences that cause us to spend more time and energy on them than others, and also those which deliver higher internal reward pay-offs than others.  It’s different for each person.

For myself, the first two questions I ask when exploring any persistent online world are these:

1. What is the environment like? ie: Is it open, explorable, immersive, realistic, fantastic?  What are it’s characteristics?
2. What kind of storyline elements are included?

The reason for these two questions go back to my primary motivators – I enjoy exploring.  I like exploring a richly developed world that doesn’t break my suspension of disbelief with awkward transitions or mechanics but lets me indulge my innate curiosity.  Likewise my storyline interests tend in the same way: I want to know what has happened in the past and what comes next and be able to explore the story at my own pace without having my immersion constantly broken by weighty mechanics concerns.

So the first question, Greg, is what are your motivators?