Making Everyone an Elder

Elder game (as invoked here — scroll down the page to “Support the Elder Game”) as a concept assumes that a given MMOG is in essence two experiences. The first is a roughly linear experience that ends when you “beat” the game by achieving ultimate level x. The second, a sustained or self-sustaining game or games for those who have no more worlds to conquer. (One can, of course, defer or interrupt the second experience by extending the value of ultimate level x.)

I’m still thinking this through, but my feeling is that this structure is more bifurcated than it needs to be. In acknowledging the need for an elder game, one acknowledges that one is conceiving of an MMOG as a structure with an assumed terminus or point of exhaustion, after which another game must be initiated.

In other words, the need for a distinct “elder game” seems to say that we haven’t fully thought through persistence as a design challenge. Persistence doesn’t mean you need a new game for when your game runs out, but that an MMOG structure that “runs out” in the first place is problematic given the persistent nature of the form. If one has to build something to follow the “endgame,” then the initial game structure isn’t really a persistent world game — it’s a non-persistent game that, logically, gets exhausted. If you build the game ab ovo with a fundamental strategy to handle persistence as a formative pressure, it seems like you could avoid the issue altogether.

There is, of course, also the need to make elders feel special, but surely there’s got to be a way to do that in a game where everyone gets self-sustaining gameplay to enjoy.

I’ve been playing City of Heroes and thinking about this a lot, given that power gamers conquered level 40 at breakneck speed and will conquer level 50 just as fast. What will sustain City of Heroes? Of course, the answer is City of Villains, which introduces PvP as a self-sustaining mode of play to the space, albeit one with its own controversies and concomitant issues. I’m looking forward to seeing it.