Dynamic

Okay, I like to be fair. And while we all know I'm never wrong, sometimes I might be slightly less than right. Or something like that.

I did say the Griffon Towers event was a good idea but I dismissed it for not being true dynamic content. While I didn't get a chance to actually participate, the comments I read convinced me that the event was more interactive than I gave it credit for.

Here's some of the reports that convinced me. And yeah, I know one of those threads is complaining about the short length of the event, but that's not my focus here (here's hoping they take the popularity into account for the next one - see Blackguard's comments on this). I'm more interested in quotes like this from the official forums:

"Now whenever my characters see the Griffon Tower on Coldwind Beach near South Centaur camp they will think ... We helped build that!!"

"It is just so cool that we could change the face of those zones."

"We can stand back and look at it and say 'I helped build that'."

I can't argue with that emotional response. But I'm happy to be wrong because it let's me harp on the fact that I think dynamic world-changing content like this is an important future of the MMO industry. Stuff like this could really help set EQII apart if they keep it up. Players are tired of feeling like they can't change the world they spend so much time in. And they love the feeling they get when they can make a difference.

But I'm not satisfied. I want to take it a step further. I want to see dynamic events that have different conclusions on different servers.

We have the perfect set-up. Freeport vs. Qeynos. I'm going to stick with griffon towers, just for an example. One griffon tower is going up. Whether it goes up in TS or Nek is up to the players. A simple race: who can finish the tower first? We have the good players struggling to build it in TS and the evil crew fighting to put it up in Nek. Whoever finishes first gets the tower permanently. As I said, the results would be different on different servers and the feeling of accomplishment would be even greater. Obviously, SOE can't do that specific example because the towers are already up, but you get the idea.

And let's do it in non-event ways, as well. I want every NPC I deal with on a day to day basis to react differently to me based on my level or faction standing. I want my armor mender to now say, "It's a pleasure to repair the armor of such a true hero." I want that Ironforge kid to say to me, "Wow, you must have seen a gnoll before because you're so damn uber it hurts my eyes to look at you." Well, maybe not exactly that, but you get the idea. To be fair some of this is in the game already, especially in terms of faction. In fact, some quest NPC in DoF recently referred to me by my character's name. Pretty cool. But I want more. I'm greedy like that.

Oh, and while I'm giving SOE credit for something, I might as well throw in the fact that they're offering refunds on the pre-NGE expansion, Trials of Ewan McGregor or whatever it's called. So that's takes a little bit out of the sting of my parody last Friday. But only a little.