Pumping Irony

I’m not even sure I’ll be able to formulate this into a cohesive thought with an actual point, but here goes anyway…

I keep the Battlefield 2142 demo installed just in case a friend decides to try the game out with me. My good friend Jostein did just that a few days ago. He’s an Insurgency addict, recently promoted to admin on the popular server he plays on, so coming to 2142 was a bit of a culture shock, just as going to Insurgency is for me. We each complain about the UI in each game, and being able to tell who’s friendly and who’s not in each game. One valid complaint he did have, however, is one I’d never really noticed since I play the real version of 2142: in the demo, there’s almost zero communication and coordination and any sense of “community” is nearly non-existent or at the least filled with the selfish, swearing, bunny-hopping kids we all know and “love.”

I’m not in a 2142 clan, and I can’t say I’m particularly “good” at the game, but while playing the full version I consistently get invited to squads, even when I’m already in one; sometimes I’m invited to clan-only squads. 90% or more of the time in my experiences, the squad leaders are giving orders, the squad is complying to advance the squad’s score for upgrades and the commanders are at least trying to do their job as well. Coordination and communication rule the day there. In the demo, by contrast, it seems to be rare for squads to even form, rarer still for the squad leader to bother doing his job.

FPS demos are (nearly?) always played on separate demo servers so demo players can never interact with “real” players, but allow players to continue playing endlessly. Well, until there are no more demo servers. In the MMO world, the trial period is limited-time but is not (overly) crippled other than the typical spam-prevention method of prohibiting trial players from sending tells or mail.

I can’t help but wonder if an MMO that had its “noob experience” separate from the “real world” like LOTRO does would go over well with an endless trial period; the catch being you can never leave the “noob world,” can never communicate or otherwise interact with players in the rest of that game world. And, if so, would that also create an extremely fractured community like we’re seeing over in 2142, both in terms of the trial vs. full players and of the mentality and attitudes of former trial-only players finally coming over into the full world?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 11:18 am and is filed under FPS, MMO Gaming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.