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Wednesday 05 October, 2011 at 7:05 pm / 0 comment

QotD: Vanishing emergent-gamplay

A thought, about emergent gameplay, dawned on me the other morning. The ability to use a game-feature in ways the developer never intended can add untold amounts of additional, fun gameplay. It has spawned meta-games by the players. In one instance, players created a game of lawn darts, based on the ability to jump from a flying mount. Another example would be using furniture pieces to create new furniture pieces or, in the case of Runes of Magic, the ability to make jumping platforms by placing carpets in the air, at intervals – thus creating a new jumping-game.

But in todays streamlined, action-MMOs that get down to the nitty-gritty, alternate uses for game-features can also be frowned upon. The ability to jump from a flying mount might be seen as unfair – if a mage could use it to dive bomb and cast a long range spell on a totally unsuspecting warrior. Or if furniture could impede someone else’s movement. In short: a lot of MMOs(especially todays themeparks) have very simple, laid out goals and some players may want everything within the rules to apply strictly(and only) to those goals that the developers made. So the Question of the Day is:

Is emergent-gameplay seen, nowadays, as simply a bug that should be squashed? Or a broken part of a game that needs to be fixed?

Extra: What would you cite as specific examples of emergent gameplay, today?