You all know them: Ragnarok Online, Maple Story, World of Warcraft, these are practically household names for anyone that considers themselves a gamer, from the casual to the hardcore. Millions of people play them, but why? Because they are progress simulators, and people love easily-gotten gains, no matter how insubstantial they are. However, these gains also have to have some challenge behind them. Nothing in life comes for free, not even imaginary demon slaying swords.

So here we have the root of the problem; somewhere along the line some wires got crossed and everybody decided MMO = grind (now with added social interaction!).

It’s time for “Cooking with Kintak”. Today I’ll be teaching you how to make your very own money farm. It’s quite easy, really! Take Diablo, stretch out the content as thinly as possible, host it on your own servers so you have an excuse to charge $15 a month, and watch as the money flows in (or wait to go bankrupt, as the case may be. See: Every WoW knockoff). To make the monthly fees really convincing, release a half-finished game with the promise of additional content maybe being added at some point. To make even more money, charge for any additional content that you plan to add, and call it an expansion pack!

“But Kintak, the name of this article is ‘An Untapped Potential’. What’s all that about?”

Why yes it is, isn’t it! And true to my words, there is an untapped potential: the “human potential”. You see, at this point in time, the majority of mass multiplayer games are stagnant universes that require their creators to breathe life into them every time their subscription base starts getting antsy. Every speck of content must be constructed by an omnipotent being (I hear they call them “developers” in the holy land). Every single byte is under the control of this god, but because of this, the game does not generate interest or content by its own merit.

So I come back to this human potential. Like Prometheus stole fire from the Greek gods, like Eve took a bite of the apple in the Garden of Eden, we too must demand freedom and power from the developers. The players must be able to police themselves. They must be able to create their own content, their own rules, their own cities, their own armies, their own wars. This has already been put into action in some games. In fact one of the earliest MMOs, Ultima Online, was like that back during its mythical days. Unfortunately, nowadays, thanks to EA’s control, it’s nothing but a husk of its former self.

However, the hope of freedom does not die with Ultima Online; rather it has found new homes. Though neither as free nor as intense as Ultima Online once was, EVE Online is very much player-driven. Almost every object in EVE except NPCs is player-controlled, including the economy (and every resource inside of it, from minerals to full spaceships) and the law (outside of high-security areas).

Even games that were once static may someday be given player control. For example, there is a planned feature in the works for City of Heroes which is due to be released with its next free expansion, Issue 14. This feature, dubbed the Mission Creator, will give players the ability to craft their very own missions (quests) that other players will be able to play and rate.

So you see, this dream of freedom is not dead. The thing you, as a player, can do is demand that it be realized.