The most frustrating thing about the average MMORPG is that almost nothing you do will make a difference to the game in the long-run. There are notable exceptions, the Sleeper in Everquest for instance, but there is generally no permanent change in the world.

The reason for this is no great secret; everybody wants to be the hero, so you cannot have one person out of the thousands who are playing kill the big bad-guy and rob everyone else of the chance. And thus we gained respawns; the player cannot permanently die (though that is a whole other conversation), so what makes you think that the Dark Lord Himself would stay dead?

We accept it. We have to really, since the alternative is arriving at numerous battlefields only to learn that the person you came to kill is already dead. It is bad enough when you have a six-hour respawn timer, imagine the chaos if the boss never came back! And yet…

World of Warcraft has phasing, where completing certain quests will change the way you see the world to make it look like you made a difference. Guild Wars makes your whole world change once you complete certain quests. EVE lets you battle great fleets and take control of star systems, but it is something of a niche game.

The best example, however, was a game called Shadowbane. Cities could be destroyed, legends could be made and crushed, but this was all PVP in the end and PVP without permadeath is a little hollow. In the end, what became of Shadowbane?

Maybe the truth is that players want to be able to do the things they have heard others talk about. While there will be a few Bartle-certified explorers, most players are happiest checking out Thottbot and Allakhazam, learning every step of the quest and avoiding any unpleasant surprises. I suppose I just wish that I could look back at some great battle in an MMO, tell people ‘I was there when the walls fell, I was the one who slew the Daemon Lord’ without a hundred people saying ‘me too’…