Online World Atlas: Ikariam / Worlds In Motion

“In Ikariam, users create a town on a randomly assigned island. On their island are up to 15 other players, plus a sawmill and a unique resource. The aim of the game is for the player to create the largest and most prosperous city by accumulating resources through production, trade or warfare, and developing new technologies and buildings as a result.”

I really liked Ikariam. I liked it so much that I was playing it constantly, just slowly improving my cities and civilization in aim of… what?

Which is why I stopped playing. I couldn’t see any “end-game” or point where I’d feel a great satisfaction (you can continue to improve your cities to a near infinite degree) so I just deleted my account straight away – after finishing this article, of course.

I do almost wish I’d come to that realisation before finishing the article, though. Because it kind of strikes at a classic MMO problem – they want to keep you playing, so how do they make sure you are rewarded enough, but not enough (or too little) that you stop playing?

With Ikariam specifically, I think the problem is a flaw deep in the design – it either needs to be possible to destroy cities or to reach a point where they are completed and expansion is the only option. I imagine they don’t allow players to destroy cities as then especially powerful players could run roughshod over new players, but the difficulty of balancing that would have led to a richer game, I think. The other option (ability to “complete” cities) seems too likely to make a lot of players stop playing once they’d “completed” their first city unless resources were much harder to come by, which could possibly make the game even less rewarding!

MMO designers – I don’t envy them.

August 19th, 2008 : Worlds In Motion