MMOs 'don't give people the tools to build community anymore,' says EverQuest 2 creative director

Kyle Vallee, creative director for EverQuest 2, is a huge fan of MMOs and has played basically all of them—but he thinks the genre has lost its way in one respect. The sense of community early MMOs cultivated is being sidelined, he says. 

«They seem to have lost that [community focus] in other MMOs, the community has become not a big part of it,» Vallee told me at Flippy Fest, an EverQuest anniversary celebration developer Daybreak Games recently brought me out to San Diego to attend. «It seems like they don't give people the tools to build community anymore. The couple other MMOs that I play I'm almost like a solo player 100%, I don't group with anyone. The tools there for building communities just really seem lacking, even in the newer stuff.»

When I first started playing EverQuest, community and cooperation weren't exactly optional. Monsters were deadly, some classes couldn't solo at all, and if you wanted to get anything done you had to reach out to other players and get a group going. The challenge itself was a feature that brought players together organically.

Some MMOs do a better job of this than others. I played FF14 when it first came out, and like a lot of players, completely bounced off it. Years later after the overhaul of A Realm Reborn and a few well-received expansions, I decided to give it another go. I had a blast, and I played all the way through Stormblood before wandering off, but I spent the lion's share of my time alone. Sure, there were occasional Main Scenario dungeons or raids, but for the most part I was off by myself slogging through Main Scenario Quests.

Now, that's not a bad thing necessarily. FF14 is trying to tell a much more structured story than most other MMOs. I enjoyed the storytelling, and the duty finder was always there for a change of pace if my mind started to melt doing another fetch quest for moogles. But I was struck at times, in a world with thousands of players, at just how lonely it felt. Vallee found himself feeling