2021-10-03
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The time for great single player games is probably behind us,
unless they make a comeback in some artificially intelligent form,
which actually sounds quite likely. But while the times are
solidly in the past, let us kick up some meta analysis just for
fun.

In my mind the drop in gameplay quality was most deeply felt
between Morrowind and Elder Scrolls Online. There is just
something hobbling about making a solo game into a multiplayer.
The world seems so much smaller and more boring. The only way to
hold onto the threads of storytelling is to have single player
missions embedded into the multiplayer world. Even so there is
something missing. The missing part is the gameability.

In Morrowind you might not have the stats to be able to cast
some super fly spell, but you can make a potion that gives
you a boost in the stats and THEN cast the flying spell...
I think this is how an actual wizard would bootstrap their
powers up to a higher level than they are otherwise capable of.
Obviously this little gameablity feature has been removed in 
ESO. Actually, you can't fly at all because you might get past
all kinds of obstacles.

But what a loss this is! Big part of the fun was to be able to do
superhuman things. Even the story was about the player being some
mythical savior figure. It doesn't seem to me that you can make a
multiplayer game where the first person feeling for everyone is
that they are the hero of their story. And feeling like you are
the hero is maybe the most important part of a story. In the
single player times learning to game the game was a big part of 
mastering a game. Now it's mostly about reflexes and being able
to remember the map. It's gotten more boring.

Now the meta part: I think this idea must work in other systems.
Like the marketplace. The more regulated the market, the less
gameable it becomes, making it boring, making less people be
interested in starting their businesses, or less people invest
into businesses. On the other hand, the more gameable it is,
the more corrupt it is as well, because there are less rules 
and/or less oversight.

The global market has gone multiplayer quite recently. It will
become extremely boring extremely fast.

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