KDC: Kyrah Design Concept

This is another little thing that irks me, i have a long history of video gaming and i have played a lot of mmorpgs and fps games that weren’t strictly “run and gun” fast action packed deathmatches, yet i always had a lot of trouble finding peoples that actually “experience” the game, rather than just play it.

There are many AAA titles (not so much these days unfortunately) that where pushing forward the concept of immersion, (in First person games) making you feel the inertia of your character, making you see your character’s feet and hands or any other means of making you feel “there”.

I can’t blame peoples for not playing “my way” but it seems that even with a rich universe and a detailed perception of “self” in the game, as soon as it is a multiplayer game, peoples seems to instantly revert to being “out of character”.

Of course, the scenario in Singleplayer games contribute a lot to the immersion, but what is WRONG in multiplayer games? I recall a couple times playing an mmorpg and having my eyes focused SOLELY on the minimap for a whole play session. What are multiplayer games doing that literally “eject” the player from inside the game and reduce him to a mere “button pushing spectators” ?

Now this is assuming it’s the game doing something wrong, but that’s because it’s easier to fix the game than to fix people’s behaviors.
Now I’m asking, is it a gender thing? Western culture tend to expect from men to be secretive about their feelings and to avoid presenting weaknesses, I could understand that possibility, playing your character could betray you in some way and show some kind of weakness in your “though guy” armor.

There is also some sort of stigmatization of “roleplayers” in mmorpgs who are seen by a good part of the playing community as “D&D nerds” and other fancy names. This could explain why some peoples actively refuse any personal implications in a game and are fine with being permanently Out of character, because, for them, their character essentially does not exist beyond it’s ability to kill monsters and other players.

So tell me what you think? is it possible to create a multiplayer/massively multiplayer game that would literally encourage the players to immerse themselves into the game universe? And if yes, what should be done better/differently?

Link to the original post on Torquepowered.com