GameSetWatch has an interview in which the topic of "persistence" is brought up--i.e. that places in the game have a state that doesn't vanish and reset when you stop playing. "The village stays saved," to give the example used in the interview.
In Second Life, persistence is taken for granted; indeed, loss of persistence is a calamity (vide the disappearance of Zero Point, and the ongoing complaints about lost inventory in general--not to belittle those incidents; people put good effort and/or L$ into most things there). I wonder whether MMORPGs and virtual worlds will converge. What features of MMORPGs could be used to advantage here? It's not obvious to me, though I certainly don't want a game-imposed goal.
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