I steal and archive a forum post with a few interesting thoughts with which I tend to agree. Some parts of it seem close to what I wrote about the “free will”.

Rollory:
As I was reading this, the first thing I thought of was, “This is why DDO is crashing and burning so hard.”

Oddly enough, I think that every time I see news about something interesting in MMOs. But to be specific. Leaving aside the required-grouping issues and the consequent vicious circles that drive players out of the game because they can’t find people to play with, thus making it harder for other people to find people to play with, or find a group willing to do new content, or the level cap that means your average intensive player burns through the entire game in the space of two weeks – DDO’s main selling point was the hand-crafted dungeons. All the content was made specifically by the devs, with absolutely no player input or control at all in what is in them or how they can be used. They exist as an obstacle course, nothing more – you run through them, dealing with the obstacles, and get the XP at the end.

Computer games are about giving up authorial power and putting the player in the role of the protagonist, and giving the player at least a certain amount of control over events – even if just tactical control. The Sims takes this a little farther, giving the player total control over what the “story” is, and giving them the tools to make everything needed happen while also making it interestingly challenging. MMOs are a step beyond, giving up more power and making the players in general the population of the imaginary world. Some MMOs go even farther, in giving the players powers of real significance in affecting the course of their gameworlds – DAOC and Neocron did this haphazardly; Eve Online does it almost wholeheartedly (empire space is still dev-influenced in its course, but that may be a necessary compromise). DDO went backwards, trying to take back power over content and put the players back in the role of objects moving along a course predetermined by an omnipotent Author. Players will put up with that for a time, but not an MMOG timescale.

DDO should have been a single-player game with optional peer-to-peer multiplay. What they actually developed would have been IDEAL for a game like that. It would have knocked the socks off NWN and BG as a game experience. As long-term entertainment though, it is not at all suprising that it doesn’t work.