Communalization

[Tonkyhonk]

i once played this MMO where you can hardly play alone, cant remember the name, not sure if its still out there.
a friend of mine dragged me into this space-themed strategy war game cause he needed some translations.
(and after a few months, he quit and i got involved so much and couldnt quit for more than a year.)
its mainly quest & PVP, and grow your own space empire by many means. (mostly by PVP or vassalizing others)
you can try and play alone, but its almost impossible to win alone because people can easily target a lone player from a list of players in public, and you have no chance winning alone unless the target is too pathetic.

"lord-vassal" system makes all players need either a rich and powerful lord to receive supplies or as many vassals as you can afford(you have to feed them) to grow yourself. (many had both lord and vassals.)
and joining a clan is a must, to get yourself a main defense mean to protect yourself.

you can go pvp any time you want, but you will be thrown out to PVP at least once every 24 hours and you can never get back to safe mode without getting attacked by someone else.
there was a limit in pvp though, you can only attack certain range of your level, which keeps big powers from griefing newbs. (but still there were loads of griefers, they keep their empire small to kill off new players.)

i enjoyed this game so much, but after playing for a while, my clan grew big enough and had to start fighting all the top players who played literally 24/7. they were always on with their cell phones even at work and in bed. naturally, i couldnt play on cause i had life. and at some point, i had a real life issue to give up this game completely, gave my account away to a clan mate and quit.

as communalization process, i think this game really was a win for the system itself. it is a forced method, and im not sure if many like it, but those who are rather anti-social may find themselves acting differently from other "free to join" community experience, to survive and to experience what MMO means.


as for H&H, i do not think they should take such measures though. this is supposed to be run by "free will" of each players, hermitting or settling with a few or joining a group should really be up to each player. sometimes you want to join a group when you can play a lot, sometimes you want to play just casually.
the freedom of game-play style choice is ftw imo. you play games for fun anyways.
but maybe, those who dont know what MMOs or community game play brings you about, might want to try some "forced-community" type of games at least once just for understanding.