The wait is over. Fallout junkies finally have Fallout 76 to sate their post-apocalyptic desires — and together, for once. The dream of multiplayer Fallout lives!
Just one thing: it’s not really an MMO. Everything we know so far about Fallout 76 indicates it’s not quite as “massive” as we’ve come to expect our online multiplayer games to be. We’re not going to see hundreds of fellow survivors roaming the West Virginian wasteland alongside us. But that only spells promise for the roleplayers among us, who don’t just want to play a game but tell our own stories in it.
Tighter-Knit Communities
Roleplaying is a gnarly business due, in part, to the size of roleplaying communities. As an MMO roleplayer, your characters exist in a shared world where no one person can be the hero or the star. Wrangling a horde of co-collaborators — each with their own ideas, opinions, and agendas — is a recipe for logistical and diplomatic nightmares.
It’s simply easier to work with fewer players, with a focus on quality over quantity. That’s where Fallout 76 will shine; 24-32 players per server isn’t even a small-town. It’s more like a dormitory where nearly everyone knows each other, which helps foster closer bonds and greater depth of roleplay. Besides, what’s survival in the post-apocalypse without the brutal solitude of just you and a few trusted buddies?
Look no further than Secret World Legends for an example of how to pull this off. Although MMO-like, the game defines itself as a “shared-world action RPG,” limiting player count in field areas to just over a dozen per server. This preserves the feeling of being largely alone in an occult hot-zone and lends itself well to tight, character-driven roleplay. Delving into the creative side of the player base will reveal little circles of roleplayers weaving their own tales in the game world, giving it life beyond what its developers intended.
Sure, it’d be nice to have an army of helpers to build a new West Virginia with. But building stories, especially with other people, involves a lot more than mouse clicks and keystrokes. Roleplayers will want to keep their circles more manageable — and Fallout 76’s small servers do just that.
Anti-Griefing Measures
Of course, other people can also be hell. Online roleplaying games tend to attract jerks who delight in “griefing,” or disrupting other players’ fun. This deplorable side of online gaming is almost as old as the MMO genre itself. In fact, it has moved some developers to consider countermeasures. Thankfully, Bethesda is one of them.
We know by now that Fallout 76 will come with anti-griefing measures baked in, including a “Revenge System” that operates on consent. “Opt-in” was the word used to describe the system, and it’s a very important one. It means roleplayers likely won’t have to worry about their campfire nights or wasteland treks being ruined by mischief-makers with far too much ammo and free time. (No sir, no sniping me mid-sentence over and over, not without my say-so!)
Naturally, you can’t fully jerk-proof a multiplayer game. And nobody’s expecting Bethesda to crack the secret formula to that, but they certainly have their priorities straight — which is reassuring for roleplayers long tired of malicious impositions on their storytelling.
Official Private Servers — A Roleplayer’s Nirvana
Of course, sometimes all else fails. Sometimes a game’s player base is just too large or toxic for roleplayers — ever a small and overlooked minority — to flourish. Wouldn’t it be nice, then, to have the game world all to themselves to build their ideal roleplaying environment in?
It would indeed, and that’s where private servers come in. Like griefing, they’re hardly new. World of Warcraft, notably, has seen over the years a slew of illegal player-hosted servers, some dedicated to roleplaying. However, legal, official private servers created by and for paying players are fairly new. They’re not something you’d expect to find in a proper MMO, but, luckily, they’re on developer to-do list for Fallout 76.
This move isn’t breaking any new ground. Conan Exiles, a similar not-MMO, did it just recently. But who came first doesn’t matter. Official player-run servers are literally the be-all and end-all of roleplaying enablement. With access to these, Fallout 76 roleplayers will be able to curate their own communities — and possibly even tailor fundamental aspects of the game world and gameplay to their liking, as in Conan Exiles.
Some might call withdrawing into private servers an “insular” or “exclusive” thing for roleplayers to do. But with Fallout 76’s small server sizes, there isn’t much to exclude in the first place. And there’s nothing stopping roleplayers from vetting and inviting new blood into their carefully curated slices of roleplay heaven. What’s important is that roleplayers have control over their immersion and the stories they wish to tell — without the legal risks.
Empowering Players
The history of roleplaying in MMOs has never been a smooth one. That’s why it’s great for all of us Fallout-loving roleplayers that the series didn’t get an MMO after all. MMOs don’t offer a tight-knit, manageable community and control over the game world — things that help roleplay thrive in online games. Fallout 76 does. Good thing war never changes.
