Pwning the World!

Apropos my last post, it strikes me how much MMORPGs borrow their tropes from Tolkien and his imitators, yet no one is ever in any real danger at all. If you really want to make players feel like they're in a Tolkienesque epic, in which the fate of the world is truly at stake, then make sure the world really is at stake! On a Sunday night, 8 PM EST, have this message come down from the heavens:

THIS IS GOD. THE DARK LORD ZARAKKANNAXXARR IS ABOUT TO DESTROY THE UNIVERSE. DEFEAT HIM, OR THE SERVER WILL SHUTDOWN FOREVER! THAT MEANS YOU'LL LOSE YOUR CHARACTERS AND ALL YER PHAT LOOT!!!!! SO GET YER SHIT TOGETHER ASSHOLES!!!!

Not only will they have to fight the Evil Overlord, defeat his armies, raid his dungeons, all the usual nonsense, but the fate of the server will depend on some 13-year-old PvP maven tossing his Legendary Orange Ring of Pwnage into the Volcano of Doom. (To make it really interesting, lie and tell him he'll get an iPod or something if he fails. Laugh at him if he falls for it.) It'd be great to see how players respond to something like this...