Oh the MMOs

The thing about updating this weekly, and not really working on any games right now, is that I don’t often have a very complete topic that I want to post on. If I could post about work I would, but I can’t. One little thing which has been wandering around in my noggin the last couple of days has been classes in MMOs. I recently got a friend at work to “rez” my account, meaning I get ten free days of gameplay (designed to lure me back in; it may be working).

Anyway, if you look at the numerous MMOs that are currently on the market, they are all alike in under laying gameplay (except a few, Eve Online comes to mind (I think, I have not played it much)). What you have are tanks, healers, and nukers. It can be in a fantasy setting: WoW, Warhammer Online, Everquest, Age of Conan, just to name the big ones, or it can be in a comic setting: City of Heroes / Villains. What I would like to see is a true break from this core component of someone taking the damage, someone healing the damage, and someone dealing the damage.

I love MMOs because of their social aspect. I really enjoy grouping up with a bunch of people to defeat a hard puzzle or opponent. But this does not need to mean fighting. Rock Band, while not an MMO, teams up four people to defeat a song, per se. What if a game play mechanic was designed that required ten people to solve some sort of puzzle through teamwork in an entirely new way? Someone who was good at math, someone who was good at art, someone who knew how to program…etc. would be required to get to the final solution. What if it actually allowed you to practice your trade, in a team setting, and made it fun? I have not though much about what type of game this would be. Perhaps I shall continue to ponder it. Please give some input if you have any ideas!

-Matt

Why I Don't Play Wow Right Now

I played World of Warcraft for nigh on two years straight starting in closed beta, took a break, came back for The Burning Crusade, and then stopped again when summer of 2007 ended. Why? Because, in a manner of speaking, I had already figured out all the patterns in the game.

I should probably rephrase that, but I was trying to tie it to James’s post earlier (he is borrowing my copy of “Theory of Fun”). I have not solved every underlying pattern that WoW has to offer, but I have experienced almost all of them, and they do not change. When you have a persistent online world, and you are expecting that people are going to pay to play in this world, you need to provide them with reasons to continue playing. Now is the time that you point out “but Matt, Blizzard is making another expansion…” and I say, “Yes they are, but I would like to address a point that going into and beyond simply releasing more content.”

Creating alternate characters is the other way, besides simply growing the world, that MMO’s retain players. However, I tend to find playing alts to be tedious most of the time. This is where I tie in the whole pattern issue. I have already played through this part of the world. Many times. Nothing changed. I am doing the same quests for the same people, in order to receive that same loot. What I would like to propose is the idea of a much more dynamic quest system.

In WoW there are two factions, Horde and Alliance, with different races and different starting areas. However, once you get to around level 30 or so, as either faction you end up in the same neutral zones doing the same quests. From 30-60 I did the same quests on my Horde rogue as I did when I was 30-60 on my Alliance priest. The quest giver simply changed race and name.

Obviously generating dynamic quests on the fly is a very tricky issue, considering that the majority of all quests in all role playing games are probably hand written and planned out. As a temporary solution I would also be strongly in favor of simply creating quest trees with different branches. I would be much better to be able to follow one branch in a series of quests, and then if I come back as a different character, I could follow a separate branch for different results.

I think as MMO’s continue to evolve, we will see worlds that are increasingly more dynamic, and this requires increasingly dynamic tools to work properly. Perhaps one of the reasons that we are in what I would call a quest rut is that the NPC’s in WoW don’t “require” anything. The dwarf who sends me off to kill the yetis that took over his cave is not going to actually return to his cave. But what if he did, and the next time I ventured by he needed other materials in order to rebuild. That is the kind of dynamic quest structure that would make me want to roll another character to and continue playing…and paying.