Well, I had intended to post periodic updates of the Warhammer Online experience, but honestly, my schedule has been so hectic, it's impossible to keep up. The fall season is upon us, and I will be part of the TGS crew, so I haven't been able to focus on the small things as much as I would have liked.
The Warhammer Online review goes up tonight, but playing that game--and a lot of other MMOs over the years--has made me question (again) where the genre goes from here, particularly when a juggernaut like World of Warcraft totally dominates the market. To add an ironic aside: WoW doesn't really do much that hadn't already been done in other games, and it's always interesting that Warhammer Online--and other games--get accused of being WoW clones, when in actuality, Blizzard's own awesome game used already-existing standards, polished them to a degree previously unseen in MMOs, and made them accessible to almost everyone.
Regardless, Blizzard has proven you don't need to massively retool gameplay conventions that work well to make a highly successful game. You could argue the same in almost any genre, really; most first-person shooters and real-time strategy games simply play with proven concepts. And I certainly don't believe a game has to be innovative to be good--but I do have a personal MMO wishlist that may tell you what conventions I think are worth sticking with, and which ones need to be rethought.
1) Play with combat.
Age of Conan is the newest example of a game that revamps traditional MMOG combat, but other games have played with the standards. Vanguard lets bards create their own buffs by attaching song pieces together; Everquest II had heroic opportunities; and of course, games like Neocron and Planetside went the FPS route but had other significant problems that held them back. I don't want to see AoC's system copied, but I do want developers to think about how they can breathe life into combat. How about rare but effective cinematic quicktime events? (Think about how awesome it would be to trigger an event like this; other players would watch as you launched onto a dragon like an acrobat and brought it to the ground.) Whatever it is, it should keep us engaged and active, and should entail more than just clicking on icons or pounding on hotkeys.
2) Play with crafting.
Vanguard sets the standard for MMO crafting--but its relative lack of success means few of its original features are bound to be copied. All too often, this aspect is either tacked on (oh Warhammer, how I wish it wasn't true), or unbalanced (all too often in an MMO, the items you make aren't even as good as you can get at a regular vendor; what's the point?) Crafting should be about more than just the end product--it should match that product with an activity engaging enough to make crafting an item enjoyable. Make a good system (Vanguard, because the act of crafting is cool; Pirates of the Burning Sea, because it ties in with a giant economic web), or leave it out and create another gameplay mechanic to keep us busy in the downtime (gambling minigames, anyone?)
3) Play with AI.
Rooting, pulling, and so on are standard acts in an MMO, and they require predictable NPC behavior. Here's what you usually see: a monster that has a radius that, if you cross it, will draw aggro--and the monster will then attack you. What happens if we make monsters with real artifical intelligence? What if they were less predictable, acting on their own devices, rather than in a highly strict manner? The concept means a lot of other mechanics would need to be rethought (class roles, escape opportunities, and so on)--but perhaps that's a good thing. Make entire monster societies, and let them battle each other independently of players, and do it in a non-scripted way. City of Heroes and Tabula Rasa made some progress with genre AI. Let's see more of it.
4) Play with location.
I'm an explorer. I want to see something new. After all, this is a virtual world. A developer should ask: why would players want to live in our universe? It isn't just about how much there is to do, but how much there is to see. I'm not just talking about graphics (though art design is inextricably tied to this suggestion); I am talking about surprises. World of Warcraft hides a lot of cool things in the nooks and crannies, for example. Give me awesome places to stumble upon, reasons to leave the beaten path. I recognize that most developers want their world to have visual consistency. But the real world doesn't have that, and I'd like to wander about another world that has secrets to share. If I wander into an alley in San Francisco, I'm bound to find something weird. Why shouldn't the same happen when I wander into one in an MMO? And don't just make it a visual thing--hide a vendor there that sells unique items; stick an NPC there that has a story to tell. Fill your world with unpredictability, and it gives us a reason to return.
5) Play with story.
Some developers are headed in the right direction. Turbine (Asheron's Call; Dungeons & Dragons Online; LOTR Online) is consistently good at delivering story, as is Funcom (Anarchy Online; Age of Conan); and Everquest II's abundance of voice acting makes quests more involving and fleshes out the lore better as a result. But even the most expertly written quest is pointless if the player ignores the dialogue, or if it has no character. Make voice acting a standard (but allow people to turn it off if they want); improve animations and design NPCs so that they look different from each other (I don't look like my coworker Lark Anderson in the least, so I certainly don't see why every goblin has to look alike). These may not seem directly related to story, but they give the world's inhabitants personality, which goes a long way towards making you care about their tales. Guild Wars, Asheron's Call 2 and others gave us cutscenes. Give us more--and make them good. And--God forbid--give us branching paths, a single-player standby, and one that would be difficult to implement well in an MMO environment. But do it.
Or scrap it all and do something crazy. Of course, this is my own personal wishlist; a good business plan doesn't always include a lot of chances and innovations. What would you like to see in an MMOG? What things are you happy with, and what needs improvement?
