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Have we seen the last of the great MMOs?
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The most resounding thought that I've had on my last few forays into virtual worlds was "I've done this before." Sure, each new generation tends to tweak the system a bit and add a few improvements (and take a few step backwards in other areas), but they mostly stick to the same tried-and-true formula first popularized by Everquest.
Generic Combat
The combat system of the modern MMO might be the most disappointing aspect of the game. While they've given us many more buttons to mash, combat is really the same basic system with more finger pushing. There's little thought involved as most combat tends to boil down to the same basic sequence: Fire off a set sequence of skills and abilities and then rinse and repeat.
In many ways, we are still just playing Everquest with more buttons to push and better graphics. While a few games have tried new things -- Dark Age of Camelot's reactive combat system being among the better tweaks -- the basic system has remained.
The biggest problem with combat systems in MMOs is that they are based on offense rather than defense, which tends to limit the strategy of combat. A defensive-based system would lower the number of "hit points" in favor of making it more difficult to hit the opponent. This opens up a whole array of strategies as fighters might use different feints and attacks to break through the opponents defenses rather than just spamming the buttons that did the most damage.
This type of system can also open up new strategies for other character types. What does the healer do when they don't need to spam heals? Perhaps a prayer to boost offensive skills? Or mix it up in melee combat?
Unfortunately, any change to the combat system would be useless if MMOs still employ such a basic A.I. for creatures. The predictable nature of combat is often because the creatures we fight are predictable. In fact, the creatures we fight are -- simply put -- stupid.
Hey, there's a fighter! He has yelled at us! I think we'll all group up and beat on him rather than the wizard casting fireballs at us!
Beyond just intelligence, creatures should have personality. Some might prefer to go after mages, while others want to stick to melee. Some might hate healers, while others are quick to flee combat. Heck, some might just want to kite the tank.
In ten years, we've only managed to add buttons to the EQ model. Perhaps by 2019, someone will actually get a little creative.
A Passive World is a Boring World
In terms of a living, breathing world, most MMOs are on par with the gold-box RPGs of the 80's. Sure, I can understand why Pool of Radiance had monsters placed in a particular spot and each area played out the same way every time you played the game. But can we breath a little life into this millenium?
Remember when you first stepped out of that tavern in Baldur's Gate only to be immediately beset by assassins? Wasn't that cool?
There's no reason why an MMO cannot be an active experience rather than the passive worlds where monsters stand on nearby hills or beneath the leaves of a forest simply waiting for adventurers to come by and kill them. The worlds we spend so much time in are very rudimentary in terms of their ability to surprise us.
Where are the goblin attacks on towns? The bandits jumping you as you travel along the road? Why is it that every time I visit a particular place it looks pretty much the same as the last time? Same orc camp, same graveyard with the same skeletons, etc.
Can we breath a little life into these worlds?
No Risk and All Reward Makes Jack a Dull Boy
The first days of Everquest were spent struggling to equip your character in basic gear. Heck, I still remember the satisfaction I felt when I finally filled out an entire set of boiled leather. Nowadays, it often seems like you step into a new world and are greeted by herald who says, "Hey, you are new, here's a magic sword!"
The abundance of gear and magic items thrown at the player has a way of really devaluing their meaning. When handed a magic item at the end of every other quest, the act of equipping your character seems less like adventure and more like simple inventory management.
This is compounded by the lack of risk in modern MMOs. As each generation tries to appeal more and more to casual players, they tend to get easier and easier and more devoid of actual risk.
I remember back when I didn't want to die in an MMO. My heart would actually start pumping harder because I absolutely did not want to die. Nowadays, I die just to return to my bind point so I won't have to run all that way just to turn in a quest. What fun is that?
I understand the idea of appealing to a more casual audience, but I don't agree that it requires removing all risk from the game.
Too Much Character Balance, Too Little Adventure Balance
Another aspect of the modern MMO that has sucked the life right out of them is the time and effort spent making sure each class is perfectly balanced with each other. Certainly, balance is important to any game, but over-balancing can be just as harmful (and perhaps even moreso) than a lack of balance. Over-balancing leads to a sterile, generic experience where all of the fun has been tossed aside as potentially unbalancing.
The rise of the class archetype is a perfect example of poor class balancing. In fact, I believe that the class archetype system is simply a way of the developers telling us they aren't very good at their jobs and not to expect much. The main thing the class archetype system does is to remove creativity from the game, which is the problem with over-balancing.
Unfortunately, the one area where designers should focus on proper balance is the one area they seem to give so little time to it: adventuring. Too many MMOs rope us into a pattern of doing quest after quest as the main and best way to advance our character and too few MMOs create a solid sandbox for us to create our own adventure.
Whether you like group play or solo play, questing or simple 'farming', a good MMO is one that has balanced each so that all the different ways to play the game provide an acceptable rate of advancement, both in terms of class advancement and inventory advancement (i.e. getting the goods). Too often these days, MMOs seem to press quest after quest on us, not allowing us to simply sit back and enjoy the game or do what *we* want to do as opposed to what the game wants us to do.
The End Game Should Be the End Games
I have the most fun in an MMO going from the beginning levels to max level, at which point I often lose interest in the character unless there is some form of PvP available in the game. This is because most MMOs have two basic types of end game: Raid and PvP.
This is unfortunate because there are many different playstyles in these games ranging from those who like to solo, those who prefer small groups, those who love raiding, those who love to PvP and those who really like taking different characters from level 1 to level 50. And the end game should reflect these different playstyles.
For example, group-based content could be created as cascading dungeons that require you to complete the first before moving on to the next (either by having hard requirement or a soft requirement in that the character simply wouldn't be powerful enough for the next dungeon).
Starting a new character could mean access to restricted races or classes or even becoming the son or daughter of your first character, and soloing as the end game could open up a for of alternative advancement based on different accomplishments from questing to hunting down specific creatures.
The goal here is for all players to have access to an 'end game' that matches the way they love to play the game rather than being forced into a particular type of end game, and for players to be able to 'advance' through this end game rather than feeling like second class citizens.
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