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The 9 aspects of a superior MMORPG: Part 1
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After playing several MMOs for so long, you start to recognize the good and the bad in each one. Personal tastes and preferences dictate what each person sees as a positive or a negative and some things are universal. Some players may love a robust and in-depth crafting system while other may want a quick, simple way to craft. On the other hand, most gamers agree that the grind is a low point in MMOs. The perfect MMO is different for everybody but here's a look at MMOs with elements I wish I could mash together to make a near-perfect MMO.
To create the perfect MMO is an illusion. No one MMO is going to satisfy the wants and needs of every gamer. But if we look at 9 key areas of MMOs we could use a variety of MMOs to mold the superior one. If you take a sampling of many MMOs and find positives of each of them you can fill these 9 areas with all stunning attributes. These 9 categories are customization, combat, crafting/economy, storytelling, questing/PvE, PvP, distractions, endgame, and pricing.
Customization
Creating your character is the first thing you do when you're starting an MMO. This is the character that you're going to personally identify with for hours upon hours. It's important that this avatar look the way you want it and for many, it's important that this character feel unique. The first MMO that really sticks out as a customization power house is City of Heroes/Villains. The character creation in this game is very detailed with many options for every part of the body, head to toe. In CoH/V, your costume is your identity. There aren't the normal armor or clothes drop in this game. Pieces of clothing don't carry stats, they are purely cosmetic. This allows for the ultimate character creation with no penalty for wanting to look a certain way.
The other option, verses having to wear a piece of armor because of its stats, is an appearance tab. Games like Lord of the Rings Online and Everquest 2 have features like this. An appearance tab lets you were that armor with the awesome stats, but cover it up with something you like the look of without losing the awesome stats. In LotRO and EQ2 this function is unlocked at a certain level. In Runes of Magic, a F2P title, a player may remove clothes but keep their stats with a "hide" function. Or players can take the stats from one piece of armor and move them to a different piece. There's similar feature in The Chronicles of Spellborn another F2P title.
Bottom Line: MMOs either need to have a suburb customization engine at creation that persists through gameplay. Or they need to contain features that let you look the way you want without being punished.
Plant control dominator in City of Heroes
Combat/Classes
Ultimately, there are really two types of combat in MMOs. Active and auto-attack are these styles and there are variations of both. Active combat is when you actively click with each hit in order to use your weapon. Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures and Mabinogi both use this function. In AoC you actually click different directions to hit different areas on a target. Abilities use combos based on those directional blows. In Mabinogi you click to use your weapon but a type of auto-attack can be enabled to work depending on how many hits your weapon has. Auto-attack is found in games like World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online. Auto-attack allows you to automatically attack with a weapon in conjunction with using other abilities in the hotbar. Neither style is better than the other, but I feel active combat is more engaging.
For the longest time, MMOs have used the system of picking a predefined class with predefined abilities. With different builds or talents as a variation people of the same class can be evidently different. Now, classless systems are starting to pop up in newer games. This system allows a person to make a character not out of a predefined mold, but rather out of many abilities handpicked by the player. Fallen Earth, Darkfall, Champions Online, Mabinogi, and Jumpgate Evolution contain classless systems to name a few. A skill based system usually accompanies a classless one. With a skill based system people level up individual skills to become better at that skill. Mabinogi, Darkfall, and Mortal Online all exemplify this model but there are several MMOs that use this system. Classless systems are a step in the right direction, but they are hard to balance. Of course, there will be combinations that work well together and combinations that don't work so great. People can be put off by a combination that doesn't work or discouraged when they meet a player with one that works so well.
Bottom Line: Combat must be entertaining. Active combat is probably where MMOs need to look to keep the gamer intrigued. Classes must either be very unique or allow a classless system. Skill based systems make classless features work even better.
The auction house interface in PotBS
Crafting/Economy
A good crafting system doesn't just mean it's something else to do rather than fight. It means a way to make money without necessarily getting that money off of a mob. There are games that offer experience for crafting items. This experience oftentimes goes toward separate level, a crafting level that allows you to create bigger and better things as it increases. Games like this are Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and EQ2. I find this to be a good system until you craft too much and can't support the items you're making because your adventuring level is too low. For people that purely want to craft, limitations like that keep you from crafting at a certain point. Fallen Earth, an upcoming release, is offering crafting that applies to your one and only experience bar allowing someone to craft their way to the level cap. In Fallen Earth, though, you can be crafting something while you're out fighting. The crafting in Vanguard and EQ2 is active, you need to be there while you're making something. Sometimes it may seem like crafting in Vanguard requires too many resources but the pay off is evident once you've made something like a boat...a personal boat.
The auction house system in games is a wonderful way to make money. With the right amount expertise a player can live off of an auction house. Crafting is a big part of making that money, but knowing how to watch prices and demand is part of the skill. There are a few different kinds of auction house. I prefer blind auction houses where the bidder cannot see how much the item is actually costs, but can see what the item has sold for recently. This helps keep auction houses from being swept away by people underselling or overselling something and ruining the market on an item. Good examples of blind auction houses are found in Pirates of the Burning Sea and Final Fantasy XI.
My last element of an ultimate crafting and economy system is player-ran shops. Although this could distract from auction house usage, I've always enjoyed player-ran shops. By player-ran shops I mean running a business from your home in Star Wars Galaxies or your personal room in Phantasy Star Universe. I do enjoy player's stalls like in Perfect World International and those, perhaps, mix better with an auction house system. Personal shops in a house or room almost eliminate the need for an auction house. In a game like PSU, all you had to do was search the item you wanted from your room, find the price you like, and travel to other person's room to pick it up.
Bottom Line: Crafting doesn't need to be a requirement, but it needs to be as intricate as combat. Although it's arguable if crafting should level a character's main level, I believe it should with the right amount of time and effort.
Conan's Hall in Age of Conan
Storytelling
I kept this section separate from questing because I believe a good story doesn't need to rely on quests. Sure, most of the lore you'll read in an MMO comes from questing. But I think it should come from all around you to keep you immersed in the game. Right now, good story driven content is within quests found in LotRO and AoC. The lore in both these titles is rich and engrossing. In LotRO an epic quest is present throughout the game. This string of many quests separated by book number introduces a plethora of lore to the player. In AoC gamers have something called destiny quests throughout their leveling. For the first 20 levels the destiny quests occur quite often. Later they're only every 10-20 levels but they drive the main story of why your character is even alive.
One thing that really aids in storytelling is voice acting. I know that's a big deal in an MMO, but when characters speak to you in AoC you hear intonation and inflection. Not to mention, you'll probably listen to a person before you read a quest log. Getting away from reading would help brining the lore to players. I like reading, don't get me wrong, but I know a lot of people who will not read a quest. They'd rather wait for the objective to pop up on the side of their screen and figure it out from there. More about this in the questing section. Questing aside, trailers and cinematics are great tools for storytelling. In game cinematics are an outstanding idea to keep a player interested.
Lore isn't just found in quests. It's found in every NPC and every item you see in the game. Why a certain piece of armor is called something is based on lore. Lore is found in the way an environment looks and feels. Ambiance can tell a story and keep a player immersed. I also think an ongoing story needs to be told throughout a game. If an expansion adds something that's great, but it needs to tie in somehow to the main story. An MMO's story shouldn't end until the servers shut down.
Bottom Line: Players need to hear or read the lore. Not everyone cares about why their character is in the world, but lore can be dripped in slowly through experiences other than quests. A "main quest" provides a storyline throughout gameplay and is a great tool for players to share during their time in that MMO.
Continued in "The 9 aspects of a superior MMO: Part 2."
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