MMOs: A Reader Request

So yea, here's my first reader request post.  I thank everyone who commented and asked for a topic for me to talk about, you guys are awesome.  So here it is, let's get it underway.

When I was first asked to do a post about MMORPGs I thought to myself, huh, that's a really general request.  How do I approach this one?  I started thinking about the various aspects of MMOs and came to a realization that MMORPGs can do a wide variety of things with gameplay and story.  With that in mind, I am going to talk about how MMOs can provide so many different options for different gamer types within the framework of being an MMO.

The first point I'd like to make is what people think about when they think of MMOs.  We can all assume that most people first think of World of Warcraft or Everquest or even Runescape.  Fantasy RPGs with lots of level grinding, loot gathering, monster killing quotas, and other players.  People think of raids, grouping up with people, and fighting tons of monsters.  While this is fine, the problem comes in when developers try to do the exact same thing to somehow lure more players in to make a profit.  This makes for many an MMO that cannot be differentiated from each other and all are pretty bad and a waste of money.  However, nowadays developers are coming to realize that the best way to make money on the MMO market is to stand out with something profoundly different from what has come before.

Now let's talk about some examples.  First off is Secret World, an intriguing MMORPG from Funcom.  This game took some interesting steps forward with it's game design.  First off it decided to do away with classes.  In its place players were given the ability to point buy their way through weapon and magic trees to buy both passive and active skills.  Players can then create "decks", loadouts of 7 active skills and 7 passive skills.  To make your deck effective you need to equip skills that will play off each other effectively.  On top of this, they added a radically different sort of quest to the repertoire of mission types offered by MMOs.  It has your standard quest types of killing a certain number of monsters and gathering a certain number of items and defending areas, but on top of that Secret World adds investigation missions.  Investigation missions task you with solving in depth puzzles that usually require you to go outside the game to find the answers.  These missions require you to use your brain more than your mouse and it is a refreshing change of pace.  I also give props to Secret world for making objectives in the mission very organic.  Missions are broken down into multiple parts that flow into each other naturally.  Every piece makes sense and has a legitimate justification for happening.  Finally, Secret World gives a fresh setting for the MMO genre.  Most MMOs take place in a fantasy world.  Secret World on the other hand uses a modern fantasy world for the setting.  It may not change much in how things work, you still fight monsters and collect items and other familiar things, but the environment makes a huge difference.  Just seeing your character in regular jeans and a t-shirt, or interacting with normal people, or any number of factors just lends itself to a very new and fun to interact with sort of world that you can really feel connected with.  It's not some way out of reach fantasy world or crazy advanced sci fi land, it's our world with a twist, familiar enough to connect with but different enough to be fantastical.


Next up on the list is Firefall.  Firefall is a free to play MMO from Red 5.  They took a big jump away from the standard MMO formula by making the game a skill based shooter instead of a leveling and button pushing RPG like many before it.  The way Firefall works is you choose a class, then set off into a world where aliens are invading humanity's territory and it is your job to beat them back.  However Firefall does things slightly differently, even outside the whole shooter MMO deal.  First off you don't receive quests from quest givers.  There are quests, but your receive them in a slightly different manner.  Missions are dished out to everyone at any time.  They just pop up on the map and anyone can go do them as they like.  It adds a much more friendly tone to the game, making players join together organically instead of just forcing you to group up to take on a difficult fight or making it way more rewarding to do things on your own.  Another interesting addition in Firefall is mining.  Essentially you're given giant drills that you can lay down around the world to gather resources for crafting new equipment and upgrading the defenses of cities.  Everything is very organic and just works well.  On top of that: jetpacks.  Everyone gets jetpacks.  That right there is awesome and a valid selling point.

Finally just going to do a rapid fire of some notable MMOs that do things differently.

Planetside 2: first person shooter MMO.  Expands the idea of competitive multiplayer first person shooters into the MMO formula.  You are a soldier in a massive, planet sized war.  You can be one of 3 sides all fighting for territorial control.  Great idea for taking a very popular gameplay type and expanding it into giant scale battles of awesome and adding RPG elements as well.

Day Z:  Zombie apocalypse MMO.  Huge focus on survival and roguelike elements.  You need to eat, you need to drink.  You need to find weapons and supplies and you need to stay alive.  Zombies are scary, players are scarier.  You die and it's game over, start over.  Brutal, crazy, and a lot of fun to play.

Finally I want to look at where we're going with the MMO genre by taking a quick peek at Everquest Next.  I was never a big fan of the Everquest games, never really played them myself.  So when my friend told me to talk about Everquest Next I was a bit suspicious.  But now I'm a believer too.  First off EQ:N looks gorgeous.  It's like a moving water painting, beautiful in design.  On top of that, destruction physics.  Yes, everything is destroyable.  And the whole world is seamless.  WOW.  In addition, there is multiclassing.  Players start off with a base class with its own multi-tiered abilities and specialized weapon skills, but then players can acquire abilities from any of the other classes to make a truly unique character build.  There are no levels, so it seems like everything will be point buy.  If that wasn't enough, there are real, permanent consequences for player actions.  Players can fully affect and shape the world around them in permanent ways that dynamically affect the whole game world.   But wait, there's more.  NPCs in EQ:N will have more natural and nuanced behavior than just plain aggro.  Sometimes they'll go after an adventurer's gold instead of just because an adventurer wandered into their area.  These are not just static spawn points, these are decisions made by behavioral AI.  Lastly, every player will have their own unique story.  No predetermined funneling storyline quests here.  Players will have to go and hunt down adventure, finding opportunities to seek out fame, fortune, and adventure in the world.  The game will recognize what sorts of missions you prefer as you play and will adjust accordingly to allow for more things that YOU the player want to do.
All in all, the future looks very bright for MMOs.  Every one is unique, providing different games for different folks as it were.   And with Everquest: Next in the works, we can look forward to a whole new redefining of what it means to be an MMO nowadays.

Thanks for reading everybody.  Leave a comment to tell us what you think, or to even talk about MMOs that you like and think are unique.  If I forgot an MMO you think should be on the list tell me!  Also requests for new topics and games to review are always appreciated, as this proves I do in fact do them!

Gamer out.