This month’s installment of MMOCO is a bit of a philosophical edition. Stuff has certainly gone down within the last month in the MMO department, but it’s kind of a steady murmur. There’s some excitement going on about the recently announced Elder Scrolls Online, but details are still pretty scarce as of yet. Betas are starting (e.g. the Secret World) and continuing (e.g. Guild Wars 2), and games are releasing (e.g. TERA). Every day, players are starting new MMOs, leaving old MMOs, and looking forward to those MMOs on the horizon. And as I sat here, trying to figure out what to focus on for this month’s edition, it struck me that we MMO players are in the middle of a pretty great time of innovation and change of the genre. How’s that, you ask? Well let me show you how I see it.
Dark Age of Camelot, probably the oldest MMO I've ever played
I didn’t get my MMO start in what people consider the originals, like EverQuest or Ultima (though the first game I really got hooked on was a MUD, which one could argue is a type of MMO). I have, however, been playing MMOs for about 9 years, and have put at least a few months in with a good dozen of them. Through that time, I’ve seen a lot of evolution and change, and I think right now we’re on the edge of a big change yet again.
Guild Wars, the MMO/Multiplayer hybrid I played the longest
As we all know, as technology advances, games change. Also, in the face of competition, games begin to try new stuff in an attempt to stand out from the crowd. World of Warcraft showed the world that MMOs could draw millions of people - some of whom never considered themselves gamers. Other developers decided that they wanted in on that, and more and more MMOs began to be made and launched. We’re now at the point where several highly anticipated MMOs are released each year (and that’s not even counting the dozens of free-to-play ones released in Asia). Back before World of Warcraft launched, MMO choice was much more limited. Now developers have to come up with new stuff (or ways to do the same stuff better) in order to entice people to come play their new, shiny game. Or, on the other hand, developers have to design new content or add upgrades to existing MMOs in order to get their players to stay. If you log on to any relatively new MMO and force yourself to read the disaster known as “General Chat,” players will regularly talk about how X MMO is better than Y MMO, or how they quit Z MMO to play this MMO, and so on.
World of Warcraft. Do I really need to say more?
Alright, so what’s my point? This competition for players has begun turning out some real innovative stuff. One such innovation I’ve noticed is action-based combat, which seems to have become a driving force for the genre. Almost all the MMOs I’ve tried or played (up until the past couple years) have been a standard tab-targeting system. Players select an enemy and use their skills (mapped to hotkeys) on that enemy. Within the last few years, though, MMOs have tried to make games more exciting than just hit a skill and wait for it to go off. A few years back, Age of Conan attempted an ambitious multi-direction attack combo system. It wasn’t entirely successful (back then, at least. I haven’t played the game since a few months after launch). It drew my attention, though, and though I wasn’t entirely fond of how it turned out for AoC, it made me begin to realize that MMOs had the potential to be different than the old tab-target. Now, I’m not saying AoC was the first game to attempt this, but it was it was the first one that made a splash with me. I watched other MMOs over the years also struggle with an action-combat system, and not quite pull it off. I began to doubt whether action could really blend into the MMO world.
Funcom's M-rated, bloody Age of Conan
Then I tried TERA - and I’ve found that the combat works amazingly well (in my opinion). Now, I'm not saying everything is 100% sunshine and rainbows in TERA, but the combat's a whole lot different than anything I've played in an MMO. Players are required to aim skills/spells, weapons hit everything that they graphically hit (not just the player’s target), and survival is based on actively blocking, dodging, and jumping away from monster attacks. It’s not only TERA, though. Many upcoming MMOs are also adopting an action combat system to some extent. Guild Wars 2 features a dodging/rolling system, and Neverwinter and Raiderz will require mouse aiming of skills/spells. Across the internet in forums, facebook wall posts, and twitter feeds, people are saying that they can’t imagine going back to how MMOs were before. I’m not saying everyone likes this action twist on MMOs (personally, I see the pros and cons to both sides of things), but I think it’s around to stay.
The recently-launched TERA, which boasts "True Action Combat"
There are certainly other innovations that also seem to be driving the genre. For example, the extremely strong story-based approach and fully-voiced quests that SWTOR exhibited are certainly raising consumer expectation. Let’s also not overlook the smaller things like UI stream-lining as well. Though I highlighted action-oriented combat here, there are a hundred other things I could go on about - but for the sake of space, time, and your sanity, I’ll stop here.
What do you guys think? Do you like where MMOs are going? Or do you hate it, and miss the old school MMOs? What other innovations have you noticed?