Massively multiplayer games are all the rage these days, with World of Warcraft leading the way as more and more companies try to strike gold with a hit title in the space. To publishers, MMORPGs represent the foolproof solution to copyright protection. Imagine being able to sell millions of copies of a game which cannot be pirated, and then continue to earn monthly revenue simply by maintaining the servers. It is no wonder that game developers are falling over themselves to make the next big MMORPG smash hit and capture even a small fraction of the revenue Blizzard is pulling in.
MMOs are hardly a recent phenomenon. They in fact have been around for decades. It has only been in the last five years or so however that they have gone mainstream, and this is largely due the fact that everyone has moved over to broadband internet connections. It also has a lot to do with huge improvements to graphics - and by huge improvement I mean the fact that MMOs now actually have graphics.
Before Warcraft was even a franchise, people were happily playing on MUDs, or Multi-User Dungeons which have been around the late 70s. MUDs follow the exact same principle that games like World of Warcraft do in that many users are collaborating together to fulfill some objective. In fact, some people refer to modern day MMOs as "graphical MUDs."
Now I am sure the grand majority of MMO gamers out there will most likely scoff at the idea of playing a text-based MMO, but those who had the pleasure of doing so will certainly agree that graphics are a non-essential part of the genre.
After all, how can any graphics compete with our imaginations? (Unless of course, your imagination has been destroyed by tv and the internet, like mine has). The same analogy applies to books versus movies.
When there are no graphics the emphasis is focused squarely on game-play. Let me provide an example. I used to play a MUD called Gemstone which at the time was being hosted on AOL. Yeah, that was back when they charged by the minute, which was extremely dangerous when combined with an addictive MMO. I luckily found a way around this but I had friends who had huge god damn bills to explain to their parents.
MMO RP G
The Gemstone experience was worlds apart from WoW and other modern MMORPGs. I've often heard of World of Warcraft referred to as "The Geek's Golf", where people can get together to discuss real world things while slaying fiends in a fantasy world. This is all fine and dandy, but call me crazy; when I think of an MMORPG, I take the RP part literally. I know that most people aren't crazy about role-playing, and whenever I evangelize about this I get the typical response: "I'm not going to run around talking like a 14th century fop." But I doubt many people would put up with NPC's in Oblivion talking about the results of the last night's basketball match (or maybe some would, I just do not know these days).
In Gemstone, role-playing was not only encouraged, it was rewarded. GMs could at any time be watching from the shadows and award experience boosts for a certain period of time to encourage clever or unique role playing. Knowing this, I would often put great effort into building my character's personality. For instance, as a dwarf warrior I would often frequent pubs and knock back spirits while grumbling about this or that. And because emoting was just as legitimate as any of the predefined actions, you could be quite clever in how you played your character.
Whenever the server experienced any lag, the community would refer to it as bad weather within the game. Real life dramas played out every day, and I'm not talking about the bitch-fests that occur daily in guilds throughout the World of Warcraft about who should get the next epic that drops.
Redefining Death
A large part of the drama stemmed from the fact that the penalty for death in Gemstone was handled much differently than in WoW. If you died, you had to rely on someone to drag you back to town to get resurrected. If you were out in the middle of nowhere, you might be out of luck. And if you hadn't purchased a deed by giving offerings of gems to the gods, death would be permanent.
It sounds a bit harsh, I know, and I realize this would never go over with the general population on your typical modern MMO. 
I understand that people put a lot of time and effort into building their characters, and that permanent death could quite possibly increase the suicide rate in this country. But I can tell you from experience that when permanent death looms overhead, you feel the sweat bead up when you go on dangerous missions.. not to mention when you engage in PVP.
Death in World of Warcraft results in little more than a slap on the wrist, and in some scenarios death is actually useful as a strategy, such as when you need to collect an item in a particularly dangerous zone; simply die over and over, inching your way toward the goal until you finally grab the item. I am sorry, but it all seems a little ridiculous to me. When I see a level 60 in the distance, I want my blood to run cold. I want to feel as though I truly accomplished something at the end of a quest. But above all, I want to lose myself in the game, a virtual impossibility given the sheer volume of inane Chuck Norris jokes bandied about on WoW.
Beyond harsher death penalties, Gemstone allowed for a much richer battle system. You could aim at specific body parts when swinging your weapon, with the occasional blood lust fulfilling chance you may lop off a limb or two. Likewise, if your arm was the one getting hacked off, your opponent could pick up your weapon and use it against you. These types of features just aren't possible in a graphical game, at least not yet.
You could say my Gemstone experience has given me a heavy bias. It is unreasonable to ask for the features I am asking for in a graphical MUD, and the cold hard truth of it is we probably won't be seeing them any time soon. The success that Blizzard has had with WoW is the due largely to the fact that they dumbed the experience down for the masses. In doing so, they got rid of the frustrations involved with difficult game play, but at the expense of a richer experience.
It's a Small World After All
MMORPG worlds are growing increasingly larger, taking many hours to fully traverse on foot. This is as it should be; before you is a vast unexplored land where you must fend for yourself and prepare well for your journey. I can imagine planning a journey days in advance, gathering the essential items needed for survival, recruiting mates to assist me in my journey, setting checkpoints, getting lost along the way, and discovering new adventures at every turn. Making the journey from one major town to another should be a significant task on its own.
Despite the effort put into creating such a vast world, Blizzard and other MMORPG developers add transcontinental travel to the equation, making an otherwise grueling and dangerous journey a safe, reliable, and quick one that would make Southwest Airlines jealous. If you measure a world's size in terms of time traveled, Azeroth starts to feel downright tiny. I imagine Frodo would have appreciated a quick Eagle ride to Mount Doom, but it wouldn't have made for a very epic tale.
These may be unpopular gripes, but I simply cannot get sucked into an MMORPG these days despite how hard I try. If anyone knows of one that meets has some or all of the features I'm begging for, please mention it in the comments. If you agree with my sentiments, digg this story and perhaps a developer out there will take notice (har har). If you have your own gripes or suggestions on how to improve MMORPGs today, please share them as well. Alas, for the time being I must remain patient and keep my fingers crossed.
After all, how can any graphics compete with our imaginations? (Unless of course, your imagination has been destroyed by tv and the internet, like mine has). The same analogy applies to books versus movies.
When there are no graphics the emphasis is focused squarely on game-play. Let me provide an example. I used to play a MUD called Gemstone which at the time was being hosted on AOL. Yeah, that was back when they charged by the minute, which was extremely dangerous when combined with an addictive MMO. I luckily found a way around this but I had friends who had huge god damn bills to explain to their parents.
MMO
The Gemstone experience was worlds apart from WoW and other modern MMORPGs. I've often heard of World of Warcraft referred to as "The Geek's Golf", where people can get together to discuss real world things while slaying fiends in a fantasy world. This is all fine and dandy, but call me crazy; when I think of an MMORPG, I take the RP part literally. I know that most people aren't crazy about role-playing, and whenever I evangelize about this I get the typical response: "I'm not going to run around talking like a 14th century fop." But I doubt many people would put up with NPC's in Oblivion talking about the results of the last night's basketball match (or maybe some would, I just do not know these days).
In Gemstone, role-playing was not only encouraged, it was rewarded. GMs could at any time be watching from the shadows and award experience boosts for a certain period of time to encourage clever or unique role playing. Knowing this, I would often put great effort into building my character's personality. For instance, as a dwarf warrior I would often frequent pubs and knock back spirits while grumbling about this or that. And because emoting was just as legitimate as any of the predefined actions, you could be quite clever in how you played your character.
Whenever the server experienced any lag, the community would refer to it as bad weather within the game. Real life dramas played out every day, and I'm not talking about the bitch-fests that occur daily in guilds throughout the World of Warcraft about who should get the next epic that drops.
Redefining Death
A large part of the drama stemmed from the fact that the penalty for death in Gemstone was handled much differently than in WoW. If you died, you had to rely on someone to drag you back to town to get resurrected. If you were out in the middle of nowhere, you might be out of luck. And if you hadn't purchased a deed by giving offerings of gems to the gods, death would be permanent.
It sounds a bit harsh, I know, and I realize this would never go over with the general population on your typical modern MMO.
I understand that people put a lot of time and effort into building their characters, and that permanent death could quite possibly increase the suicide rate in this country. But I can tell you from experience that when permanent death looms overhead, you feel the sweat bead up when you go on dangerous missions.. not to mention when you engage in PVP.
Despite the effort put into creating such a vast world, Blizzard and other MMORPG developers add transcontinental travel to the equation, making an otherwise grueling and dangerous journey a safe, reliable, and quick one that would make Southwest Airlines jealous. If you measure a world's size in terms of time traveled, Azeroth starts to feel downright tiny. I imagine Frodo would have appreciated a quick Eagle ride to Mount Doom, but it wouldn't have made for a very epic tale.
These may be unpopular gripes, but I simply cannot get sucked into an MMORPG these days despite how hard I try. If anyone knows of one that meets has some or all of the features I'm begging for, please mention it in the comments. If you agree with my sentiments, digg this story and perhaps a developer out there will take notice (har har). If you have your own gripes or suggestions on how to improve MMORPGs today, please share them as well. Alas, for the time being I must remain patient and keep my fingers crossed.
