MMOs are for the birds

There is no point in dancing around the topic here, we’re not going to avoid taking that critical blow that forces us to wander as a ghost, hunt down our body or lose a level. The zero dollar question is;

Have MMO games gone stale?

Everything has a beginning and an end. In the beginning there were BBS text based dungeons, MUDs, and RPG games, but the most widely renowned beginnings for the MMO genre are found in the seeds of Everquest.

With its humble beginnings in 1999, it’s hard to believe that almost a decade has passed and the Everquest players still continue to shell out cash on a monthly basis to immerse themselves in this interactive virtual universe. Since then dozens of whelps have been spawned, Final Fantasy XI, Guild Wars and Lineage to name a few, and some of them have grown into full fledged corporate entities, such as the WoW division of Blizzard Entertainment. However, as the years progress and the addictions continue to be exploited, players are beginning to notice the trends and the repetitiveness of the genre.

To be clear, there is no point in saying that online games are good or bad, fun or not, or worthwhile to a gamer or not. What needs to be explored from an unbiased vantage point is whether or not these MMOs are continuing to evolve and offer the player an entertaining unique experience.

The continuing trend in online games is to design tasks specifically to lengthen the number of hours of play. More innovative designers like NCSoft have recognized the need for compartmentalized tasks, which allow you to complete portions of an overall goal in 15-30 minutes; however they still want to keep gamers playing persistently. After all, that’s what the genre requires. They need you to buy the next expansion or pay the monthly fee, or else they have to close shop.

This should be a warning light for gamers everywhere, they expect you to keep paying AND keep playing the same game almost indefinitely. Where are the gorgeous new graphics? Why is it always the same problems that arise; like transportation, aggro, and not enough characters playing the “healer”. Maybe new games coming from popular TV shows like Firefly will produce new and innovative ideas.

Are the corporations that back these massive online games afraid to try something new? Why change the format when you have a cash cow like this. There is no question mark in that statement because it’s rhetorical. When you are earning that much money there is little reason to introduce change and risk. The only driving factor for change in the MMO genre at the moment is when companies (new or old) are looking to expand their market. Guild Wars, published by NCsoft, is an example of a company that wanted to attract a new market of gamer. They changed the MMO so that it did not rely on player groups alone, could be played without severe time constraints, and did not have a monthly fee.

Unfortunately, due to the sheer volume of people interested in playing the stale MMOs that are already available, it doesn’t look like the massively multiplayer genre is going to make any massive leaps into a new generation of gaming, but thanks to companies like NCsoft there is hope. What will the next era of gaming bring us? Things like countries having virtual wars, or laws being developed to govern virtual realms? Or will it all devolve back into a safer more single player oriented gaming style. Who knows; it is certainly an interesting era for games to grow and develop.