Introduction

I think I may have hit the wall with the massively-multiplayer online role-playing game (MMO). As a veteran of Ultima Online, EverQuest, Anarchy Online, Earth and Beyond, Star Wars Galaxies and World of Warcraft - while I venture into Lord of the Rings Online - I think this genre needs a serious shot in the arm. The differences between these games are great and many, but there are many similarities as well that are starting to get old. Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) is a solid game, but it owes a great deal to World of Warcraft and employs several of its core mechanics. It isn't the step forward I had hoped for despite being released over two years later. It feels like we're stuck in a rut of sorts. Due to the success of World of Warcraft, anyone developing a new MMO is using it as a model to follow, instead of something to program against. You see this same thing in the movie industry when a new kind of movie comes out and does really well against all expectations. Almost immediately after, a bunch of similar movies are put into production in order to capitalize on what appears to be a successful formula.

MMOs take a long time to develop and require an egregious amount of capital to launch so they have to be successful or people get fired and companies go under. If you're going to gamble your own future and the future of your company, the safe route is to just copy World of Warcraft and hope for some spill-over business. The problem is that World of Warcraft has perfected the fantasy MMO, and with around 8.5 million subscribers, I'd say it has that demographic serviced. LOTRO can hang out there on the fringes and ride the "these books started all this" wave, but other than that we really don't need any more MMOs in the fantasy setting. However, it isn't the setting that is at the core of the problem; it's the mechanics. These games all use similar mechanics that may be tried and true, but are becoming old and busted. We've been playing in this MMO box for so long that it's hard to imagine a game existing outside of it, but I'd like to offer some ideas for ways to improve this genre. Much of the design of MMOs stems from Dungeons and Dragons and the D20 system, and I think that developers use it because it's immediately familiar to players (it's comfortable). I'd like to think that there's a better way to do it.

Now I'm a game player not a game developer so there are probably a number of technical reasons why these things won't work, but I'm not interested in those right now. This is our new MMO brainstorming session, so all ideas are valid. Before you send an email saying, "But GAME_TITLE_X has that!" realize that just because a game may have implemented a single one of the changes mentioned here doesn't mean we're on the way to a revolution.

In order to really change how we think of these games, let's start at the very bottom. What are the most basic components of an MMO? I would say leveling, classes, loot and dungeons. Do we need leveling? Your first response is, "Yes, of course!" But do we really? The fact that we can't even conceive of a game like this without leveling should send up a flag that something is wrong right there (considering the game that started this genre, Ultima Online, does not have leveling). Leveling is just a quantitative method of showing an improvement in your character. I wouldn't say that it's necessary for a great game so let's throw it out for now. There must be some other way to show improvement in a character and reward people for the amount of time they have spent in the game. I realize we can't have someone who buys the game and logs in six months after it comes out and be as powerful as the guy who's had it since the first day (and has been playing it since the beta, no doubt). The hardcore guys need to show the rest of us that they are hardcore and we are not, but let's just say it won't be with a numeric indication of a level. Without leveling, there is no need for experience points, which may or may not remove the need to grind kills. No leveling, no experience points and no grinding: It's a start.

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