Building-a-Better-MMOusetrap
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RPG Vault: Stargate Worlds Diary #4
Chris Klug, Creative Director for Stargate Worlds, continues his chat about the power of choice in a new dev diary on RPG Vault. In it he deconstructs a mission from Earth & Beyond wherein the player must listen to his conscience -- and make an important choice.Chris says that to successfully deconstruct the mission it is imperative that we understand what emotion the writer wanted for his audience. At the heart of any well written story... be it anything, is this: a creator manipulating the audience to feel something. Sure, it happens all the times in books, movies and television shows... but how often does that happen in a video game? When was the last time you actually felt something - something with emotional complexity, not the adrenaline rush you get from fragging 17 people in a row - during a video game? For me it was playing Bioshock. More specifically, when was the last time you felt a true emotional response during an MMO?Morality and player's conscious have been a hot button topic of late. In his weekly column, Building a Better MMOusetrap, our own Dave Moss talks about morality in video games. In fact, he asks: can there really be moral choices in an online world? From a purely creative standpoint all of this "esoteric" thinking is fascinating. I'm glad to see that these philosophical questions are being asked because they will have to be answered if video games are to evolve to the next level, one that requires a true moralistic choice to be made. Check out Chris' fascinating article (which includes three brand new pieces of SGW concept art), peruse Dave's article then let us know what you think.
Building a better MMOusetrap: The age old debate
Is there room in the genre for things that don't fit in the normal schema of MMO games? There have often been problems plaguing Sci-Fi style MMOs throughout the years, be it the fact that they are too vast, or can't live up to the IP that they are built on, allowing the fantasy genre to reign supreme (with exceptions to the rule of course). For the most part players seem to 'get' the games built around fantasy easier, with the play style just making a lot more sense. I know from the players I have spoken to, it's just easier for them to run around and hit things with swords, than to be flying around in star fighters and raiding entire planets. It begs to question if that will always be the case, and certainly looking at the line up for big MMOs over the next year it certainly looks that way. With FunCom's Age of Conan, and EA Mythic's Warhammer Online, both fit into that fantasy style, and work alongside games like LotRO and WoW with a metric buttload of back-story and lore (though obviously LotRO takes the cake on that aspect.)What is it that causes this then? Is it the lore, or the swords, or perhaps the fact that fantasy is just more interesting to people than science fiction? Let's try to break it down...
Building a better MMOusetrap: To topple the King!
Can WoW be killed? This is the question on the tongues of my WoW playing friends since the announcement of FunCom's upcoming title Age of Conan has been pushed back another 8 weeks. Some think it's to polish it just that extra little bit, so that they can come out of the gates running, but honesty I think they just want to make sure they are putting out as high a quality game as possible. Really this idea of a WoW Killer, has been going around for a long time, and frankly I think the whole idea is a bit silly. Like my compatriot Kevin Stallard states on a recent edition of 'Ask Massively', there are games like Ultima Online that have been plugging strong for over a decade now, without any real notion of stopping soon.Certainly over the years MMO's have risen and fallen from the top spot, it started off with UO holding the torch, then moved along to EQ and pretty much since it's launch WoW has held fast and continued to gain popularity. And with ActiBlizzard's recent announcement that the World of Warcraft has just broken the 10 Million subscriber mark, it's unlikely we're going to see them toppled any time soon. To take a moment and put those numbers into perspective, 10 million subscribers would be like if every man, woman and child in Belgium did nothing but play WoW all the time. I know I'd certainly take the next flight out to Bruges, and settle in next to the Muscles from Brussels playing my Shaman for the good of mother Belgium!But really, I don't think that there is any risk of a WoW killer, not because I don't think that AoC and EA Mythic's Warhammer Online aren't going to be 'as good' or even be able to compete against WoW, but because frankly I don't think it matters. From what I've seen so far from both of these titles, neither one is trying to be a WoW clone, and I think that's the rub right there. Nothing is going to "beat" WoW, just like nothing beat UO or EQ, they simply lost subscribers to the new evolution of the genre. There are still a great deal of people who play the older titles, things like FFXI, UO, EQ, and so on, but most MMO gamers aren't tied to a single title. I bet you that of those 10 million WoW subscribers at least 30% play at least one other title, and most of them have probably taken part in at least one beta test for another game.
Building a better MMOusetrap: Why we fight!
Dawn stretches its sleeping muscles and peeks out over the snow capped mountains, coaxing a faint mist to mist to take flight over a frozen lake. Animals of all shapes and sizes begin to stir and wake from a cold night's sleep huddled together in dens and burrows, and bird song threatens to break the night's quiet. A sharp echo snaps through the air as the heat from the rising sun causes the ice on the lake to crack and shift, marking the coming day as faithfully as a rooster's crow, and around the dog-leg in the road comes the faint tell tale sound of boots crunching snow, the clink of freshly polished armour, and a nervous laugh.It is day break in the mountain valley of Dun Morogh, and the Wee Men march on the irradiated city of Gnomeregan. They have been made aware of the dangers that lurk in the caverns and halls beneath the mountains, and the horrific changes to the citizens that could not escape. Their blades are sharpened, spells learned and remembered, shields shined, and tools checked and re-checked. This is not a task they take lightly, as this city was once a place most of them called home. A place where their families lived, where they were born and grew, and where they had hoped one day to grow old and die in. But all that changed the day the attacks began in the lowest parts of the city, and there was nothing they could do but grab anything and anyone close, and run for the surface. Now their lives are changed forever, forced into action they became the heroes that their city so desperately needed in it's darkest hour, the heroes that could have battered back the advancing forces and saved countless lives. Some simply call them adventurers, but they know themselves as liberators, saviours and champions to the causes so often forgot in todays world. Though in stature they may be small, in their actions and deeds they are giants.
