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Global Chat: Tough decisions edition
Welcome to this week's Global Chat! We love hearing what you have to say at Massively, and we love it even more when we can share the best comments with all of our readers. Massively staffers will be contributing some of their favorite comments every week, so keep an eye out every Sunday for more Global Chat! Today's Global Chat focuses on developer decisions. From business models to mechanics and even platforms, our readers had some interesting things to say. Follow along after the jump to read, then add your own thoughts!
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Steal this tape
A while back, I took the opportunity to talk about things that City of Heroes would do well to steal. After all, there's no reason that you can't make an existing awesome game even more awesome, right? It was a fun article, if a bit silly, and it leads naturally into this week's outing, because I'm feeling just a little bit silly this week, and I'm looking at other games with amazement. So many of them just don't get it. Seriously. City of Heroes is approaching its seventh anniversary, and so many bits of brilliance in the design are not found in every game in the world. To be quite honest, it's ridiculous. I'm not just talking about little bits of clever design like attack tags to help differentiate defenses; I'm talking about parts of the game that just run so well and so intuitively that it's a wonder everyone hasn't copied them. So let's look at the stuff that the game gets so right that everyone ought to just use it as a standard.
The Daily Grind: What cool feature was still a disappointment?
The problem with the barrage of information coming out before any major expansion or game is that you wind up with an idea of what the game will contain that isn't always accurate. Sometimes that's a matter of promotional materials containing features that were later quietly dropped (something Wrath of the Lich King suffered from), and sometimes the feature in question just winds up getting lost in the shuffle. At other times, the system is in the game -- but less cool than you imagined, even though it's functionally exactly what you were told it would be. You might have been really looking forward to making the moral jump in City of Heroes, but when Going Rogue went live you were disappointed by the fact that shifting from rogue to hero (or vigilante to villain) is a notable jump. You might have really looked forward to Final Fantasy XIV's class-blending, only to find that the combat classes and the gathering classes are firmly segregated. It doesn't make a cool game bad, but it means that one of the things you were anticipating isn't there after all. What cool game feature have you heard about only to find that in practice, it's not quite as great as you hoped?
Call for Submissions: What do you want from your next MMO?
The world of MMOs would be a very different place without the monumental presence of World of Warcraft. At this point, WoW has shaped an entire world full of gamers, setting expectations, conventions and precedents that other games will be struggling to meet (or dodge, or surpass) for years to come. What is WoW's legacy to you? Once you've logged out for the last time and are eagerly preparing to dive into the next big thing, what will you be looking for? WoW.com is accepting article submissions on what you crave from your next big MMO experience. From playstyle to game features, community and social features to casual/hardcore balance, what do you want out of the next MMO you'll play? What has WoW whetted your appetite for that you'd like more of? What would you like to explore in areas WoW never ventured? Your article will clearly relate how Blizzard and World of Warcraft's legacy has shaped your ideas on what you'd like to play in the years to come.
Evolution as it does and doesn't apply to MMOs
A few days ago, we discussed the lack of innovation in the MMO market at the moment, as well as some of the underlying reasons behind it. The topic prompted We Fly Spitfires to postulate the idea that we needed an MMO that broke most if not all of the established and accepted rules of the genre. In his own parlance, we needed a mutation instead of a steady evolution. Those of you familiar with evolutionary science might be quirking your eyebrow a bit, as did Of Teeth and Claws, where it was pointed out that mutation is a part of evolution. Continuing the analogy, it's a part of the slow improvement we see in our genre of choice, as the source leading to feature implementation and improvement. And as Killed in a Smiling Accident added, evolution is not a straight line, nor does it select features based on inherent quality -- the current "standard features" have evolved because they're best at succeeding in the current environment (that is, the market). Ultimately, aside from fascinating extension of the analogy, the biggest point to be taken away from both this discussion and the previous one is that change in the genre isn't something which will happen overnight. While the powerful influence that World of Warcraft has placed upon the genre is beginning to abate a bit, it'll be quite some time before it's discarded wholesale.
MMO features that haven't made it into Warhammer Online
Among the legions of fortunate Warhammer Online fans that have played through beta and the preview weekend is Syp from the Waaagh! blog. He's always entertaining and it's clear he's passionate about Warhammer Online. So when he writes about features in other MMOs that he'd like to see in WAR, you know he's not bashing a game that's not even out of the gate yet. Rather, he's genuinely looking at ways the game could be better. Syp puts forth his ideal WAR feature set, which includes capturable and trainable pets similar to World of Warcraft's system and the player-created content and sidekicks of City of Heroes. Syp would also like to see WAR include an in-game music player like EVE Online, and other features drawn from Everquest 2 and Lord of the Rings Online. Have a look at the Waaagh! "10 features" post and see if you agree with him on what could make Warhammer Online a better title. Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out all of our previous Warhammer Online features, and don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
