Massively^™

As sort of an addendum to the last Under The Hood on player choices and consequences, I present to you this article. I didn't have room to add my thoughts on factional warfare, unfortunately, and it's a system that really deserves an article all its own. Why is this such a major factor in most MMOs? Why is it that most major MMOs today have clearly defined sides? Why are those Horde jerks so mean in World PvP? It all boils down to the classic factional warfare model.

Despite the persistence of most MMOs, there's one thing that the majority of them lack. I am, of course, speaking about consequences for your actions. Sure, you can kill some NPCs for experience and you yourself level up, but what about the world? The NPC just respawns and continues on his merry way, ready to become fodder for another adventurers weapons and skills. You gain some money and items. There's no real tangible effect on the world as a whole. What about exploring the truly excellent part of MMOs, the persistence? What about making a player's choice actually affect the game world?

The TIGSource Procedural Generation Competition is nearing it's finish, and one of the more polished entries takes a fascinating look at MMOs. Titled MMORPG Tycoon, it gives you an MMORPG and demands that you fix it to please the player base. And that's easier said than done.

You have the ability to control most aspects of the game world, from where towns are placed, to how high which stats are per class, to where players respawn, to which levels can use which zones. You can also name your MMORPG anything you like as well, meaning that if you want to have your game be called "World of Warhammer EVE Rasa", you can do so!

There are a lot of different game mechanics, ranging from the downright simple to the ethereal and hard-to-explain. I've talked a lot about the more subjective stuff, such as lore and paradigms and this and that, but only a few times have I hit the nitty gritty. So this week, I'm taking things to a controversial (not really) place. Judging items based on their color and how fantasy MMOs follow the same color patterns for identification, at least to a certain point.

In a show of devotion to either Age of Conan or Something Awful (we are unsure which), the SA Goons and their guild, the Hordes of Goonheim, have begun construction on the first user city on a PvP server. It's also possibly the first user city in the game. In a post on NeoGAF, a Goon going by Justin relates how they got the city started and the celebration-by-trampling over their accomplishment. Hats off to those devoted Goons willing to sacrifice their time, money, and most importantly, social life to build an Age of Conan city.

One can only wonder, though, that what would happen if the Goons dedicated more time to philanthropic causes than building cities and running EVE Online alliances. The Katrina fund was just one example of the power of good that goons can do when prompted (even though it was shut down by PayPal). What if they spent more time volunteering than playing Age of Conan?

[Via JoBildo]

Cryptic has been dropping details on their newest outing in the superhero genre, and the future is looking brighter all the time. In yet another Ask Cryptic segment, three of the fine designers for Champions Online (Arkayne, BraiNEateR, and Continuum) have revealed some more information about their game by answering questions from the community.

There's some interesting news on what raids will be in the game, how statistics will work, and how the Champions universe will fit into the MMO realm. The big news, though, is the costume creator. In a vast improvement from the already robust CoX creator, Champions Online will allow for up to 4 colors per costume piece. Not only that, but players will be able to assign materials, textures, and bump-mapping to each individual piece. Want some rivets on a metal trenchcoat with canvas texturing? You got it! In addition to this, costumes now have far more asymmetrical options, allowing you to make a character who has, say, a huge left arm and a tiny weakling right arm.

This news just pumps us up more for Champions Online, because when you hand that kind of power to the community, beautiful things are made. And some hilarious things too.

Part of any MMO is starting from scratch. Whether you just started a new MMO, or a new character, the first few hours playing can determine whether or not you want to keep playing that game or character. So why is it that most MMOs have a lack of early game content? Countless times I have heard players complaining how hard it is to get into a game because the early content is all about grinding. In a sense, though, this ties into last week's article, and the desire of developers to have you keep giving them all your wonderful green money.

Part of any game is how the lore of the world interacts with the players although a lot of times the players don't realize it thanks to boring quest descriptions. World of Warcraft has the rich Warcraft universe behind it, Lord of the Rings Online has its own lorebook, and City of Heroes and Villains has a richly detailed history of super-powered beings. So why is it that we don't see the lore at the spotlight all that often?

There's an interesting counterpoint to the increasing amount of games following the traditional MMO mechanics layout. No, I'm not talking about space MMOs and the mechanics they follow. We covered those last week! I'm talking about the gradual seepage of puzzlers into the genre. It's a budding paradigm, and has both failings and virtues. Naturally, it's time to dissect them.

Riding on the coattails of my last article, I realized that it would be a good idea to explore that new frontier. No, not cowboys and Indians. Outer space in MMOs is rapidly becoming the new "generic fantasy continent(s)" that almost every other MMO takes part in. It's also pushing the envelope, in one case letting players practically run your game, and in another cases exploring new and varied game mechanics.

Ask any MMORPG player out there how much time it takes to play their game of choice, and the answers will range from the incredibly long to the delightfully short. And they will almost always be measured in how long it takes for you to level (one hour, one day, one year, etc). But real-time strategy games don't have any dependable way of measuring player level, and still need to keep the player playing for a long time.

One of the more contentious points of an MMO is how it treats its economy. The average MMO runs the gamut of no real economy to speak of (besides vendors and drops), to a fully player-run economy such as the one in EVE Online, and everywhere in between (the middle point seems to be crafting and auction houses). So which is best. Well, if the EVE players and, by association, elite-like players in general are to be believed. It's the player-run economy.

One of the biggest complaints about Tabula Rasa (as well as one of my personal issues with the game) was the lack of impact character customization had on your actual character. More and more players are putting stock into a large amount of customization options, wishing to look, move, and sound different from their herd of fellow players. When a game, such as Tabula Rasa, ignores this vital aspect of the social experience of MMOs, they garner a lot of criticism. Especially from very vocal British expatriates.

For those of you deeper into the gaming scene, no doubt you have put down some cold, hard cash every now and then for a gaming peripheral. A steering wheel to make you better at racing games, a customizable keyboard to boost your kill:death ratio, or maybe a weighted mouse to give you that better feel. That's exactly what this WolfKing Warrior is.

Just looking at it straight out of the box, one is likely to assume "Oh, I can just replace my normal keyboard with this!". I assure you, this is not the case. The layout is not tailored at all for typing, and it is also missing a few keys (the most glaring of which is the enter key). This isn't really a downside, though, as it is very much marketed towards a gaming environment and can also be used in conjunction with a normal keyboard.