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I know there's been a The Daily Grind about this subject already, but I felt like talking about my own personal kaiju (giant monster) MMO and this is just the place for that. Growing up there were certain things I could count on. For instance, there would always be some sort of Anime marathon in the summertime on the Sci-Fi Channel and that very same channel was also usually good for giant monster movies. Oh yeah and you could always count on a new Megaman game coming out that year.

It's strange how this never occurred to me but giant monsters are almost perfect as a theme for an MMO. Purely because the theme itself provides a gigantic, epic sort of combat gameplay that is central to the thrill of massively multiplayer online games. Whether it's a game where the players create and control their own giant monsters or fight against the monsters is the choice I've been struggling to answer -- but then something dawned on me. The two game types, when combined, make for a very interesting type of MMO experience.

You may or may not have heard, but we're coming to Planetside to kick some worldwide hide. At least that's the plan, but whatever happens -- win or lose -- I'm just excited to be a part of an epic, cataclysmic in-game event. It's the kind of thing I've always wanted to see more of but somehow I rarely see these sorts of things happen in massively multiplayer online games. There are smaller yearly events that are always fun, sure. It would just be nice to see more events minimally on the scale of City of Heroes' Rikti invasions or today's Planetside Black Ops event.

Whether or not developers haven't really explored this area because they fear player backlash is beyond me. I personally don't see how creating a dynamic world that keeps its players guessing at the next twist or turn isn't worth a little risk. Then again I'm all about dynamic, awe-inspiring, world changing events.

There was a time in my MMO playing when I would spend hours looking for a group in games like Final Fantasy XI. No television was watched and no handheld gaming devices were manipulated during those prolonged waiting periods. I just sat there chatting with whomever I could in-game. Today, I don't think I could see myself doing this even with the aid of a Nintendo DS or a PSP with which to chip away the hours. Hell, I probably couldn't even do this with one of my favorite shows like Lucky Louie or Flight of the Concords.

This is why it warms my heart to know that Champions Online will contain not only solo content across every level, but some kind of secret endgame feature called the Omega System. My first reaction upon this revelation was simply, "Wow" I certainly hope that with a title like "The Omega System" Cryptic has a compelling endgame feature planned that will amaze everyone or at the very least please everyone.

Whenever I start playing a new MMO my interest in crafting tends to go through two phases: hope and realization. During the hope phase I find myself wondering what sort of cool things I could create. I also think about being able to use those creations in useful and interesting ways. My head tends to float up into the clouds as I contemplate all the great times I'm about to have with a game's crafting system.

Then there's the realization phase, where my crafting dreams are crushed. This is the point when I start playing with the crafting system and moving through its inner workings only to find the same old thing: Talk to an NPC, get crafting skill of choice, look at recipe, gather ingredients and proceed to select how many I want before clicking a single button to create my item. When will developers admit that this is incredibly boring and at least try to spice things up a bit. They don't have to re-think the entire system. I would be perfectly happy with some evolutionary changes.

I've been enjoying my time with Age of Conan, but to be honest there are some design choices -- mostly related to the user interface -- that truly confuse me. I'm forced to decide between scratching my head or pulling my hair out. Although I don't want to tempt fate, so I think leaving my hair intact is probably the best choice.

So here's an example: Did you know about both skill points and feat points? I'm sure a lot of you have discovered at least one of these, especially since the feats have their own tab to click within the user interface. But I'm willing to bet that many of you didn't discover skills right away. The big problem is that there's nothing on the screen to jump out and inform you that some super-important new skill points or feat points are in need of assigning. When did this design document get accidentally knocked off the meeting room table and into the garbage?

There were a great many things I took away from my experience at ION 08 this year. I learned how amazing community managers can be. I also learned how much they put into their communities -- if you're wondering, it's quite a lot. Among all the waves of information I soaked up there were little leaks of ideas to take away as well.

During the "Online Games in 2013" panel there was a point of Damion Schubert's presentation that piqued my curiosity. It was his prediction that MMOs will see far more "Duoing" content. The fact that playing with a friend or two -- along with playing solo -- could become much more ubiquitous fills my heart with hope. If you're wondering why, I'll be more than happy to explain.

So I'll admit it. I've been pretty hard on World of Warcraft ever since The Burning Crusade launched. A large part of the reason I've been so down on the game is because a lot of Burning Crusade's end-game content came off as incredibly daunting to me. I never had any interest in most of the raids offered in the game simply because I didn't feel like going through all the hoops to access them. Sure there were the 5-mans, but most of the super-cool content was still locked away from me.

Even with the original announcement of Wrath of the Lich King, I felt complete disinterest in the expansion as it seemed to be more of the same. More raids, more high quality content that was probably going to be locked away behind hoops, barrels and fire pit traps. Yet that all changed yesterday with the icy cool wake-up blast of new information that jolted my interest -- something I thought could never happen again with World of Warcraft.

Injecting the single-player special sauce into MMOs is hardly a new idea. In fact Phantasy Star Online has done it more than once in the past. It's also been done in small amount, though. Nobody has taken the chance to go all out and merge the single-player and massively multiplayer styles of gaming together like a tasty digital version of peanut butter and chocolate.

My recent excursion into the Age of Conan closed beta has made me realize that I really enjoy having some singleplayer flavor in my massively multiplayer online games. There is definitely something to be said for a game that can give you the best of both worlds: solo story and grouping experiences.

The subject of microtransactions tends to bring out a lot of different opinions in people and sometimes harsh words are exchanged. I've never really taken a stance on the matter, as I've always been a bit unsure of which side of the argument I fell on.

I've played a lot of MMOs in my life, but to be honest I've grown very tired of the tried-and-true combat most games offer. For a long time I've thought that maybe adding extra layers of mechanics on top of the combat -- like WAR seems to be doing -- would help, but now I'm not so sure that's quite the right answers

Do I think that real-time combat is the only answer? No. While I love that type of gameplay, there is definitely something to be said for the combat styles of Everquest, Everquest II, World of Warcraft and the upcoming Warhammer Online. However, to maintain overall player interest, traditional combat in MMOs seriously needs to evolve.

It's a subject that's been touched on here at Massively not once or twice, but three times. Still, I feel like there's more to be said on the subject of making some non-MMO games into actual MMOs.

Being a constant contributor to Massively means I obviously love MMOs, but that doesn't mean they're all I play. In fact I find myself constantly playing genres of all sorts on various platforms. Still, I do love to end the day (or sometimes spend most of the day) in a great massively multiplayer online game. There have been several occasions where I find myself playing a particular offline game and wonder, "Could this be developed as an MMO?" I eventually come to the conclusion that -- no, it probably can't.

There are a lot of subjects to talk about when it comes to EA Mythic's upcoming MMO Warhammer Online. However, one particular subject still hasn't seemed to really come into the limelight -- the features in WAR that will likely forever alter what people expect from MMOs. This week's Digital Continuum will focus on just that.

Most features are evolutions of old ones in some ways, although some evolve in such huge leaps that they become entirely new features altogether. There are definitely a few huge concepts WAR has adopted that I think are going to become as prolific as those little yellow exclamation points above NPC heads.

I know that's quite the claim, but hopefully this feature will convince at least a few nay-sayers otherwise. Click the image above to see my reasoning on what landscape changing features WAR has in store.

A torrent of happy thoughts burst forward from my brain at the rumor of a possible Bioshock MMO; Would it be good? When would it be set? Where would it even be set, Rapture, or some other previously unknown location? What kind of gameplay would it employ?

These questions -- and many more like them -- are all great and also quite valid. This is why I couldn't help myself from exploring the possibilities of what such a game could deliver to us as players -- except with a particular twist. Being that Andrew Ryan was so very influential in both the world of Rapture as well as our own, this entire look into a Bioshock MMO has been written in the spirit of Mr. Ryan.

With a fan-base as strong as the Big Daddies themselves, Bioshock could create quite the tsunami if it went massively multiplayer. Simply click on the picture above to find out the how and why.

If you were to look back five years ago at the year 2003, the feature lists on the MMOs of that year look quite a bit different from the games of this year. Everything from graphical advancements to new in-game concepts like Warhammer Online's Tome of Knowledge. A lot of new features have cropped up through natural evolution and forcefulness as well. A lot of these improvements were obvious, but many of them have also been unexpected.

So what kinds of advancements will the massively genre have made in another fives years? Maybe we'll all be playing MMOs on the newest consoles, or maybe not. There are a lot of variables in this considerably young genre we all love, so looking five years into the future can lead to scary places. Although that won't stop me from trying to peer towards the future in an attempt see what sorts of virtual worlds await us all.

This isn't a "Top Five" list, but rather a list of five possible settings for a Star Wars MMO that I've complied for your reading pleasure. With the rumors flying around about a Bioware Star Wars MMO, the topic of just where in the Star Wars timeline the game would even be set appears to be absent from discussion. Everyone is assuming that Bioware would just sit back and do another Knights of the Old Republic game because they've had previous success with that property. However, it is possible that if Bioware is indeed developing a Star Wars MMO they're placing it in an entirely different era altogether. I know that if I'd already made a fabulous game set in KOTOR I would probably want to explore other avenues of interest that have yet to truly be touched on.

Follow the jump for an overview on five of those places.