We Fly Spitfires – MMORPG Blog

I had a fantastic, although slightly surreal, conversation yesterday with the Managing Director of my company about World of Warcraft. He’s a WoW player too, don’tcha know. Although I’ve actually known this for a while, I’ve never really spoken to him about it or had an in-depth conversation about the game with him. Apparently he just discovered from another colleague that I was really into WoW so he wanted to shoot the breeze with me and find out more about my interest in it.

Turns out the big boss of my entire company rocks a level 80 Warrior on Bronzebeard and is gearing up to raid Naxxramas with his guild. He’s got a ton of quite high level alts too. I was blown away, I had absolutely no idea he was that into WoW. We spent a good 10 minutes discussing tanking, grouping, guilds, Teamspeak and all sorts of thing. It was all a little strange but I came away feeling like we’d shared a common experience and I’d learnt something new about someone I’ve been working with for over four years.

That’s the incredible thing about World and Warcraft – it’s become so vast and popular that it’s penetrated every market and affected every type of person. Say what you will about it, good or bad, but I honestly believe that it’s had a very positive effect on bringing MMORPGs into the global spotlight and is changing the way we view gaming. It’s uniting people together from all walks of life and it’s a beautiful thing to behold.

Spinks posted an interesting article about the way male and female characters are portrayed in games. It’s a good read – I’d urge you to check it out – but I won’t repeat it all. Essentially she reckons character models are rendered the way they are so they can maintain recognisable silhouettes. This may very well may be true but my take on it is a lot more basic that than: I think people just plain like seeing perfect males and females. It’s everywhere in our society and online games are no exception.

Want proof? Log into any MMORPG that offers fully customisable avatars (there aren’t actually all that many) and see how many fat old men or women you can spot. I mean, you’d have to be some kind of a freak to actually want to play an obese hairy person, right?

Yup, I have another confession to make – I have a thing for bald, fat old men with beards.

Bruticus, my Age of Conan Conqueror. Chubby yet deadly.

Grayson, my EQ2 Bruiser. Old and cranky but still popular with the ladies.

And you thought my Ogre fetish was bad.

The main reason I pick these styles of character is because I hate the stereotypical portrayal of sexy female rogues or muscular male warriors.  I like being unique and different to everyone else. Plus, they give me great roleplaying back stories for my characters. I’d much rather play the seasoned old lecherous brawler who comes out of retirement to hunt down his treacherous son than the gallant and bland Paladin who is adventureing just to pass time until his next work out session.

All of these are definitely a good reason to have properly customisable body types in MMORPGs. Screw the muscle slider, give me a fat slider any day.

Intellectual Properties (IP) are hot business for MMORPGs. Last year we saw a Conan and a Warhammer game and we’ve got MMOs based on Star Wars, Star Trek and DC Comics coming up. Whilst I don’t think IP makes or breaks a game (it always boils down to gameplay) it can certainly carry a lot of appeal. Here’s some games I’d love to see (in no particular order):

Mass Effect MMORPG

Mass Effect was a truly awesome sci-fi RPG, I loved it to bits and I can’t wait for the sequel. Still, every time I play it I just keep thinking “wouldn’t this be even better as a MMO?”. It has such an engrossing atmosphere and believable universe and the gameplay mechanics are just begging to be MMO-ized. I’m dying to see a great sci-fi MMORPG and this IP is established enough to be interesting yet new enough to be flexible and accommodating.

Dark Tower MMORPG

I really enjoy Steven King’s Dark Tower novels and I think they would make a perfect fantasy style MMO. A pretty crazy and screwed up one, sure, but good nonetheless. I can just imagine forming a ka-tet (group) and roaming the wilderness looking for crazy robot bears to kill. The unverise is being pretty well filled out with some excellent comics from Marvel at the moment so I’m sure there would be plenty of back story to use for material in a game version. Plus, Steven King is a complete sellout so I’m sure he would be happy to make something up

Diablo MMORPG

Probably the most clichéd of my desired games but I just can’t help it. I thoroughly enjoy a good ol’ hack ‘n slash isometric RPG and the Diablo universe is as good as any. It’s the main reason why I’m looking forward to Torchlight so much. In order to keep the game from becoming repetitive though, I think they’d really need to flesh out the classes and spells and create a vast, sprawling, seamless world.

Grand Theft Auto MMORPG

Bit of an odd one but I think a GTA MMO would be a hell of a lot of fun. Imagine having several huge cities all around the global (lets say Liberty City on the USA eastern coast, an LA style one on the west, a city in Europe, one in Russia and one in China) which you can travel freely around and war for control over against opposing gangs aka guilds. Complete freedom would be the trick to making the game work I think, no small order, but could be very interesting. Sell drugs or become a vigilante? Why not both!

Call of Cthulhu MMORPG

A H.P. Lovecraft 1920s Bioshock-esque style MMO would be truly awesome. Creepy as hell yet awesome. I can’t say that I’m a huge follower of Lovecraft but I do appreciate the survival horror style of genre with the interesting mix of occult and mystery. I think this sort of setting would be very unique to the MMORPG community and an adult theme with a more slow paced, quest and mystery orientated atmosphere would be very welcome.

What MMORPGs would you love to see?