We Fly Spitfires – MMORPG Blog

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what my perfect MMORPG would be. No idea how feasible it would be to create (although I’m sure it would be possible with enough cash), how popular it would be or actually if it would be any good. I’m not a games designer so I’m not actually sure what makes a game “good” or “fun”, I guess I’d just need to cross my fingers ad hope that it’s decent

I’ve broken this article down into two or three posts because I think it’s too big for one. Here’s my initial outline of what my perfect MMO would be and the overarching design concepts driving it.

Genre/Setting

Sci-Fi. Absolutely, Sci-Fi. Oddly enough I’m not actually a huge Sci-Fi fan and I tend to read mainly fantasy books mainly and, obviously, play mainly fantasy MMORPGs. Still, there’s something about a Sci-Fi setting that grabs me. Maybe it’s the lack of current science fiction MMOs or something about the vastness of the genre that appeals to me but my perfect MMO wouldn’t be fantasy. Don’t get me wrong, I still love fantasy MMOs but there’s something about them that’s becoming very tired and stilted lately and I’d want my MMORPG to have an air of freshness and originality about it.

It also wouldn’t involve any existing intellectual properties (IP) because, quite frankly, I can’t think of any that either haven’t been done already or are any good. Apart from Star Wars and Star Trek there isn’t much in the way of mainstream Sci-Fi that would translate well to a MMORPG except for maybe Mass Effect.

I haven’t though too much about the story of this Sci-Fi world but I think it would offer the classic approach of plenty of aliens, strange worlds, nano-implants and nano-technology driven abilities.

Concept & Approach

The approach for my perfect MMO would revolve around two fundamental game concepts: third person, over the shoulder, perspectives with no starships whatsoever (I don’t really like the idea of mixing characters and starships – I think that’s two separate games) and an open skill or attribute based system.

I don’t know if I would call the game ‘sandbox’ or not. I guess it’s quite an abstract term that’s hard to define. I definitely like the idea of avoiding standard levels and classes though and going for a more open-ended approach that lets players increase their attributes (strength, willpower etc) through experience or implants and learn skills which allow them to accomplish new things like use different types of weapons, armor or abilities. I’m tempted to avoid the idea of time-based training like in EVE and maybe go for a system that sees skills having attribute and other skill pre-requisites. The general idea behind it all being that you accrue attribute points by performing actions (fighting, completing missions, buying/selling, crafting etc) and use them to increase your stats, in turn giving you access to different skills. No idea if that would actually work but it sounds interesting.

All of the action would take place on different worlds and space stations, giving the player plenty of diverse environments to explore. I’d also want a healthy mix of playable races and starting areas to make sure there’s a ton of replayability and interesting stories behind each race.

In terms of goals, I’d love to be able to mix the direction of something like World of Warcraft with the vastness and freedom of something like EVE. No doubt this would be tough to balance. I really want to strive to create a virtual world though with its own economy and a meaningful crafting and marketing system plus plenty of opportunities for players to engage in PvP and territorial wars. All of this without sacrificing immersive quest lines and even end-game raiding. I don’t know if this mix of play styles is at all possible but I’d love to find out.

So, overall, no small undertaking! I’ll write more about the ideas being PvE, PvP and crafting etc in Part 2 and hopefully flesh my ideas out a bit and try to make sense of it all. Even writing this short article has certainly given a new-found respect for game designers. It’s bloody tough to try and balance grandiose concepts with mechanics that would actually work and be fun. I wonder how (or if) any game designer actually knows if their game is going to be decent before they play the final thing.

Anyone else got any concepts or ideas for their perfect MMO they’d like to share?

Last weekend I was attending a rather fun soiree in a local bar/café and found myself getting stuck into a conversation about the concepts freedom and direction with one of my buddies and a drunk guy we’d just met. The topic started off because my friend was hypothesizing that we have less freedom today than we did in days-gone-by. Although I disagree with this (I think we have more freedom once you consider that we don’t have to worry about the basic necessities of survival) what was interesting was the profound statement that our rather tipsy third conversational member came out with. To paraphrase:

“Freedom is completely relative. If you don’t desire something, it doesn’t matter if you’re not free to achieve it. Freedom only matters if there’s something you want. Thus freedom is meaningless without direction.”

Random Drunk Bloke

This statement can be applied quite aptly to the design concept of sandbox MMORPGs.

Let’s look at EVE Online, for instance. When I first started playing it, I was preoccupied with learning the game and understanding how it works. After a little while, however, I found myself looking at the big picture and trying to decide what I wanted to accomplish. I had read about huge intergalactic wars between corporations, the assassinations of powerful leaders and the undermining of player sovereignties through espionage and deceit. I wanted a piece of that action but I had absolutely no idea how to get there, thus all of the freedom that I had in EVE was utterly meaningless because I lacked direction. In fact, it wasn’t until that I created my own personal goals that I could appreciate the freedom I had been granted to achieve them.

I think this is the big risk with sandbox MMOs and any sort of virtual worlds. Giving the player freedom alone isn’t enough, they have to have goals and a direction to go in. Without that, any freedom is completely meaningless because they have no motivation or needs.

It’s undoubtedly a tough thing to balance and probably one of the reasons why we see so few sandbox MMOs these days. The unsuccessful ones, like the original Star Wars: Galaxies, failed because they had grand ideas but were unable to deliver on both the smaller goals and overarching direction for the player. Who cared if you could mine your own resources and have dozens of the different professions – there was nothing worthwhile to accomplish by doing so.

I think EVE does a good job of balancing things out but I would love to see a MMORPG that has a combination of all of EVE’s freedom and yet all of World of Warcraft’s direction. Imagine having the step-by-step goals of questing, achievements, guilds, PvP, raiding etc yet with the ability (and freedom) to accomplish them anyway you desire, by any means necessary. That would truly be something to behold.

Seeing as I’m kicking in Japan at the moment, I figured you might like to know about some of the terminology that I may use in future posts.

Otaku (おたく/オタク)

The geeks of Japan, but more extreme. Much more extreme. I often joke to my wife that I’m otaku because I’m, well, a big geek but she says that I don’t even come close to their definition of it. Japanese people are renowned for their ability to (quote the Last Samurai) “devote themselves to the perfection of whatever their pursue” and if you pursue animi, manga and jail-bait dressed in a maid’s outfit then you’re likely to be an otaku.

Hikikomori (ひきこもり)

Otaku gone extreme, hikikomori are geeks who have become so obsessed they have withdrawn completely from society and never leave their homes, apparently even some having never left it in decades. It’s my ultimate ambition to become a MMORPG hikikomori.

Yanki (ヤンキー)

The delinquent of Japan, yanki’s are exactly what their name suggests – a Japanese person dressed to look like the Fonz, usually with light brown dyed hair. They often wear tight black jeans and a ’60s leather jacket and are famous for their rolling ‘Rs’. Gotta see it to believe it.

Cosplay (コスプレ)

Cosplay In Japan - DannyChoo.com

If you like to dress up as your favourite manga character and hang around subway stations on a regular occurrence then you’re probably into what’s known as cosplay. Fun loving and imaginative, cosplayers are also known for giving out free hugs.

Salaryman (サラリーマン)

A salaryman is basically every and any man who earns a salary, usually by working long hours in an office. And I’m not kidding about the long hours part. 12 – 13 hour days are generally expected without question as is a drinking binge after work with your boss. Nothing amuses me quite like seeing a group of drunk business men staggering around Akasaka at 11pm at night trying to find the subway home.

Office Lady (オーエル)

Always abbreviated simply to OL, office ladies are the equivalent to salarymen, except without the long hours part (they are usually allowed to finish work around 7pm) and the excessive drinking. Aside being incredibly homogeneous and xenophobic, Japan is also very chauvinistic and OLs are usally assigned to pink collar jobs. Trends are changing now though and women are starting to become accepted as “salarymen” if they so desire.

The following is a guest post by Guaka. If you’d like to write a guest post for We Fly Spitfires, please feel free to contact me about it.

The Thing, 1982, John Carpenter

“Childs: What do we do now?
MacReady: Why don’t we just wait here for a little while… see what happens…”
—————–

A vast mining ship drifts through space, the screams inside cut off by the vacuum of space. A submerged city slowly being crushed by the ocean around it while inside its mad citizens tear each other apart. A nameless evil directs the path of an entire family through hundreds of years….

I’ve been meaning to write about Dead Space for a while now (I was hugely impressed by that game) but, as Resident Evil 4 has just been released on the iPhone and Bioshock 2 is on the horizon (far away sure, but its on the horizon),  I’d like to think about the horror game genre as a whole.

When I start to really enjoy a game it’s usually because of a strong story, atmosphere and game world. I remember when I first played Bioshock and taking a quick break to check Amazon for any Bioshock novels or comics (there were none). I have no doubt this lack of a multi-platform launch lost 2k a ton of potential cash. When Dead Space launched it came not just as a game but also an animated movie, graphic novel and a series of motion comics, fans who wanted more of Isaac Clarke’s world could find a whole new back-story to satiate their sick need for blood.

I’ve played horror games for almost as long as I’ve been playing games, from Splatterhouse on the Sega Megadrive and Silent Hill on the PS2 to F.E.A.R. on the 360. There’s something about a really well crafted horror experience that draws you in to the game world and, although you’re totally safe, every little creak and skitter in the game is given terrifying significance.  Some games rely on this more (the long silences in Silent Hill) and others give you your horror fix at breakneck speed (Doom, House of the Dead).

As this is an MMO blog I was trying to think of examples of effective horror in massively multi-player games. Most fantasy themed MMO’s I’ve played usually have a few references to Lovecraft but I can’t think of any game that really offers the full horror experience. I’m not sure it’s even possible to have an open non-scripted world that makes the player genuinely unnerved, can you focus on the games atmosphere at the same time as trying to get a group together, managing your action bar and getting gold-spammed all at the same time?

Gordon brought up a few ideas for a possible MMO’s in a previous blog and a Cthulhu mythos idea was brought up then. I love the Cthulhu world and there are plenty of single-player games that capture the Lovecraft spirit (Eternal Darkness being, in my opinion, the very best) but how do you make an MMO without it ending up as ‘kill 10 fishmen’ or ‘find 30 pages of the necromonicon’? Maybe if the MMO used sanity effects like voices breaking in on to player voice chat, losing some control over your character and display effects. The challenge would be how to implement things like that without it just being an annoyance and hindering play.

I would love to be able to play an MMO and be so immersed that I got the same feeling I get from watching horror films like ‘Prince of Darkness’ but I just don’t think its possible (though I’d love to be proved wrong).  While I’m waiting I’ll be playing Left 4 Dead and dreaming of what might be….

Guaka’s Genre Recommendations:

The Horroretc Podcast – A really great podcast where all things horror movie are discussed. Available from iTunes or their website. http://www.horroretc.com/