The MMO: What does the future hold?

What would you like to see in an MMO?
Over the last 10 years, the world has seen a new market spring to life in the gaming community. MMOs have become a multibillion dollar industry in a short amount of time and only stands to grow as the world’s gaming population continues to thrive and bring new players into the fold. With revenues projected to surpass the 14 billion dollar mark by 2012, new and old production studios and game developers are eager to get their share of the market where time really does equal money. Every gamer has the things they like and dislike about each game they play, but few games every capture everything well enough at launch to make a player go nuts. New and old come into the mix with every title released, but what ideas should stick and what new ones do I think we might we see in the next few years?

Dynamic Questing
Few game studios have ever breached this subject and fewer still have tried to implement it. But dynamic questing has the chance to not only make a good MMO great, but give a non-repetitive feel to an MMO that can truly make each player experience a slightly different game. Imagine a game where you can no longer just click OK, alt+tab and read the wiki, and then run through the same quest forty-thousand other people have before you. Non-linear story progression has long been in existence in the gaming world, but MMOs have a harder time using this idea, because up until now, this means that thousands of players will have to do dynamic quests in a static world. This presents serious challenges to the coding teams and can create even more problems for the testing phases of the game. Some studios have mentioned implementation of this system into their upcoming game, and it will be an interesting change in a world of linear content. Games that successfully implement dynamic questing may finally find a way to grab the “ADD gamer” and hold on for a long time to come.
“My Purple Shining Orb of Dragon Eye took 18 hours and 6 deaths, what do you mean you found yours on the side of the road?!”

Player Driven Content
During the last 5 years I have heard an outcry from the gaming community for a game that not only implements, but thrives off of player driven content. What does this really mean? There are already games out there that feature player driven content, EVE Online, Darkfall, even Age of Conan has some. But few games have recently attempted to tackle this monster fully and allow their game world to have the chance of experiencing player influenced changes. MMO players love many things. Killing players, exploration, achievements, socialization with other players; yet few MMOs truly allow a player to put their mark on the world for all to see. When a guild of players finally destroys the evil Necromancer of Nark’oth that has plagued the game world for six months, what should really happen to all those undead zombies under his control? Maybe they need to destroy a nearby city and create a place where the gamers can build their buildings and set up shops and merchants. The gaming community really wants to see a world where player actions can actually influence the game’s content, and where each server isn’t different just because of the people, but what the people have done on that server.
“So, yeah.. We basically killed the dude and when we got out of the castle, the town was on fire and players and NPCs were running everywhere, and then BOOM! The city was exploded and left this big crater, the castle crumbled, and prices for tin ore on the server are doubled, been like that ever since. Nobody on any of the other servers wants to do this quest now. I got this cool hat though!”

Salary Gamers
I know they’re called testers and developers, right? Wrong. With more gaming companies looking for a way to entice larger groups of gamers into playing their game, they are going to need to find ways to keep their game fresh, unique, and entertaining. No computer program has yet to achieve the level of ingenuity that the human mind has, and especially not in the gaming world. Think of a game that employs a number of players on their server to come into the office, and play, 9-5. Or, even for 24 hours in shifts of 8 hours each. What would they do? They would create the content for us! A gamer could be on salary for the company to play the role of a king of the kingdom, out with the other players during times of war, and issuing dynamic (yes, I said it) quests and tasks that he/she creates through a utility in the game designed to offer unique events and experiences for the players. When you go to turn in your quest to King Leonid, he not just gives you your reward, but talks with you, and offers you a better adventure with a better reward. One designed just for you or your group. Even a group of enemy players could receive the same quest at the same time, and the first group to finish gets their specially designed prize. Few games these days employ GMs to do what the original job of a GM was before the mass gold rush that is the MMO market. Let’s go back to the beginning on this one and have GM’s that create unique events on a permanent basis.
“Ever since Johnny got that job playing some computer game, he moved out of his mom’s basement and lives in a nice apartment. He’s got a girlfriend now too.”

Non-Static/Hook City Building
Looking back to the release of Age of Conan, one of the features that drove players in masses to the game was ‘player created cities’. What they didn’t mention was that these cities were player created, not player designed. Hook points, instanced city zones, and a separation from the true game left player cities dead and un-interesting. What happened to the SWG days, when you could plop your city down and design it your way? More recently, Darkfall released with player controlled and destructible cities. But these babies were the same, generic pre-defined locations with pre-defined design. What on Earth are we thinking people?! I want to put my city where I want (within the defined limitations of the game, e.g: no less than 5-10km from an existing city), and I want it to look cool to boot (defend-able would be good too).
“Alright guys, check this out, if we kill off all the mobs here, we should be able to build our city on the edge of that cliff; it’ll be really defensible and look awesome.” “Dude, what if it rains and the cliff gives way?”

Weather Affects
That’s affects with an ‘a’. Lightning, rain and snow are all cool things to have in an MMO. But wouldn’t it be better if heavily armored players had a chance to slip and fall in icy conditions? What if when it rains, you can’t use fireballs, but can use lightning spells? Ok, ok.. I know I’m asking for a lot here, but this is one of my personal favorites. A game was being designed a few years back called Dragon Empires but was canceled due to technical difficulties. Maybe the weather was a little too much for them? Nobody has since picked up on this idea.
“If I fall one more time because of the ice, I’m gonna… crap, damnit!” /quit