I have been ranting incoherently for some time. In one specific case, I have been complaining that the ncsoft line of mmorpgs fails to progress the genre.

The measure of an mmorpg from now on is not that it allows many players on, it is that it provides an enhanced experience. Dungeon Runners fails my test because it is not measurably different from Diablo - random dungeons and party based questing for xp and gear.

Wow has these features:

• Persistent World
• Static Questline
• PvP

• Outdoor
• Battleground
• Rewards
• Rank System

• Instance Dungeons
• scripted events

In order to beat Wow, you don’t need all of those features, but you do need to progress the process. Wow is unashamedly mainstream - it claws down many of the preconceptions about the richness of the lore requirement in order to make sense of the setting and it indulges an irreverence* that makes the game singly charming.

Blizzard have also shamelessly dropped content on the player base at a rate of knots - they released the game in a rough beta form and it has been growing in technical maturity as the players advance. It is, by no means, perfect, but it does the job very nicely considering the franky ludicrous load.

So, what is the model for the next Wow-beater? It’s going to need to reflect the coming split in gaming - single player games are an abberation. The only reason for them in the future will be in “sand-box” god-games, like Spore. Even they will eventually become collective, social experiences. Why? because other people are more fun than the machine. Second Life is the (sometimes slightly scary) genesis of the mmorpg sandbox.
Seed has a chance to be the first thing in the next generation for mmorpgs. Sadly, the guiding principle is: “The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese”. The idea of randomised quests is something that can eventually become organic quests - npcs will be able to assess need, and expend resources to get a hero to do something. In the interim, it has to be more than a cosmetic variation.

The Democratic plotline is also compelling - wow is an awfully static place, and the idea of a world that develops with the players’ decisions resonates with possible L5R-like player loyalty.

These design decisions are far from risk free - if the variance is low between the quests, it becomes a more frustrating block to the shared environment. Worse than that, there is the genuine risk that random generation, along with the putative organic extension actually lower the value of the game. The “z0mg downed boss” effect might actually be a reinforcing social attractor, and removing the shared experience might remove the centre of gravity from the game. The evolving plotline has similar risks - Eve Online is harsh to new players, not least because the old hands have sown the place up.

In the end, the winner of the new game generation will be the one that presents the most sugar-coated challenge/reward ratio (that’s the real secret of WoW - it’s easy with high apparent returns). For the rest of us to win, however, we can only hope that there is a path to an even more immersive, social environment.

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