by Cody
“Micajah” Bye
Massively multiplayer online roleplaying games revolve around combat.
Except for a scant few examples that are being developed as independent
projects by smaller game studios, every mainstream MMOG on the market
has a form of combat that is almost unavoidable. Although some players
may love the social, economic, exploratory or achievement portions of
their favorite game, there’s almost no denying the fact that
each of these elements – in some way – presents
itself in the form of the game’s combat system.
border="1">
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/13127" title="Everquest">
src="/image/view/78292"
width="200">
style="font-style: italic;">Developers are
still making games with combat akin to that found in the original
style="font-style: italic;">Everquest.
While combat-oriented players can totally avoid the pain-staking search
for new materials for crafting, those players that choose to be
crafters cannot help but face eventual combat scenarios as they
progress deeper and deeper into dangerous territories for their latest
pile of granite slabs or leafy ferns. The same goes for social
activities, which often wind up as hunting parties in the end.
Explorers also have to deal with combat as their characters run afoul
of new beasts that they have to either outrun or outfight.
Like a solid musical score for a movie, the interaction that your
character has with your enemies in the game may not be your number one
priority when you’re playing the game, but if the action is
full of hisses and missed beats it can completely ruin your entire
experience. It’s a fundamental portion of any game, and it
needs to be honed to perfection to create the ultimate gameplay
experience.
Yet as we progress forward into a new age of MMORPGs that include
dynamic content, Web 2.0 type systems, and wholly player controlled
economies, the combat systems for many of the latest released games
have stayed frustratingly stagnant. Even with combat being such an
integral part of a user’s time spent in the MMOG world,
developers have been either fearful of change, lacked the technological
advancements or have lacked the ambition to take the steps necessary to
readdress the combat situation in these games. Can you imagine a
musical score that’s simply a variation on a theme, replayed
for 10 years in a row? That’s the sort of situation that
we’re encroaching upon in our games. Thankfully the situation
has been noticed by almost the entire MMOG community, and there are
people working desperately to alleviate the situation.
border="1">
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/10315" title="Take aim!">
src="/image/view/10315/preview"
width="200">
style="font-style: italic;">Tabula Rasa is one
of the first games to break out of the standard MMOG combat mold.
Hope is on the horizon, as a few upcoming MMOGs near their final
release dates, first and foremost among these is Richard
Garriott’s new FPS/MMOG,
Tabula Rasa. Having been privy to a good portion of the
beta test and several months of discussions with the game’s
designers and community managers, it’s safe to say that
Tabula Rasa could become one of the shining new examples of how to do
combat differently without taking huge steps away from the norm.
For those of you that may have been hiding in a WoW filled sand-box for
the past few months, the devs behind
style="font-style: italic;">Tabula Rasa have
incorporated a pseudo first person shooter mechanic into the games
fundamental combat structure. Instead of constantly pressing hotkeys to
activate different abilities that your character uses, you actually aim
and hit the mouse button in order to fire your gun. However, the aiming
system incorporates a “sticky” function that allows
players to hit a target without actively keeping a constant bead on
them, thus alleviating some of the functional problems associated with
MMOGs (lag, dropped packets, etc.).
While much of the gameplay still heralds from the standard MMOG fare
– missions, fighting monsters, no perma-death, grouping,
guilds, etc – the change in the style of combat is like a
breath of fresh air to anyone that’s been playing MMOGs for
more than a few years. While many of us love to wax nostalgic about
Everquest and the fun we had in the founding 3D game, it’s
also incredibly redundant to wish every game followed the same sort of
style that the first game did. While the soundtracks in movies from the
‘60s were exceptionally well done with their full-orchestra
numbers, movies like The Bourne
Ultimatum wouldn’t be blockbuster hits if they
were forced away from their Techno beats.
border="1">
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/13986"
title="Tapping the Dark Power Within">
src="/image/view/13986/preview"
width="200">
style="font-style: italic;">Other games, like
style="font-style: italic;">Age of Conan, are
also pushing new combat systems on players.
But the changes made in Tabula
Rasa are only the first step in alleviating a much more
in-depth problem. Though TR begins to crack the shell of MMOG combat,
it still retains a hint of the old rotting core that exists in every
MMOG. While players actively shoot at the monsters, the action is still
based upon a timer and the enemies continually act with sub-par (for
single player games) AI. These are areas that I’d love to see
improve in an MMOG.
But it’s certainly destined to happen eventually. The video
game marketplace is to cutthroat and too haughty for developers to
simply sit on their laurels, waiting for the next system to fall into
their laps. The developers at Funcom and EA Mythic are certainly
addressing many of the core issues of MMOG combat systems in their
upcoming games, and the developers at 38 Studios have espoused their
own stance in the fight against stagnation.
Even though it’s taken a decade to get the band together and
the right instruments in the orchestra, soon we will have our combat
opus that reigns in the industry for years to come.
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Tabula Rasa Game Page.
