TenTonHammer.com - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

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.

Developers are still making games with combat akin to that found in the original 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.

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 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.

Other games, like 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.

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