Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

It may sound like a crazy gimmick, but losing track of time and getting caught in the middle of Kithicor when the sun fell was no laughing matter. On those rare instances you were extremely lucky, you could scurry your way out of there like a rat abandoning a sinking ship to survive another day. Most of the time though, you're greatest hope was to just make it close to the zone line before dying so you wouldn't have to wait until morning to go in and get your corpse. To this day, in any game, I can't think of a single place that put the fear of the gods into a player like Kithicor Forest managed to. It (or something like it) desperately needs to come back.

Necromancers can always use more pets.

The death penalty is another thing that should make a return to the gaming world if we ever find ourselves blessed with an EverQuest III. I can hear the cries of disdain now, but for each person that's currently praying for their gods to set me ablaze, there are an equal number of those praising my words. I know this is becoming an age old argument, so I won't delve too deeply into it here (though feel free to do so in our forums), but some of the sting of old-school death penalties needs to come back.

Some of the most fun I've had in various games (ok, EQ and Vanguard) revolved around the need to recover our corpses after a disastrous group wipe. The communication, thought sharing, and ingenuity brought about by those moments are treasured memories I wouldn't give up for the world. Aside from having the added benefit of greatly reducing the "Leeroy Jenkins" moments of the world, the death penalties we faced also helped foster the community we all came to love.

You may not be able to assign the task of community to a group of developers and send it through a quality assurance department for bug squashing, but there are tools that can be used. The problem though, is how do you create a game that forces community interaction without forcing how a person plays the game? You can slow down the regeneration on magic power and health to create down time. Add the concept of class dependency like EverQuest did and you've got yourself a natural formula for creating a community. Most people in the world, and thus gamers, can't quietly sit in a room together without eventually talking. It's just human nature. There's just a small problem with creating this type of community dynamic these days. The majority of us no longer have the kind of time required to dedicate that much of our lives to a video game anymore. Fortunately, I also think the younger generation of today has other things to do as well, so the old community formula no longer works in the real world. So what do you do?

That's the million dollar question, isn't it? Personally, I don't think anyone has come up with the answer yet. Yes, there are plenty of games that are fun and accessible to the masses, but I spend far more time soloing in them these days than I ever did in the past. Some of us aren't the most social creatures in the world and if there's no pressing need to do so, there are an innumerable amount of days we find ourselves with no reason to talk to anyone else while playing our game of choice. I'd be lying if I said I didn't sorely miss the days of solid community we had in the past. Is it possible for those moments to ever return? I don't know, but it would definitely be at the top of my list of requests for EverQuest III.