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

3. Let Me Keep My Character & Change My Skills
When Ultima Online first came out, I made one character named GodsWrath (yes, I know that's a cheesy name, but it was the 90s, and everyone had cheesy names back then). All of my friends knew that was me, and no one ever had to try and remember names of Alts. That was who I was in-game. If I wanted to play a different style, such as using magic or swinging a sword, I simply started doing what I wanted and over time I got better and better at it. I never had to make a new character; I simply became what I wanted to play.

UO Lets Us Do It

Now fast forward over a decade, and this is all but impossible to do. You would think, with hard core gamers going so far as to preorder the game for the 3-day head start just so they can reserve their name, that companies would make it easier for them to play their beloved characters. I'm not talking about a simple respec option, I'm talking about letting me rework my entire character. If I am playing a healer, and after 40 levels I discover healers are not really for me, there should be a way for me to switch things around without having to replay the entire game from scratch.

2. No More Collect Toe Nail Quests
How many times have you been told to go out and collect 10 bandit toe nails, wolf pelts,
or any of the hundreds of collection quests that plague MMOGs today? So you run out and find the elusive bandit camp. You think "Oh joy, this won't take long. I only need 10 toe nails and there are tons of bandits here." You kill the first bandit... and get nothing. How can that be? Shouldn't every bandit have 10 toes? My quest should be over pretty quickly, right? Well, maybe the bandit is missing a toe here or there, but he was walking around pretty good without a limp, right? That means he should have at least a couple. But no, you have to kill 5 bandits to get 1 toenail. How the hell is that possible? And doesn't every single wolf have a pelt? I'm told to collect 10 pelts, yet somehow I have to kill 50 wolves to get them.

This is just piss poor design on the part of the developers. Either man up and tell me I have to kill 50 wolves or, if you want 10 pelts, let me kill 10 wolves. Developers only seem to do this because they know gamers will get upset at having to do such a repetitive mundane task if they know how long it will take from the offset. Stop taking the easy way out, developers! No one finds this type of quest fun, and if it's not fun, you shouldn't put it in the game.

1. Dynamic Instancing
Have you ever been in an instance for the first time with a group that has been there before? It's all shiny and new, and you can't wait to explore the mysteries that are waiting within. Then some ass hat that has finished the quest 80 times before begins dictating where to go and what to do. He ruins any ambushes or surprises that the instance might have in store for you, and gives away every strategy that should be used to finish the instance as quickly as possible. Is there anything worse than this? Why am I even playing?

This isn't all Mr. Ass Hat’s fault though, there is only so much content in these games, and eventually players will have played through most of it several times. It’s only natural to want to move through the same old content as quickly as possible. The solution? Dynamic instancing! Wouldn't it be great if every time you entered a dungeon the layout was different? Perhaps this time you have to go left, not right, or there is suddenly a secret corridor that wasn’t there last go ‘round. Maybe this time the entrance to the boss room is down the third corridor on the left, not the 5th. Use this with the random traps and ambushes mentioned above and you have a new and exciting experience every time you enter an instance. Games like Diablo have been doing this for years. Isn't it time for MMOGs to be able to compete with games that came out in 1996?

Conclusion
The key word here is "innovation." When MMOGs started almost 14 years ago, developers asked, "How can we do things differently?" They pushed the envelope, constantly giving gamers new options and dramatic changes from previous games. It seems they have now fallen into a rut of N+1, where they simply take the same old tried and true formula and make one small mediocre change. They then put it in a shiny new box, and try to tell you this is new and different. Gamers are optimistic, not stupid. We might flock to the new game to give it a go, but when we see it's the same old game we have been playing, we quickly move on. It's risk vs. reward at its best, and game companies need to be encouraged to take risks. Play it safe, and watch as your servers empty and your precious subscriber base moves on. But take a risk, give us something that no one else does, and reap the benefits.