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Change a Little, Change the World

By Cody “Micajah” Bye

Humans are creatures of habit. We create routines for ourselves, little nuances that allow us to think about other tasks while we are finishing the one we are currently doing. We brush our teeth in certain ways, cook our bacon in just the right fashion, and scratch our heads so many times a day.

These routines help free our minds, but often drive us to monotony. We accomplish the same task day in and day out, whether that’s getting up and going to work, rolling out of bed to go to school, or recovering from a hangover. Nothing changes, and things can very easily slip into nothing but a blurry string of events.

However, when we reach this point, the smallest alteration in your life’s schedule becomes a tremendous obstacle or a harrowing adventure. The road to work is closed? You’ll have to find an alternate route on the fly! The local pub is closed? Perhaps a rousing game of lawn darts can recapture your adventurous nature! These small things can stand out in a person’s mind, even if they are not particularly important or exciting to a person you relay the story too.

Sword of the New World's gameplay is significantly changed by the MCC system.

For many gamers, MMOGs have entered into that state of monotony. Since the original Everquest, very little has changed for the gamer. You enter a game, create a character, fight monsters, do quests, dabble in a bit of PvP, raid, rinse, and repeat. The setting may change, going from a futuristic sci-fi world to a dark, war-embroiled fantasy world, but the characters and the actions you partake in are generally the same. With the current crop of MMOGs, players have played through different versions of the same game for nearly a decade, yet the persistent nature, online friends, and competitive atmospheres keep these gamers coming back for more. Even World of Warcraft, with its staggering 8+ million subscribers function on that old model, functions on many of the old principles, albeit with refined, honed, and tempered gameplay. The monotony of the MMOG has risen to an incredible level, and the routine is beginning to drag on many MMO players.

But similarly to the human condition that was explained earlier, even the smallest change in the gameplay of an MMO can lead to an amazingly different experience. Take for example Ten Ton Hammer’s current preview of Sword of the New World. Many gamers could take that game for granted, noting that you can control more than one character at a time.

“So what?” the gamer might ask, curious as to why the game would provoke such a potent response from the previewer. “You might as well dual-box and get the same sort of effect.” However, this sort of thinking would be incorrect. The change in the SotNW’s gameplay changes the entire structure of the game world. In order to keep the user occupied, more monsters are available for the player’s party to kill, and thus more action takes place on the screen. However, this is far from overwhelming, and people who have tried multi-boxing in past MMO games and failed should not fear SotNW. The characters you are not directly controlling actually have AI!

Age of Conan will feature a combat system that requires an active amount of participation by the user.

The same sort different gameplay experience is going to be tested on Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. In Funcom’s upcoming title, the major difference in the game will be the hands-on control the player has over his on-screen character. In other MMORPGs, combat was done with the push of a button and a pre-built strategy. Age of Conan offers MMOG enthusiasts direct control over their character’s sword swings and fireballs. Sword strikes are connected to various directional points, and if a player can chain a combination of swings together, they’ll achieve some incredibly gruesome results.

The incredibly intriguing factor in both these games is how these seemingly small changes influences the way the entire game works. For instance, in SotNW the multi-character control system (MCC) allows for particularly challenging PvP battles, where veteran might spread their characters across an environment to insure that they are not hit with an Area-of-Effect spell from an enemy mage. The MCC system also allows for more monsters to be on screen, thus more loot is generated at the same time. SotNW has integrated a “Harvest Mode” into the game that allows characters to pick up numerous pieces of loot in a matter of seconds.

It's all about  first-person-style combat in Tabula Rasas

Tabula Rasa also has incredibly different gameplay than what many are accustomed too. While Anarchy Online, City of Heroes, and Star Wars Galaxies all sported high-tech weaponry and gadgets, Tabula Rasa is actually bringing them to life in a first-person, aim-and-shoot style. Unlike the three previously mentioned MMOGs, Tabula Rasa’s combat, from what the public has seen so far, is much more intense and relies on the wits and quick thinking of the user rather than merely relying on randomly generated dice rolls alone.

Stargate Worlds is also bringing combat up to the high-speed level that it should be. However, SGW delves even further into the changing gameplay situation, offering users an escape from combat and crafting in the form of puzzles. These puzzles are also integral to the gameplay, as several classes are better at puzzles than others and solving puzzles is necessary to continue the storyline.

In general, the next generation of MMOGs will be different, at least in small ways, than what our current MMOG market consists of. From combat to puzzle-solving, the next generation of MMOG developers are trying desperately to escape the mold left by past games and develop something truly new and intriguing. It still remains to be seen whether gamers will consider changes to the standard MMO gameplay a step in the right direction, but I can only assume people will enjoy the escape from the monotony. All these changes may be “small” but they certainly change the world’s they exist in.

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