MMO Gaming

I made it. I apologize for not writing recently because of being away, but quite frankly I don’t like any of you enough to mess with my vacation. Now of course the problem is coming up with what to write. And, really, that isn’t a big problem. In fact the problem is what do I want to write first. Sitting in my unfinished “Drafts” section, mocking me, is a collection of about 10 articles which I am working on, but I’m not sure which one to attack first. I want to talk about all of them, but I also know I don’t have the time to get them all completed to the degree I would like immediately, so I’m stuck. I don’t know which one I want to do first. It’s a problem of prioritizing.

My other problem, at the moment anyway, is that I am having trouble thinking as I seem to have a cold. Finishing anything right now is proving more difficult than writing fluff (yes, I readily admit to me not writing anything of substance here.) I have been thinking though, with some of my recent purchases, what MMOs should adopt as their own. My Nintendo DS is still getting more play time than my PC as of late, but even more than that I think MMOs could adopt ideas from television as well. Specifically I am talking of Heroes, which I recently got on DVD. Aside from better stories in games, which is most certainly needed, I had a few other ideas watching the show. I’ll mention one at the moment, and it is only loosely tied to the show at all, but the inspiration came from watching it and that is what I’m getting at.

For those of you who haven’t watched it, I’ll mention the only part of the show relevant to the idea I had. The show is based around an ensemble cast. Each character has their own story arc and motivations and is working independently of the others (for the most part.) That, though, doesn’t really explain what I was talking about. Getting back to my idea, I thought it would be interesting to see grouping done in a different way. What if being grouped with someone didn’t mean you were working together…as in proximity? What if each person in a group had to accomplish their own goal and only then could they come together and complete their larger mission? I, obviously, haven’t worked out every detail concerning this, but I think the concept demands further inspection. Other games coming out seem to be focusing on making the player just control a larger number of characters (Gods & Heroes, and Sword of the New World come to mind) but I haven’t seen games that require people to work alone, together. I think it can be done well, and in an interesting way, and I’ll work out how soon and post it.