MMORPG Group Dynamics

Sony sure knows how to make people mad.

In a typical MMORPG, there are two types of characters that rarely have to LFG for long. The tank and the healer. With most players playing some type of DPS*Damage Per Second* class there is nearly a constant demand of tanks and healers. However in the latest expansion for the age old MMORPG EverQuest, that has changed.

Mercenaries.

To those new to this idea or just new to EverQuest entirely, mercenaries in this context are NPCs*Non-playable characters* you can hire to join your group like a normal PC*Player character*. In need of a healer? Hire one. In need of a tank? Hire one. DPS classes are now always able to hire these npcs in a pinch instead of possibly waiting for hours to find one ran by a human being.

This is a bad thing.

In EverQuest I now see a steady stream of Clerics LFG for hours on end. No one wants them now as they bring nothing to the table. A mercenary is far more reliable than a random person that could go afk without saying anything, be a loot hog, be an idiot, etc. Why take the risk? So we have an expansion that completely shuts down a complete class. But wait...they can just hire a tank mercenary too right?

Yeah, IF they have the latest expansion.

It seems SOE tried to fix its low player population with NPCs that simply encourages people not to group up with real players. I've joined several groups where around half of the group were Npcs. The ol days of a fun filled group chat filled with different personalities is long gone for EverQuest it seems. However this was simply a failed fix to a problem many MMORPGs suffer from. I know in my personal play time I was constantly LFG in World of Warcraft when I wanted to do a heroic instance. That or in a group that was looking for a tank and/or healer.

This could go on for hours.

So what is the solution to this? This isn't fun for the players of the DPS classes to be waiting for hours on end to snatch up the first healer/tank to make a whisper in the LFG channel. I frankly find it's time to abandon the classes that inspired MMORPGs, Dungeons & Dragons. While the archetypes concept worked very well in the table top scenario due to a large number of "friends" being there, it doesn't work online.

So, Hybrids. Classes that can function in several roles at ONCE. I'm not talking about WoW's current Hybrids such as a Priest can switch talent specs to dps or heal, or a Warriors tank or dps. The ability to perform BOTH tasks at once. Warhammer Online has done something akin to this with their classes.

So what do you think? Should MMORPGs stick with the D&D inspired ideas or adopt "classes" that can fulfill multiple roles? Or is there another solution besides a very bad one by SOE by using NPCs to replace PCs?

Leave a comment. Do it.

A City of Heroes Experience: Evil Teleport

This is a little nugget of true malice I thought I would share. A few years ago, when City of Heroes was first released a friend and I decided to go on a break from our other MMORPGs and give it a shot. However we didn't want to play as heroes, we wanted to play as some messed up evil guys.
Sadly City of Villains was no where in sight at the time so we did the best we could*Which was surprising in how well we did...*

So was born Marhault*my friend* and myself, Ahrimin. A bunch of whacked out evil guys deciding we would TRY to actually roleplay in a genre of games that encourages it in one hand and slaps you for doing it in the other. So there we went, boldly scaring kiddies with our evil characters and slaying bad guys like crazy.

However we got separated at one point. By separated I mean Marhault was in some alley way fighting a large group of enemies and I was on top a roof fighting a few. While I finished mine on without a problem, Marhault was in trouble. He had pulled wayyyy too many. So I offered to teleport him to my location to safety.

The evil starts now.

He agreed, so I clicked his name, and was given a little circle radius cursor to pick where he appeared. So I did what any evil being would do. I put the cursor in thin air over just the edge of the building.*Note - I think NCSoft made it to where you can't do this anymore..but back then..you could!* For a brief second he just floated there, on the precipice of his own demise...then he fell a loooonnnnggg way down.

To those that have never played City of Heroes, falling can never kill a character. It's just not very heroic to die from a fall. However it can put you down to 1hp. Which was the case for Marhault, then a level 1 NPC walked up and slapped him, ending his life. It was quite possibly one of the funniest*and more evil* things I've done in an MMORPG.

I wonder why he doesn't call me anymore..

Author's note - This happened some years ago, which is why I don't have any great pics to add to this story. However if you wanna give out City of Heroes a try, you can use a free trial here...

City of Heroes® Be a hero... and crush crime

Myst Online - Real Innovation

I got to hand it to Cyan Worlds. They have truly done something that may very well cause a revolution in how we play MMORPGs. Cyan Worlds, the creators of the famous Myst series, released some time ago Myst: Online. This was to be an MMO version of their popular series. However recently the company has hit it pretty hard financially. The game was first dropped by Ubisoft and then by GameTap.

Once Cyan Worlds got their IP back, the hardcore fans of URU(Myst Online) decided to stick around as Cyan Worlds held only one solitary server up for its fans. They called this project MORE(Myst Online Restoration Experiment). For the longest time, due to even more financial setbacks everything was quiet.

Until this bit of news. Myst Online Goes OPEN SOURCE! Click here for their official announcement.

So what does this mean for YOU as a gamer? Expect a lot of mods and addons by players to an MMORPG. For some this is simply a dream come true. All the freedom of player/fan modification to an MMO is truly mind bloggling when it comes to possibilities. However this could also be the destruction of URU. Depending on how the modders swing it, it could either be a breath taking achievement...or a complete disaster.

I'm really looking forward to see how this project develops. Depending on its success we could see more MMORPGs releasing their sources, truly changing how we play the genre. Don't believe me? Go check out the large variety of "maps" in StarCraft and WarCraft III. While the game is an RTS*real time strategy*, many of the custom player-made maps range from RPGs, Defense Maps, and other unique maps that really don't fit a genre like Aeon of Strife.

I'm really looking forward to this.