twoplustwoequalsblog

Wikipedia - Massively multiplayer online game for the uninitiated.

So I have played a little bit of EVE lately, since Penny-Arcade ads had a 14 day trial and I have free time after presenting my English thesis. It’s pretty fun, but it’s a bit tedious traveling around, and I don’t really feel connected to the universe. There’s shortcomings.

Some of my friends play FFXI and WoW, and they have complaints about the games they feed their lives to as well. Things take too long, or you run out of content, or there’s too many players above them to ever stand a chance of being a top player.

So what would be the ultimate MMO? There’s a couple games I’ve been dying to see for the last couple years. Some fit traditional genres, but others would be entirely new experiences.

The first is a Pokemon MMO. The DS has wireless, the Wii is going to have wireless, the two can talk to each other. Why not release a Wii/DS pokemon MMO? You can go around playing on your DS in a simpler environment, training your guys and such, and then go play on the Wii for a more graphical environment. You can put certain things that are only available on one of the platforms to encourage people to buy both. I’m pretty sure the key thing would be to not charge any money for the subscription. Just keep releasing new content that players have to buy. For instance, sell TMs for like $.25 to give players the option to just buy things instead of playing through the game a lot. This would generate revenue, remove the feeling of grinding, and allow you to keep introducing new content. I am surprised Nintendo hasn’t been capitalizing on this brand; it’s one of their biggest.

Another pretty sweet MMO would be a massive scale galatic war game. It’d be a combination of a ton of genres. You start out as a low ranking solider who runs around with a gun or drives a tank or plane or whatever your commanding officer tells you. As you move up, you get to control bigger squads of units (both AI and humans) in the battles, and then the scale keeps zooming out and you fight across entire solar systems and galaxies. It’d be really hard to make sure the economy of the two or three sides fighting stayed in balance, since you don’t want anyone to win the war. Still, this “big picture tactics” vs. “small picture shooter” game would appeal to a wide audience. Supreme Commander, which is currently being developed by Gas Powered Games, sounds like this except single player. I eagerly await.

This next title is pretty groundbreaking, so brace yourself. Imagine a game where you wandered around a simulated world competing in - spelling bees. The game would read you a word, and you’d have to spell it. As you level up, words get harder, and eventually other languages and technical terminology get added. Do you think you have what it takes to be the ultimate spelling master?