The Perfect MMO

Blizzard Entertainment, a favorite company for many gamers, achieved fame with three games, or rather, three universes. Starcraft, Warcraft, and Diablo. Starcraft and Warcraft were two best selling RTSs, which are still being sold, a decade or so after their release. And Diablo was a bestselling RPG, along with its sequel, Diablo 2.

Then Blizzard took Warcraft, and made it into the most successful MMO of all time. The geekfest World of Warcraft, which I admit, I've played. I had a level 70 rogue and 70 paladin (Horde, Ghostlands.) A few months ago, I quit the game.

Now I'm in Warhammer. This time around, it isn't on my PC, so I can't play it all the time, sort of a way to force myself into time management. But Warhammer took a lot of things from WoW, and improved upon it. Unfortunately, they also made somethings worse. Overall, my opinion is that Mythic made a game superior to WoW.

The following are what I believe would make the perfect MMO:

1. Give us slots for all our buttons and a method for which we can very easily and quickly access abilities without spending time, on the battlefield, scrolling through different action bars. In WoW, some classes, such as the Hunter, had more abilities than the interface could handle. Warhammer wins this one, as with a four action bar interface, every ability, and health pots, and everything else, fits on the screen with room to spare.

2. A global cool down (GCD) interface on the action bar. The GCD is a one second (or so) delay on all abilities, so that players cannot spam an ability or make a macro using that ability 500 times in one second (I'll cover macros in a moment.) Both War and WoW tie on this.

3. A button to main assist. Assist means that I target what my target is targetting. So if I click on a player named Bob, and Bob has a player named Job, I'll have Bob selected. Then I hit assist, and I have Job selected. WoW wins by default, because Warhammer requires the player to make this into a macro.

4. Macros. Give us an interface to make macros. A macro is a predefined group of actions. Tie.

5. The mailbox should automatically pick names from our friends list when we want to send something to them. The mailbox should also enable us to send multiple items at once. WoW wins

7. Every class should be able to quest efficiently and solo. Not all quests should be soloable (after all, this is a multiplayer game), but most should be. Tanking classes should have a means of doing damage while questing so killing a mob (an enemy creature is known as a mob, this comes from the days of MUD gaming) doesn't take an hour. And classes that are squishy, such as the Warhammer Sorceress (mine is Rank 31) need to be able to survive. A tie for both games.

8. Respawns. Being an MMO, you can't avoid respawns. But the spawn timer needs to be balanced. If it is too fast, then you can't complete quests because mobs are spawning faster than you can kill. If it is too slow, than you can't complete quests if someone else shows up. Personally, the respawn rate should be about twice as long as it takes for the weakest class to kill that mob (assuming that that class is at the same level of that mob), which is around 30 seconds. WoW wins. Most of the time, the mobs in WoW respawned at a decent rate. Warhammer, the respawn rate is a bit too fast and is the primary reason why I hate caves.

9. Caves and other interiors. Caves are difficult areas in MMOs. Caves are narrow, with little room to maneuver. If you see a mob patrolling (a 'pat') near you, and you're already fighting another, there is often no where to go. Caves need to be designed with a relatively low respawn rate, so that you don't get stuck unable to get out because you can't kill things. Pats add a level of challenge, but should not be over done. WoW wins because Warhammer's respawn rate makes caves a PITA.

10. There should be more than enough quests to hit max level. I never played the game, but I heard stories that in Age of Conan, once you hit 20, there was nothing to do, no more quests. And 20 was not the level cap. War and WoW had plenty of quests. Tie.

11. Escorts. Escort quests are terrible. The escort never pays heed of what he is walking into, usually walking into a group of mobs that could have easily been avoided. Rather, if you are going to install escort quests, make the escort follow the player, not the other way around. Warhammer wins for not even putting in these terrible quests.

12. Travel quests. Sometimes these are great. A decent amount of xp for going to another land. But don't over do it. Don't send me back to the original point, and then send me a hundred miles somewhere else, and then send me a hundred miles somewhere else. Come on. Warhammer wins, there are very few annoying travel quests.

13. Quest rewards should benefit the player and the class he plays. Being a rogue in WoW, it was truly annoying to do a quest, only to get a magical staff as a reward. My character is a rogue. She uses swords, daggers, and maces. No staffs. Warhammer wins.

Zones
14. Walking. It gets boring. I did not buy a game to walk all day. We need a means of transportation, to get from place to place without falling asleep. Each town, or quest hub should have a flight path or a teleport device or something that allows you to travel to other quest hubs. WoW had this, but Warhammer only has flight paths in every other zone and only at Warcamps, until Tier 4, which meant that getting to Altdorf/Inevitable City was a long walk from some places (such as Ellyrion.) However, this is a tie because WoW had the terrible ten minute walk from Orgrimmar to Thunderbluff and Darnassus to Ironforge. If you are making your players walk for more than 5 minutes at a time, something is wrong.

15. High traffic roads should not be covered in mobs. Tie

16. Don't make zones so big that it takes a long time to go from quest hub to the area where the quest actually is. I'm speaking of course, of the Barrens in WoW, so Warhammer wins.

17. Instances should have their loot tables modified to fit the party entering. If a group of five (warrior, warlock, paladin, mage, and rogue) enter an instance, items for, say, druids, should not drop off bosses. Tie, neither Warhammer, nor Warcraft do this.

18. Instance 'trash' (mobs that aren't bosses) are fine, but don't over do it. Don't make the instance one long and boring trash fight. Put some in but not too much. Serpentshrine Cavern was an hour of just killing the same damn things over and over again before you got to Lurker. Boring. I haven't done many instances in War, so no comment.

19. Instances should not take 4 hours to finish. One hour, maybe two. Or allow the instance to be 'saved' and the group can go in and finish it. Warcraft did this with raids. Karazhan for example, reset once a week, so you could spend an hour one night, finish it in a week and be done, and STILL HAVE LIVES outside of the game.

Characters
20. Characters should look unique to their class. I really like the way Warhammer did this. No two classes look alike. In warcraft, any cloth-using class, could look the same. Cloth robes shared the same stats, so you could see a priest, a mage, and a warlock in the same gear. Warhammer wins

21. Classes should be able to defend themselves, even against their anti class. An anti-class is a class that is made to destroy another class (ex, rogues killed mages, mages killed warriors, warriors killed rogues, something like that.) As a Sorceress, my anti-class is the Witch Hunter or the Knight of the Blazing Sun. These guys can literally kill me in two hits. I don't mind that Witch Hunters can kill my squishy class, and I don't mind that I have a distinct disadvantage. But come on, a class should at least have a chance, if not a good one. And survival abilities should not be made null and void by having the other class immune to them. WoW wins. Although rock had a disadvantage against paper, rock at least had a chance to fight and escape paper.

22. Make classes unique across factions and races. WoW had vague classes like 'rogue' or 'warlock.' Warhammer had more specific classes, like 'witch elf' or 'bright wizard.' Even Warhammer lore made vague sounding classes (Sorceress) specific (Sorceresses are a specific group of Dark Elves who use dark magic and who serve Malekith, or something like that.) It makes the game more interesting and it makes the divide between factions more obvious. And you really don't have to make a unique class each time. The Magus (Chaos) has similar abilities to the Engineer (Dwarf) and the Witch Hunter (Empire) has the same mechanics as the Witch Elf (Dark Elf.) Warhammer wins

23. Stats. Don't make a class stack ten or twenty stats. I remember WoW hunters needed to stack ranged attack power, agility, stamina, resilience, intellect, mana regen and so on and so forth. Do away with all of this and compress stats, so there are only 7 or 8 total stats, and each class only needs to stack two or three. Warhammer wins.

24. Give us an interface to find groups for group quests and instances. Tie

25. Death. Death needs a penalty, but not a severe one. Reducing xp, possibly even deleveling, is terrible. It removes the challenge of the game because now no one dares to try to fight mobs they know will be difficult. Resurrection sickness was terrible because it meant you are now disabled (all stats reduced by 75%, that does a lot) for 15 minutes. I like Warhammer's method. You rez at the nearest quest hub, with Rez sickness, but a healer can remove rez sickness. The punishment comes in having to hoof back to the quest, deal with the respawns to get back to what you wanted to do. Nothing so severe that I'm afraid to try a challenge, but enough of a PITA that I don't want to get killed. Warhammer wins.

26. Public Quests!!! Give everyone in the zone an area where they can all work together and get loot. Warhammer wins

27. PvP/RvR. Taking keeps and controlling RvR zones for the glory of *insert faction here* makes the game far more interesting. Being ganked by high levels and camped, does not. Warhammer removed ganking, everyone in an RvR zone that is beneath their level (a level 12 in Teir 1 (ranks 1-11)) gets turned into a chicken until they leave the RvR zone. Warhammer wins. They made PvP/RvR far more fun than it was in WoW.

28. Getting stuck. Walking through a Dark Elf quest hub could get annoying frequently. They have these tents that have spikes and my character often gets stuck on them. In 3D Gamestudio, there is a command called c_move, which moves an entity, and one of the parameters of c_move is GLIDE. This means if you hit something, you'll glide along its surface while trying to still move, according to friction. In Warhammer, its easy to get stuck. In WoW, there were mechanincs like GLIDE. WoW wins.

29. Make the zones visually stunning to look at. Some of the zones in Warhammer are beautiful or inticing to look upon. Chaos Wastes, I thought, were dark and creepy, like they should be. Altdorf was a beautiful work of art, very much like a German city, but with its own style built in (crooked chimneys, asymmetrical half timbering, winding streets.) WoW isn't ugly, but Warhammer wins for style.

30. The story. WoW started out with a good story, but then everyone went insane. Arthas went insane. Illidan went insane. Maiev went insane. Malygos went insane. Kael'thas went insane. Kael'thas was a good guy, he sided with the Naga and Illidan to save his people. So why are we killing him in the Eye? He went insane. Warhammer has a rich story line. Everything has a story. Every rally master in every town has a story. You get a Tome of Knowledge with the entire story in it as you play the game. The story literally opens up before you as you play. Warhammer wins.

31. Arena. Warhammer wins for not putting such a dumb idea in an MMO.

"WAAAAGH" - some goblin shaman.

J Kuhl Signing Off