MMO Rage and why Rift is ruining the world

I am getting really fed up with seeing Steam friends and ads for the MMO Rift. I am also sick of seeing rave reviews because this game's success holds back the MMO genre and here is why; it is more of the same. It plays like WoW, it's quest system is like WoW, and as long as we are happy with the same old "kill 10 wolves to save the world" quests the genre will never grow and reach any sort of other potential.

The big budget AAA MMO that is coming along to be a WoW killer is The Old Republic which is due out sometime this year. Being a huge fan of BioWare and even enjoying their rushed out, crappy cash-in sequels I will of course have to play the game. BioWare seems convinced that a personal, emotional story is what is needed to advance the genre but I am more skeptical of story improving MMO's than I am of birdseed being a good medium for statues.

In my not so humble opinion I think there are two area's that make a MMO fantastic; Mythology and Mechanics. We need a great world to explore and a great way to explore it.

What we need is innovation. We desperately need to step away from the WoW/Everquest model. We need fresh ideas that are well funded and well implemented. Here are two amazing idea's of MMO's I would like to see that would be easy to develop and have instant appeal and brand recognition.

First and foremost a Pokemon MMO would be easily like the best game ever. If you could roam around a huge, open world searching for wild Pokemon and leveling, challenging other trainers to Pokemon battles, having hourly tournaments in cities, rare Pokemon, trad-able Pokemon, a robust crafting system for Pokeballs, buffs, potions, training implements, boosters, etc it would be really amazing and have a mass appeal. You already have close to 1,000 Pokemon designs from the last 15 years so GameFreak could probably even get away with no new Pokemon designs. It would still be a hardcore grind it out RPG, but have such a new twist, great PVP and PVE elements, and such an installed base that the game would be a license to build a money vault.

Second I want to see a Mechwarrior MMO. The last we heard from the unecessarily long dormant Mechwarrior franchise was that new developer Smith and Tinker was working on a reboot of the series. They released an amazing looking video a couple years ago and that has been the last we've heard of that. Mechwarrior and the Battletech franchises not only have a strong, core following, but there is so much mythology and fantastic mechanics to build an MMO around. Imagine if you were either house Davion, House Steiner, or one of the clans. Each faction has their own technology, own mechs, and own core worlds. You would have an amazing flow of the game going from world to world, crafting cool weapons and mechs, trading resources and blueprints, going on missions for NPC's and conquering worlds for your faction. Add in great clan support and you will generate all of the paying user-base you need.



Both games would easily get an instant 500,000 plus day 1 subscribers and would have plenty of room to grow and expand the core mechanics and worlds. Hell a Pokemon game is the only franchise I think could realistically topple WoW. Bottom line though is that as long as we are gobbling up games like Rift like they are gold we will never see anything except "Kill 10 Sith troppers to save the galaxy."

Does Pokemon ever need to Evolve?

The new Pokemon black and white games release today, and they are really tempting me to actually purchase a Nintendo console (I loathe the company but more on that later. that's boring) so I can actually play the newest iteration. As a taxpaying, home owning, "mature" (fingerquotes) adult in society I have no reservations saying that I love Pokemon. The franchise is fun. The games are fun and introduce new generations of gamers to surprisingly deep amounts of RPG elements and great strategy. It's a very popular game that's not all about killing Nazi's or space Marines (not that there's anything wrong with that) and a game that takes more thought than twitch.

My only real problem with Pokemon is that since Pokemon Red and Blue all those years ago the game really hasn't changed at all. You wander through tall grass finding Pokemon, going on the internet to figure out which ones are best, and waste tons of time making sure you can get 6 that will PWN the Elite 4. You go through the bug forest pretty early on, then the cave with ZuBats and GeoDudes, etc. They have added a lot of great multiplayer and new Pokemon to capture over the years, but the core gameplay is pretty much intact. Will this ever change?

Well no, not really.

Imagine how amazing a "mature" (fingerquotes) Pokemon game would be. Despite being marketed as a kids game there would certainly be an audience for a more adult game based on the concept. The games have been popular in North America since Red and Blue's release in 1998 and a generation of gamers have grown up playing them. Image a (dare I say it) Wii open world game based on the Pokemon franchise where you have more battle options, more world to explore, online tournaments, dlc, etc. It would not only be widely popular but VERY profitable. Why will we never see it?

Because Gamefreak and Nintendo are making too much money with the same formula. It is the exact same reason that we don't drill for oil in deep water or develop alternative energy sources; there isn't enough demand for change. As long as the same game with different colors keeps selling tens of millions worldwide, there will be no Pokemon MMO (how AWESOME would that be, way more exciting then the WoW clones we keep getting) or a console RPG.


Regardless of all that Garydos FTW!!!!