Warriors and mages, knights and priests, quests and monsters. All of these should sound familiar to someone who often plays games of the MMOG genre, or even of the RPG genre. With all of the E3 news lately, there has been one things that has been extremely obvious, and that is that the big title devlopers are all adapting to player's desires. This is evident because of how every big game I have seen has included one new feature that is huge and has been huge in the past, choices! From Prince of Persia to Fable 2, all the way to Fallout 3 and Spore, all of these games give the player a lot of choices and decisions that will alter their gameplay to their own unique style. My question is, why can't the bigger MMOG publishers adapt like console-game developers?

    Let's take a look at how MMOGs can adapt by using a console game as an example. Team Fortress 2 is one of the most popular multiplayer shooters on the computer, and for good reason. Even though you have to buy the game to play it, player's are still in love with the game, but why? The game features the classic RPG feature known as class selection, this gives player's the chance to either specialize as one class or practice multiple classes. What does this add to a FPS such as Team Fortress 2? Well, it adds a lot more strategy then most shooters have, because now it's not just which team is more skilled, it's a combination of that and which team is working together better.

     There's one thing most MMOGs lack, a detailed party system where it actually matters if you party up. Sure, a lot of gamers like to solo through a MMOG by grinding, but shouldn't there be that element that online games like Guild Wars bring to table causing parties to have to work together in order to complete missions and quests? It makes the game more challenging and more interesting, even for those who'd rather stick with the henchmen available in Guild Wars, since it makes it more challenging to yourself even if you don't have a full team. That's one thing MMOGs need to adapt to, strategy. We don't need MMORTSs persay, we just need at least 10% strategy in bigger combat scenarios such as raids, quests, and other features.

     Another thing we can learn from Team Fortress 2 is also based on the classes available, and this is balance. A lot of games have trouble doing this, and you'll see people hogging one class. There are many examples, a couple which are listed in my "Key Factors for Success" article from awhile back. The one I used as an example was 12Sky. This might have changed now, but back in the early days of OBT, almost everyone was in the Fujin clan. Of course people will flock to a clan based off of ninjas, who doesn't love ninjas! Pirates of course, but anyways, back to business. Fujin was also favored because their skills were extremely overpowered. Their area of effect (AoE) skills could  take out a mob of monsters five levels highers in a couple of hits. This enabled quicker leveling, and dominate player vs. player performance. In Team Fortress 2, the classes are as balanced as you can get. Sure, engineers can setup sentry guns which will kill anyone in the range, but they also have several weaknesses. A demo + medic uber combination can take them out, or a good spy can eliminate the engineer. Then you have the soldier and heavy, who can easily stand by a dispenser and spam their shots at a corner so anyone who comes by is killed. This is where snipers come in handy, to headshot them and clear the way. If a MMOG could balance the classes this well, it'd eliminate one of the bigger problems players have.

     I'll give on last example to prove my point, using a different game as an example. God of War, this game is one of the most popular games out there for the PS2, and with good reason. But what exactly did God of War bring to the table? An amazing combat system. How many times have we seen gamers complain about the combat system in MMOGs, if you're like me, a lot! God of War uses a combo system that exploits your enemies, when you strike them and leave their neck unarmed, a button will show up on the screen and by pressing it, you'll take advantage of that weakness and aim for the neck. Imagine a MMOG with a similar combo system, where you could use a skill that blinds your opponent for a few seconds, then you can string together another skill that would take advantage of that, such as aiming for a weak-spot, and because of how the skills work together, the damage done is increased as opposed to just spamming one skill mindlessly to try and nuke your opponent with magic.

     So here's my suggestion to any MMOG developer, learn to adapt to gamer's needs and desires! We often hear of "cloning" in this industry, but this is why it can be a good thing. Don't just take an art style or the type of skills, learn as to what a game such as World of Warcraft did successfully and where gamer's were dissapointed, then adapt to a game similar but with better features and fixes. Perhaps players didn't like the art style, so change it so something more "Age of Conan-ish".