Ryan put up a thread on the Nerfbat forums a long time ago that’s still getting traction. I keep meaning to respond but at this point my post is just going to get drowned out in the noise. Here’s the kickoff:

What 10 features would exist in your ultimate MMO? Features that currently exist and features that don’t currently exist are all fair game. Discuss. Note: You can list them all in a few words or elaborate as much as you want. I’m just interested because I know everyone has an opinion on this sort of thing.

If you have time, why don’t you drop a few bullet points of your own in the comments?

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While I was working on that What You Should Know Before You Roll article the other week, I became interested in incorporating race/class popularity into the piece. I figured interested onlookers would want to know how common a race is, to add that data point into the mix of attractiveness/style/class choice, etc. To do that I referenced the Warcraft Census over at WarCraftRealms.com.

The census gets its data from a plugin, meaning that the information is from a self-selecting group. Only the folks who deigned to get the plugin were counted. By the very nature of WoW addons, I’m going to posit this means overall Warcraft Census has collected data from a more dedicated group of players. The average WoW player (less than 20 hours a week, no 25 man raids) probably doesn’t have any plugins installed.

That said, I thought it was useful enough information to include a few conclusions in that post. Data from over 6 million characters is still a decent-sized set, even if it is self-selecting. I find datamining endlessly fascinating. With that in mind, I thought I’d make some more obvious statements fueled by the service and try to guess at why some things are the way they are.

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Or: Why I can’t wait to play Valve’s first MMO.

I was sitting in my hotel in San Diego earlier this year, pondering a blog post and the day’s events. The sun was on the horizon and to keep the back of my mind occupied I popped on the television. Watching cable TV is a rare treat for me. Primarily I watch specific TV shows via iTunes or Netflix, so channel surfing is really only something I do for the 30 minutes or so I’m on the elliptical at the gym.

Animal Planet, Discovery, and other channels sometimes run shows on zookeeping or zoo design, and I just can’t get enough of that stuff. What can I say, I like animals and how stuff gets put together? In any case, that San Diego evening I entertained myself by occasionally looking up to see a hippo being fed or a bear cave being cleaned.

The thing of it is, in some ways those zoo animals have it better off than your average MMO player. I’m not just talking about free food and no rent - I’m talking about enrichment activities.

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Now that the pain has faded somewhat, I think it’s obvious that MUO’s death may be a good thing after all. If it was going to be a broken, license-groaning mess there was no reason for it to make it to launch. Given the rumors of confusion on the dev team about what the game was going to be like at a fundamental level, pulling support from the project seems like a no-brainer. Still, I think MUO’s death highlights Microsoft’s sordid history with Massively Multiplayer games.

If you look down the big list of cancelled or never-released Massive games, Microsoft’s name comes up a suspicious number of times. AC2 anyone? Mythica, True Fantasy Online, Vanguard, and now Marvel Universe were all dented by the Redmond giant’s deft touch. On a fundamental corporate level, I think that MS just doesn’t understand the whole MMO ‘thing’. Trash talking jock douches calling each other ‘fag’ on Xbox Live? That’s understandable. But having the patience to see something like an MMO through - not so much.

Even more than that, I think Microsoft’s stupidity when it comes to this genre has left a huge opening for Sony and the PlayStation 3. Though there are no firm plans in the public eye right now, the tide is rising for MMO experiences on Sony’s console. Has Microsoft ceded the fight without even firing a shot?
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I sat down earlier this week to write yet another blog post about why Blizzard (and MMO developers in general) should treat their mid-game content with more respect. I was inspired by a few posts around the sphere, from Cameron and Tobold. I’ve blathered about it so many times in the past, but this time I had something new sticking in my memory. A second post from Cameron, talking about comments from THQ’s Head of Development, really brought this discussion into focus.

Cameron makes the excellent point that if WoW has peaked, it’s Blizzard’s fault.

The interest in making WoW “the best game ever” simply doesn’t exist. Instead, they seem to be fine with doing just enough to make sure that people pick up the next expansion pack and sit on the cushy laurels of 10 million subs … A game that keeps you playing is good enough. They’ll worry about the long term tomorrow, and screw the players that they’re alienating– there’s nine million more where you came from.

That was when it hit me. We talk and we gab and we wring our hands over this game, because we *get* it. I’ve been writing about games professionally just a month or two longer than WoW’s been commercially released; in that time I’ve seen the impact, I know what this game really *means* to the players.

Blizzard? Even they don’t know what they have on their hands. And that’s terrifying.
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My last session writeup for IMGDC is up on Gamasutra; I’ve got interviews to turn in and get posted still, though. Good stuff.

This one is all about Nick Fortugno’s chat on the casual view of the MMO genre. In my opinion, this was probably the most important talk given all weekend, and it was very sparsely attended. As usual, there are a ton of notes that got left out of the talk, especially from the end. Read on after the cut for more content from the talk.

I also want to say, Nick had an incredibly engaging speaking style. If you ever get the chance to hear him give a talk, do it! Good times.

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Another post up on Gamasutra from the IMGDC event - and this one I’m simultaneously pleased and saddened by. The article is all about Dr. Richard Bartle’s Sunday Keynote. It was an inspiring, awesome look at the future of the genre. Pleased because they really got the core of his speech from my notes. Saddened because they cut out his awesome Good, Bad, Ugly analogy using movies and muppets! Ah well - just means I can post those notes here. They also cut out his rationale for why the Good would ultimately triumph, which I think is well worth reading about.

If you’d like to check out the full slideshow from the talk, Dr. Bartle has put up his Powerpoint presentation on mud.co.uk.

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