Honestly, who doesn't think today's MMORPGs are dull? Maybe they really are all crafted for 12 year olds, where simplicity is the key to profits, but come on! Something's gotta give! In today's MMORPG, you can:

  • Pick a race/class
  • Level up that class
  • Do mundane quests to get special items
  • Join up with a group and run into a dungeon a million times to get that super special item
  • Bitch to each other about who gets that special item
  • PVP with one another in an enclosed environment where nothing is really at stake except maybe you have to respawn or something
  • Repeat

Not only does the game hold your hand to ensure nothing bad happens to you, it's nothing but a pursuit after a random drop that the game will continue to allure players in with. The PvP is laughable, and can we just do away with levels? What the hell is so great  about levels?

I'm sick of it, and call for a return to an Ultima Online like return. UO had skills that could be mastered by doing specific actions. So instead of just picking some cutout class like Blacksmith, you just went in and got to mining. And you totally sucked at it. And it took you forever to get a profit while you tightly pinched onto that precious 1000 gold you started out with. And the only persons willing to buy from you were the NPC (Non-player-character) vendors. It was an uphill climb between begging the rich to lend you a hand, and avoiding getting killed while you mined. In fact, it'd be better you make some connections first to ensure your safety up there. Or use 600 of that 1000 gold to buy a horse, so you can plan a quick escape if necessary. Maybe you had a real life friends who could look out for you. It could get a little stressful, no doubt. But you know what? That was what made Ultima Online one of the greatest experiences for those that were lucky enough to play it in its prime (that is, until EA bought it). I sat around hunting crappy monsters for crappy gold, talking to strangers, figuring out how the game even works, and loved every second of it.

This was a real MMORPG.  This was an MMORPG that has players shouting in Britannia Bank that they're selling X Item and/or giving portals to their shops to market their items. This was an MMORPG that allowed you to barter for the best price,  shop around different players' shops, and talk to your friends or guild members about what the best "Mall" was. This was an MMORPG where land is a precious commodity, and you can own your own home (or castle), and sell that same home. In essence, UO had the perfect free market. We all worked for what we had, and we all started out with near nothing. Nothing was guaranteed unless it was in your bank, and the only protection was the city guards (which was only activated by yelling "guards!"). Talk about a libertarian's fantasy.

Now we have games that keep your characters as safe as possible. They start out and are led through the entire process. They go on quests and are awarded with items and money. They rise in ranks. Maybe they pick up a rare item or two on their grinding, and sell it for some money. Maybe they buy that rare item with the money they earned. Soon they start getting into groups, and go after the big loot.

All I could say is "meh". It was fun in the beginning but now it's become such the norm in the industry that it's a total bore fest. There have been small changes to try to spice things up like Age of Conan's mouse style combat wherein you move the mouse to slash, instead of just auto attacking, but it's too little too late. I hear you make the argument that players in Ultima Online turned out exactly as warriors or mages or whatever the presets are in the new games -- but that's not exactly true. There were craftsmen who doubled as mages so they could teleport around. There were those who could wield a sword while also doing a few spells. The system was very customizable and to this day, I still see new innovations upon it (in the free private pre-EA UO servers).

Now, it's not that we need everyone playing Ultima Online again, but rather, we need to reevaluate the merits of this system so we can break out of the jail cell of levels, experience, quests, and system awarded loot. Ultima Jail Instead let's start looking at an alternative system that provides players with more power:

  • A set of skills that enables customization on the player's part. These skills can be leveled up slowly by doing the appropriate action.
  • A system where the players run the barter&trade. Limit the number of crazy-special loot drops in order to keep the system simple & fair. PvP benefits greatly from this.
  • A system that doesn't guarantee safety -- this non-guarantee of safety, after all, creates two of the best clashes one can be actively involved in: good VS evil.
  • A system where you can buy your own houses, and set up vendors (shops), and sell these houses.

Until this happens, we just see more of the same old same old with games like Final Fantasy XIV by Square-Enix, who may just manage to create two major letdowns back to back in the span of two years. Star Wars: The Old Republic looks like a possible Planetside, but I'm not entirely sure as I don' t see any indication of how a class system levels up.

All in all, I miss my old game that EA came in and brutally murdered. Even the private servers that started out well intentioned corrupted it with all sorts of private server item crap to pay for their own funding. UO, alongside so many other classics, shows how great game-play ultimately trumps production values any day of the week. In general, I think the game industry needs to re-prioritize away from production values and into creativity. Until then, I'll see you in one of the many free private servers of UO.