If you want to hear about the huge controversy over Jef Reahard’s one hour dismissal of Rift, well, I’ve already said all I’m going to say about it. There’s lots of MMOs, like Kung FOO, Fists of Fu, and Mabinogi that I played for an hour or two and felt no attachment. If someone had come up to me and asked me how I felt about those games after that hour or two playing them, I’d have told them what I thought.
Anyway, what I wanted to talk about on this first blogroll of the new year is: what makes an MMO polished? A comment on one of Beau’s posts on Facebook (warning: link goes to Facebook) turned into a discussion between me and a person who probably won’t friend me now that, among other things, a serious, polished MMO would, or would not, have full voiceovers.
My view: The more voice-overs you have in your game, the more streamlined the game must be, and the less room players will have to leave the guided tour and strike out on their own. And for me, playing an MMO is all about being set free to live in the MMO’s world. While this does mean that I don’t consider Star Wars: The Old Republic to be what I would necessarily consider an MMO — being fully voiced with set paths from start to finish — that does not mean I don’t think it will be a fun online game, because I do. I love Bioware games! It’s just that SWTOR isn’t what I think of when I think “MMO”.
More mucking about in the latest MMO bloggery after the break.
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