MMORPGs of the Future

I’m really loving Legion so far.  Like, I’m loving it as much as when I pulled into the Howling Fjord for the first time, and saw Utgarde Keep, the flaming wreckage and the vrykul settlements.  Wrath of the Lich King sticks with me, more than most other games because of that scene, and Legion is hitting me right in the same way that Wrath of the Lich King did.  It’s pulling me into, and making me love, a game that is normally just comfort food in video game form.  It’s a wonderful experience, so far, and I’ve already got a few good memories, just from grabbing a handful of artifact weapons.

Also breaking into Stormwind to ride the tram. Finding ways to get to Eastern Kingdoms Legion Invasions during the prepatch on my Horde character was fun.

At the same time, I’m reminded that I thought Warlords of Draenor’s leveling, at least in Shadowmoon Valley, was really good.  At the time, I called it “the best questing experience” World of Warcraft had ever done.  For Shadowmoon Valley, I stand by those words, at the time.  Legion’s zones are actually a little bit better, and their nonlinear structure is great, and will make leveling my 8 characters a lot less of a grind than when I did it in Warlords of Draenor.  However, it’s not the quest zones that’s making it interesting, and what has made it interesting is something that’s been tugging at the back of my mind for years.  What has gotten me hooked are the Class Halls Campaigns, individual storylines set up for each class.  The game feels more like an RPG in these segments than it ever has, and it makes me wonder if the traditional MMORPG elements have been holding it back.

To a friend of mine, as well in an essay I wrote to myself privately (which was actually the first draft of these thoughts), I said WoW as a bad game, and it was a bad game not because of anything in particular, but because it was old, and it was trying to do things that was well outside of its design sensibilities.  It wanted to be an action game, but it didn’t have any of the action elements to actually make it work, since a lot of the mechanics are cribbed more from their real time strategy games, then scaled down to the single hero unit level.  It wants to be an RPG telling an epic story, but with literally millions of players, and to serve the ideas of community that have grown up in the MMORPG community over the past 20 years, it’s hard to explain or justify why and how each Joe Schmo running around is also the dude that killed the Lich King.  Also, Blizzard’s insistence of forcing their terrible lore character down our throat, that gets in the way too.  It’s never been able to marry these ideas, and it leads to a lot of the time the developers having their reach exceeding their grasp.

It’s not that the game is not fun, it’s that the game isn’t living up to what it wants to be.  With the Class Hall Campaigns for the RPG elements, and somewhat with the Artifacts for the action elements (although the game still isn’t quite as action-y as they want, the spell cullings in this expansion were most likely due to wanting to make the game feel more action oriented), it’s almost like they’re starting to get there.  The class campaigns are specifically tailored to each class, offering a detailed, if direct, story that puts the PC front and center and treats them like they’re actually in charge of a major element of the fight against the Legion.  This is very cool.  It’s also counter to the idea of an MMORPG, because it turns the game into a pretty awesome solo RPG.

I like this more.  I like this a lot more.  It’s not that I don’t like playing with people, or even pulling in a bunch of randos to run a dungeon, but so much of the game is based on meeting up with huge groups of people to tackle big bosses, and for me, that’s always been more work than fun.  Ironically, I’ve only enjoyed playing the game when I had someone to play with, but now, I’m totally fine to play by myself, and group up with my friends when I can.  It’s like playing Diablo, but not boring, because I find the gameplay and story telling to actually be engaging, unlike how I feel about Diablo.

The prevailing wisdom is that the MMORPG is dead, and if WoW’s massive success didn’t kill it, it definitely weakened it enough for League of Legends, Defense of the Ancients and Overwatch to kill it.  However, I don’t know if it is.  Maybe the massive element, but multiplayer RPGs definitely have a niche.  It’s what people got wrong about the Elder Scrolls MMO.  People want to play Skyrim with their friends, not necessarily play it with a bunch of other people.  Maybe it’s possible for World of Warcraft, or whatever next roleplaying game Blizzard makes, to transition towards that.  Maybe that’s not something that will work, but right now, it’s what I’m liking.  We’ll see if it’s more than a passing fancy of mine.