Building My Dream MMO Part 1 – Premise and Setting
This is a new little blog project I'm working on. With everyone talking about how they would better the current MMOs on the market, I wanted to try my hand at creating an semi-original idea for an MMO. This will probably be about an 8-10 post project depending on how far I expand it. This first post outlines the initial premise and basic world theme.
Fantasy is over saturated. Anyone can tell you that. Almost 75% of MMOs are fantasy based. I think that a lot of people, myself included, are getting a little burned out on fantasy. But I don't fault developers for making fantasy games because it is easy to make fantasy. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying developing a MMO is easy, I'm just saying that generally writing a fantasy story is a lot easier than any other genre. Take humans, elves and dwarves banded together to fight all the evil and ugly races of the world. Done.
Fantasy is easy to write because the world has no rules. You can just explain everything with magic. A floating city? Magic. No law of conservation of mass? Magic! Why is that water flowing up? Magic!
Beyond this, there are infinite possibilities for expansion. The areas you can create to go to are limited only by your imagination. Sci-fi MMOs also have the infinite possibilities, but when things get expanded to a cosmic scale, one individual's actions seem a lot more meaningless.
My MMO would be a steampunk fantasy setting.
I don't think having more fantasy MMOs on the market is a bad thing. In fact, I think fantasy is the best genre as it provides the best means for escapism. I'm more so just tired of medieval fantasy.
The world for my steampunk fantasy MMO would almost be a mixture of the animes Trigun and Full Metal Alchemist, with shows like Wild Wild West, and a strong influence of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne.
I see it as almost an alternate reality steampunk where the world has grown up with magic along side technology, causing a constant battle between the two sides. Good vs. evil is so 2004. Technology vs magic and nature is where it is at now.
Anyway, that's just a little preview of what's to come. This will be continued in Part 2 which will be a much larger post outlining factions, races, and classes.
All I need now is a good name for this MMO. Any suggestions?
The Calm
Well as of currently there is not much to talk about here. I haven't been playing much beta lately.
I did finish up Zul'drak, and I do hope to post that gallery and blog entry soon, but that is about it. I haven't even started Sholazar Basin, The Storm Peaks or Icecrown Glacier. But to be honest, I probably will not complete those zones in beta as I'm already level 80 in beta and I might as well save those experience until release.
On live, I finally talked my girlfriend into starting WoW and she's taken quite a liking to it. We did the recruit-a-friend program and with her on a hunter and myself on a warlock, we went 1-60 in one week. After that, she wanted to learn a bit of the back story before starting the Burning Crusade, so the two of us sat down together and played through Warcraft 3 and The Frozen Throne. She was amazed by the depth of the story in the Warcraft universe and I'm glad she has really been enjoying the lore (being that I'm a huge lore nerd myself). So our current project is just getting these two characters up to 70 before the November release. I probably won't ever play the warlock again at the WotLK launch as I'll be focusing on my paladin main and I don't really like having alts.
On a different note, I was thinking about what my dream MMO would be. I know that WoW is not the perfect game, but it has is the one that best satisfies my wants in a game. I know that there were many people that were hoping WAR would be the perfect game, and to some it is (see: Syncaine).
So in regards to this, my next little side project is going to be a series of pieces writing about what my dream MMO would be like. I plan on detailing the setting (i.e. not fantasy), the factions, the classes, the combat system, the profession system, the leveling/skill system, and how expansions would be handled. I also hope to have one final blog post on the subject detailing what would be the pitfalls of the game and what flaws could arise.
My workplace is no longer having problems connecting to my website so now I won't have as much of an excuse to not update, so expect more frequent updates from me.
Also, grats Mayonaise on Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian.
WotLK Beta Blog – The Dragonblight
Screenshots for this blog post can be found here.
The Dragonblight is a continuation of both the storylines of Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord. The amount of quests is huge, rivaling that of Borean Tundra, and stories are tragic. For the Horde, the main storylines are a continuation of the blue dragonflight and Taunka stories from Borean Tundra and the Forsaken stories from Howling Fjord. The Alliance mainly the Stormwind army's story as well as take vengeance on the being responsible for resurrecting Kel'thuzad after his death in level 60 Naxxramas.
In the center of the zone is Wyrmrest Temple, the central meeting place of the Dragonflights. The Wyrmrest Accord is located here, led by Alexstrasza, the Red Dragonflight aspect.
There is a lot going on here and this is probably the most exciting zone so far I have come across. You get to interact with central lore figures and see world sweeping changes (including the event that will not be named).
The Forsaken are here still working on the their plague and they make major breakthroughs. While they work on the plague, they're also working to cause some trouble with the Scarlet Onslaught (the reformed Scarlet Crusade). The Scarlet Onslaught quests are great fun and hint towards much larger things. High Admiral Westwind hints towards greater things at Icecrown.
On the other side of the Dragonblight, the Taunka refugees try to deal with the situation at Icemist. As an ambassador of the Horde, you personally swear in their people as members of the Horde. In the area is also the Agmar's Hammer stronghold. Here, Overlord Agmar sends you on aggressive strikes against targets in the area (mainly the Nerubians at Icemist and the Blue Dragonflight in the area).
Each Dragonflight has a shrine in the Dragonblight which is unique them. When you finally reach Wyrmrest, you speak with representatives from each dragonflight and get sent on missions to support the defense of each shrine. One quest that I found unique was given by Chromie, representative of the Bronze Dragonflight and our friend from Andorhal. She sends you to go fight alongside your future self at the Bronze Dragonshrine against the Infinite Dragonflight. She gives you an item that will eventually reveal the leader. When you complete the questline, instead of revealing the leader, all of the sudden, Nozdormu, the Bronze Dragon Aspect appears. When you return to Chrome, she simply assumes that Nozdormu appeared because he's engaged in the battle against the Infinites. Could there be more to this?
The events at Wyrmrest Temple finally culminate with the events at the Wrathgate that I wrote about previously.
Other quests in the area deal with the Scourge pouring out of Naxxramas, the corrupted trolls outside Zul'drak, the Magnataurs in the area, and the Frost Giants to the north.
I also got a chance to run the second Azol'nerub instance as well as the Violet Hold. The screenshots are in this update, but I'll talk more about both of those places in another blog post.
All in all, Dragonblight is Blizzard at it's finest. They've really poured their heart and soul into this zone and I can't wait to see where the story goes from here.