Down with the goblins - Or how to make MMOs fun again

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We rip the genre apart, dig up its foundations, and then put it back together.

Consider our proposal. Players of fighting games and FPS get better through practicing the real-time techniques required for success, be they aiming, strafing, pulling off specials or stringing together combos. The game rewards you for your experience, but it is your own learned use of that experience which is the conduit, not some pre-programmed reward for extended play which you have no direct control over. If that level of real-world experience was combined with a system by which the game monitors your successes and failures and gradually augments the effectiveness of your inputs accordingly, we’d have the best of both the real and in-game worlds.

Imagine if your aiming reticule got smaller and more accurate during an FPS, narrowing the spread of your shots, but still requiring your own skill to aim it. Or if a third-person action game employed hit zones of varying criticality across an enemy’s body, but upgraded the accuracy of your aim and strength of your hits on those body parts the longer you played. Now extrapolate that to a whole host of RPG character traits and tasks. The development of both your character and yourself as a player would happen on an equal footing, and the connection with the game would be hugely stronger as a result.

If the upgrade system bubbled along underneath, improving things gradually rather than as a series of incremental jumps, everything would flow beautifully. Admittedly, long-time players couldn’t boast about the stratospheric levels of their characters any more, but they could prove their experience in a stand-off by using a combination of their character’s attributes, real luck, and genuine personal skill. And that’s how things do work in a real world. Plus, the loss of that “I’ll stop playing when I hit the next level” carrot would improve sleep patterns and mental health the world over.

David Houghton
David Houghton
Long-time GR+ writer Dave has been gaming with immense dedication ever since he failed dismally at some '80s arcade racer on a childhood day at the seaside (due to being too small to reach the controls without help). These days he's an enigmatic blend of beard-stroking narrative discussion and hard-hitting Psycho Crushers.