New Types of MMO Combat

It's been a long held criticism that MMO's have changed very little in their combat systems over the years. The same mixture of auto-attack and hotbar abilities that Everquest popularized can be found in the majority of modern games today. What little innovation we've seen has involved mixing first person shooter elements into combat. Unfortunately, a lot of MMO fans are still only interested in fantasy settings that don't mix well with FPS style combat. Also FPS fans are used to getting multiplayer services for free and don't see the need to pay a monthly subscription. While eventually I believe a FPS based MMO will succeed its always going to have a limited amount of appeal because it's combining two genres with very different tastes.

However, there does seem to be some hope coming from the far corners of the MMO universe. There are a couple of games that are oriented on youth and use gameplay mechanics that haven't been explored very much in the MMO genre. Both Wakfu and Wizard101 seem to be aimed at slowing combat down in hopes of introducing more strategy and tactical elements. On the opposite side of the spectrum we have Champions Online and Age of Conan which are trying to speed combat up so that it appeals to console gamers. Having learned from the past mistakes of Tabula Rasa and Planetside they are avoiding the FPS trap. Instead these two games have combat styles which is reminiscent of cooperative fighting games. I expect both these games to do well with their Xbox 360 port.

Wizard101
This game has a combat system based on the game mechanics of collectible card games. If you're familiar with Magic the Gathering then you could easily pick up Wizard101. The art seems to be heavily influenced by Harry Potter and is stylized instead of being realistic. Since the combat is based on card combat the battles are considerable longer when compared to most other MMOs. However, this doesn't seem to make them boring since I know several beta testers who are gushing over the game. Also it seems that the Wizard101 characters has the same high degree of customization and pet options which has made MapleStory so successful. I'm not sure if this game will be micro-transaction based, but it seems to be designed to take advantage of such a model. I only hope this doesn't turn off too many traditional MMO subscribers. If you're interested go on over to West Karana for several write-ups about the game.

Wakfu
I know a little bit less about Wakfu then I do some of the other games I'm going into. It's the successor of a game called Dofus which is made by French developer, Ankama. There are several gameplay videos for Wakfu and it looks to play a lot like a tactical fantasy game such as OgreTactics or Shining Force. If you're familiar with the genre then it will come as no surprise that Wakfu will be a turn based MMO. I know it seems like a step backwards from the real time gameplay we're used to experiencing, but I think it could work. The artwork and combat animations are a mixture of sprite models and anime cell shading and remind me a lot of the Disgaea titles. I'm not sure of their payment model, but I know Dofus uses a sliding scale subscription model that is supposed to be very fair. I just hope the translation into English is well done. I don't want to hear anymore "All your base are belong to us" jokes.

Champions Online
But wait a second Relm, isn't Champions Online just going to use the same combat system as City of Heroes? Smack. Wrong. It looks like Cryptic has learned from some of their earlier mistakes and is getting away from putting all attacks on cool-downs. My early understanding of the combat system is that it will be more console like where your basic hit and kick buttons will give you power that can be used to execute your special attacks. While I know this will probably be called button mashing in a comment five seconds after I post, its a very popular mechanic in console fighting games. I have a feeling that Cryptic will make the first real successful MMO that sells well on the console. I'm sure SOE will get envious with all the money they are investing to turn the PS3 into some kind of MMO console.

Age of Conan
I've mentioned before how Funcom designed Age of Conan from the start to be compatible with consoles. It's a good thing they released on the PC first though. I have a feeling that console owners are much less tolerant of unfinished games and Funcom would probably now be involved in some kind of class action lawsuit if they released on the Xbox last May. As much as I hate the old "pay us to beta test" trick that Funcom pulled, I still love the combat system in the game. It should translate very well to console controls and will be coming out around the same time as Champions Online. I think the combination of Age of Conan and Champions releasing on the Xbox 360 are far more likely to make it the MMO console. I have a distinct feeling that SOE is barking up the wrong tree with the Agency.