So as some of you know (and if you don’t, then why don’t you!) I’ve embarked upon the journey of creating a company, which in turn is creating a world.  And hopefully, you can see in the first five seconds of looking at Windstorm Studios’ site, that the world we’re creating is not going to be in your typical high fantasy setting.  And we’re in good company.  Right now there are more MMO’s coming out in a non-typical fantasy setting than ever before.   With games like Jumpgate Evolution, Champions Online, The Agency, and overly wordy Star Wars: The Old Republic looming on the horizon, players will soon have more selections than ever when deciding on the type of world they want to visit.  But why has it taken this long?  And why do we still see games being released every year set in that traditional fantasy setting?  Well, it’s mostly because fantasy gives you so much for free, from a design standpoint, and doesn’t present nearly as much of a challenge as designing your game in a contemporary or futuristic setting does.

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There’s a lot of pressure on MMO designers right now to do something different.  Scott Jennings is screaming from the top of his blog there isn’t a single MMO designer in the world that wakes up thinking “I’d love to clone WoW,”  and to a certain extent, he’s right.  Several have tried recently, and for a variety of reasons, (most of which had nothing to do with the actual design, sadly), none of them have had the success their publishers had originally hoped for.  So there’s more pressure than ever to shake things up, find our own niche, and do something a little different.  And the most common theme I seem to be hearing lately is that “MMO’s need more action!  No more auto-combat!  No more hit the attack button and get a sandwich!”  And several developers right now are answering that very clarion call.  The Agency, Champion’s Online, DC Universe Online, all promise “more action, twitch-style combat. ”  The Agency, especially, talks about how player skill will be the deciding factor in combat, not dice rolls.  All of this sounds great.  But for a variety of reasons, in an MMO, I actually think this is a bad way to go.  Here’s why.

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