The Warhammer NDA has dropped, and the blog-o-sphere has been overcome by the comments/rantings/ravings of the fanboi’s, those who like it, those who don’t like it, and those who hate it. Commenting on how you feel about this game in one way or another seems to turn friend against friend, father against son, brother against brother.

I’m not sure what it is with MMO’s, but whenever you say you don’t care for someone else’s game that they love and hold near and dear to them, they go insane. Only thing close to this might be a sports team, but whereas sports team are in competition with one another, MMO’s from a players perspective really aren’t. You can still play as many as you want, and get the same thing from them. Unlike a sports team where there is only one winner of the superbowl/world series/etc.

But you don’t see this with any other product, like a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder with Cheese. No posts about when someone doesn’t like it, that perhaps they didn’t eat enough of it, or perhaps they need to slow down and savor it. Perhaps it will be better cooked next time, or it had too much ketchup on it. But if they don’t like it still, then obviously they are an idiot and can never be satisfied.. get my drift ?

This same nonsense happened with Lord of The Rings Online, Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa, and now Warhammer. I thought the AOC fanbois were pretty bad, but I think the Warhammer ones have edged them out. Who really cares if someone finds one game fun and exciting, and another does not, for whatever reason. Does it really matter ? If someone doesn’t like your game you play, does it really impact your life or gameplay ? From the fanboi’s comments you would think that it makes their life a living hell because someone doesn’t like their game.

Whats interesting to me, is I still run a MUD. Yes, one of the old text based online games, predeccessor of the MMO. I have friends of mine that play there regularly, and even though I have given them free trials to nearly every MMO I have played on, and yet they tell me they don’t like it. They say the graphics take away from the immersion, and I guess in a sense they are probably right. What you can come up with in your head is at this point 100% better than what you can create with an MMO. There are limits on what the PC can do, but no limit on the imagination.

Perhaps that is why in old-school games like the Infocom ones (Zork, Planetfall, Enchanter, Wishbringer), the story really had to pull you in. They had to do a knock-down, drag-out job on the immersion. It had to pull you in like a good book. Whereas with a FPS, its more akin to firing up a game of Centipede, Asteroids, or Robotron 2024. How many hours did some of us of the arcade era spend dropping quarters in an arcade on the fast action of these games ? I’d say FPS games are appealing to the same gameplay style.

But where does the MMO have to go now to take the next major step ? You take tabletop D&D, then the mechanics were pulled into DIKU mud, which then sprang all the offshoots of that type of MUD. Then came more-or-less a merging of the single player graphical RPG game with the online mud aspect, ala UO or EQ. What would be the next logical major evolution ? Is it a merger between the FPS world and the MMO world ? Somehow getting rid of the grind but still making you earn your way to the top somehow ? Is it bringing in a greater immersion ? How would you do it, how would the game companies do it ? I’m sure they would like to know how to make that jump, but it may take someone with some real vision and drive, like a Steve Jobs, to push the platform in the next big step.

But for now, we have what we have, all the different flavors of MMO’s, but for the most part its still the same wheat based cereal. It may taste different, but underneath most of them are in the basic form, still about the same. Just pick your favorite flavor (or flavors) and enjoy them, and don’t be standing in the cereal aisle to make sure that everyone who comes thorugh only likes your cereal.

I will give Mythic (and ArenaNet) this – they are smart to NOT have official forums. I’d say that the smartest move both of them have ever made game-wise.