[MUD-Dev] MMORPG Cancellations: The sky is falling?

[Oliver Smith]

Sean Howard:

> Recently, I feel like I've done nothing but bag on CoH. I even
> made a comic taking a sly swipe at those other gaming webcomics
> which seem obsessed with the game. But that's not how I feel. I
> think it is an extremely polished relatively bug-free game that is
> a lot of fun to play (for a while). I think Cryptic has a
> beautiful starting point for a one day brilliant game, especially
> if their City of Villians is half the game they say it will
> be. And with even just a few minor modifications to the existing
> systems, they could create an incredibly deep and rewarding game.

...

> ... The more I see people praise the gameplay, the more I want to
> argue and defend depth. I don't hate CoH in any way, but the
> wasted potential frustrates me.

It may not be replete with what other games consider "content" and
that may result in an absence of what you consider gameplay, but but
what it does do is deliver an activity that players are entertained
by, a variety of settings for them, a storyline linking them
together, and the means of arriving at the next personalised piece
of entertainment.

In short - it is to date the MMORPG most akin to being a graphical
MUD.

MMORPGs are an entertainment medium, and CoH is, to me, like a great
pilot.

My measure of Cryptic and NCSoft will be how they build on it -
whether they add content that panders to their players to extend
their entertainment, or they do their own thing and expect their
players to enjoy what's served to them.

But my measure of CoH is this: I won't play it daily, but I will
keep an account, because without first performing a ritual
obligation of sufferance I can choose of an evening to spend a
little time being a super hero and laying some smack down on some
evil villains.

And I deem that to be the greatest possible form of game play:
Attainable.

You don't need to *defend* depth, because nothing on the market has
it. The harbingers of what currently passes for depth simply have a
sizeable library of content and a lot of rules to limit what you can
access and how quickly.  In essence they are selling you weekly
serials but somehow expecting you to stay tuned to the channel
throughout.

- Oliver
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