MMORPG News - Top 5 Things to Learn

Massively has a list covering the 5 most important things that MMOs should learn in the new year. Here is a piece of the number 1 on the list:

#1 -- "Kill/Quest, Level" concept is a dead horse, get on with it already!

Yes! Get on with it! This is, without a doubt, in my mind, the biggest failure of the industry today. We're following along a solved formula, and it's shooting this industry in the foot. Player needs to level, player completes quests and kills monsters, player reaches next level, player gets new abilities, player uses abilities to go complete quests and kill monsters, et cetera.

We keep asking the question, "Why don't these new games seem like they're as good?" And then we begin this in-depth analysis and begin checking every aspect of the game to find out why this feels like we've done it all before. The answer is taking a step back, looking at the model and exclaiming aloud, "Holy heck in a handwoven handkerchief, we have done this before!"

The reason we keep playing single player games is because each one has it's own twist on the core formula. Couple that with the story and personal experience, and you get a great game. Our MMO industry needs to learn this fact this year -- not next year. The quest/kill, level, quest/kill model has been done and overdone. Gameplay needs to expand past this. Even reputation grinding is nothing more than the quest/kill to level system.