I think that one of the best features of GW2 is dynamic events. They are implemented really well in GW2, (IMO).
Dynamic events allow you to just show up at the scene and get into the fight (or other mission). No parties or joining necessary. You see something happening, you jump in and hopefully everyone walks away with some rewards for their effort.
Unfortunately, this system comes with a downside that directly affects the MMO experience: Namely you don’t talk to a lot of people when you are going around the game world! In fact, I played for a couple of WEEKS without talking to almost anyone outside of town. This gave an otherwise fun MMO more of the feeling of a single player game than an MMO.
Personally, I like the interaction with other people, but if I have to stop and type in the middle of a dynamic event, that takes away from the experience of dynamic events. Once an event is over, everyone usually just jets and goes on to their next event. This makes for an efficient combat system at the expense of real interaction with other players.
One of the social strengths of previous MMOs is that people HAD to communicate with each other to get the job done. (Especially in raid environments). Not only was it necessary, but it was fun getting to know the other players. Even casual conversation with your buddies was a leap ahead of solo questing. You could yell at them “Hey! get behind him! Get behind him!” “Guardian, can you throw down X spell?” “I need help with an event to the NW, want to come with?”
This was actually a great thing about World of Warcraft until they killed it with random dungeon matching across servers.
What I am talking about is the social aspect of the game. I mean, this is an MMO, right?
Well, the next big thing could be to take the dynamic events system and add to it dynamic audio communication. It would work like this:
- Each player would have their own audio channel in the game.
- To reduce server load, a players audio channel would only be activated when within a certain range of other players.
- This channel would only be connected to other players who have “voice” activated in their sound preferences.
- When you get in a certain range of other players, you enter their “audio sphere” and they enter yours. From that point, you can hear them on their audio channel and they can now hear you.
- The volume would be adjusted dynamically, up to a maximum specified by your audio preferences. If you are far away, you sound far away. The closer you get, the louder the conversation.
- Each player with an audio channel activated would be clearly labeled with a small icon next to their name. If someone doesn’t have the icon, they are “silent”.
- Anyone in your audio range would have a different color audio icon to let you know they are in your range, in addition to just having their audio channel on. A quick visual scan would immediately let you know who you can talk with.
The effect would be, you could say, “Hey! Drakefin! Like your colors” and Drakefin could turn around and see you and say “Who said that?” and you could say “Doctor Death”. Drakefin could then say “Thanks Doc!”
You could walk up to the trading post and say “Man, copper bars are just too expensive right now”, and the player next to you could say “You need copper? I have some I can dump”.
There would be an immediate connection with other players, and would VERY closely model real life conversations.
Dynamic audio would add a whole new dimension to the game and make it a much richer online experience.
The effect would be drastic, and REALLY bring the environment to life.
So far, I haven’t really see anyone do this, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
Any true generation 3 MMORPG would have this as a feature, and the company that does it first will set the standard for everyone else.
Thoughts?
(edited by Moderator)