DC Online – WoW in tights doesn’t cut it

Okay, I find this trailer pretty enticing, even though it’s not entirely original.

Yet, where do gamers fit into this story? Are they in the dark future world, or do they play in the pre-Braniac world? Either way, gamers are playing as their own character creations. That might be a strong appeal for RPGs, but comic book games are different. I’ve watched the game trailers for DC Universe Online, and while they look okay, they don’t entice me the way this trailer does. The fact is that I want to play that story setup, not whomp on some thugs to gain control of my powers.

I think moreso than normal action or role playing games, MMOs are repetitive, which is a fault of the genre although some MMOs make that repetition fun. But, as noted before, comic book games suffer even more than most games from repetitive gameplay because comics books are interesting for their character development and the stories. Anyone who wants to play DCU Online after watching that trailer will be assuredly disappointed because of the game design. How does this game being a massive multiplayer make it better than a limited multiplayer game?

Imagine a much smaller scale for a multiplayer game in which gamers play one of the named villains or heroes–100 or so players per game instance. There’s no leveling. Instead, there’s a sort of endgame design, but one with many of permutations. Multiple paths, multiple endings. Gamers can play their individual game so that they don’t have to all be logged in at the same time, but the characters play and affect the game world so that when the other games log in, they have to deal with the changes, maybe reversing or furthering the change. When that particular instance reaches a conclusion, maybe you then go find another and play it, to see a vaguely familiar game that is very different. In that way, it’s not about identical repetition, as in most MMOs. Instead, it’s more like iterative gaming.

Do the gamers manage to change the world or not? It might even be that there are ambiguous endings. The focus on playing is to resolve that objective and deal with the impediments. It’s not about delivery or rat killing quests. It’s about meaningful interactions, finding ways to change the world.