From Ultima Online and Meridian 59, to the current shards of Sony Online, Blizzard, and Play NC Soft. These are the essentially the biggest mmorpg companies that are driving online games.
Sony Online for its Everquest(1 and 2), Anarchy Online, Star Wars Galaxies, and Planet Side.
Blizzard for its first acheivement, World of Warcraft and its Battlenet servers of Classic RTS of War/Star Crafts and Diablos.
Play NC Soft for its amazing games: City of Heroes/Villians, GuildWars, and Lineage
There is also Mythic Entertainment that has released Dark Ages of Camelot as well the liscenced Warhammer.
Looking at game's enviroment is essential to understanding and believing a game. A person plays a game to escape reality and dive into a world where the rules of life are somewhat different, enjoyable and less stressful.
The enviroments to date have almost always been medieval tone areas. Swords, clubs, goblins, elves, dwarves and trolls or the sort. From this enviroment, Castles, Caves, vast plains, temples,and villages were constructed with the meakest qualities.
Ive seen glorious cities of white stone pathed with the finest pixels enough to consider upgrading to 2 GB of RAM. It is great that programmers have taken the time to create such a reality, but the answer eludes these programmers and resides in a lesser mind not bound to the parameters of perfection.
Withen the Matrix, really for the first time, players were given a world that 1, is particularly neat and clean (except the westview heh). A world that has introduced a mass amount of Z axis atmosphere. Giant buildings that touch the roof of the game where the clip plane set to full still cannot see down below.
Amazing.
But apperances can be deceiving.
Behind these towers is nothingness.
The elementary enviroment has little to no real npc homage beyond the no named exile gangs and Contacts. And yet these Contacts are of relative use. But that is for later.
The structural integrity of the game needs a vast alteration. Real inside areas far more than club scenes and lobbies.
Some quick mentions of areas that should be completely useful to players in game whether social or quest/task enchanced: Club Hel, The Oracle's Apartment, The Agent Interogation Room, The Architect's room, The Hallway of Doors, Mobil Ave, and essentially everything that was covered within the Trilogy, because infact, these places all have a meaning, they are not mentioned for any other reason other than that they will be important in the future. This IS the future.
Now
As for Interacting with these enviroments. The greatest concept I learned in school was that for online games, a player needs to be in control otherwise, he/she will be bored. Give the player the control over the game and he/she be entertained.
From all the games I have mentioned up above there is one company, I believe that has quietly made the best games all around games. EA-Electronic Arts. From Story lines of Games to puzzles to player control, the ideas from EA are far present in the Sims.
Thats right. The Sims.
The future of Online Gaming is not as much advancing players anymore. It is about advancing Communities.
The SimCity collection is the best player controlled game in my honest opinion.
A player is given money to spend as he/she wishes to create a city withen the bounds of taxes/responsibilities and desireability.
We already see this type of Player control in a few games in the past where it deals with a private base for members of factions and guilds. And this is the next step forward.
Creating a Town is something familiar with games. Players given the tools to create halls, bars, trading areas for other players.
With the Matrix. It's all code. Whether its program created or player created. A building, a club, a construct. The possibilities are endless when players are given the tools to create.
Whether a player is "nuetral" and creates a club to kick back in with friends and whoever. Whether it is a base to defend and hold programs and codes. Or even a building to hack into the Matrix Itself. Giving the player the abilitiy to work the system to his/her own eyes.
And when it comes to creation, the balance must be to destroy.
Everything that has a beginning has an end.
With this in mind to code the Matrix as players see fit. There comes the point of breaking down the code as others permit. This in turn leads to PVP which is another Article in the near Future.
Less Instancing in the Mega City
Tool Set for player construction of the city
Players set the social standard
This is Article 3
Next issue will focus soley on Online Events