Doesn't one of those M's stand for Medieval?

MMORPG's have so far been pretty much 'find a good sword and go kill dragons with it' games with very little to differentiate each other, and I'm trying to figure out how the gears in this market move.

If you take a look at people who play MMOs - and this group of people is growing larger every day thanks to exposure and access growth - they don't all share the same characteristics. Some are techies, who want to play anything or do anything they could otherwise do, on their computers. Some are fantasy fans who will love their genre regardless of the medium it is presented to them on. Some are Petri dishes for social viruses - the social networking jitterbugs - who treat the new MMOs like a 3D chat client.

Only one of these three groups is going to stick to the fantasy genre, hell or high water, and that's the fantasy fan. The techies and the networkers probably don't care what the genre is, and don't care much about the storyline and backstory for something like World of Warcraft. My son for example likes to bring up all sorts of "what ifs" for WoW, like "Dad, they should give more paladins to the Horde, like undead." This results in me explaining to him why they can't, because for lore (and logic) reasons it wouldn't make sense for an undead player to be using spells and abilities that damage undead. He starts to listen, then his focus blurs, he fumbles with his headphones, and by the time I'm explaining how the Lich King is a combination of Arthas and Gul'dan, he's back plinking away in battlegrounds spamming chains of ice on his blood elf death knight.

It feels like the social networkers don't really care. They just want to dive into the big pool, and make their investment somewhere where they can talk to everyone and play with everyone and have a good time with little effort. So they're playing WoW because at 11 million accounts it's the big kahuna of MMOs. Combine that with the cartoony graphics that support lower-end systems, the easy to use button-griven interface, and the simple gameplay mechanics, and they can treat the game as almost a secondary concern to meeting people and forming guilds and hanging out.

The tech crowd - the 'I want to play a competitive video game' crowd of which I am a member, wants to play a game that has good balance, has endless replayability, has progression, and is complex enough that we can't see all of the game permutations at once. We don't necessarily care about the Lore, and we aren't necessarily there to form guilds and groups, we just want to find the cutting edge of this game so we can hit it, maximize our ability, and crush it under our feet. This gets harder when the mechanics shift subtly between patches and added content renders previous gains obsolete. We understand we're on a treadmill and we're both satisfied with the puzzles of added content and dissatisfied by the moving target. We want to both play it endlessly and jump off the treadmill at the same time.

So that's the three-headed dragon of WoW at the moment. The one head that seems vital to the others is the fantasy fan. Aside from Lord of the Rings, there isn't any better established set of fantasy lore at this point than WarCraft.

That may sound blasphemous, but there are thousands of websites dedicated to this game, dozens of databases and reference sites (that are actively used on a daily basis by millions of players), it has a huge fan following, and unlike some fantasy worlds it is a living universe. There are no more Tolkien books to be read, but Cataclysm is coming and Deathwing will be back soon, and it's going to change the world our little characters run around in. It's fascinating for us because even if we don't really have an effect on the path the storyline will take it does feel like we are a part of the story. It's fantasy pulp fiction, and we're chumming around with the main characters of the story while not having any real responsibilty, and freedom to do pretty much anything except change the world.

So how does the fantasy fan keep their interest? Back 4-5 years ago when an aspect of the game would change people were up in arms and screamed about how it was "lore-breaking" because they felt that the story was being compromised in favor of gameplay. Some parts of the game have very little to do with the entire story arc, and are frowned on for being shortcuts to answer a contradiction in lore. Some things in the past - the introduction of blood elf paladins, for example - were met with huge disapproval. In the end the fantasy fans swallowed the bitter pill of acceptance and these changes boosted the appeal for the networking and tech crowds and the game continued to grow.

Growth means money, and no video game has ever made as much money as World of Warcraft. Everybody knows at this point that if there's a decision to be made in the game it's going to be balanced out with revenues, and the fantasy fans can hold their nose when Mr.T hands out mohawk grenades and try their best to ignore how a good fantasy story is turning into a generic hack and slash arcade game. The fantasy crowd dwindles, but I don't think that Blizzard is wrong to disrespect them. Fantasy as a genre is past the bulge. It was rabid during WoW's launch and the release of the Lord of the Rings movies, but the common consciousness is saturated with fantasy shtick. People still want this vehicle, they want this ride, they just want a different flavor of it. Make it space. Make it future-Earth. Make it a western, a superhero drama, a modern warfare game, anything other than what WoW has become, the AoL of MMOs.

This is the first MMO for a lot of people. When their second MMO is released, how will they recognize it? What will they be looking for? Fortunately for WoW it sits on top of a stable tripod of support, which remains strong even as termites of discontent nibble away at its wooden legs. As long as the story isn't completely bad, the fantasy fans will continue to follow it. As long as it remains competitive and fairly balanced, the tech gamers will still grind away on it. As long as it remains fairly affordable and accessible, the networkers will still build their guilds and chat with it.

So that's the analysis of what WoW is, and why it works. What could be a 'wow-killer' that would replace it? For all three main groups, the answer is clear: Something bigger.

Fantasy fans (and I'm very sorry, but the sword and dragon is dead, replace it with phasers and klingons or six-shooters and bank robbers) need a big story to interact with, with enormous depth and creativity and thousands of bit characters who have important quests that revolve around it to keep you involved. The story needs to be huge and arcing, and have lots of important consequences for every aspect of the world. We need lots of different groups to meet, changing conditions based on our actions, and progression of content and events as time goes on.

Tech gamers need a balanced player-versus-player system that has huge character diversity but no specific roles, just strengths. The dedicated 'healer' and 'tank' mechanics are outdated. Everyone needs to be somewhat equal in terms of roles for PvP and PvE to be enjoyable, but the abilities need to be diverse enough to keep interest. Space marines with powered armor that can be upgraded, weapons and gear modules with different effects - all the same diversity of WoW and more, without 'tanks' and 'medics.'

The networkers need something that they can ease into quickly. The interface needs to be easy to use, there needs to be fun early on, and the ability to get into group situations needs to be simple and fast. Also the names and lore should be secondary to the graphical ability to intuitively figure out how to use items and solve problems, because lots of people want to skip the reading and get to the part where they blow things up.

So my prediction? A sci-fi MMO with a big backstory, and the ability to evaluate and reward player-made instanced content. The fantasy fans will explore it. Guns are the equalizer for PvP, and the gamers will dig it. The networkers will play it if you lure them in with easy play and free trials, and stay if the interface is clean and friendly.

This is the best upcoming game out there at the moment - Star Wars, The Old Republic - and it remains to be seen whether it will have all the satisfaction that comes with endless questing, crafting, and balanced PvP. But it has a nice trailer, which the WarCraft games have always had too. It's close. Is it close enough to pull one of the pillars out from under WoW?