A lot of bids have been/are being made to beat the current king of the MMORPGs - Blizzard's World of Warcraft. NCSoft Europe director of development, Thomas Bidaux, spoke about this in the Swedish Nordic Game and suggested ways of toppling, as he called it, the "Tyrannosaurus Rex" of the current kingdom.

According to Bidaux, the only way to take down this behemoth is by establishing one's own niche and not challenging the current niche of WoW. He cited a simple example in CCP's EVE Online. This space MMORPG has catered to a different set of gamers and enjoyed some success in penetrating the market.

Aside from this, he also spoke about the main problem that developers and game publishers are encountering in their attempts to enter the market and why they are failing:

There's a hubris issue with MMORPGs: most of them want to be the bigger game and most of them fail... If you want to be successful you have to survive. And if you're a dinosaur then you have to fine the right ecosystem. You have to find your own market, your own niche: you have to find your consumers.

He also pointed out another problem that involved the differences in Asian and Western markets. He said that "Chinese and Korean markets are already at a different step in their evolution. There are lessons to learn from them." Very interesting points, all in all, but implementing all of the changes will take a lot of redesign and planning on the parts of those who have already made forays into the MMORPG market.

For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction, according to Newton. Ankama Studio, developers of Dofus and the upcoming Wakfu, think that gamers prefer games that allow for change. That translates that a player's actions affect the in-game world somehow.

According to the French dev, "until now, MMORPGs have offered universes where everything was under control, where players' actions had very little impact on the world they inhabit." Interesting. Ankama's new MMO, Wakfu reportedly has no NPCs and quests will be made available by the players themselves hence no repetitive quests and sky's the limit possibilities. For example, you run the risk of tipping the ecosystem off balance if you chop down too many trees (much like in real life).

Wakfu sports cartoonish graphics, much like a prettier Ragnarok Online, and a sort of turn-based combat. According to Ankama, "the biggest difference we would like to insist on, at this point of the game development, is Wakfu's fighting system. It is a turn-based system that encourages action and tactics, and not forcing a player to wait for others to finish their turns."

Of course, traditional role playing is still there. There are 12 classes to choose from, a wide variety of skill that level up with use, professions, parties and guilds. Subscription works like "you can play it for free, but additional content will cost you". Anyway, beta testing starts around July and there haven't been any announcements regarding the release date.

The idea's great - for players, by players - though implementation might just give some gamers second thoughts. If you want to give it a try, you can check out Dofus which is set in the same universe as Wakfu only 2000 years in the past.

 

DOFUS, the MMORPG wonder that drew three million people into its cartoonish, yet stylish world, served as an omen for Ankama Games to start work on a whole new MMORPG. The tactical combat, good versus evil game won several awards in the U.S. and France, including "Audience Award" at the Independent Games Festival back at the 2006 Games Developer Conference, and its characters and visuals have been inspiration for mangas and art books.

While the new title, dubbed Wakfu, will still be based on the storyline as DOFUS, the events in Wakfu all take place 1,000 years before the story of DOFUS. The E3-previewed game will follow after Orgrest, who searched far and wide for Dofus, which are six magical dragon eggs. After he found all six eggs for his beloved, he was turned down. In frustration and anger, his tears flooded the world and as a result, most of the Wakfu world is under water.

Ankama Games is already at work on their new title, which is slated to enter a closed-beta program this 2007. They hope to deliver the better humor and unique gameplay experiences that DOFUS delivered and a whole lot more. It will be sporting the following features:

• Persistent World with an autonomous ecosystem
• Turn-based tactical combat system
• Multi-directional scrolling in an 3D isometric world
• All 12 classes from the DOFUS MMORPG
• All new class spells
• Highly customizable look for characters
• Interaction with the environment, ecosystem and the community
• Up to 25,000 players can be online in one world
• Time-limited challenges will be introduced to involve the entire community in real-time
• Guilds based on player profession

The recruiting campaign for beta-testers is already up, and you may sign up for the beta-test newsletter over at the official site of Wakfu. Now it'd be something if Ankama Games can still bag another prize for this new masterpiece at the Independent Games Festival awards at the Game Developers Conference this 2007.

Second Life proved to be one of the most appealing and interesting games where one can be in total control of his character and of his surroundings. This God Game, as many call it, is a creation of Linden Labs.

However, there were still some things lacking in this world that creators didn't bother too much about, but developer Laukasargas Svarog did. Svarog created her own virtual ecosystem in Second Life where trees and plants grow, where rain, sun and wind affected "living" creatures, and where growing flowers is an interesting task.

The developer created the island of Svarga, which is a fully-functioning ecosystem. The clouds in this place move because of the wind system in Second Life, and all the elements in this place are dependent on each other.

Asked about the island of Svarga, Svarog gives her description of the island: "If I were to turn off the clouds the whole system would die in about six hours," she tells me. "Turn off the bees and [the plants stop] growing, because nothing gets pollinated.  And it's the transfer of pollen that signals the plants to drop seeds. The seeds blow in the wind, and if they land on good ground according to different rules for each species, they grow when they receive rain water from the clouds.  It's all interdependent."

This ecosystem created by Svarga is comprised of clouds that occasionally rain on the plants; the sun that provides energy for growth; bees that help in the pollination of flowers; birds that flies around characters looking for seeds or eats seedlings on the ground; trees and flowers that develop from seeds pollinated by bees; bats and globugs that help keep the balance in the island; and, the gardener who tends, prunes and waters the plants to keep things balanced.