I've been playing MMOGs since Meridian 59 first launched in 1996 and have seen the genre evolve in to the juggernaut it now is, driving the majority of PC game sales, thanks to World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online. The near future has us faced with Tabula Rasa, Warhammer and Age of Conan, with tons of other titles due to emerge from independent studios all hoping to cash in on the craze. From game to game, we see evolution taking place in small increments. World of Warcraft borrowed liberally from EverQuest, while Lord of the Rings Online looks a lot like World of Warcraft. Skills, crafting, interface and quests parrot previous efforts and while some of this is justified there are some cases where the wrong aspects are imported. Specifically, looking for a group of players to quest with has been a long-standing pain in the ass and no one seems to be stepping up to the plate to address the problem.

For the past few weeks I've been playing Lord of the Rings Online and have been having quite a good time with it. It has some great new elements like the trait and deed system that help it stand apart from the competition, even if the interface, skills, crafting and fast-travel look eerily similar to World of Warcraft. What ruins my experience, however, is the lack of an effective way to join forces with other players so we can tackle group quests. As of this writing, my quest log has 38 active missions, 36 of which require a group of players and are not soloable.

All MMOGs break down at this point and require the player to do all of the work in finding players. This usually takes the form of standing in the middle of a big town, entering the Looking for Group Channel, and endlessly typing in group requests for specific quests.

“36 Champion LFG – Fornost Quests!”

Repeat for an hour...or more.

This all strikes me as terribly odd, considering that MMOGs are built around putting thousands of players on a server so they can play together and yet there is no effective way to get them linked up. Blizzard has tried to address the problem, first by introducing a pylon that stood before specific instances that players could click, essentially entering a queue with the intent of hooking up players. Unfortunately, no one ever used this system as it required the player to travel to the location just to click on the pylon. The pylon system proved itself woefully inadequate so when the Burning Crusade expansion pack hit, Blizzard tried a new method that allowed players to click on specific quests within their log in the hopes of finding other players with a similar intent. Again, no one used this system as it wasn't an obvious feature and was buried within the interface. Gamers, accustomed to years of habit, continued to use the ponderous chat system as a way to find players, wasting hours of their playtime posting what amounts to a Help Wanted sign.

For casual players who have limited time on their hands and don't eat, breathe and drink MMOGs, the lack of an effective group system is the #1 problem facing MMOGs. If you're fortunate enough to be in a decent guild then the problem is slightly minimized, but finding a good guild with people you enjoy can be a lifelong quests in and of itself.

How To Fix It

1. Don't throw so many group quests at the player at once. It's ridiculous that I have 36 group quests in Lord of the Rings Online that occur over 6 regions. This spreads the pool of available players very thin. If there were fewer group quests thrown at the player then more people would be tightly focused on specific goals, increasing the availability of companions.

2. Integrate the LFG channel with an interface-driven quest finder. As it stands now, you either spam the LFG channel looking for players or click a button that indicates you are seeking a group and hope for the best. It would be far better for LFG chat to be integrated in to the quest log so everything is consolidated. You'd simply click the quest you want to do and enter a channel with other players who want to tackle to same mission.

3. Allow fast-travel for group quests. There's nothing more annoying than finally getting a good group of players together, only to find that one member is on the other side of the game world and that it will take at least 45-minutes for he or she to get to the quest location. It's imperative that MMOs allow players to warp to the quest location so people can get their game on. We don't have all night. Some of us actually have jobs and can't stay up ‘til 2:00am waiting for players to gather.

4. Auto-form groups. If I click on a quest I want to do then the MMOG in question should seek out other players with a similar intent, emphasizing the formation of a balanced party. The MMOG may want to even send a message to all other players with the same toggled quest, informing them of the creation of a party and would they be interested in joining? If the player joins, they are warped to the start location – no muss, no fuss.

These four suggestions would go a long way to improving the MMOG experience, especially for players with limited time on their hands. The industry must address this problem and devise new and innovative ways to get people hooked up. Currently, this issue stands as an embarrassment for a genre of gaming that is centered on social play. Will Warhammer solve the issue? Will Age of Conan finally get this figured out? One can only hope.