GameSpy’s Onlife #26

GameSpy continues their “Onlife” bi-weekly feature, with the twenty-sixth installment focusing on the lack of console MMORPGs. An excerpt to follow:

So step one has to be the design of an interface that allows for, on a control pad, the sort of complexity that these games offer. If you were to take a game like Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance — effectively, Diablo on a console — and put it in a persistent world, then you’re halfway there. The problem that remains, of course, would be one of control limitation; you can’t do all the crazy-complex stuff that could on a PC MMO when you can only realistically have three or four different abilities mapped to your control pad. You know from playing these games that the default “hotbar” is seldom enough to keep all the abilities you need at your disposal. Thanks to the keyboard interface, we have the option of hotbar-swapping, alternate key-bindings, and even mouse-button mapping to help us keep all our essential abilities at our disposal. Imagine if you were limited to six or eight immediately accessible buttons, max? That’s what it would be like on a controller.

Personally, I think we’re going to be seeing a several console MMORPGs taking advantage of the power inside the Xbox 360 and PS3. Only time will tell, I guess.