MMORPGs have now been around for many years. In terms of function and feel, you can trace MMORPGs all the way back to MUDs. The graphics have constantly improved since the days of Ultima Online all the way up to now and games like Final Fantasy XIV and Black Desert Online. Elder Scrolls Online is another beautiful MMORPG that is miles ahead of the MMOs of the 1990s and early 2000s. However, how much better can games look from here? For game play, can this really improve that much from the past early MMORPGs and MUDs? The graphics were not that great in some of these games and they may not have hosted as near as many people that play today, but the depth of some of these old school games like the aforementioned Ultima Online was staggering! The small details of some of these games simply have a hard time to be matched today in MMORPGs.
That said, what is the future of MMORPGs? From somebody who has been playing MMORPGs from the start, the future races to two very distinct possibilities: Virtual Reality and AI. Virtual Reality will put the players directly into the game worlds where the fabulous experiences will blast up 10 times! Imagine entering a beautiful game world where you can pick up a sword and slay nasty monsters. You could also enter a world where you pilot a spaceship to exotic galaxies. Instead of playing on your phone or sitting behind a big PC, you would be experiencing this amazing worlds first hand!
The other possibility is, of course, AI. The current AI infrastructure building will likely help to make MMORPGs better than ever. Why? AI can make game worlds and characters come alive instead of being essentially cardboard cutouts. Non Playing Characters (NPCs) would be able to react differently to you each time because they would remember and learn from past interactions. Major game world events would also happen on a more random basis instead of just waiting on certain seasons or set scripts. Similarly, AI can also personalize stories for each player, fine tune the biggest bosses so they learn from battling players, and even steer the game’s economy so it continues to work. There would still need to be control by humans, of course, so the game world and players are not just randomly demolished one day. Like in the real world, AI does not need to have complete control of everything.
AI should be used to enhance new MMORPGs to enable much deeper game play experiences for players or possibly even bring back some long gone MMORPGs of the past. With AI, some of the long forgotten MMOs like Shadowbane and Tabula Rasa could technically (legally is another matter entirely) be brought back to life! How would that possible? AI could conceivably resurrect old dead MMORPGs so that they could still function for a small amount of players or possibly even function as a single player game. Just think of the possibilities. Instead of “turning off the lights” and ending a MMORPG, the developers could simply transition the game into a different form with AI so the game survives!
