Designed for the Future

I went out and bought one of those nice new BFG 8800 GT OCs. It runs wonderfully and I can play in higher settings and get much improved frame rates in most every game I play. Except the game I really wanted it for: EverQuest II.

Eventually I want to get a more modern gaming rig, with SLI, and a quad core CPU. But EQ II doesn't support that either.

I guess that's the problem with designing your system "for the future." It never quite gets here.

Myst Online RIP

Myst Online just bit the dust (again...) Its latest incarnation, on Gametap, apparently has two months to live. Myst Online was, like the single player games it was based on, an explorer-based game. The main point of the game was to explore and solve puzzles and progress through the storyline. Considering how many new MMOs seem to be steering towards PVP and fast-paced action, its kind of sad to see a different kind of game, one that was built more around socialization and exploring, go the way of the dodo.

All upcoming MMOs seem to be catering to the achiever and killer in the Bartle spectrum... Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Aion, and pretty much every other major MMO thats coming out in the near future seems to take the traditional World of Warcraft / EverQuest style game play and add a PVP focus for the end game.

Perhaps MMOs simply don't work with anything other than achiever-oriented game play? Can a puzzle solving and story-focused progression work with an MMO style community involved? Or is is that no one has found the right formula for an MMO that caters to explorers and socializers?