Senior Staff Writer Chris "Pwyff" Tom decided to go in-depth with what he thinks makes for the perfect MMORPG. This week he's talking about gameplay and combat mechanics!

"What makes a good MMORPG?"

I've decided to devote a bit of my time and a few articles to exploring this. In my last article, I talked about story and premise. Now I'll focus on gameplay mechanics and combat!

MMORPG Gameplay Mechanics and Combat

As a competitive gamer who has spent many years entrenched in the fast-paced world of first-person shooters and arcade fighting games, some of the most important things I look for in MMORPGs are strong, responsive gameplay mechanics and combat. To me, nothing is more frustrating than having an inconsistent delay between the time when I want to perform an action and when that action actually takes place. In tournament level games, when competitors are fully aware of all the tactical options available, matches are often won by the player who can adapt to his or her opponent's plans the quickest, while instantly executing his or her own counter-actions. Thus, when that final round comes down to the split-second decision to parry an attack instead of blocking, I'm sure you can imagine how frustrating it would be when your inputs are delayed by even a second.

In this category, I'm forced to admit that, of the dozens and dozens of MMORPGs I've played, only a small handful of them have actually succeeded in creating a responsive game with strong underlying mechanics. In many cases, the issue tends to be latency and internet connections. You see, in Korea and Japan, internet connection speeds are far superior to North American or European connection speeds, and one of the big reasons is because both of the former countries are much smaller than the latter. Thus, Japanese and Korean players can enjoy their MMORPGs at near LAN connection speeds (around 20ms) while we're lucky if we can play on a server that's located on the same side of the country. Unfortunately, many MMORPGs being developed in Korea and Japan tend to take their ultra-fast connection speeds for granted, and when those same MMOs are ported over to North America, the difference in latency can severely affect the responsiveness of the game.

NCsoft's Aion is a big example of a game that plays very differently in Korea and Japan versus North America. I recall getting really frustrated with Aion's in-flight combat, because most players had connection speeds ranging from 60ms to 250ms, so you could be right behind your opponent but the game wouldn't allow you to attack them because by the time the server received the command, it would register their character as being just slightly out of range. In fights between two players with strong connection speeds, however, in-flight chases can be exhilarating, with players jumping off cliffs and spreading their wings at the last possible second in order to make their daring escape.

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