Delivering a keynote speech at the Develop Conference in Brighton, Richard "Lord British of the Rat Tails" Garriott denounced the MMO genre as having grown stagnant, simply offering gamers shinier shells over the same core components that were formulated ten years ago when Ultima Online launched. Garriott explained that by reusing the same concepts, developers are underselling the potential of the genre. "We owe it to consumers to provide new kinds of gameplay." Specifically mentioned in the keynote as overused features were stale combat systems, a focus on grinding, and a general lack of AI use in the genre.

"I think it (AI) has a lot more to offer the MMO genre than a lot people has given it credit for. The richness it offers in helping create the world and making sure that players are not the only moving part in that world is really important for the MMO category."

He certainly has a point there. I'd love to see NPC interaction move past scripted events and the old 'if faction = X then' formula into something much more dynamic. Even now, ten years after the first MMO games began popping up they aren't much more complicated than graphical MUDs.

Of course he then went on to explain how his new game, Tabula Rasa, would be addressing all of these issues, giving the whole proceeding an air of, 'look at me, I am innovating, just like I did ten years ago,' but when you get right down to it the man has every right to come off like that. The genre has been swinging from his rat tails for years now and the time for innovation is upon us. To arms!

'MMO design has not changed in a decade' - Garriott [Developmag.com]