I’m playing 3 MMOs right now, and I’ve had it with starting zones and starting characters. They ALL suck, but developers don’t care because “WoW did it”, and players don’t care because they either don’t have a choice, or “look at all the progress I’m making– this is boring but I’m being so productive!”.

So here’s the solution: Advanced MMO Certification. It’ll be issued by some standards body… say, me. It confers a title on the bearer, so you could be “John Doe, MMO”. I suppose if you were a doctor, you’d be “Dr. John Doe, MMO”. Being an MMO entitles the esteemed title-holder to begin any MMO at level 30, or whatever point your MMO starts to become interesting. (Note to developers: take a guess as to when your MMO becomes interesting, and then add 20. Then double it.)

If you’d like to earn your Certification, you must simply provide proof of a level 60 or higher character in any approved MMO (any MMO that shamelessly rips off EQ counts), or pass the following written exam.

You have created a new spellcaster. Your Death Bolt is bound to the number 1 on your keyboard. An enemy is approaching. What do you do?

Answer: __________________________

The enemy is still not dead. Now what?

Answer: __________________________

The enemy is still not dead. Now what?

Answer: __________________________

Congratulations! The enemy is dead. A new enemy is approaching. What do you do?

Answer: __________________________

If you answered anything other than “Press 1″ to the above questions, congratulations! You fail, and are too smart to play MMOs. Go play Civilization 4, Mr. Ivy League.  (Note: leaving any or all of the test blank is also valid, as your auto-attack would probably kill the enemy without any help.)

Oh, in other news, Age of Conan is great.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 27th, 2008 at 6:56 pm and is filed under Game Discussion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.