Gaming’s Missing MMO

Many video gaming companies have been trying to enter the fray of the Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) brouhaha. MMO’s have been around for awhile. Since then most have bloomed for only a short period before dying out. The one MMO that refuses to die and caters to it’s addict fan base the most would be the long reining World of Warcraft (WOW). Loads and loads of people around the world pay a monthly fee so they can run around a virtual world with other people and kill monsters. It’s certainly the closest thing someone can come to living in a foreign world. Now there are a slew of new MMO’s coming out such as Warhammer Online (WO) and a bunch of other ones not worth mentioning because they are destined for ruin under the goliath that is WOW.

However this piece isn’t about that. Rather it’s about, what I would deem an obvious MMO, that has yet to be made and by all accounts should be. I’m of course talking about a Harry Potter MMO. I probably just lost some of you and that’s okay, you can stick to to WOW and WO, which personally don’t captivate me. Sure they are well made, but sitting there pressing the same button, watching damage numbers to appear the lone monster I’m fighting (because I can’t take on more than one…that and some higher level douche bag that is on the opposing side has nothing better to do with their life than kill me while I’m trying to quest and stay near my body, to make sure what I paid for monthly was not only a complete waste of time, but also as effective as burning money and my house down with it. I know I picked the wrong server…blah blah I don’t really care. For me the game blew.)

Anyways back on target. For those of you who love the Harry Potter series, tell me you haven’t wanted to live in the Harry Potter world. I think that’s part of the appeal of the books. It’s a magical and whimsical world we wish we could live in, cause wizards don’t have to deal with the spread of HIV, a failing economy, and global warming. I’m sure they already have spells to counteract such things. So the problem lies in that we as people who long to live at Hogwarts and share a pint of butterbeer with Hagrid, will never be able to do so, because it’s fiction. Though with the amount of money JK Rowling now has, she could probably start up her own Hogwarts…and I would sign up in a jiffy. The point is there is an incredible untapped potential in a Harry Potter MMO. Can’t you picture it?

First you choose what your character looks like, either a close resemblance of yourself or someone you wish you were. Then you take a little quiz (multiple choice, you’ll see why in just a moment). So you start out at home and that letter appears in the mail saying you’ve been asked to attend Hogwarts by the headmaster Dumbledore. You make a quick trip to Diagon Alley to get some things, then head off to Platform 9 3/4 to make the Hogwarts express. There on the train you can mingle with various NPC’s (basically computer controlled characters) and meet other real people playing the game. During this time you could also make some moral choices that might help with what’s to come (ex. you could begin studying with some friends, cause mischief, standing up for someone being bullied, helping the candy cart lady sell her wares). Eventually you make it to Hogwarts and into the main dining hall. There you will be sorted (by the quiz and choices you’ve made thus far…or if you really want to you could avoid it all and just pick your house) by the Sorting Hat which will either put you in Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Slytherin, or Hufflepuff. There you will start your seven year run at Hogwarts. Much like the Rockstar game Bully, you can attend classes and get better at a certain skill (which will help you later). The game might even incorporate various things throughout books. Perhaps you share a potions class with Ron and Harry, but you’re on Slytherin and you learn to loathe Harry for his cockiness. Or maybe you’re on Gryffindor and you play quidditch with Harry as the seeker, or maybe Harry is incapacitated and you take over for him as seeker. Anyway you look at it there is a vast and rich amount of experiences to be done in those seven years (Hogsmeade, Forbidden Forest, Triwizard Tounrment, only to name a few.) Eventually you will graduate, but why stop there?

Now that you’ve graduated, depending on the classes you took and the skills you developed, you will start your new life outside of Hogwarts. Perhaps you sell wands like Olivanders, maybe you’re so good at Quidditch you play it professionally, maybe you’ve decided to become an auror and fight against evil, maybe you’ve decided to join the Death Eaters and help cause havoc, maybe you take care of dragons in a foreign country. The list goes on and on and on. It would take a great deal of work to make the game as enchanting at the books, but it can definitely be done. The Harry Potter videogames so far, although aren’t horrible, don’t fully envelope the magic that the book does.

If an MMO was too pricey you might even decide to just make a game called Hogwarts, doing all prescribed above but setting a limit to how far you can go after you’ve graduated Hogwarts. Perhaps your character is at Hogwarts before Harry’s time and when you graduate you hear of the boy you killed Voldemort. You continue on your career till later either the Death Eaters or The Order of the Phoenix enlist your services in the final battle. Man, I’m getting pumped about this game that doesn’t even exist. The story, world, locations, creatures are all there. I think mixing the engrossing world of the book with the stylings of the Fable series and perhaps some bits of Bully, a Hogwarts game could become as epic as the books and movies have.