Yesterday I travelled to the top of a lava-strewn mountain, where I spoke to a dragon that attempted to strike a deal with me. I refused to deal and after an epic battle, my party and I were triumphant. A few days before that, I talked down a hostage situation and resolved it with no deaths, convinced an evil warlock to join my band of adventurers, and became a Knight.
Was this RPing in an MMO? Nope. Neverwinter Nights 2 has claimed a lot of my current play-time. And I realised what it is that I'm missing in World of Warcraft, and in all MMORPGs.
That sense of immersion that comes from the NPCs reacting to your conversation choices. To being able to complete a quest in a number of different ways, depending on your class and alignment. Actually having an alignment, and it being changed by the way you play (Currently I'm a maxed out Lawful Good paladin/fighter/divine champion) and even dictating how you play.
It would be nice to see a little of this. Granted in an MMO the rules are different, because it's not just you playing through a single-player campaign, but it would be nice if we saw some quests where we can choose how to complete them, or some NPCs in the world would greet us based on things we've done - Not just on a reputation bar. The big difference is of course that in a single-played game, you only do things once. This dungeon or cave is gone once you've gone through it, this NPC is dead "forever". It would take some work and imagination to weave more seamlessly into an MMO but I think it could be done.
I'm pretty excited to see what BioWare are coming up with, given that I'm such a big fan of Knights of the Old Republic and Neverwinter Nights. I could see either of them being adapted into an MMO, and they both feature heavily an alignment system.
And just for fun:
What alignment is your character?
Emelyn is chaotic evil ... no surprise there!
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