KH Business Solutions

A constant challenge with MMORPG games is the question of immersion. Immersion is a critical part of MMO games, particularly MMORPGs, leading them to use the latest graphics engines, sound engines, etc. The player wants to become part of the game world and escape the real world during their game sessions. If the user has difficulty with the interface (i.e. the key commands, mouse movements, etc. required to operate the game), game world immersion becomes very difficult or impossible, regardless of the video and sound capabilities.

The best way to achieve an interface that allows the best immersion is to make it highly customizable. Different games use different keyboard commands or mouse movements to achieve basic movements. For example, many older Asian games such as Deco Online and Dungeon Runners only allow the use of the mouse to move your character. It is not possible to use arrow-keys or WASD to move your character. American and European games generally don’t support the use of the mouse to move, favoring exclusive use of they keyboard.

In more recent times, Asian games have become more flexible. For example, Perfect World, Jade Dynasty,  and others have added basic keyboard commands to movement and other UI interaction in addition to the mouse.

Runes of Magic is a very good example of not preventing the user interaction from interfering with immersion. It allows you to use the mouse to move around while allowing you to use they keyboard for the same thing, which goes the further step that American and European games tend to go. The user can highly customize the key mappings for nearly every command to whatever the user wants. Aion: Tower of Eternity is another excellent example of a game using this idea.

This level of UI customizability lets the player use the muscle memory they have previously developed in other games without having to fumble around the keyboard and mouse in the heat of battle.

Casual players won’t want to bother with customizing their UI, so it is important to also keep in mind what other games are using for their basic commands. Most games allow both WASD and arrow-keys, for example.

Some may wonder about the additional cost associated with adding this customizability. Compared to the cost of developing the rest of a game, it is a very minor cost. The cost is in providing an interface for the player to do the customizing. The actual implementation expenses of adding customized key commands is nearly non-existent if it is planned in properly at the beginning of the project. It is simply a matter of using a variable for each key and mouse command, instead of hard-coding them.

As competition in the games industry heats up, I expect more games to follow Aion’s lead in giving players the option to highly customize their interface for the way they like to play. The game can be easily adjusted to fit the player’s style, instead of the other way around. This will lead to greater immersion and the player can better focus on the gameplay. Gameplay and the virtual worlds envelop the player when the interface used to deliver and interact with the game are “forgotten” in muscle memory and the background of the mind.