Looking for Inspiration
“This s*%t comes in waves.” A quote from a coworker is the best way to put it. I’m looking for inspiration for topics to talk about on Nerfbat. While I’ve been playing a lot of Age of Conan lately, it usually doesn’t take me too long to write up a decent post here. But, I need something to talk about. Thanks for any ideas you fire my way. 
And if I give you my ideas, where are mine supposed to come from?
Actually, I’d love to see a rundown on recent history of the genre from an insider’s perspective. The people, where the talent has come from and where it’s gone. It’s easy to lose track of who’s who from the outside.
Two ideas:
How male oriented it is, and what that means over the long term
The difference in combat system - combos, responding to enemy defense, etc…
Hmm. How about something about why we haven’t seen an mmo client with excellent graphics? Although I’ve heard AoC isn’t terrible, I’d love to see something running on an engine like Project Offset.
Not bad… It’s a fairly simple answer of draw calls and variability, though. Players = lots and lots of draw calls (high polygon count etc.). NPCs = far fewer. In short, players are expensive to render, and you can often have dozens or hundreds of them on the screen at one time (which you have to plan for). Maybe I’ll bother a tech guy and/or an art guy at work for a better answer, but that’s the basic reason as I understand it.
How about you talk about why most MMOs are fantasy based and not science fiction based? There’s something that I think you could delve into nicely. I’ve my own opinions on it, but that’s why we come to this site. ;p