MMO Gamers

Many, many game updates ago Everquest 2’s horses looked more like retarded mules than noble beasts.  You would click on your whistle to summon it, it would appear beside you, and you would place a foot in the stirrup and mount.  When you were finished you’d cancel it and your character would dismount and the horse would disappear.

Sony updated the horses in one of their updates and the new models looked marvellous, a great improvement.  But now when you summoned it, it would just appear between your legs.  When you cancelled it, it would disappear and you would simply fall feet first to the ground.  Vanguard’s mounts work exactly the same way, magically appearing between your legs and disappearing in the same fashion.

Age of Conan’s mounts are different however.  When you summon the rhino for instance, it would appear beside you.  Your avatar would start to climb up into the saddle.  Because of its size it would take your avatar a couple of climbs to get onboard.  When dismounting, your avatar would swing his legs over the side and slide off.  The mammoth, larger again than the rhino, would lower itself onto its forelegs to enable the character to climb onto its shoulders.

The horses, I think, are even better.  They don’t appear between your legs or even beside you, but rather gallop up behind you from the distance.  Then your avatar places his foot in the stirrup and pulls himself into the saddle.  After you’ve dismounted the horse rides off into the distance.

It’s this sort of attention to detail that I like from an MMOG.  Other things, like gulls circling the dock area, the sounds of wildlife in the distance, all aid in making that virtual world feel like exactly that; another living breathing world.  While this sort of detail doesn’t alter the game mechanics in any way, for me it’s just as important.