Warhammer is a SETTING. And it can be rendered in many different *styles*. We have PLENTY of examples of Warhammer in the cartoonish look, as we have about the much more “violent” and realistic look.

The point is NOT about who invented a cartoonish look before. The point is:
1- People would appreciate MUCH more a game looking realistic and that is completely different from WoW, exactly to DISTANCE Warhammer from it instead of looking like a bleached copy. This is what would MAKE SENSE even from a commercial point of view.
2- Mythic doesn’t handle this style well. It’s a lost battle fighting Blizzard right in their house.

That said, Tobold has a great piece pointing out some huge problems and limitations in all the current combat systems, without exceptions. I completely agree. I always liked ideas that try to go toward more realism and a more immersive experience. Remember those ideas he wrote while reading the wishes I’m going to add next.

If a MMORPG combat doesn’t *look* real, chances are that it isn’t much fun in the first place.

The “dream mmorpg”

Think to a PvP game only for now.

Erase completely the possibity to “target”. No targeting. No UI whatsoever. Nothing at all.

Add collision detection. Create a system with a “tactical combat”, without the frenetical button-mashing but where you swing your weapon directly and hit what is in front of you. Ranged weapons that behave like in reality, with realistic arcs and no “target-lock”, with the shields only protecting what’s directly behind them and letting exposed the other parts of the body. Add spell effects with a similar target system, where you aim for a location and then throw a fireball that continues to fly till it doesn’t hit something and then “explodes”, shaking the ground and dealing area damage to all the enemies near the impact, setting them on fire.

Forbid completely the possibility to target an opponent and receive informations about it through the UI. You can just see your hitpoints and your mana, the number of arrows and the possibility to quickly access your spellbook and inventory, but nothing else. You cannot see the effects on your enemies (if not graphically, like the effect of a DoT spell active or an arrow stuck on their bodies) as you cannot see them on your friends.

No healing classes or abilities if not bandages and medications that can be applied ONLY out of combat and that require time to start their effect.

Add spellcaster classes with spells that affect the spatial environment: like the possibility to create protective force fields, allowing those within to be protected from ranged attacks to an extent, or the possibilty to drop “walls of fire” that damage those crossing them, or freeze a zone of grass that will make people running on it slip and tumble around (bwahahah! This would be amazing), fireballs exploding and flinging people around on fire, magical walls of stone rising and preventing the players to pass and that need to be circumvent or demolished through “blunt” attacks or counterspells.

Healers? Who the hell needs them.

Give them the possibility to set people on FIRE, and then give them the possibility to invoke clouds and rain around the player to extinguish that fire.

Think about HUGE ogre characters, three times as big as a normal player but much, much slower. Give them wheeled carts and transform them into “music” classes playing huge, tribal drums (with real sounds coming out of them, that will be heard from miles away on the battlefield) triggering temporary bursts of positive effects like speed boosts or haste effects during a charge. And then let those ogres “wield” those drums with two hands and use them directly to smash other players in melee. With extremely slow attacks but SWEEPING whatever happens to be in a 60 degree arc in front of them, hurling people in the air if they happen to get hit.

Add charging horses, mounted, armored combat boars, war machines, ridable flying dragons. The possibility to break a dam and flood a whole area for defense. Quick, smallish goblin and slow, bigger orcs with blunt, rudimental weapons. Elf races that “dance” on the battlefield, hard to get hit, with quick, sharp attacks chained together and teaming up with other players for special attacks, but extremely vulnerable to a charge or an attack that smashes and pins them down. And what about the proficency with ranged weapons (rate of fire and precision) since we have a sistem absolutely perfect to support these racial traits?

Ritual spells chained by one of more spellcaster that, if not broken or countered, would trigger fearsome effects, like meteor swarms or opening chasms in the ground, devouring those who get caught within. The possibility to call storms and thunders.

Create completely different styles of combat for each race and class, with a completely different feel and impact, different rates of attack, movement speed, types of weapons, different mechanics. Add situational, external elements to the character like the war machines, transports, mounts. Sieges on castles with realistic ladders on the walls that can be pushed out to make the players fall on the ground, boiling oils melting those who pass below between the screams, crumbling walls that crush those nearby.

I said “PvP only” because that’s where these concepts work better. But what about replacing the loss of the health bars and icons with the creature behaving differently depending on the damage received and its health and morale?

How’s that? Would it be… “fun”?