Now that the stupendous success of World of Warcraft has had a chance to inspire veritable legions of similar games, there is no more "end-all-be-all" MMO out there anymore. While most new MMO's seem to stay comfortably below the "bar" raised by feature sets in games like Everquest II, it is high time that a company figured out a way to be a little bit more innovative.

While there are varying levels of graphical detail present in MMO's, the feature sets have been static for some time now. The most recent trend has steadily remained in the PvP direction, unfortunately.

What areas are left to innovate in, though? I mean, now they let us group up and kill each other, right? What more could we possibly need?

I found an incredibly cool graph illustrating the anticipated future trend of computing, gaming, movies and artificial intelligence. They graph things between Best, Worst and Base Case scenarios, showing a range of just how pleasant or unpleasant things could become. Regardless, it is all inspiring from a technology perspective. Some truly great ideas are listed across the graph; things that I had not previously considered and that the industries affected may not have either. Virtual cinema attendance was one idea that struck me as obvious in retrospect, but predicting the last human produced film and game on such short notice (10 years from now?) is not something that ever occurred to me.

No matter who you are, there is bound to be a few things that spark your interest. I will be using the graph as a repeated inspirational exercise going forward; it's just that cool.

• Atlantica MMO (1799)

  This game came out of nowhere and took the MMO community by storm. It is currently rocking the top of the charts over at MMORPG.com. I downloaded it in-between client checks, since it was free, initially based on the glowing reviews it was being given over on Ten Ton Hammer. I was not disappointed.

  Atlantica takes traditional MMO play-style and turns combat upside down by going back to a turn-based system. At the same time, they also provide the player mandate to populate an entire party of custom selected mercenaries of various abilities that function like additional characters with full enventory and equipment sets. Combining the re-simplification with the excessive complexity results in some strategic gameplay that is reminescent of Final Fantasy.

  If you played the Final Fantasy MMO and found it to be a boring grind, Atlantica's inclusion of up to eight mercenaries will very likely provide what you felt was missing.

• Age of Conan (1285)
• Spore (1260)