MMORPG Game Adventures

Best MMORPGs of 2010

2010-12-11T22:32:00.001-08:00

MMORPGs offer the most in-depth gaming experiences, and the year 2010 has seen the release of some truly spectacular games. VIndictus, by Nexon, is a highly polished MMORPG that makes great use of instanced stages, and persistent world cities. The Celtic theme adds to the immersion, and the fluid gameplay and graphics, powered by the Source engine all add up to give Vindictus high production value all around.

Players looking for a more traditional MMORPG experience can look towards either Legend of Edda or Iris Online. Both games are developed by the same Korean studio, buy published by different portals here in the US. Legend of Edda has a ‘chibi’ theme and is published by GamesCampus. Iris Online has a Gypsy theme and is published by gPotato. Both games have anime style graphics, and fairly traditional gameplay mechanics. Iris Online is a bit more original, and has a more complex class system. The game is also more fully 3D, allowing for more exploration. Legend of Edda is much simpler, and has a pretty linear progression path both in terms of class progression and world exploration. Play one, or try both since they’re free to play!

Moving on, lets talk about Battle of the Immortals. It is published by Perfect World Entertainment and is perhaps their most original MMORPG. Many of their previous games look and play like one another, but Battle of the Immortals was built on a totally different engine. It plays more like an action RPG. It has an isometric camerae angle, and point-and-click movement. The game is easy to get into, and great for casual players.

Another interesting MMORPG from 2010 is Allods Online. This game combines the familiar graphic style and interface found in the popular World of Warcraft, but adds plenty of new features. Like Neo Steam and ARGO, it has a steampunk MMO Theme. That means air ships, rifles, and other fancy technologies are present. Allods Online has a very steady pacing, similar to high quality MMORPGs rather than the grind based gameplay found in many Asian MMORPG.

Now lets get to some of the previously pay to play MMORPGs that required a monthly subscription that have been converted to free to play this year. Let’s start with EverQuest 2. It is a very well known game by Sony Online Entertainment. SOE got their feet wet in this f2p market with Free Realms and Clone Wars Adventures, both of which were aimed at a younger audience. Now that they’ve learned a bit about free to play, they’ve released EverQuest 2: Extended. Its free to play with several restrictions. Players can purchase access to additional races and classes via a cash shop. SOE also converted Pirates of the Burning Sea to f2p this year. Pirates of the Burning Sea is now perhaps the most in depth free to play game available. It has deep economic features that make it ideal for players looking for a game they can spend months or even years with.

There they are, some of the best MMORPGs of 2010. There were plenty of others but this should be enough to keep you busy over the holiday break!

APB Reloaded MMO. A look at Pay to Play Games as F2P Games

2010-12-03T17:46:00.000-08:00

This news is a tad bit old now – but GamersFirst announced last month that they would be re-launching APB as a free to play game called “APB Reloaded”. Firstly, It’s cool to see a dead MMO like APB, which cost some $50 million to develop relaunching as a free to play title. Secondly, It’s awesome that GamersFirst is bringing back a dead game. The fact is, Real Time Worlds, the bankrupt studio behind APB, launched an incomplete game that was doomed to failure. Instead of their work being “wasted”, the game is revived as free to play. I suspect in the future, less and less pay to play MMORPGs will actually “shut down”. Instead, they’ll re-launch as free to play games just to see if the game will catch on. Dungeons and Dragons Online and The Lord of the Rings Online from Turbine were smashing hits as free to play games. In fact, both of these games made MUCH more revenues as free to play games than as pay to play ones. I would have loved to see NCSoft relaunch Tabula Rasa as a free to play MMO instead of shutting the game down outright. I’d of course like to see games like Final Fantasy 11 and Age of Conan to eventually become free to play too – but seeing games become free to play instead of shutting down will prove to game publishers and developers that free to play really works.

Unfortunately, even with the success that Turbine has had with their free to play games, most game developers aren’t convinced that free to play is a viable business model for triple-A high budget titles. In reality, it is. Just look at the success Nexon has been having in North America. MapleStory, Dungeon Fighter Online and Vindictus have proven to be super popular (and profitable) for Nexon. Vindictus is easily a triple A action MMORPG with graphics that rival that of any “pay to play” game. Sony Online Entertainment is experimenting with free to play as well. They recently made Pirates of the Burning Sea free to play, and since doing so, the playerbase in the game has increased significantly. Back when the game had a free trial, I logged in to check it out and each of the game’s three servers had “ight” population. They now have “heavy” and “very heavy” population. It’s too early to say whether Pirates of the Burning Sea will do well or not as an F2P title, as the game became free to play a few days ago on November 29. I don’t think Sony Online Entertainment saw the success they expected when they made EverQuest 2 free to play 2-3 months ago. I think the reason EverQuest 2 didn’t do that “great” as a free to play game is because it’s way too restrictive. Free to play users have shown that they dislike Mmos that are too “cash dependent”. MMORPG Cash Shops are a delicate thing and can’t be too overpowered. Gpotato learned the hard way with Allods Online that trying to milk their playerbase for every last dime they have is not a good way to keep their playerbase happy. Luckily, Pirates of the Burning Sea is much more “free” than EverQuest 2 – as there are only a handful of restrictions for free to play users. Those who end up subscribing at $15 a month receive some nice benefits, but nothing game-breaking.

I remember back when Electronic Arts released Need for Speed World, the game had some absurd level 10 cap for free to play users, and had the balls to call itself a free to play racing game. How can a game with such a level cap call itself free? It’s more like a free trial than anything else. Several months after release, EA removed the level 10 cap for free members due to player outrage. So I think any pay to play game that went free to play will eventually become more and more “free” as companies realize that they can make more money pleasing their users than angering them. Hopefully the new Battlefield MMOFPS game isn’t too restrictive, the same way Need for Speed World was when it launched. I think EA has a decent grasp on the whole F2P concept though, as they already have numerous F2P games including Battleforge, FIFA Online, Lord of Ultima and a bunch of other games.

ZOMG More New MMORPGs

2010-11-28T17:26:00.000-08:00

November has been a pretty exciting month for free to play MMORPGs so far. Iris Online (finally) launched into Open beta on Nov 23 and Legend of Martial Arts began its closed beta testing on Nov 24. Iris Online is a game that I’ve been extremely fascinated with ever since gPotato launched the closed beta in October. The game looks and feels like a very modern MMORPG, and I say that because the gameplay is very fluid and the graphics are sharp and easy on the eyes. Even though Fly For Fun and Rappelz remain some of the most popular free MMORPGs gPotato publishes, I think Iris Online has the potential to become their most successful title. Legend of Martial Arts also finally began a more public closed beta testing phase. The game is by Perfect World Entertainment and used to be known as Kung Foo a while ago. The name changed and the game was apparently re-developed into Legend of Martial Arts.

In Other news – War of Angels began its OPEN beta testing on November 24. I first played the game on Gamigo months ago, but after learning about the North American IP block, I quickly became frustrated. Right after that IP block was announced, Neowiz – the Korean MMO developer behind S4 League announced that they themselves would release War of Angels globally through their own website. Those in Europe would still have to play on the Gamigo version though. Everyone else gets to play on one global service. I’m surprised that War of Angels was EU only on Gamigo, as Gamigo has several games available in both EU and North America including King of Kings 3 as well as their browser based title Cultures Online. They also have Martial Empires and Fiesta Online for Europe only. Luckily Fiesta Online is available in the U.S. Too, but Martial Empires isn’t. I’m wondering when CR-Space will get around to releasing a U.S. Version of Martial Empires…..

Another game that I should mention is Myth Angels Online from UserJoy. The game looks and plays like Angels Online from IGG, but apparently this version is supposed to be bigger and better. Those who disliked Angels Online shouldn’t even give this new Myth Angels Online a try though, as the graphics and gameplay are nearly identical. In FPS news, Mission Against Terror added several new game modes and Genesis A.D launched into open beta. Dynasty Warriors Online and Zentia also launched into full release – exiting their open beta phases, which means both games also received a bunch of updates.

November so far is looking great, but what I’m really looking forward to is the new games Webzen unveiled – Continent of the Ninth, Battery Online and R2: Reign of Revolution.

FreeStyle Street Basketball MMO Rocks

2010-11-23T11:14:00.001-08:00

Why is it that the few very awesome free to play MMOs out there don’t get the attention they deserve? Everytime I log onto FreeStyle Street Basketball on GameKiss, I’m upset to see so few people online. I’ve played a lot of sports MMOs from FIFA Online to Pangya. I’ve even played tons of racing MMOs like Need for Speed World and Heat Online, but none of these games are nearly as fun as FreeStyle Street Basketball. Why on Earth am I praising this game so much? Well, because it’s both simple and fun. I think the best MMORPGs out there aren’t the most graphically advanced or complicated. The most fun titles are DEFINITELY the easiest to pick up and play. Games like WonderKing and Runes of Magic for example are successful because they’re so easy to pick up and play. Other titles like NEO Online from PlayOMG and World of Tanks for example are a bit more difficult to learn. I never managed to “get into” Eve Online because it’s such a hard game to learn. I tried playing the MMO Free Trial FOUR times, and not once could I stick with the game. Black Prophecy from Gamigo does look fascinating though and aims to be more “fun” than Eve Online. While Eve is more tactical and strategy oriented, Black Prophecy aims to be more hands on actiony – something Eve Online severely lacks.

Anyway, I’m getting a bit distracted. FreeStyle is fun, because you can hop on, play one or two matches (5 minutes each) and be done with it. No large time commitment nothing. I guess one of the reasons I like most MMOFPS games is because of this same reason – small time commitment. The thing about FreeStyle is that I don’t even like Basketball. I never watch it on TV or know anything about it, but I can still launch the game and have a ton of fun. I do wish the game offered more variety in terms of gameplay modes, because as is there aren’t many ways to vary up the game. Unlike Zone4: Fight District or Lost Saga from OGPlanet, FreeStyle has like 3 game modes and that’s it. Either way, you can still play the game for fun here and there. The game’s story isn’t exactly updated often, but it’s still good enough for me.

What sucks is that the game has a low playerbase. And as we all know – games with low playerbases eventually end up in the MMO Graveyard. I think games like Runes of Magic and Perfect World will likely be around for a long while. As will other successful MMORPGs like The Lord of the Rings Online and Fiesta Online, but FreeStyle is a game that I suspect won’t last another full year, as the game never had a big playerbase, and the community isn’t growing either. Plus GameKiss announced that they would shut down Valkyrie Sky last week. When a company shuts one game down, it means the company is having financial problems. That could eventually spill over into GhostX (Another game by the same company. A scifi MMORPG) and eventually into FreeStyle Street Basketball. Time will tell though.

APB Free to Play

2010-11-17T12:37:00.000-08:00

Oh Man. All Points Bulletin, commonly called APB for short, is re-releasing as a free to play MMO shooter and will be publisher by GamersFirst. The game will relaunch as APB Reloaded The F2P game publisher bought up the APB assets from the now defunkt developer real-time worlds for a paltry sum. The game took some $50 million to develop, but GamersFirst bought up the rights to the game for less than $2.5 million. GamersFirst is best known for a handful of successful free to play games – their two most popular games are War Rock and Knight Online. Both games are fairly old now, but they still remain popular. APB isn’t the first “dead” game that GamersFirst bought up. They actually bought the license for 9Dragons once Acclaim Games shut down. The entire Acclaim Games story is quite funny – as they were bought by Playdom, but Playdom shut their entire website down within a month of buying the company. Needless to say, they got burnt.

According to the new APB Reloaded website – the game will be officially launching sometime in the first half of 2010. I think the entire APB concept was really neat. The idea of combing open world Grand Theft Auto environments with persistent world MMO / RPG elements sounds incredibly fun. APB is a game I never got a chance to play, as it was one of the few MMOs that didn’t have free trials. Nowadays, I play mostly free to play games, so I never actually bought APB. Even if I wanted to buy it, I had a small window to do it, as the game shut down within 2 months of launching. I think it’s one of the biggest flops in history. APB won’t be the first failed pay to play game going free to play though, Archlord used to be pay to play for its first year of release, but eventually became free to play through Webzen and still remains F2P to date. RF Online went through the same release schedule. It launched as a pay to play game, but failed to attract a sizeable audience, so it went F2P. Even though both games aren’t huge successes, they are both still around today – they survived for years. So the whole F2P business model actually works. I think when The Lord of the Rings Online and EverQuest 2 announced that they will be going free to play, I knew F2P was for sure here to stay. Before that, I was merely speculating. Maybe Final Fantasy 14 will go Free to Play soon too.

Those who also like the APB concept, but don’t want to wait until APB releases could try that new browser based GTA style MMO – PoisonVille. The whole “Ville” bit reminds of FarmVille, PetVille, FrontierVille and all those other social games. I should mention – PoisonVille is by BigPoint and it most certainly is not a silly facebook game. The graphics are decent for a browser based game and it has some neat open world gameplay. In terms of content though, it’s quite disappointing. I’d actually hold off until APB relaunches as an F2P title, as PoisonVille has been a big disappointment. If you really want to try it though, I think you can use your SeaFight and Deepolis accounts to access it, as it’s by the same company – BigPoint.

Anyway – I’m waiting until APB releases. Anyone else pumped?

Where are all the Turn Based MMORPGs?

2010-11-12T19:33:00.000-08:00

Turn based RPGs on the Playstation 2 were big business. Single player RPGs like Tales of Vesperia and Final Fantasy 13 on the Xbox 360 were fairly big games too. As an avid MMORPG gamer, I’m a bit disappointed that there are so few turn based MMORPGs available. I’ve looked for quite a while and I’ve only found a handful of decent ones. I think Atlantica Online from Ndoors is probably the best one. The game has great 3D visuals and a ton of playable characters. Like Sword 2 from GamersFirst, you can also control 3+ characters at once, which gives the game some unique dynamics. The only other remotely popular turn based MMORPG is Wonderland Online from IGG. It’s a 2D MMORPG with awful graphics. I actually like the 2D graphics in WonderKing and Grand Chase, but the visuals in Wonderland Online are bleh at best. Graphics are important, but its not a deal breaker for me. After all, one of the best MMORPGs if you ask me is Ragnarok Online from Gravity Interactive, and it doesn’t have very good graphics, especially compared to newer games like Iris Online from gPotato.

If you’ve never played either Atlantica Online or Wonderland Online do yourself a favor and play Atlantica Online. Of if you want to lower your exceptions before playing either, try Myth War 2 Online or Zodiac Online. Those are both pretty low tier turn based MMORPGs. WeMade Entertainment has Digimon Battle – which is also a pretty bad game. The only reason Digimon Battle is bad is its a really old MMORPG. The game is like 6+ years old. But if you were to only play ONE turn based MMORPG definitely make it Atlantica Online. I think Ndoors did a phenomenal job with it the game. It has some 10+ playable classes, top notch 3D graphics and a huge game world. I can’t imagine why there aren’t more games like it. Ndoors has proven that turn based MMORPGs can be successful – so why are so many game developers still releasing very generic 3D anime MMORPGs? Iris Online for example from gPotato is a really sleek game, but it brings nothing new to the table. The same thing applies to Zentia from ChangYou. It’s a fairly solid title, but it brings nothing new to the table either. I had a chance to play Loong: The Power of the Dragon from Gamigo the other day and I was really surprised by the game’s visuals. Too bad even though the gameplay is fluid, there aren’t really any special gameplay mechanics which would make the game unique.

One thing I can’t quite figure out is why game developers keep churning out MMOFPS games. Ijji just released Genesis A.D last week on Nov 8 and plans on releasing their World War 2 themed Karma: Operation Barbarossa later in the year. I think aside from fantasy MMORPGs the second most popular genre is MMOFPS games. Sci-fi MMORPGs are probably less popular than turn based MMORPGs, as the only sci-fi MMORPGs I can think of are RF Online and Megaten. That’s it.

Anyway guys, I know I got super side tracked with this one, but I’d like to see more turn based MMOs out there. More specifically, more games like Atlantica.

Best MMO Cash Shops

2010-11-08T13:44:00.001-08:00

Cash shops in MMORPGs should be focused on one thing and one thing only – convenience. With the growth of free to play MMOs and MMORPGs and dozens of new games launching every year, I feel I should write something dedicated to cash shops and how they should be run. MMO publishers aren’t in the business of charity. They’re looking to turn a profit, so they want to sell things in their cash shops that people find useful and will want to buy. But if the cash shop items are too imbalanced or required to play, gamers will get angry and leave the game. So game publishers need to find a perfect balance. I think Allods Online from gPotato is a good example of a game that failed because of its cash shop woes. The game was incredibly fun, albeit a WoW clone. In fact, It was easily on par with Runes of Magic from Frogster, which was one of the highest rated free to play games ever. I remember the first day of the open beta for Allods. The game was mind-blowingly packed. The starting city was enormous, but it was FILLED with players. Every quest NPC was surrounded by players eagerly talking to and handing in quests. Some time later, gPotato added “Fear of death” to the game, which added a harsh death penalty, which could only be removed by either waiting 2 hours for it to go away on its own or through a cash shop item called “perfume”. One thing led to another and the cash shop because worse and worse. The game became too cash shop dependent. I think gPotato made a good deal of money early on, but in the long run, gPotato angered their players, and many of them quit.

The trick is to create a cash shop which doesn’t break the game. A cash shop should offer players convenience, without making it mandatory. Changyou for example promised that their new MMORPG Zentia could be played to max level without ever buying anything from the cash shop. Most MMORPGs today can be enjoyed without having to spend money in the cash shop, but some games can’t. Those games, unfortunately, are shooting themselves in the foot. Games like Shaiya from Aeria Games and browser games like Caesary and Lord of Ultima are incredibly cash shop dependent. Practically every browser based strategy game from Grepolis to Travian are absurdly cash shop dependent. So much so, that if you DON’T spend money in the cash shop, you have no chance of doing well. I think MapleStory from Nexon has one of the best cash shops ever. Why? Because the only items for sale are experience enhancement items and clothing for your avatar. Nothing is game-breaking and it’s all largely used for convenience. I think it’s easier for MapleStory to have a balanced cash shop over games like War of Angels and King of Kings 3, as MapleStory doesn’t have PvP while these other games do. Any PvP MMORPG has to make sure items sold in the cash shop aren’t imbalanced. EverQuest 2 for example, from Sony Online Entertainment, sells armor and weapons in its cash shop. Luckily, the items for sale are only mediocre – the best gear in the game can ONLY be obtained by actually playing the game and earning the gear.

So the ideal MMO cash shop should only sell things like clothing and convenience items. Convenience items being increased XP scrolls and teleportation scrolls. When a game like Grand Chase from Ntreev or Legend of Edda from GamesCampus sells items to its players that increase their XP rate, it doesn’t affect anyone in a negative way. I mean, who cares if some random player is gaining XP at a faster than than I am? The only time a cash shop can really annoy players is when players are REQUIRED to use it in order to get ahead, or if it sells an item that can imbalance PvP. Most MMOs these days, including the new Genesis A.D and League of Legends don’t sell anything in their stores which would imbalance the game.

So which game do you think has the most unfair cash shop? Which has the best? Let me know in the comments!

Side Scrolling MMORPGs 4TW

2010-11-03T09:43:00.000-07:00

Why is it that just about every side scrolling MMORPG has been very successful? For a long while MapleStory from Nexon was the only side scrolling MMORPG on the block – at least until Ndoors decided to embrace the sub genre with their WonderKing game. Ndoors is probably best known for the turn based MMORPG Atlantica Online, and that’s it. I think a few months after Ndoors released WonderKing, Nexon actually bought the entire company. I think it’s because Nexon saw WonderKing as a thread to MapleStory’s dominance. It’s safe to say that after Runescape from Jagex, MapleStory is the most profitable and most popular free to play MMORPG on the market. WonderKing isn’t nearly as big of a success as MapleStory has been, but the game definitely carved out its own slice of the 2D MMORPG market.

WonderKing isn’t the only new side scrolling MMORPG to release chasing after MapleStory’s success. Fists of Fu from OutSpark is a 2D action MMORPG that’s trying to mix MapleStory and Dragon Saga style gameplay. Whether it’ll be successful or not remains unknown – as the game launched into open beta recently. I doubt it’ll be as successful as Outspark’s flagship anime MMORPG Fiesta Online. For those that didn’t know Fiesta Online is by far the most successful game OutSpark has. I think Secret of the Solstice (The Ragnarok Online clone they have) is their second most popular, but Fiesta is leaps and bounds ahead of Secret of the Solstice. They pretty much abandoned their other MMORPGs – Project Powder and Wind Slayer. They for sure abandoned Dance Groove Online and Blackshot. Hopefully these two games launch through another publisher.

Aside from the growth of side scrolling MMORPGs, games like Forsaken World from Perfect World Entertainment and War of Angels from Neowiz have attracted quite a bit of attention. Many Perfect World, Battle of the Immortals and Jade Dynasty fans have been flocking to try Forsaken World. Too bad the game is still in phase 1 closed beta, with full release being severla years in the future. Suba Games has been pushing Mission Against Terror quite hard lately. I just wish they’d get around to releasing Priston Tale 2 sometime soon, as that game has been on hiatus forever. The worst thing about it is that it’s already released in Europe through Gamerkraft, who also publishes FreeJack. I’m also waiting for Netmarble to release Koongya Adventure in the U.S. Instead of releasing it, they recently launched Uncharted Waters Online instead. It’s not a terrible game, but it’s too much like Voyage Century for my taste. On the positive side, Uncharted Waters Online is one of the only Japanese MMORPGs out there. Yeah, it’s developed in Japan. I think Lucent Heart (Beanfun) and Dynasty Warriors Online (Aeria Games) are some of the only other Japanese MMORPGs.

Anyway, I’m getting side tracked here. I think it’s clear that side scrolling MMORPGs are incredibly popular. I suspect that both WonderKing and Fists of Fu will prove to be a success in the near future.

MMORPGs Launching Quickly in North America

2010-10-30T04:30:00.000-07:00

New MMORPGs and MMOs that launched in South Korea and China are making their way fastest to the West than ever before. Just recently Perfect World Entertainment launched their newest game – Forsaken World into closed beta here in the West. The game is STILL in closed beta testing over in China. So the game was localized and launched in BOTH regions at around the same time. I say “around the same time” because it was out in China first, but not by much. Nexon, the company best known for MapleStory and Dungeon Fighter Online, launched Vindictus in North America within 6 months or so of launching it in South Korea. The time it takes for an Eastern game to reach Western shores have been decreasing steadily for quite a few years now. Loong: The Power of the Dragon from Gamigo is yet another example. Unfortunately, things haven’t always been this way.

Digimon Battle from WeMade Entertainment for example, launched in North America some 5+ years after it launched in South Korea and China. Darkeden from JoyMax launched in the States nearly 8 years after it originally debuted in Korea. Just recently PWE launched Heroes of Three Kingdoms in North America, but it had been available in South East Asia as “Redcliff” for numerous years. It’s only recently that games have begun launching in different regions at “around” the same time. Black Prophecy, an upcoming MMORPG from Gamigo is scheduled to launch in both North America and Europe at around the same time too.

Unfortunately, there are still hundreds of games available only in South Korea and China which haven’t launched in the West yet. Luckily, some of these games – JX2 Online, Battle of Destiny, Super Dance Online and Hot Dance Party (Steps) are all playable from North America, even though they are published in South East Asia. Most games not released in America have IP restrictions preventing foreign users from logging in. Beanfun for example has half a dozen games available in Taiwan that aren’t yet available in the West. Luckily, they’re bringing the Japanese MMORPG Lucent Heart to North America real soon. But there are so many other games available in Asia that have yet to be announced in North America.

Even though the gap between new MMORPGs announced in Korea and coming to the West is decreasing, I feel that a lot of the older games are never going to make it to Western shores. It’s unfortunate because many of them would probably be really successful here. I mean just look at games like Silkroad Online from JoyMax and Conquer Online from TQ Digital – both of these Eastern games are huge hits in the West. Legend of Edda, FreeJack and Zentia for example are all really popular here in the West. These titles are new, but even older games “relaunched” here are big. Just look at Fantasy Earth Zero from GamePot USA. It’s an older Japanese MMORPG but it’s a big hit!

Bring some older Chinese MMORPGs and Korean MMORPGs to North America! After all, American MMORPGs like World of Warcraft and Dungeons and Dragons Online are available all over Asia already!

MMORPG File Sizes

2010-10-25T02:51:00.000-07:00

One thing I’ve noticed is as MMOs get more complicated and better their file sizes seem to keep getting bigger and bigger. This is most certainly a big problem, as some MMORPGs are just so big that no one has the patience to download them. Well, not “no one” but I think games like Runes of Magic from Frogster and Age of Conan from Funcom are screwing themselves over because of their file size. Runes of Magic is 6+GB big, so installing and patching the game can take 3+ hours – and that’s on a FAST internet connection. Anyone on DSL will probably end up giving up well before the game even finishes downloading. The same thing applies to Age of Conan – that game is a MONTER. It’s 20GB big – which means on a fast internet connection the game will take almost 12 hours to fully install and patch. If the patch servers are busy, it could take even longer. I think the “sweet spot” for games is 1.2GB or less. Anything above 2 is really pushing it. Dungeons and Dragons Online is a whopping 4GB on “High res” mode, but at least the game lets players download a normal version which is 2.8GB – a cool 25% smaller in size.

Perfect World and Jade Dynasty are both under 2GB, yet they both look great. Dungeons and Dragons Online which is TWICE as big isn’t twice as good. Heck, many of the more successful games are LESS than 1GB. Look at Eudemons Online and Conquer Online from TQ Digital. Both games have a crazy big population, but the games are under 800MB. The Lord of the Rings Online on the other hand is a top notch game, but it’s a WHOPPING 10GB big. What on Earth is Turbine thinking? I think one easy solution to these huge file sizes is to download only portions of the game. For example, let’s say when I download Fists of Fu or Fiesta Online form OutSpark – instead of downloading the ENTIRE game’s content, I should only have to download the first 10 dungeons in the game. That’s it. As I make my way to dungeon #7 or 8, the game can begin download the next 10 dungeons in the background. That way, everything is done uninterrupted, and if I decide that Fists of Fu isn’t for me, I wouldn’t have had to wait until I downloaded the entire game!

The thing is, games like Grand Chase, Lost Saga, FreeJack and Zentia don’t really need to worry about this little issue as these games aren’t exactly huge to begin with. I think only games that are over 2GB in size should bother doing this. Though I’m sure other games would benefit too. Imagine being able to download and install an MMORPG like Battle of the Immortals, Heroes of Three Kingdoms or Metin 2 in a few minutes? This could easily be achievable if players could download the first few zones in the game, and have the game automatically download and install more zones in the background while you play. I think Guild Wars from NCSoft actually does this, and if I remember correctly the MMORPG free trial for World of Warcraft does it too. I don’t think ANY free to play MMORPGs do it though.

The problem really isn’t a game’s size, as most modern hard drives today have 250+GB with new hard drives having over a TB. The problem is the annoyingly long time it takes to fully download and patch a modern day MMORPG. So breaking the game down into pieces and having the game download more content AS you play would mean people can jump into games easier. There’s no reason newer MMORPGs like Kitsu Saga and Legend of Edda don’t have this built in. I can see why really old games don’t have it, but new ones should. What are your thoughts on this? I think I’d be willing to download and play more games if I didn’t have to wait so dang long to download them!

CosmicBreak and GetAmped 2 Never going to Release

2010-10-19T22:23:00.000-07:00

Two games that seem like they’re never going to fully launch are CosmicBreak and GetAmped 2. Both are published and developed by the Japanese MMORPG company CyberStep. I’m convinced that these guys have no idea what they’re doing, because both GetAmped 2 and CosmicBreak began their open beta testing phases nearly a year ago, but NEITHER game is fully released yet. Why? After open beta isn’t full release supposed to begin? Apparently not if you ask CyberStep, as both games have since went through additional beta testing phases – all of which have been followed by wipes. CosmicBreak is set to be released by December, 2010 – another three months of waiting. I think anyone who wanted to play CosmicBreak by now gave up on the game and moved onto something else. No one wants to wait this long to play a game – especially when it was playable 6+ months ago. I think Vindictus made the same mistake of taking forever to launch, which allowed other action MMORPGs like Divine Souls from OutSpark and Soul Master from GamesCampus to dip their toes into action MMO market. Fists of Fu from Outspark also took quite a while to launch, but at least it did launch!

Other delayed MMORPGs which seem to be taking forever to launch are Huxley: The Dystopia and Priston Tale 2. ijji was supposed to publish Huxley like a year ago, but they recently announced that Webzen will continue development for the game. Even so, Huxley seems like it’s never going to actually come out. The same thing applies to Priston Tale 2 which actually released recently in Europe (through GamerKraft who also makes FreeJack), but the game is still nowhere near release in North America. That’s because Suba Games has no idea what they’re doing. They show the Priston Tale 2 page as “coming soon”, but it’s been “coming soon” for over 1 full year. I’m convinced that Priston Tale 2 will never come out in North America. On the positive side, the Malaysian version of the game will be available to AsiaSoft soon and they said they wouldn’t be blocking North American Ips. They also publish Battle of Destiny and Warriors of the Three Kingdoms, which are available to North American users. Unfortunately, games available in Malaysia and Singpaore are extremely laggy for gamers in Europe and North America. I tried playing Counter Strike Online recently, but my pings were in excess of 250, making the game unplayable.

Other delayed MMORPGs that will likely never release are Dance Groove Online, Kart Rider and Dreamland Online. Dance Groove Online is a dancing game that looks a bit like Audition Online and ShowUp. It was announced a year or so ago on Outspark’s site, but about 6 months ago, OutSpark took the game off their homepage, which pretty much confirmed the game was never going to release. Kart Rider did a large open beta test in North America in 2008 or so, but after that, the game vanished. Dreamland Online was announced by IGG ages ago, but it has been delayed indefinitely. The game was supposed to closely resemble Dragon Saga, LaTale, WonderKing and other side scrolling MMORPGs. Too bad there’s no definitive release date on it.

Do you guys know any other games that have been delayed over and over again? If so, name them in the comments!

Lord of the Rings Online Free to Play a Big Success

2010-10-14T22:56:00.000-07:00

Since going free to play The Lord of the Rings Online has enjoyed a 400% increase in active playerbase and a 200% increase in monthly revenues. Turbine also announced that the game now generates more money in optional monthly subscriptions than it did back when it was pay to play. I don’t think the game enjoyed the same level of success that Dungeons and Dragons Online did upon re-launching as a free to play game, but that’s mostly because The Lord of the Rings Online was already successful and profitable to begin with whereas Dungeons and Dragons Online had a tiny playerbase that was slowly dwindling away. Needless to say though, Turbine has once again proven that the free to play business model is a viable one. Not everyone is ignoring Turbine’s success with free to play.

Sony Online Entertainment recently made their flagship MMORPG EverQuest 2 free to play. But that’s old news that I’ve talked about in the past. What’s more interesting is that Pirates of the Burning Sea will also be relaunching as a free to play title in the coming months. And yes, it’s official. The company announced that they will be shifting to a free to play game when their latest expansion goes live. Since Turbine made Dungeons and Dragons Online free to play, Electronic Arts has tried their luck in free to play too. Over the last few years EA has released Battlefield Heroes, Lord of Ultima, FIFA Online and Tiger Woods Online as free to play titles, but has been hesitant to convert any of their current pay to play titles such as Dark Age of Camelot of Warhammer Online to free to play, which I think they should seriously consider doing. Both Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online aren’t very popular and are in clear decline. Dark Age of Camelot used to have 30+ servers but has 3 today. Warhammer Online launched with some 35+ servers but its down to 4. They need to do something to revitalize these games and going free to play could work. Free trials for those MMOs just isn’t cutting it.

With Dungeons and Dragons Online, The Lord of the Rings Online and EverQuest 2 now free to play, I think there’s a lot of pressure on Funcom to make Age of Conan Free to Play and on NCSoft to make City of Heroes and Lineage 2 free to play. As more and more pay to play games become free to play, game companies will realize that demanding a monthly fee to access a game is going to get harder and harder. I don’t think World of Warcraft really has to worry, as they’re still the market leader in the space, but smaller less successful MMORPGs like Champions Online and even Star Trek Online will need to eventually begin embracing free to play, as pay to play has been on a decline since Turbine made Dungeons and Dragons Online free to play. Plus, high quality free to play games like Runes of Magic, Fists of Fu and Heroes of Three Kingdoms are also putting pressure on pay to play games to re-consider their business models.

The Lord of the Rings Online is Worth Checking Out

2010-10-07T17:53:00.000-07:00

In case you didn’t hear – The Lord of the Rings Online from Turbine relaunched as a free to play MMORPG. This happened about a month ago and anyone can go ahead and download the game today and play it for free. Turbine has had a great of success with free to play, as their other MMORPG – Dungeons and Dragons Online made a ton of money as a free to play MMORPG. In fact, Dungeons and Dragons Online was a failing MMO, as it had very few subscribers and was bleeding red ink for Turbine. Only after making the game free to play did Turbine turn a profit out of Dungeons and Dragons Online. The Lord of the Rings Online going free to play is a bit more interesting in my opinion. Pay to play MMORPGs have gone free to play in the past – think Archlord, RF Online and FusionFall with newer MMORPGs like Pirates of the Burning Sea from Sony Online Entertainment going free to play soon. Pirates of the Burning Sea announced it would drop its subscription in the near future back in August. I suspect other pay to play MMOs will release MMO news saying they’ll go free to play in the future.

Okay, enough talking about other MMORPGs though. What makes Lord of the Rings Online unique as a pay to play MMORPG gone free to play is that Lord of the Rings Online was a success. The game was making plenty of money for Turbine and the company didn’t make it free to play in a desperate move – the same way they did for Dungeons and Dragons Online. Archlord and RF Online went free to play because they were utter failures as pay to play games with no subscribers. Lord of the Rings Online was plenty profitable for years. Turbine made it free to play because they think that they can make more profit as a free to play game than as a pay to play one. Now this is interesting. In the past only failed games went free to play, so with Turbine’s latest move with Lord of the Rings Online, hopefully other game publishers and developers will do the same thing. Maybe NCSoft could make City of Heroes and Lineage 2 free to play? Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if Electronic Arts made Warhammer Online free to play – as they’ve already launched NUMEROUS free to play games in the last year. They developed and launched Battlefield Heroes, FIFA Online, Tiger Woods Online AND Need for Speed World as free to play MMOs. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to ANYONE if EA made Warhammer Online free to play.

Since Lord of the Rings Online went free to play in August, the game’s playerbase has spiked. We haven’t heard too many official announcements from Turbine yet about LOTRO, so we won’t know if the game is a success yet or not. I’ve personally played LOTRO and I absolutely love it. Why? Because it has that certain pay to play feel to it. The visuals are great, the quests are in perfect English, the MMO plot makes sense and the MMO music is great too. All of these little details add up to make The Lord of the Rings Online of the best free to play MMORPGs available. Obviously top tier f2p games like Runes of Magic and Fiesta Online shouldn’t be ignored either, but I think Lord of the Rings Online is raising the bar for free to play.

GamesCampus MMO Publisher is Growing Fast!

2010-10-03T02:46:00.000-07:00

GamesCampus – the free to play MMO publisher which launched back in 2006 with one MMO (Shot Online) has been growing rapidly over the years. They now publish at least half a dozen games with plans to launch numerous new games in the future. I’ve written about other MMORPG publishers in the past, but I wanted to talk about GamesCampus today because they recently announced that they would be publishing Drift City in North America. Yep – you heard me correctly. GamesCampus will be publishing Drift City soon. After October 28 to be precise. So what’s going to have to the ijji version of the game? It’s going to shut down. Don’t worry though – players can transfer their characters to the GamesCampus version after the game closes its doors. Unfortunately cash shop items bought on the ijji version and Gcoins acquired will not be transferable. Players can spend their Gcoins on some other MMORPGs that ijji publishes though like HolyBeast Online, Rohan Online, Genesis A.D, Lunia, Luminary: Rise of the Goonzu, and numerous other titles.

Besides Drift City, GamesCampus launched a new anime MMORPG into closed beta this week – Legend of Edda. The game actually entered into closed beta on September 30, 2010 and is a cute MMORPG with chibi style graphics. After playing the game for a while I was surprised to learn that Legend of Edda is actually a PvP intensive game. The game features large scale faction battles like Aika Online from gPotato and Fantasy Earth Zero from GamePot USA. On a side note I think gPotato has been doing really swell lately too. They continue to update their older games like Rappelz and Fly For Fun. Even Tales Runner remains updated too. Too bad FreeJack launched recently, it’ll be competing with Tales Runner, as it’s the only other parkour style foot racing MMO. GamesCampus is also working on launching a tank themed MMO called Tank Ace, which will compete with World of Tanks. Too bad there’s no definitive release on Tank Ace, as the game looks neat. I thought World of Tanks was neat, but the game was super annoying, as higher level players and tanks 1 shotted lower level tanks. It’s realistic and all, but bleh. It played too much like NavyField.

Over the last few months GamesCampus also launched two games into full release. Soul Master being the more interesting one and Heroes in the Sky being the other. I like Soul Master because it’s a unique with strategy elements. It plays like Dragonica Online from Gravity Interactive, except with some unique strategy aspects. Heroes in the Sky is cool too because it’s one of the only dog fighting MMOs – except for perhaps Ace Online from Suba Games. The game is also set during World War 2 and has plenty of real life airplanes in it. So World War 2 buffs or airplane aficionados will find something to love in the game.

Gamigo is Launching tons of new MMORPGs!

2010-09-28T19:03:00.000-07:00

The German free to play MMO and MMORPG game publisher Gamigo has been on a roll lately. Their newest game King of Kings 3 launched on September 27 right after it finished closed beta testing. No second closed beta testing or open beta testing – straight to full release after closed beta. How awesome is that? For those of you who haven’t heard of King of Kings 3, it’s a 3D PvP MMORPG that plays a bit like Aika Online. PvP is definitely the game’s main focus as it has a really in depth tiered guild system and faction wars system. Like Mu Online and Silkroad Online – King of Kings 3 has a really high level cap too – something like 90+. Any game with a level cap higher than 80 is considered high in my book. Graphically though, King of Kings 3 isn’t anything special, but on the graphics department Gamigo has an awesome sci-fi theme MMO launching soon.

That awesome sci-fi themed MMORPG is Black Prophecy. It’s supposed to play a lot like Eve Online, except with a much stronger emphasis on action rather than just slow paced tactics. It’ll mop the floor with other space themed MMORPGs like Pirate Galaxy and Outer Galaxies – even though they’re browser games. Black Prophecy has some of the best graphics of any free to play MMORPG. Hopefully the music is good too, because MMORPG music is really important in my opinion – as it helps set the mood. I think games like Ragnarok Online, Sword 2 and S4 League are remembered so fondly, because of their excellent musical scores. Black Prophecy is currently in closed beta though, so I haven’t had a chance to play it. The MMO videos I’ve seen so far though make it looks really epic.

Another upcoming MMORPG from Gamigo that look really neat is Loong: The Power of the Dragon – a 3D Fantasy themed action MMORPG set in Ancient China. Graphically – the game looks quite awesome, but graphics aren’t everything – I actually enjoyed playing Fantasy Earth Zero from GamePot USA and Zentia from ChangYou – even though they have less then great graphics. To be fair, Zentia has decent graphics. But Cabal Online and Diablo 2 are great MMORPGs even though they don’t have the best graphics. Unfortunately Loong: The Power of the Dragon has no set release date, and I fear it may be another 6 months before it actually releases.

Yet another upcoming MMO from Gamigo is War of Angels. The game looks awesome because players can purchase wings in the game which lets players fly around. I think the only games that support flying mounts / wings are Perfect World, Fly For Fun and Jade Dynasty. I’d like to see more games add flying mounts – but what I like about War of Angels is that the graphics are good, but not so good that my computer can’t run it.

So what do you guys think about Gamigo? I think they publish some of the best MMORPGs out. The only thing they’re lacking is some browser MMOs in my opinion. Games like Caesary, War of Legends and Dark Orbit for example. If they had some browser MMOs they’d be one of the most varied publishers out.

MMOFPS Games are all the Same!

2010-09-23T21:13:00.000-07:00

I remember back when Sudden Attack, from GameHi, and Combat Arms, from Nexon, first launched in the U.S. I thought there would be some sort of new dawn in the field of free to play MMOFPS games. I figured in a few years time, no one would be buying console shooters like Modern Warefare 2 and would instead play free to play MMO shooters. Boy was I wrong. Both Sudden Attack and Combat Arms were GOOD games, but newer free to play MMO shooters like K.O.S. Secret Operations, WolfTeam, Soldier Front, Operation 7 and Cross Fire are ALL the exact same! Well, not the exact same, but they’re all tactical shooters where your opponents die in 2-3 hits. Graphically, each of these games are a bit different, but in terms of core gameplay, they’re nearly identical.

In terms of playable game modes, each and every one of these MMO shooters have a Counter-Strike style “planet the bomb – defuse the bomb” game mode, a team deathmatch and a free for all mode. Once Combat Arms launched its own Zombie mode – every new tactical MMO copied it! Practically every single one of these shooters have their own “zombie” modes now. Even the brand new Mission Against Terror MMO shooter from Suba Games, which launched into open beta on September, 2010 – has a zombie mode. Oh, and it has the exact same game modes that every other MMO shooter has!

There is hope though. MicroVolts from RockHippo productions is a third person MMO shooter which is launching into open beta in October. It looks and plays a lot like Valve’s Team Fortress 2. S4 League is another third person shooter. It’s by Alaplaya and has fast paced gameplay and awesome MMO music. Battlefield Heroes is third person too – and is the first free to play MMO shooter from DICE. It plays much like other Battlefield games, except with a distinct cartoony look. The game’s RPG elements give it a nice touch and helps the game stand out. Alien Swarm from Valve and Robo Smasher from KRU Interactive are original too – so props to those games for actually making something unique.

I’ve actually played every single tactical MMO shooter out there and it’s shameful how similar they are to each other. Seriously. If you’ve played Cross Fire, you might as well have played every other “tactical” MMO shooter as they all run on the same exact engine. It seems like all MMOFPS games are the same. I think there’s only one original tactical MMO shooter – and that’s Alliance of Valiant Arms from ijji. It actually looks and plays different than all the other copy cat games. It actually plays a bit like Call of Duty 4, but that’s just my opinion. It’s also one of the best MMO shooters because of its originality.

What do you guys think about all of these MMO shooters copying each other? At least we can look forward to Genesis A.D From ijji in the coming months.

So Many Foreign MMORPGs

2010-09-19T12:46:00.000-07:00

You’d think that 200+ free to play client based MMORPGs available in North America is a lot, but in reality its nothing compared to the number of free to play games available in China and Korea. This is because “free to play” is the ‘norm’ in these countries. Paying monthly to play an MMORPG is unheard of in the East. Games like Age of Conan from Funcom and World of Warcraft from Blizzard Entertainment are still available in Asia, just with a different business model. Lineage 2 and Age of Conan for example are both free to play with cash shops in South Korea. In terms of variety, North America is lacking compared to Korea. Obviously the mega popular MMOs like MapleStory, Runes of Magic and Vindictus are available in both the East and West. Other smaller MMOs like Prius Online and Koongya adventure from Netmarble aren’t yet available in the U.S or Europe.

In fact, there are so many smaller free to play MMORPGs in South Korea and Japan that MMORPG players over there have much more variety. Even with 200+ free to play MMORPGs in the U.S. Variety Is lacking – especially since most free to play MMORPGs in the West are the same old fantasy MMORPGs rehashed. Anime MMORPGs like Luna Online and Fly For Fun look neat, but there are so many similar games. Heck, if you’ve played Luna Online, you might as well have played every other anime MMORPG from Adsa Story to Zu Online – as they’re all very similar. I’m sure a lot of games are clones of each other in Korea and Japan too, but with more games means more variety.

I know Korea is big in MMO development, but Japan isn’t. There are only a handful of MMOs actually developed in Japan. I think Ran Online and Pandora Saga are some of the only two. I’m talking free to play MMORPGs, not pay to play ones, so I’m excluding games like Final Fantasy 11 & 14. Oh, and there’s Florensia as well as CosmicBreak. Korean MMORPGs seem to be more popular than Japanese MMORPGs, as Nexon is one of the biggest MMO companies in the world, and they specialize in free to play games. Perfect World Entertainment – the company behind Battle of the Immortals, Perfect World, Forsaken World and Jade Dynasty is also very big on free to play MMOs. I think Perfect World Entertainment and Nexon are the two biggest MMORPG companies in the World. There aren’t too many Western MMO developers, yet, so most of the free to play titles in the U.S. Are imported and licensed from Korean developers. Firefall from Red5 Studios is supposed to be free to play and League of Legends is f2p. So aside from these there are very few new western developed f2p MMOs, though big companies here are starting to realize the potential of free to play. I think Electronic Arts has been doing a good job embracing the genre. They should make their upcoming Star Wars MMO “The Old Republic” free to play too. That would be awesome.

Anyway, I’m done with this long random rant =).

MMOs You can Play 5 Minutes a Day

2010-09-14T11:28:00.000-07:00

When people hear the term “MMO” or “MMORPG” they instantly think the game is ridiculously time consuming. There’s also a stereotype out there that MMORPG Players have no lives. Both of these statements are false. Not every single MMORPG consumes a person’s life. There are countless casual and social games which can be played for a few minutes each day. Browser based MMORPGs especially are designed to be played in short intervals. Games like War of Legends, Caesary and Heroes of Gaia are a few examples of some MMOs that can be played 10 minutes a day. A lot of “hard core” client based MMORPGs like Dungeons and Dragons Online and Grand Fantasia can certainly eat up a person’s entire day, as these games are BUILT to consume a lot of time. As I mentioned earlier though, there are plenty of games designed for casual players.

Facebook Games such as Farmville, Ninja Saga and Nightclub City for example are also designed to be played in short bursts. It doesn’t even make sense to play these games for hours at a time, as these games involve lots of waiting. Personally, I know a lot of non-gamers who play Happy Aquarium, Pet Society and Restaurant City. These Facebook Games are actually a rapidly growing market. I think they’re so successful because they attract both gamers and non-gamers. Plus, these games don’t involve any actual skill; players only need to click around every few hours to progress in these kinds of games, while actual in depth MMOs like Ace Online and Dragon Oath actaully take some sort of skill and understanding of game mechanics.

There are also a few browser based chat MMOs like IMVU, WoozWorld and Gaia Online which are designed for those looking for more of a social experience than a gaming one. Players in these kinds of games don’t have to play for hours at a time, but can instead play in short 30 minute bursts. The purpose of these games is to make friends and meet new people online – not slay monsters and complete quests. There are client based MMOs like Lost Saga, Audition Online and ShowUp which can also be played in short bursts. The reasons these games don’t take up too much time is because each individual round only takes 10 minutes or so in these MMOs. “Rounds” in League of Legends on the other hand, can take upwards of an hour – sometimes much longer.

So enough with these stereotypes. There are MMOs out there that can be played in short bursts. Not every MMORPG player is a bum who plays games all day.

Where Are all the Japanese MMORPGs?

2010-09-11T13:14:00.000-07:00

Japan has always been big on both video games and anime, but they’ve been very weak in MMORPGs. Japanese game developers like Square Enix and Konami are world renowned for their triple A games, but it seems like Japan is well behind countries like South Korea and China in the MMORPG space. Sure Square Enix has Final Fantasy 11 and Final Fantasy 14, but it seems like out of the 200+ free to play MMORPGs available in the U.S. Only a handful of them are Japanese developed. Games like Uncharted Waters Online from NetMarble and GetAmped2 from Cyber Step are Japanese developed, but for every Japanese developed MMORPG I can name a dozen Korean ones. The video game industry in Japan is big. And by big, I mean HUGE. Two of the biggest video game companies are based in Japan – Nintendo and Sony. To be fair, Sony Online Entertainment does have several MMORPGs in North America – Like Vanguard, Pirates of the Burning Seas, EverQuest 2 and numerous other titles – but none of these games were actually developed in Japan. So it wouldn’t be fair to call them Japanese MMORPGs.

So why isn’t Japan big on MMORPGs? I think it’s because they’re not great at developing these kinds of games. Don’t get me wrong – I love Japanese console games, but I’ve tried playing Uncharted Waters Online and strongly disliked it. Mostly because the interface sucked. Fantasy Earth Zero, which is published by GamePot USA is also one of the few Japanese developed MMOs in the U.S. The game isn’t bad, but it’s really old. The graphics just look ridiculously out dated. CosmicBreak unfortunately suffers from the same problem. The game is decent, but it just looks REALLY old. Pandora Saga looks a bit nicer, but it’s not at all popular in the U.S. – but that’s because it’s being published in Malaysia. U.S. Users can still access it though, because there aren’t any IP blocks in place.

The problem with Japanese MMORPGs is that they’re all incredibly old. Final Fantasy 14 and Dynasty Warriors Online are the newest MMORPGs developed in Japan. The rest of the titles available in North America are just really old games re-launching in North America. I actually had a chance to play the Final Fantasy 14 beta, and I was very disappointed. The game suffers from the same problem Uncharted Waters Online has – a terrible interface. Aside from the clunky interface, there’s a ton of lag while navigating the menus, that it’s just frustrating to play FF14. Hopefully Square Enix fixes these issues before launch. I Can’t say the same thing about Chinese MMORPGs. I mean, sure some Chinese developers like EnjoyMMO and TQ Digital make low quality games, but Perfect World Entertainment and ChangYou are well known for their very high quality titles. Forsaken World for example looks absolutely incredible – and I have no doubt that the game will be successful, as the company’s other games have been a big hit – See Perfect World, Jade Dynasty and Battle of the Immortals.

Anyway. Hopefully we can see some more Japanese MMORPGs here in the West.

Why Are Some New MMOs Terrible?

2010-09-08T07:49:00.000-07:00

You’d think as time goes on and technology improves, newer MMOs would be…. better? I’m not talking about gameplay, as whether a game is good in terms of gameplay is completely subjective. I’m talking about a game’s graphics and mechanics. Just look at Mission Against Terror from Subagames which just launched in North America in September 2010. I hate to say this, but the game is absolute trash. You may be thinking – sure it released in North America in 2010, but it could have been available in Asia for much longer, much like Digimon Battle from WeMade Entertainment, Monster Forest from AsiaSoft, and Uncharted Waters Online from Netmarble. – but that’s not the case here. Mission Against Terror LAUNCHED in Asia in late 2009, making the game less than a year old.

That means Mission Against Terror is newer than Alliance of Valiant Arms from ijji, newer than Wolfteam from Softnyx, newer than Combat Arms from Nexon and much newer then S4 League from Alaplaya, but if you looked at the game you’d think it was at least 7 years old. Visually, the game stinks. Unfortunately, we like to pretend graphics don’t matter, but graphics do matter. How about in terms of gameplay? Wolfteam and Combat Arms each have 25+ weapons available in their item stores, Mission Against Terror has like 8. In terms of level designs, the game fails even more. The game’s developer – Kingsoft just COPIED, literally copied, the famous De_Dust2 map from Counter-Strike. I’m not suggesting that the two maps are similar, I’m saying there are identical – because they are. What about the game’s music? Sure, I didn’t go into the game expecting a splendid musical score like the ones I found in Ragnarok Online or Sword 2, but I expected something. To my surprise, the game literally stole the Pirates of the Caribbean main theme. It plays in the background randomly while you’re gaming. How shameless can you get?

Mission Against Terror, sadly, isn’t the only new game to disappoint. Avalon Heroes from Alaplaya also sucked. Erebus Travia Reborn and Fists of Fu from Outspark were both bad games too. I say bad because there are better alternatives to all of these games. Fists of Fu isn’t a terrible game by itself, but compared to very similar games like Dragonica Online from Gravity, Fists of Fu does suck. If Dragonica didn’t exist, Fists of Fu would be decent. I know this article was a bit negative and I’m not always so angry, but seriously – Mission Against Terror is such a bad game it hurts.

I’ll end this post with a bit more positive stuff. Company of Heroes Online from THQ is a blast. I played the game during its beta and really enjoyed it. If you never heard of it, it’s basically Company of Heroes (The retail PC game), except with more features. Yeah, they made it completely free to play and added more features. Craft of Gods recently went free to play and it’s a decent game too. I would never consider paying for it, since it’s a pay to play MMORPG gone free to play, it’s decent.

They Should Make a Harvest Moon MMO

2010-09-03T01:13:00.000-07:00

How awesome would a Harvest Moon MMORPG be? Forget games like Farmville and Farm Town or any other Facebook game. I’m talking about a fully fledged farming MMO with some depth. I’ve always been a fan of the series since I played my first Harvest Moon game on the Super Nintendo. My favorite of the series has to be Friends of Mineral town for the gamebody advance though. I’ve played that game for ages.

There’s definitely a market out there for a farming MMO. Why? Just look at Farmville and, Farm Town and other cheap farming games on facebook! There are so many of them and they’re all REALLY popular. So if so many people are playing these bad farming games, I’m sure many would play a real farming MMORPG. Don’t give me the argument that farmville is a casual game, as most of the people I know who play it, spend HOURs a day on it – not 5 minutes here and there. I read somewhere that Zynga was making over hundred million a year from FarmVille alone. With a market that big, I’m surprised there are no actual client based farming games yet.

What I find really crazy is that there are SO many fantasy MMORPGs, Racing MMOs, Sports MMOs, Sci fi MMORPGs, Turn Based MMORPGs and such, but there are no farming games. Heck, there’s even a golfing MMO called Pangya, but no farming game. I think everyone should send emails to the developers over at Victor Interactive Software and ask for a Harvest Moon themed game. I mean, they keep releasing new games for 360, DS and PS3 but nothing online. Why? I’d gladly pay a monthly subscription to play a game like this.

I’d also really like to see a pokemon MMO. I think Nintendo is crazy for not releasing one. There’s a Digimon MMO called Digimon Battle which is by WeMade Entertainment – and it’s surprisingly popular. I’m serious if an 8 year old Digimon MMO can be successful, a Pokemon MMO could be huge. Perhaps even bigger than World of Warcraft or MapleStory! I know for a fact, MILLIONS of people would play. Nintendo wouldn’t have to do anything that creative either. Just use the same exact graphics as the Pokemon DS games, and make the world persistent, and bam you have an awesome Pokemon MMORPG. People like Pets in MMORPGs, so a Pokemon MMO would work really well.

What do you guys think? Wouldn’t a real client-based farming MMO be awesome?

New Wave of MMORTS Games

2010-08-27T16:03:00.001-07:00

The term MMORTS used to refer to cheesy empire building Evony like games. I say cheesy, because at the moment there are easily 100+ browser based empire building MMOs like Travian, Caesary,Tribal Wars, War of Legends and hundreds more. These games, for some reason, are absurdly popular. All of these games are browser-based as well. This is all about to change though.

GamesCampus – the company behind MLB Dugout Heroes, Asda Story, Shot Online, Legend of Edda and numerous other games, launched a revolutionary new MMORTS called Soul Master. I say revolutionary because it’s actually client based, and get this – fun. It mixes action MMORPG elements with pikmin like strategy. The combat is fluid and well paced. The levels themselves feel a bit similar to Dragonica Online and Divine Souls – as players can run through each level multiple times under different difficulties. For some odd reason, this particular system of progression has become really popular. Fists of Fu from Outspark and even Vindictus from Nexon employ similar progression systems. I think Lunia from ijji was the first game to have stage based linear gameplay. Each stage is instanced. Luckily, the main town area acts as a social hub where players can grab quests, buy items and interact with others.

Soul Master is definitely going to shake things up as it’s actually an original game. It feels a bit like Divine Souls, but with a twist. It’s not just a straight up action MMORPG. Players have to utilize clever strategy if they expect to complete a level. Luckily, if a stage proves too difficult, players can party up with others to complete it. All of this should be very familiar to those who have played Dragonica Online or even GhostX from GameKiss to a degree – as in its core Soul Master is very similar to these action MMORPGs. It only really differences itself by mixing RTS components with its gameplay, which actually work really well and are quite fun.

Have you played Soul Master yet? If not, definitely give it a chance! It’s a fun game.

More Anime MMORPGs Coming Soon

2010-08-22T13:25:00.001-07:00

A lot of new anime themed MMORPGs are coming out in the next few months. Many of them have been announced already and many of them are just starting their closed beta. August, 2010 has been a great month for free to play anime games! Gpotato announced Iris Online, which looks amazing. Looks like Bright Shadow from GamePot USA, except much brighter and more colorful. I personally love anime graphics in video games for some reason, so I’m definitely excited about Iris. Prior to Iris Online, gPotato only had Fly For Fun as an anime themed MMORPG and it’s been getting old. I mean, it’s a great game, but it’s really old now. Another new anime inspired MMORPG from gPotato that was announced recently is Prius Online. Netmarble is the company that publishes it in South Korea, so I’m surprised they’re not publishing it on their global portal, and instead, are letting gPotato publish it. I never really heard much about Prius Online, but I recently read an article on a news site that a couple in South Korea were so addicted to the game that they had forgotten to feed their child. The game must be good!

Kitsu Saga is another 3D anime MMORPG i’m looking forward to trying once it releases. The game is published by Aeria Games and was developed by the same company who also made Grand Fantasia – one of my favorite MMORPGs. Like Zentia and Dragon Oath, Kitsu Saga is supposed to be martial arts themed. I’m not crazy about the whole martial arts thing, but so long as the game is fun – that’s all that matters. The game is actually called JS Online in South Korea and its supposed to launch in north America sometime in late 2010.

I’ve been playing older MMORPGs like Secret of the Solstice and Fiesta Online from Outspark for a while. So seeing all these new MMORPGs being announced is great. Both Fiesta and Secret of the Solstice are solid games, but i’m looking to try something else. Mostly because I’ve played these games to death. I tried Fantasy Earth Zero from GamePot USA but couldn’t get into it. The same goes for Asda Story from GamesCampus. I’m really looking forward to some of these newer games though. Until they come out, I’ll probably kill some time playing some Lost Saga on OGPlanet and Soul Master. Both games are fairly new and incredibly fun. If you haven’t played them do give them a chance!

A look at Anime MMORPGs

2010-08-15T11:16:00.000-07:00

Since most free to play MMORPGs are developed in the East, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that many of them are Anime MMORPGs – visually speaking. In fact, most free to play games available here in the West through publishers like Aeria Games, OG Planet and Alaplaya are all developed in places like South Korea, China and Japan – where Anime is popular. To give you guys a better idea of where these MMOs come from, the most well known Korean MMORPG developers are Nexon (Think Vindictus and MapleStory) and Webzen (Think Soul of the Ultimate Nation). The most well known Chinese MMORPG developers are probably Perfect World Entertainment (Think Jade Dynasty and Battle of the Immortals) and ChangYou (Think Zentia and Dragon Oath). The biggest Japanese MMO developer is probably Square Enix with Final Fantasy 11 and maybe CyberStep with Getamped 2 and CosmicBreak.

Anyway, with so many anime inspired MMORPGs available from the super cute Luna Online to the more serious yet bright themed Cloud Nine, MMO gamers have a lot of choices available to them. In my opinion though the best anime MMORPG is probably MapleStory from Nexon. After that, other great anime inspired MMORPGs are Mabinogi, Fiesta Online, Secret of the Solstice and Grand Chase. I think more than half of the free to play MMORPGs out there are anime inspired. The first free to play MMORPG which I’ve played is Ragnarok Online from Gravity. Back when I played it, it wasn’t free to play, but I played on a private server. The game is free to play now, at least one one official server – Valkyrie. I’m actually not a fan of Japanese anime television / manga, but I still enjoy playing anime inspired games. I really love the art style – more so than realistic games actually. I mean, realistic MMORPGs like Karos Online and Sword 2 are good, but I just prefer the look and feel of anime inspired games more.

There are a lot of other anime MMORPGs which I didn’t mention here. If you know of any awesome ones that I didn’t bring up, leave their names in the comments below! I’m actually currently playing Grand Fantasia from Aeria Games and it’s a lot of fun. It’s definitely one of my favorites!

Dead Free MMORPGs

2010-08-10T14:24:00.000-07:00

Recently two more free to play MMOs announced that they would be shutting down. Earth Eternal and The Chronicles of Spellborn. Earth Eternal was a browser based game by Sparkplay Media that played a bit like Runes of Magic and Allods Online. The game’s charm was that it offered a WoW alternative, but on the browser. The game was definitely a technological marvel, as it was one of the browser based games, aside from maybe FusionFall, which had great graphics. The game lasted less than a year, which is quite sad. The Chronicles of Spellborn on the other hand, was a failure from the get-go. The game was originally published as a pay to play game by its developer, but it went bankrupt within 3 months of the game’s release. Since then, Acclaim Games picked up the service as ran it as a free to play game for about a year. Acclaim Games never attempted to monetize the game, so it was guaranteed to fail. The game’s skill system was interesting and somewhat resembled Mytheon from UTV True Games. Both games never managed to attract a very high playerbase. No matter, it’s always sad to see an MMORPG shut down.

Aside from these two MMORPGs, several other MMORPGs were shut down in the last month. Project Torque from Aeria Games and Three Kingdoms: The Battle Begins from Uforia both announced that they would shut down in August 2010. Project Torque will be re-launched as Heat Online by another company, so that’s good, but Three Kingdoms: The Battle Begins will be gone for good. No worries though, as gamers can check out Heroes of Three Kingdoms, Kingdom Heroes or any one of the other Three Kingdoms inspired MMORPGs.

Even with the announcements of these games closing down, free to play enthusiasts should remain excited about the genre. It seems like for every free to play MMORPG to shut down, there are 5 more to take its place. By the time these games shut down, MicroVolts, Legendary Champions, King of Kings 3, Legends of Edda and many other upcoming MMORPGs will take their place. So even though games are shutting down, more new games are being announced and launching. Just like everything else, bad games will shut down and new ones will replace them. In the long run, the free to play space will be bigger and have better games. Why am I so confident? Because big Western firms are starting to embrace the genre. I played Company of Heroes Online the other day from THQ Relic and was very impressed with it. I was also super impressed with Need for Speed World Online from Electronic

So Yeah. Older less popular games will shut down, but these dead MMORPGs will be replaced with newer, better games.

Spicing up old MMO Ideas

2010-08-06T14:30:00.000-07:00

I played Land of Chaos Online from Alaplaya the other day and I have to admit, I’m pleasantly surprised. The game itself still needs polish but the idea behind the game is quite awesome. It’s inspired by aeon of strife games like Avalon Heroes and League of Legends, but instead of a standard top down RTS style gameplay, Land of Chaos Online features action packed gameplay with a third person camera. It blends FPS, RTS and RPG elements – much like Savage 2. Like I said, the game still needs a lot of work, more characters, and skills but even as is, the game is quite fun. Each hero in the game has 10 skills. That’s incredible. Especially considering DotA and HoN heroes have four skills. The variety is intense.

Land of Chaos Online isn’t the only game spicing up old formulas. Runes of Magic was one of the first mega popular free MMORPGs to do this. It took the World of Warcraft formula, and spiced it up by adding a dual classing system. Yeah, so even though Runes of Magic is a WoW Clone, it’s an amazing one. The game’s dual classing system gives it so much depth. Frogster did a brilliant job with the game. It’s much better than Talisman Online, Allods Online and the other WoW clones out there. The game’s soundtrack is also quite nice. I believe the game released its third major content update, so Frogster has done a swell job keeping the game fresh. I love how they took the WoW idea and spiced it up. The dual classing system is awesome. Sure, it’s not exactly original, as Guild Wars from NCSoft also had dual classing, but Runes of Magic was the first free to play MMORPG with such a system.

Next up is Wolfteam – the MMOFPS developed by Softnyx. Wolfteam took the basic MMOFPS gameplay from Sudden Attack and made it original. It did this by giving players the ability to transform into powerful melee wolves at anytime. Sure, the game is still largely an FPS – meaning most of the time it makes more sense to have your gun equipped, but giving players the option of turning into a wolf adds another layer of gameplay to Wolfteam. In the MMOFPS genre, this extra layer of depth means quite a bit, especially since all of these MMOFPS games in their core (Mercenary Wars, Operation 7, Soldier Front, etc) are all the same.

Know of any other free to play game that took an old idea, but spiced it up? Post it in the comments below!

MMORPGs on the Horizon – August, 2010

2010-08-01T20:31:00.000-07:00

There are a bunch of cool free to play games on the horizon that I’m looking forward to trying. I don’t know if I’ll stick to any of these games, but August is starting to look like an awesome month for MMORPGs! The first game on my list to try in August, 2010 is the elephant in the room – Vindictus from Nexon. The game is scheduled to begin its closed beta in mid-August and I was lucky enough to get into the closed beta. I’ve been a fan of Nexon’s games since the release of MapleStory back in like 2004. I’ve also played Mabinogi quite a bit and still play Combat Arms regularly. I think it’s actually safe to say Combat Arms is the most successful free MMOFPS game in the U.S. I know Sudden Attack is super popular in Asia, but not so much in the U.S. In fact, Sudden Attack is considered the “Counter-Strike of Asia”. There are so many tournaments for it!

Anyway, I’m getting a bit distracted. I also plan on trying Divine Souls and Fists of Fu from Outspark. Both games went into closed beta in mid to late July, but I suspect they will both begin their open betas in August. I didn’t want to play either game too much in closed beta, as there will almost certainly be a wipe before open beta. Another upcoming MMORPG that looks awesome is King of Kings 3 from Gamigo. I actually made sure King of Kings 3 would be available to U.S. Users before I got excited over it, as Martial Empires from Gamigo announced they would ban U.S. Ips when it launched. So I wanted to make sure King of Kings 3 would be playable from the U.S. And it will be. I’m looking forward to playing it because it apparently has excellent PvP. The game’s guild system is awesome and it player housing as well, something most games just don’t have.

On the “MMO” front I plan on trying MicroVolts when its closed beta begins on August 12. A lot of sites are giving away closed betas keys for it, and I got mine a few days ago. I’ve always been a fan of shooting games, so I suspect I’ll like MicroVolts, especially since it has the whole Team Fortress 2 cartoony look to it. I also played a bit of FreeJack last month when it began its closed beta, but I’m hoping it fully releases this month, so I can play it some more. FreeJack is cool because it’s one of the only racing MMOs on foot. Think Tales Runner, but with more awesome graphics. The tracks are awesome and there are a bunch of little features in the game that make it fun.

I think I covered just about everything that’s coming out in August, 2010. If I missed anything let me know in the comments.

EverQuest 2 is Free to Play! Awesome

2010-07-29T00:16:00.001-07:00

Sony Online Entertainment announced yesterday that their flag ship MMORPG EverQuest II would be going free to play. Well not entirely, but basically. As is, The free to play version – called EverQuest II: Extended will be separate from the current pay to play service, but offer most of the same content. EQ: Extended will offer the base EQ2 game and five expansion packs. Only 8 or so races and classes will be available, but the rest can be purchased for a small one time fee. Since all of the classes are balanced, it’s not really a big deal. Come to think of it, Dungeons and Dragons Online from Turbine offers the same level of “free to play”, as certain classes and races in it also need to be purchased.

So now that EverQuest II is going free to play, what’s next? If EverQuest 2 becomes a big success, there’s no doubt in my mind that Sony Online Entertainment’s other games, including Vanguard, Star Wars Galaxies and Pirates of the Burning Sea will go free to play. I Think Sony has actually seen first hand that free to play can work, as Free Realms, their first experiment with free to play, has been a big success. Maybe not in terms of revenues, as I don’t know how successful free realms is, but in terms of volume, the game has some 4+ million users. To put that into perspective – games like Allods Online from gPotato and Eudemons Online from TQ Digital have less than 4 million users each. So in terms of users, Free Realms is doing good.

If the free to play version of EverQuest II does well, there’s no doubt in my mind that other tier 2 pay to play MMORPGs like Age of Conan from Funcom and Eve Online from CCP will go free to play. Warhammer Online and Lineage 2 will also likely follow. I’ve played the free trials for all of these games and they’re really good. I just don’t want to pay for them! Unfortunately, all of this depends on how successful EverQuest II is. If the free to play version is a flop, it would be terrible for the industry. With top notch games like EQ2 and The Lord of the Rings Online going free to play though, I think it’s safe to say that “free to play” is indeed the future. At least for the time being.

I’ve always wanted to get into EverQuest 2, but I didn’t want to pay for it – so I’m very excited about this announcement! I can’t wait until the free to play open beta begins on August 12. I hope to see you all in game!

Soul Master is an Interesting MMORPG

2010-07-24T23:07:00.001-07:00

Yeah, I’m dedicating this entire post to an MMORPG called Soul Master from GamesCampus. Why you ask? Simple. It’s one of the most creative / original free to play MMORPGs I’ve ever played. It’s in closed beta as I write this, but I’m very impressed by it. It’s a unique mix between an Action MMORPG, a strategy MMORPG and Pikmin. It may sound a bit weird, but it all works together really nicely. Progression is a bit linear, much like Lunia from ijji and Fists of Fu from Outspark, The progression is actually EXACTLY like Fists of Fu / Dragonica Online, as players need to complete a stage before being able to advance to another one. Come to think of it, it’s just like Dungeon Fighter Online as well. Each level can be played in numerous different difficulty settings. The toughest a level, the more rewarding it is.

I also like the graphics in Soul Master too. They’re anime inspired and bright. I don’t know why, but I have a thing for brightly themed games. I guess it’s why I enjoyed Bright Shadow from GamePot USA and Cloud Nine from Netgame. I also tend to like anime MMORPGs for some reason. It’s weird, because I don’t even watch anime in real life. The fast paced gameplay in Soul Master is actually a lot of fun too. They actually a lot like GhostX from GameKiss, as players can rack up combos with each attack. Come to think of it, I’ve grown very fond of action games lately. I guess the slow paced combat systems in other MMORPGs bores me after playing so many action MMORPGs lately.

Even though Soul Master is in closed beta, I recommend MMORPG Players give the game a try. Even though it’s yet another 3D MMORPG set in a fantasy setting, it’s quite original. You actually have to micro-manage your individual units as well as your character to do well. It’s the only game that mixes action MMORPG elements with strategy. The PvP is really neat too, because it takes an enormous amount of skill. PvP MMORPGs like Aika Online are fun too, but they don’t take a lot of skill. It usually comes down to whoever has the best gear wins, but in Soul Master that isn’t always the case. Sure, better gear helps, but whoever micro-manages better ends up winning. If you already have an Asda Story account, you can use that to log in to Soul Master, as it’s by the same publisher. Anyway, props to the developers behind the game for making something unique.

High Quality Free to Play Games

2010-07-18T21:39:00.000-07:00

Just because a game is “free to play”, doesn’t mean it’s “low quality”. There’s a pretty terrible stereotype out there, mostly amongst forums for pay to play MMOs like World of Warcraft and Warhammer Online, that free to play means “low quality and bad”. What many of these folks bashing F2P don’t realize is that many pay to play games have gone free to play. Dungeons and Dragons Online from Turbine and Archlord from Webzen were both once subscription based pay to play MMORPGs, but are now free to play titles with cash shops.

There are many MANY free to play games out right now that are much “higher quality” than other pay to play games as well. Allods Online from gPotato for example had a 12+ million dollar budget. I’m not saying that Allods Online is “better” than pay to play games, but it’s certainly on the same level in terms of quality. Black Prophecy from Gamigo looks just as “good” as Eve Online from CCP, and it’s completely free. Well, not completely, as it does have a cash shop, but it’s still free to play. Martial Empires from Gamgio has also proven that free to play does not have to be “cheap.”

I do have to admit though, that there are a lot of very cheap free to play Chinese and Korean MMORPGs. Games like Age of Armor from Snail Games and Avalon Heroes from Alaplaya. In fact, there are easily 50+ “terrible” MMORPGs, which no human should play. I think that many pay to play players are turned off from free to play games because they’ve had poor experienced with these cheap games. Pro tip guys, skip games like Azuga: Age of Chaos and Battle of Destiny and stick with the Triple-A titles like Runes of Magic, Dungeons and Dragons Online and Allods Online.

So is free to play better than pay to play? I think so, but I don’t think it’s fair to generalize things. World of Warcraft is still an unmatched title in quality, content and variety. I don’t think any free to play game can come close to it. But there are free to play games that rival, if not surpass other pay to play MMORPGs – Especially the second tier pay to play games like Dark Age of Camelot and Pirates of the Burning Sea. I feel that some of these second tier games should go free to play, as there’s no reason to pay for them when there are better titles available.

MMORPG Culture - Roleplaying, Marriage and Casual players

2010-07-15T00:45:00.000-07:00

There’s a lot of little things in MMORPGs which I never really understood. One of the big ones is why do people Roleplay in MMORPGs? What’s the point? I can see it being fun if EVERYONE participated, but that’s rarely the case. In PvP heavy MMORPGs like Darkfall, Perfect World and Eudemons Online it’s even more difficult, because people can PK you anywhere in the game world. If everyone isn’t participating and roleplaying, it’s sort of easy to get distracted, especially when someone is jumping up and down and spamming “NOOB” as you try to roleplay the scenario out. Modern day MMOs just aren’t good platforms for roleplaying. At least the MMORPGs. MMOs like Second Life work well in roleplaying, as these games are designed for it. MMORPGs are designed with game mechanics in mind, not roleplaying, so it makes sense that the vast majority of people that play MMORPGs play them for the mechanics. Roleplaying in Second Life can definitely be fun. Especially since you can roleplay in any environment! Sci-fi, fantasy, modern-day, anything! I guess I understand roleplaying, but I find it silly when people try to do it in games like Fiesta Online and Fists of Fu, as these games are NOT designed for it.

One really silly thing in A LOT of MMORPGs is marriage. Yes, Marriage in MMORPGs. A few games that support marriage are Ragnarok Online, MapleStory and Secret of the Solstice. Many other free to play games support it as well. I know Frogster recently updated their flagship game Runes of Magic to add support for marriage as well, but even less known games like Grand Chase and Trickster Online from Ntreev have in game marriages. My question is, what’s the point? The person you’re marrying is probably a dude anyway, as there are no girls in gaming! Girls in MMORPGs… Psh! What a funny concept! I jest of course, as with half the world’s population being female, it would be ridiculous to say girls don’t play video games, as they do. But I can’t see why people marry each on in game. There’s absolutely no reason for it. In most free to play games, you actually have to pay for the privilege to marry someone as well, so not only is it pointless, it costs money! Some games actually give you bonuses for marrying, which is the only reason I could think of to get married in a game.

What are some other weird phenomenons that occur in MMORPGs… Hmm. How about casual players vs hardcore ones? Most games have both kinds of players, I tend to be a hardcore player, as when I play a game, I usually play it for many hours each day. It’s really the only way to get ahead. I can’t imagine playing a game like Atlantica Online from Ndoors or Cloud Nine from Netgame for only an hour or so a day. In like a year, you would be nowhere. It would take weeks to level up! Do you folks consider yourselves casual or hardcore players? I’m Curious!

Do Graphics really matter in MMORPGs?

2010-07-11T20:49:00.000-07:00

I’ve been playing MMORPGs since Ultima Online first released in 1998. Lately I’ve been more into free to play games, but I’ve been around the block quite a bit on both the free to play and pay to play neighborhoods. I absolutely loved Ultima Online, which is was by Origins Systems but is now by Electronic Arts. After quitting it I moved onto EverQuest from Sony Online Entertainment and Dark Age of Camelot from Mythic. Two other pay to play titles. It wasn’t until after I quit World of Warcraft that I got into free to play games. The first one I really liked was Ragnarok Online from Gravity, and it certainly did not have good graphics. In fact, I think it’s safe to say Ragnarok Online has much worse graphics than most MMORPGs. It’s a 3D game but with 2D sprites. After playing and enjoying Ragnarok Online I played a bunch of other free to play games.

LaTale from OGPlanet and WonderKing from Ndoors are examples of two other good MMORPGs with low end graphics. These two games naturally have bad graphics because they’re 2D side scrolling MMORPGs. Both of these games are critically acclaimed, but they have really old graphics. On the other hand, gorgeous looking fantasy MMORPGs like Neo Online from PlayOMG and Neo Steam from Atlus Online are okay games at best, even though they have solid graphics. I don’t think there is any correlation between how good a game’s graphics are and how good the actual game is. Of course there are good games with great graphics (think Atlantica Online, Mytheon and Forsaken World for example). I’m just tired of people saying that good graphics are the most important aspect of a game, when gameplay is much more important.

I think far too many games today are focusing more on graphics instead of gameplay, when in reality gameplay is much more important. Look at Battle of the Immortals from Perfect World Entertainment for example. It focuses much more on gameplay than anything else and it succeeds. It’s a really popular free MMORPG and actually one of the best MMORPGs out there. Why you ask? Because the developers care more about gameplay than graphics. The graphics in it are second rate at best, but the gameplay feels a bit like Diablo 2, which is incredibly fun. Maybe I’m just a sucker for action MMORPGs, but I really do like Battle of the Immortals. It has an awesome MMORPG Pet system and a large game world.

MMORPG Playerbase is Important

2010-07-09T19:02:00.000-07:00

I hate signing into a shiny new free to play MMORPG and seeing the game’s servers completely empty. This applies for MMO games as well. I remember logging into Martial Empires (It’s a sequel to Martial Heroes) from Gamigo the other day, and I was pleased to see a very active in game world. Players running around grinding and completing quests everywhere. The game also let players speak in global world chat, so it was always easy to communicate with others while grinding. Plus a trade channel made commerce in the game really easy. I found the global chat to be a lot of fun, as just talking to others was a way to keep myself busy while I completed quests. Unfortunately after Gamigo announced they would ban all U.S. Ips from accessing the game, so I stopped playing it.

After I stopped playing Martial Empires, I downloaded Beach Volleyball Online from a new MMO publisher – Digital Radiance Entertainment. As the name suggests, the game is a volleyball themed MMO and its the only one out there. After playing FIFA Online and Project Powder, I’ve grown to like sports MMOs. I didn’t like Beach Volleyball Online at all though. The core gameplay feels slow paced and broken. The graphics are also terribly glitchy and on the low end. Where the game fails the most though is its incredibly low playerbase. The game markets itself as both a sports MMO and a social game, but unfortunately with such a small playerbase, it is by no means a social MMO. It kinda tries to do what ShowUp did with the whole social aspect on top of the core gameplay.

After uninstalling Beach Volleyball Online I downloaded and installed Blade Wars – the new 2D MMORPG from ChangYou. It looks and plays a lot like Dragon Oath, except with a cool combo based combat system. The core gameplay was pretty fun, but the game had a terribly low playerbase. Seriously. I hate playing empty games, because I feel as if I’m playing them for no reason. I’d much rather play a game with an incredibly high playerbase but poor graphics and gameplay than a great game with no players. That’s just me though.

There’s a reason I go back to playing games like Alliance of Valiant Arms, S4 League and League of Legends when I get bored of other games. It’s because they all have very healthy playerbases. They’re popular games that are rarely empty.

Sci-fi MMORPGs – The Untapped Genre

2010-07-05T08:40:00.000-07:00

There are a ton of great fantasy MMORPGs. Games like Allods Online, Aika Online and Twelve Sky 2 just to name a few. There are so many great fantasy MMORPGs out there, both 3D and 2D. The problem is though, there are very few other types of MMORPGs. Fantasy games seem to be the standard amongst free to play MMORPGs. I’d actually love to see more sci-fi themed games, as I’m a huge fan of Sci-fi in general. Some of my favorite television shows include FireFly, Star Trek, Babylon 5 and so on. I know Cyrptic has Star Trek Online, but from what I’ve heard it stinks. I know there are a few other random Sci-fi MMORPGs like RF Online and Megaten, but both games leave me wanting more.

RF Online used to be a pay to play game but it went free to play. After it went free to play, the game sorta went no where. A lot of pay to play games that went free to play became super successful, especially Dungeons and Dragons Online, but other games like Archlord (Webzen) and FusionFall (Cartoon Network) have done decently as well. RF Online is sort of a joke now, because when you first create your character, you start off with some of the best weapons in the game, so you can 1 shot everything and anything near the newbie areas. In fact, I found myself 1 shotting enemies significantly higher level than my character. Starting off with absurdly powerful gear is pretty stupid, because it ruins progression in the game. I remember completing a quest that gave me a new weapon that did 100-120 damage, but my started weapon did 2350-3205. Seriously. What’s the point? The leveling is really fast too, because of your absurdly powerful weapon. It felt a bit like Tantra Online, as that game also has really fast experience.

There are a few decent sci-fi themed MMORPGs like GhostX from GameKiss and Anarchy Online from Funcom, but unfortunately no real triple A titles. There are a bunch of low quality 2D sci-fi MMORPGs as well. Games like 2029 Online and Galaxy Online from IGG. These game’s aren’t terrible, but they’re low quality, and it shows. I don’t think anything is as bad as Age of Armor from Snail Games or Project of Planets. Is there future of MMORPGs really more fantasy games? I really think the sci-fi genre is the most untapped in the MMORPG space. There’s only so much you can do with the fantasy theme (Orcs. Goblins, Warriors, Mages…). With Sci-fi developers can do so much more. You could call Eve Online a triple-A title, but it’s a pay to play game. I’d like to see a triple-A free to play sci-fi MMORPG!

MMORPGs and MMOs With Great Graphics

2010-07-03T09:58:00.001-07:00

I’ve noticed that free to play MMORPGs over the years have vastly improved their graphics. 8 Years ago the best looking free to play MMORPG was RuneScape from Jagex, but thing have advanced forward quite fast. Nowdays, there are countless MMOs and MMORPGs that look great. The list below looks at the top 5 best looking free to play games in terms of graphics.

#1 Need for Speed World

This one came out in July, 2010 and has easily the best graphics I’ve seen in any free to play game. It’s a 3D racing MMO published by Electronic Arts. It plays a lot like RayCity and Drift City expect with much more awesome graphics. The game has an enormous persistent world where players can drive around and smash into other cars and objects. Players will need a fairly high end graphics card to run Need for Speed World with maximum settings. Graphics aside, Need for Speed World is one of the best racing MMOs ever.

#2 Alliance of Valiant Arms

Alliance of Valiant Arms is a gorgeous MMOFPS game by ijji. It’s actually a “tactical MMOFPS” so it’s not much different than other shooters in terms of core gameplay, but graphically, the game is absolutely stunning. There’s nothing like it. It actually looks as good as Modern Warfare 2, which is a pay to play game!

#3 Martial Empires

This one is also a relatively new MMORPG that launched into open beta in July 2010. The game is by Gamigo and set in a fantasy environment. Gameplay is fast paced, there are plenty of quests, but the game’s strongest aspect is its top notch graphics. The game was developed by CR-Space and is a sequel to Martial Heroes (another game by the same company). Graphically, the game looks a bit like Tales of Fantasy from IGG, except with much crisper graphics. Graphics aside, Martial Empires is a fun game that’s worth playing!

#4 Sword of the New World

This one is a bit of an oldie, as it was released a few years ago. The game is by GamersFirst and has gorgeous 3D graphics and is set in a Victorian era fantasy world. Players control 3 characters at a time, so it’s a bit like Atlantica Online, minus the turn based gameplay. The game received a major update recently and the name of the game technically changed to Sword2.

#5 Aika Online

Aika Online is a PvP MMORPG from gPotato with up to 1000 vs 1000 epic realm vs realm battles. The graphics aren’t “cartoony” like Allods Online and Runes of Magic, but rather realistic fantasy. The game has a good deal of classes and a large enough game world to keep players busy. The exp rate is a bit too low for my taste though.

MMORPGs That Will Never Release

2010-06-27T08:50:00.000-07:00

I hate seeing awesome new MMORPGs sitting in perpetual closed beta, or perpetual “coming” soon status. Some of the games I’ve been waiting for will unfortunately never see the light of day. One of those games is Dance Groove Online from OutSpark. The game had its first closed beta 7 months ago, but since then there’s been zero update. The official site says “open beta coming soon” but it’s been that way for 7 months now. It doesn’t seem like it’s going to launch anytime soon. This sorta sucks, as I’m a fan of games like Audition Online from T3Fun and even Dance Online from Acclaim. These rhythm based dancing MMOs are surprisingly fun. I was looking forward to Dance Groove Online because the game was developed by Electronic Arts, so it was bound to be very high quality, as EA’s other free to play games including FIFA Online and BattleForge are quite amazing. It seems like Outspark will never launch Dance Groove Online, just like they never launched Blackshot and Erebus: Travia Reborn.

Another MMORPG that looks like it’ll never release is Huxley: The Dystopia from ijji. I’d bet anything that this game will never come out. The game was originally designed and planned out as a console FPS, but for some reason decided to be a pay to play MMOFPS. In its latest development the game decided to be free to play and announced that ijji would publish it. After two closed beta, the game has been in “coming soon” mode for over 5 months now. This is too bad, especially since Huxley looked pretty original compared to ijji’s other MMO shooters, which include Soldier Front, Genesis A.D, Karma: Operation Barbarossa and Alliance of Valinat Arms. The reason why Huxley was different is that it had persistent world MMO elements and actual RPG style progression. The only other game like that was PlanetSide from Sony Online Entertainment and that is a pay to play game with a free trial.

Yet another game that’s likely to never release is Altis Gates from IGG. It’s supposed to be some cool new turn based MMORPG, but its open beta has been delayed twice now and the second time it has been delayed “indefinitely”. When Open betas MMOs get delayed, it’s never a good sign. Hero:108 Online delayed its open beta for only one day just recently, but when a game delays “indefinitely” it’s always a bad sign. Uforia recently delayed Camon Hero indefinitely, so I’m a bit upset about that. Camon Hero looked awesome, but I haven’t lost hope on that one yet. I’m starting to get worried about Land of Chaos Online from Alaplaya, which has no defined open beta date. Not having a clear beta schedule is also a bad sign.

If I missed any other MMORPGs that will never release, let me know in the comments.

Back to S4 League and Combat Arms!

2010-06-23T13:32:00.001-07:00

I tried getting into Eve Online the other day, but once again failed. This is like my fourth failure, as I’ve downloaded and installed the game four times now only to quit within a few days. Luckily I can try the MMORPG free trial every time, so it doesn’t cost any money. Luckily, every time I quit playing an MMORPG I can always go back to playing S4 League and Combat Arms. Two MMOFPS games that have been my “fall back” games for quite a while. Whenever I get bored of playing an game, I just go back to these two titles and I’m good to go. I’ve been playing these games for years and yet S4 League from Alaplaya and Combat Arms from Nexon keep me coming back for more. It doesn’t really make much sense, as you’d imagine an MMOFPS would get boring after a while, but it just never does. Of course I try new games as well, it’s just that when I quit playing the new MMOs I try, I can always go back to these games and have fun!

I remember going through like five random new MMORPGs in one day. I played Neo Online, Pet Forest, and Azuga: Age of Chaos from PlayOMG and unfortunately none of them kept my attention. I played them for a few hours each actually, so I gave them a fair chance. Then I jumped right into Luna Online from gPotato. I already had an account with them back when I used to play Rappelz, so trying Luna Online was convenient. Luna was a bit weird though. The game played off as a cute MMORPG, and the whole cuteness of it made the game feel awkward, as players were younger kids, but NPCs were adults. I dunno. I just felt I couldn’t connect with the world. Right after playing and quitting all of these games I jumped in MapleStory from Nexon, which is my third “fall back” MMORPG. A game that I feel I could play often without ever getting tired. MapleStory is my favorite side scrolling MMORPG by far and also my favorite 2D MMORPG. The game just has so much to do, it’s hard to get bored of it!

I honestly can’t answer why these games are entertaining, even after I’ve played them to death. Even after playing Atlantica Online from Ndoors for months, I was able to jump right into S4 League for some instant fun. The thing about MMOs that make them so fun, is that you can jump right into them. MMORPGs on the other hand, you need to grind for a while before you can get to the fun late game content which includes PvP and raiding. In PvP MMORPGs like Kingdom Heroes and Aika Online, you need to play for a month at least before you can experience the fun PvP content towards the mid-end game. So players do need to commit a lot of time to those games before they can get to the fun bits.

I’m sure some of you guys have your own “fall back” or “back up” MMOs / MMORPGs as well? Mine are S4 League, Combat arms and to a degree MapleStory. What are yours?

Downloading Eve Online.. Again

2010-06-20T02:56:00.001-07:00

I’m going to give Eve Online another chance. I just created my 14 day MMO free trial account and I’m downloading the game right now. I’m downloading at a cool 3MB/s so my client should be done in 13 minutes. Eve Online is a gave I’ve always wanted to get into, but for some reason never could. Twice I quit the game before finishing its tutorial. Yeah, the game is that intimidating. I’ve read a lot about it on MMORPG review sites and aside from Ultima Onlineback in 1999 it is by far the most ‘open” and PvP heavy pay to play MMORPG ever. Players can kill each other just about anywhere in the universe. Neat huh? Unfortunately even though Eve Online sounds really cool it has one of the steepest learning curves ever.

One aspect of the game I dislike is that older accounts are ALWAYS more powerful than newer one. The skill progression system is pretty random. Players gain skill all the time, even when they’re logged off with no max skill cap. With the amount of skills in the game, it’s impossible for anyone to master them all, so players tend to specialize. I mean, you could master them all, but it would take like 20+ years. Older accounts have ultimately more learned skills than newer ones – no matter what. Most MMORPGs including free to play ones like Gates of Andaron from GameForge,Neo Steam from Atlus Online and even Magic World Online from EnjoyMMO are built so no player late game is more powerful than others. The whole older accounts have more skills thing is pretty silly in my opinion. Luckily though, there are so many skill trees, it doesn’t make sense for anyone to even TRY learning everything. EVERYONE specializes, so a 1 month old player could have more skill in one type of skill than a player who has been playing for years.

Eve Online has so many interesting aspects that I really want to dive into. The game supposedly has one of the coolest in game economies ever. Even more so than Luminary: Rise of the Goonzufrom ijji, which had a stellar in game economy. Heck, I remember reading a big Eve Online bank scandal in The New York Times. How many other big in game scams get published in such a reputable paper? None. Eve Online also has a massive Corporation vs Corporation PvP system. Players can band together and form Corps which are guilds in game. These Corps can band together to form alliances, and alliances can control various outposts and territory in space. It’s not uncommon for thousands of ships to be in one area at once to battle it out. Yeah, Thousands of players. The only other game with that kind of massive PvP is Aika Online from gPotato, which boasts 1000 vs 1000 PvP.

Anyway folks. I’m almost done with my free trial download. I’ll make sure to let you know if I get passed the free trial this time!

Playing MMORPGs in Korea

2010-06-15T18:52:00.001-07:00

One of my buddies here in the U.S. Is moving to Korea later this year. Sorta sucks, but at least I can still talk to him via skype and play MMOs like Dragon Oath and Neo Steam with him. Internet 4tw I guess. Korea is pretty awesome considering all of these free to play MMORPGs originate there. Well not all of them, but most, as Electronic Arts recently entered the free to play arena with FIFA Online and Battleforge. Even Sony Online Entertainment began embracing free to play with Free Realms and Clone Wars Adventures. Some of my favorite free to play MMORPG companies though are Korean. Companies like NCSoft and Netgame for example are high quality MMO developers. NCSoft is probably best known for Guild Wars and Aion while Netgame is better known for Hero Online, Scions of Fate and Cloud Nine.

Come to think of it… a lot of the MMORPGs I play are developed in China. I used to think 99% of free to play MMOs came from Korea, but chinese developers like Perfect World Entertainment (Ether Saga Online, Jade Dynasty, Etc) and ChangYou (Dragon Oath and blade Wars) are pretty big companies. Perfect World Entertainment is huge in China and probably one of the biggest MMO companies in the U.S as well with their American division. So I guess its sort of a misconception that free to play MMOs are exclusively from Korea! Chinese MMORPGs are big too!

Anyway. I bet there are a lot of awesome MMOs available in Korea that aren’t out in the U.S. Yet. I know Netmarble (Korean MMO company) launched a global English portal, but they only have one game available at the moment – Mini Fighter Online. The Korean portal on the other hand has games like Koongya Adventure, Wego and numerous other titles that haven’t even been announced in the U.S. Yet. Vindictus is already available in Open Beta in Korea through Nexon as well. That game is highly anticipated here in the States, but it won’t be released until Fall, 2010. So North American and European users will have to wait. I guess one of the perks of living in Korea is that there are a lot more free to play games available. I wonder if pay to play games in the U.S. Like Lineage 2 and Aion are free to play in Korea? I think they actually might be.

Anyway. Yeah. Living in Korea sounds pretty interesting, but it would sorta be impossible for me, as I don’t even know the language. My buddy who’s moving there is Korean so it makes sense for him. Anyway, I’m about to go play some League of Legends with my Korean buddy.

Florensia is Awesome

2010-06-11T20:16:00.001-07:00

I downloaded and installed Florensia from Alaplaya yesterday and have been playing it nonstop. The game’s graphics are great and the game is set during the Victorian era. I mean, the game is set in a pretty generic fantasy environment, but the Victorian era architecture and character models make the game look at least a bit different than other fantasy MMORPGs. The game only has a handful of classes, but where the game really shines is its unique sea-based gameplay. The game has both a land and sea component to it. On land, Florensia plays a lot like Shaiya and every other fantasy MMORPG, but when players enter the game’s seas, they start at level 1. It doesn’t matter what level they are on land, the game’s sea based component is basically another game in and of itself. So players can experience an entirely new game on Sea. This is really original, because most MMORPGs never let you experience sea based gameplay.

Newer games like Tales of Pirates 2 from IGG and Kingdom Heroes from Aeria Games have sea based components as well, but all of these games copied Florensia. Florensia was the first game that really had an expansive sea based aspect. Another thing worth saying is that the sea based aspect of Florensia is actually really in depth. It’s basically a whole second game rather than just a feature. Players literally have a separate set of skills, experience and items for the sea component. Both the sea and land aspects of Florensia are top notch. The experience rate is a bit slow, but once you get used to its okay. In one day of casual playing, I reached level 14 or so. I know it’s not high, but the experience rate is low.

The only thing I’d like to see added to Florensia is more classes. As is the game only has like 5 playable classes, which is terrible. I dunno about you guys, but when I play an MMORPG, I prefer it to have a lot of classes – so if I ever get bored of my character, I can just try another class. I remember I played Dark Age of Camelot for years because it had like 30+ playable classes.

If you’ve never played Florensia before it’s worth trying. The guys behind the game do a great job keeping it up to date. It seems like every few months they add a boat load more areas to the game, so there’s no way anyone can really “finish” it. Like Requiem from Gravity, the game has plenty of quests too, so you’ll never have to outright grind. Instead you just quest your way to experience, which is always more fun than outright grinding.

Social MMORPGs Are Ridiculous

2010-06-05T13:24:00.000-07:00

I tried playing one of those social MMORPGs the other day. I think it was Secret Builders and the game was so bad it’s ridiculous. There are so many browser based MMORPGs out there with an emphasis on social interaction. Games like Littlest Pet Shop Online, Habbo and OurWorld for example play almost exactly like Secret Builders. Players simply walk around and, get this, chat. That’s it. All of these games rely on people interacting and chatting with each other. I mean, the game has a cool historic component to it, where you can learn history by completing quests, but I predict no one actually cares about this bit.

I can’t believe so many people play these games. When I played Secret Builders, the game was absolutely packed. Every single map in the game had players in it. Think about Secret Builders is, it’s not really a game. In 3D MMORPGs like Soul of the Ultimate Nation from ijji and Rappelz from gPotato, you can at least kill monsters and gain levels in standard MMORPG fashion. In these social MMORPGs though, the only thing you can really do is talk with others. Unfortunately, since these games are designed simply for chatting, most guys look for girls to talk, but these people don’t realize that there aren’t any girls on the internet, so they’re just wasting their time.

I wouldn’t mind these games so much if they had more things to do. At least social MMOs like Gaia Online and eRepublik have a purpose. Same with ShowUp from Snail Games. It’s a dancing MMO but with a social component – not a social MMO with a bunch of crappy flash games on the side. I guess on the positive side Secret Builders has a housing component to it same as OurWorld, which is a good way to stay busy, but I feel these games don’t offer enough to “do”. I gave both of these games a sincere attempt, but I couldn’t stay hooked on either. I’m not condemning these MMOs, as they do have larger playerbases, so people clearly see things in these social MMOs.

If you have any social MMOs – enlighten me. What am I missing? Why do you guys play these games?

MMORPGs With a Twist

2010-06-02T10:07:00.001-07:00

I’m tired of playing cookie-cutter fantasy MMORPGs like Last Chaos and Grand Fantasia from Aeria Games. Now these games aren’t terrible, but they aren’t original either. When I play generic fantasy games, I always feel as if “I’ve been here before”. Class names, environments and gameplay mechanics just feel way too similar. It’s not just fantasy games either. I’m tired of playing very basic MMORPGs that do nothing to push the genre forward. I want to play games that are genuinely different, because as is most games are way too similar to each other. Luckily there are MMOs and MMORPGs out there that satisfy my desire for creativity.

Games like Savage 2 and League of Legends for example are top notch original titles. Savage 2 is a unique mix of third person shooter and MMO strategy. The game is broken down into two teams – the Beasts and the Legion. Basically humans vs monsters. Each side has 1 player called the commander who plays in a top down real time strategy style camera view, like in Starcraft and Age of Empires. The commander is responsible for spending the team’s resources on constructing buildings, researches and defenses. The players on the team are the foot soldiers who must secure resource and strategic points. It’s a game that requires a lot of team work and even though it sounds complicated, it’s not. It’s a really easy game to learn that everyone should check out. The second game I mentioned is League of Legends from Riot Games. It plays like DotA from Warcraft 3, except with much crisper graphics. The visuals are definitely anime inspired, but they look gorgeous. They’re more “Western” anime than Eastern, sort of like Battlefield Heroes from Electronic Arts and Team Fortress 2 from Valve. The gameplay is very complicated, but it’s a really fun game that’s worth learning.

Another MMORPG with a twist is Land of Chaos Online from Alaplaya. It’s called Loco for short and plays a lot like League of Legends. It’s actually League of Legends meets Savage 2, as the gameplay is done entirely in third person. It’s an action MMORPG as well, so combat is always fun and interactive. No boring point and click stuff. The game is still in closed beta, so there are a lot of bugs, but from my experience with the game, it’s a very original title. I can’t decide if I want to recommend it yet, because I get a lot of lag in the game. It’s weird, because I don’t lag at all in Florensia, which is also published by Alaplaya.

On the more traditional MMORPG front, I recently played Neo Steam from Atlus Online and Kingdom Heroes from Aeria Games. Both are neat titles, but I liked Neo Steam a bit more. The game is largely a traditional fantasy game with Steampunk MMORPG elements. Come to think of it, Steampunk is a very under utilized setting that deserves more exposure. Kingdom Heroes is a fun game too. The game’s soldier system adds some variety to the otherwise bland grind oriented genre. The game’s intense PvP keeps things interesting too.

Anyway guys. I definitely recommend checking out the games mentioned in this piece. If you know of any other MMORPGs with a twist, leave their names in the comments.

Anime MMORPG Graphics

2010-05-30T08:36:00.000-07:00

Is it just me or do anime MMORPGs just look nicer than realistic 3D MMORPGs. I’ve never been a fan of anime, but I find MMORPGs that have sleek anime graphics to be visually satisfying. Games like Cloud Nine (Netgame) and S4 League (Alaplaya) for example look really awesome. The graphics aren’t at all realistic, but the art style is gorgeous. Not all anime MMORPGs look nice though. MMOs like Grand Chase from Ntreev and Fly For Fun from gPotato don’t look nearly as awesome. I guess its because the graphics in these games are a bit more jagged and low quality. No fault of the publishers of course, as both of these games are quite old now. I can safely say though I prefer Cloud Nine style anime graphics over Runes of Magic style Western cartoony graphics. I don’t think Cloud Nine is a better game than Runes of Magic, but I like the art style much better.

One interesting thing about this issue is that realistic 3D MMORPGs like Karos Online from NHN and Last Chaos from Aeria Games will age much faster. In 5 years these games will look terrible in comparison to the new 3D games, while anime inspired MMORPGs like S4 League will still look good. Obviously newer games will always look better, but my argument is that anime inspired games age better as its much harder to improve anime style graphics than realistic 3D graphics. Here’s some interesting proof. MapleStory which is a 7 year old game now still looks good visually while an older 3D game like Rappelz is beginning to show its age.

Anyone else with me on this? I find it weird that I think this way because I don’t really like anime, but I love anime graphics and characters. Unfortunately there aren’t enough good anime inspired MMORPGs out there. All the best MMORPGs are 3D and more realistic. Think Dungeons and Dragons Online and Allods Online.

Browser MMORPGs Worth Playing

2010-05-28T04:12:00.000-07:00

There are easily thousands of browser based MMORPGs out there, but most of them are garbage. Obviously with so many games some at least a handful of have to be good. I’ve actually played hundreds of them and out of all the browser games, not counting the mega popular RuneScape, I’ve played one of the best is Dark Orbit from BigPoint. I’m not the only one that thinks this either. The game has some 30,000+ players online at any given time. I believe the only other browser MMO with this kind of playerbase is RuneScape, but I’m excluding that from this list because everyone already knows about it. I’m trying to list games that you guys may not have played and should play. Other than Dark Orbit, another really neat browser game is Pirate Galaxy. It’s actually a really new game but has incredible 3D graphics. It’s a sci-fi MMORPG as well that has some of the best graphics of any browser game ever. Seriously though, it has better graphics than Earth Eternal and Fusionfall which are other good looking browser games.

Next up on my list of browser MMORPGs worth playing are a few strategy MMORPGs. Odds are most of you have heard of or even played Evony, as they’ve been advertising EVERYWHERE. But have you guys heard of War of Legends or even The Seventh Dragon? There are so many other good browser based strategy MMORPGs out there. Games like Caesary, Tribal Wars and Travian for example are all well worth checking out if you’re into the whole strategy genre. Many of these games are actually better than Evony, because they have more variety.

Another really awesome browser game that’s worth playing is Adventure Quest Worlds from Artix Entertainment. It’s a surprisingly in depth fully fledged MMORPG on the browser. Like Dark Orbit, the game has tens of thousands of players online at any given time. I find that incredibly impressive for a browser game. Plus, the game has so much content as well as a high level cap. Adventure Quest Worlds is one of those games you can sink a hundred hours into and still have a lot left undone.

I hope you found this list at least somewhat helpful. Go try one of the games I mentioned, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. If you have any other good games worth mentioning let me know.

Eudemons Online vs Conquer Online - MMORPG Comparison

2010-05-26T04:37:00.000-07:00

TQ Digital publishes a bunch of free to play 2D MMORPGs, but out of all their games I think Eudemons Online and Conquer Online are the best, with Zero Online a close behind. Eudemons Online focuses more on pet based gameplay while Conquer Online is more of a PvP MMORPG. Both games have only a handful of playable classes, but they’re both good MMORPGs if you can look past their graphics. People looking for really nice 3D MMORPGs with top notch graphics won’t be a fan of either game, but those who actually care about fun gameplay will likely enjoy both games.

Graphically speaking both games are extremely similar. In fact, I would say that both games run on the exact same graphics engine – in the same way Dragon Oath and Blade Wars run off the same graphics engine. So neither game really wins any points in this department. Plus, both games are 2D meaning that the developer spent more effort on gameplay than graphics.

Gameplay wise I feel that Eudemons is much faster paced. The experience rate is fast paced, so players will be able to get to the fun late game content in a relatively short period of time. In Conquer Online, it’s the opposite. Leveling up takes a while, but players have a stronger sense of progression, as each level feels more rewarding. The skill system in both games are pretty similar and the core gameplay mechanics are also very similar.

In terms of system requirements, both games can run easily on lower end machines. I believe the system requirements only a demand a Pentium 3 CPU and a low end graphics card. The benefit of a game with low end system requirements is that the game is more accessible by players. Games like MapleStory from Nexon and RuneScape from Jagexy are as successful as they are because they have low system requirements.

Both games are fun and worth checking out. I prefer Eudemons Online over Conquer Online, both games are worth the download.

MMORPG Balance Doesn't Matter

2010-05-24T03:38:00.001-07:00

I feel that a lot of free to play MMORPGs spend too much time worrying about balance. When I play a new MMORPG I care a lot more if the game has lots of playable classes than if they’re balanced. In fact, I could care less if one class is slightly over powered or if one class is slightly under powered. I like games that offer lots of variety. Games like Ragnarok Online and Requiem from Gravity on the free to play front and games like Dark Age of Camelot and Vanguard on the pay to play front. I Feel that if MMO developers spend too much time and energy worrying about balance, they won’t be working on adding new classes and races. World of Warcraft for example is an extremely balanced game, but it has such little variety. I mean, if a game is big into PvP, then balance should be important, but a lot of people play MMOs for the PvE aspect.

Does anyone really care if about balance anyway? I know I don’t. I mean, I do to an extent, but so long as one class isn’t absurdly over powered, balance is not in my top 5 concerns about a game. Just look at the Super Smash Brothers franchise – it has so many characters. Characters like Bowser and Jigglypuff are outright useless. In fact, within the community players have broken down characters into tier 1, 2 and 3. There are usually a few tier 1 characters which the ‘pros’ use and a few tier 2 characters which are also good, but 90% of characters in Super Smash are garbage, thus they’re thrown into tier 3. I think it’s almost universally accepted that Super Smash Brothers is a fun game, which is why I used it as an example. Balance does not equal fun.

Developers should focus on character customization (Think Perfect World), content and features. These are much more important than balance. Sure PvP MMORPGs like Aika Online and Kingdom Heroes would require a bit more attention in the balance department, but I think MMO companies are wasting their efforts worrying about balance when they could actually be improving their games.

I Can’t be the only one who feels this way, but sometimes I do feel this way, as every time I’ve discussed this issue across various forums, people tend to disagree. I’ve noticed though that people who play pay to play MMORPGs seem to care more than those who play free to play games. People who player browser games also preferred variety over balance. Any thoughts? Leave them in the comments below

Bad Team Mates in MMOs

2010-05-22T04:51:00.001-07:00

Don’t you hate it when your team in an MMO just sucks? The other day I was playing League of Legends and I had 15 kills and 1 death, but I still lost because my team was terrible. This is especially frustrating in games like League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth and DoTA as each game can take upwards of an hour and a bad team can really ruin a game. These kinds of MMOs are very team oriented as well, so if you end up with one terrible player, the entire game is ruined.

The whole ‘bad team mate’ problem exists in a lot of MMOFPS games as well. In games like Alliance of Valiant Arms and WolfTeam, it can be very frustrating to lose a team deathmatch due to ‘noob’ teammates. I don’t even want to begin counting all of the games I lost due to terrible team mates in Alliance of Valiant Arms. My kill/death ratio is almost always 3-1 in these games, and I always end up with terrible team mates. Luckily, the terrible team mate problem isn’t a big deal in MMOFPS games, as each round only takes 10-15 minutes, so there’s no real time invested into each game.

Having bad team mates also sucks in sports MMOs like Freestyle Street Basketball and Smash Online. In these kinds, you NEED to work well with your team in order to win. So no matter how ‘leet’ you are, if your team sucks, it’s over. No one player can, regardless of his or her skill, can truly ‘carry’ the team to victory. This isn’t a big deal if the other team has a bad player as well, but that isn’t always the case.

Having ‘bad team mates’ is the worst when raiding in MMORPGs like World of Warcraft and Runes of Magic. One bad player can easily get an entire raid of 20 people killed. And dying while raiding is incredibly frustrating, especially after investing 2+ hours into a single run. Sure, you could always regroup and ‘try again’, but getting wiped can really lower morale, which can in turn lead to more wipes. The thing about raiding is, when you have so many people working together, the odds of one person screwing up increases.

The only way to avoid dealing with incompetent players is to play alone. But playing an MMORPG entirely alone is kind of lame, especially since these games are meant to be played cooperatively. You could also play these games ONLY with friends, but I don’t think I have friends online ALL the time, so I have to play with random MMORPG players sometimes, even if they do suck.

Grand Chase Needs More Variety

2010-05-20T22:43:00.000-07:00

Grand Chase isn’t a bad MMO. It just needs a bit more variety. The game is currently being published by Ntreev, and is basically a cooperative dungeon crawler. Players work together with each other to complete stages and beat bosses. It actually plays more like a cooperative Mario game with RPG elements than anything else. The only thing Grand Chase is really lacking, in my opinion, is variety. As is there are a fixed amount of stages in the game. Once you clear them all, there’s little left to do. It’s almost like playing Lunia after beating all of the episodes. The most obvious remedy to this is for Ntreev to release more content, but that can take a while. I feel that next time Ntreev adds more content and levels to the game, they should make it much more difficult. Players shouldn’t be able to finish all of the late game stages with such ease. Players should need groups of top tier players and excellent cooperation to beat levels. This is an easy way to extend the game.

Another way for Ntreev to add more variety to the game would be by adding additional characters. As is the game has a good selection of classes, as they offer 8 playable characters, but more would always be better. Realistically speaking though, Ntreev could add more job advancements to the game. As is characters progress in an extremely linear way. Players should have more control over their character’s growth through more variety in terms of total skills and job advancement choices. Job advancements should branch out into 3 possibilities at each advancement, maybe try something like Ragnarok Online, rather than the current system where players advance in an incredibly linear way.

I’m not trying to say that Grand Chase is a bad game, because it’s not. Ntreev makes some of the better free to play MMOs out there in my opinion, as both Pangya and Trickster Online are great titles. I’m just suggesting that the game would benefit from more variety. Games like Lost Saga and League of Legends are amazing because they have so many different characters, so more variety is almost always better.

MMORPGs I Keep Going Back To

2010-05-18T15:57:00.000-07:00

There are a select few MMORPGs which I seem to always ‘go back’ to. Games that whenever I’m really bored I re-download, install and play. Just yesterday I downloaded Gates of Andaron again. There’s really nothing too special about Gates of Andaron, as like Runes of Magic and Allods Online, it’s a WoW clone. But for some reason I always go back to it. I really can’t explain why, I guess I just like the gameplay. I do have some major complaints with with the publisher though – most notably the lack of policing in game. There are so many spammers in the game constantly filling up the chat channels with advertisements.

Gates of Andaron aside though, there are a bunch of MMOs which for some reason I always go back to. Another one of those games for me is GunZ, by ijji. This one isn’t exactly an MMORPG, as it’s an MMO Shooter, but it’s definitely one of the best in the genre. I love the fast paced gameplay and unique set of weapons in the game. How many other MMOFPS games are there with anime-like gameplay where you can run on wall and deflect bullets with your sword? Not too many. I also like that the game has low system requirements, so I can play it on any of my computers, even my laptop. Though I recommend staying away from all MMO shooters on a laptop, as you NEED a mouse and keyboard to do well in these games.

Another free to play game that I go back to regularly is FreeStyle Street Basketball. This one is probably the most surprising, as I don’t even like sports games, so I find it interesting that I love this sports MMO so much. I guess it’s the simplistic and fun gameplay. I mean, I find other sports MMOs like Fantasy Tennis, Football Superstars and Smash Online to be really boring. I really don’t know though. I do know that the game is well worth checking out and if you haven’t played it, go on GameKiss and download it right now. You won’t regret it.

Are there any free MMORPGs that you guys go back to? If so, leave them in the comments below! =]. Aside from the games I mentioned, I also go back to Diablo 2 every now and then.

MMORPGs Should be More Compatible

2010-05-16T20:55:00.001-07:00

Anyone else wonder why so few MMORPGs are compatible with Linux and Mac? I’m not a developer, so I don’t understand the development bits, but how much more expensive could it be to make a game compatible with these other popular operating systems? As of now there are only a handful of mac MMORPGs out there and even fewer Linux MMORPGs. After windows these two are the next biggest, so you would imagine that game developers would ensure their games be compatible with them. I mean, a game that runs on more systems would reach a larger audience, thus make more profit through their cash shops (for free to play games) and subscriptions (for pay to play).

There are a handful of games that run well on all the major operating systems (Windows, Mac and Linux). One of them is Savage 2 from S2 Games. The unique MMORTS game that plays a bit like Fantasy Earth Zero, but without a persistent world. Then we have Runescape from Jagex. It’s not surprising that Runescape runs fine on Linux and Mac, as it launches through the web browser and uses Java.

Another compatibility issue many games have is that they have high system requirements. If I was a game developer, I’d make sure my game ran smoothly on 99% of PCs, that way my target audience is larger. If you look at all the MMOs out there, the most successful and most popular free MMORPGs are the most playable – the ones with low system requirements. MapleStory, Ragnarok Online and Gaia Online for example all have low system requirements. On the pay to play front games like Age of Conan and Vanguard which each require super computers to run have extremely low playerbases, while World of Warcraft which runs fine on mediocre machines is doing well. There’s definitely a direct correlation between system requirements and playerbase. Developers need to stop making gmes only 10% of the population can even run. It doesn’t make sense.

I know this is a bit of a rant, but I dunno. I think MMOs and games in general should run smoothly and easily on everyone’s PC. Developers need to find a nice all in one solution. This isn’t a problem for consoles, as everything is standardized, but console MMORPGs would never work.

Under the Radar New MMORPGs

2010-05-15T21:52:00.001-07:00

I’ve learned of a few interesting under the radar new MMORPGs over the last few days. One neat game I learned about is RayCity, and it’s pretty new. The game was developed by Electronic Art’s Korean Studio and is published in Malaysia. Luckily, there aren’t any IP Blocks, so players in Europe and North America can play it freely. RayCity is a racing MMO that plays remarkably like Drift City which ijji publishes. The game has a persistent world where players can complete various missions as well as a designated racing area (just like Drift City). Unlike Drift City though, which has cartoony graphics, RayCity has gorgeous 3D graphics. I love how EA is really going all out with the whole free to play scene, as they make some of the best free MMORPGs ever. EA also made Battlefield Heroes, Battleforge and Lord of Ultima.

Aside from RayCity, another under the radar new MMORPG that I found is Empire of Sports. I think this game’s been available for a while, but it’s new to me. It’s one of the only sports MMOs and is incredibly high quality. The game offers a boat load of sports within it from basketball to sledding. The game combines Fantasy Tennis, FreeStyle: Street Basketball, Football Superstars, Dance Online and numerous other sports into one game. The graphics are absolutely gorgeous too. The one complaint I have with it is the extremely small playerbase. I really don’t know why no one plays Empire of Sports, as the game offers so much.

Lastly, another cool new MMO I discovered is Mytheon, which is a Diablo 2 style action MMORPG, except with a unique card system. The game is by True Games, the same people who made Warrior Epic. You can actually use your Warrior Epic login to access the game, which is what I did. This game is incredibly addictive, as it has the fun Diablo 2 style gameplay with newer graphics and more variety. Unfortunately, TrueGames is having issues with their developer, which is delaying the addition of new features. When they can get over this legal issue, the game should explode in popularity.

If anyone else knows any new awesome games I didn’t mention, let me know ^_^.

There are a LOT of Old MMORPGs Out There

2010-05-13T11:46:00.001-07:00

I’ve always known MMORPGs were big business, but I didn’t know so many older MMORPGs were still in service today. I figured the MMO business was a lot like technology. As games gold older, they were shut down and replaced by newer games. This is definitely true for console games, but some older MMORPGs still exist today. I guess it’s because a lot of these games can introduce new patches and expansion packs.

Anyway, the first game I wanted to mention was Ultima Online. The game originally released in 1997 and is still around today. The game has enjoyed countless updates and is still updated regularly. The game was developed by Origins Systems back in 1999 but was bought out by Electronic Arts later. Ultima Online is widedly considered the first popular MMOPRG ever. The game isn’t free to play though, so that sucks. It is an MMORPG free trial game though, so users can play it for 14 days without paying. Back when the game first released, it was the most hardcore PvP MMORPG ever. EverQuest is an older game too, but it was released in 2001. It was the first real fully 3D mmorpg.

After Ultima Online, Tibia, the 2D MMORPG, is still around. Tibia was also released in 1997 but has much simpler 2D graphics. Unlike Ultima, Tibia is free to play, making it one of the longest running free MMORPGs ever. Much of the game’s content though is only available to paying members.

On the more free to play front though, RuneScape and Ragnarok Online are some of the oldest MMORPGs still in service. Both boast over 50 million players world-wide. 50 Million is a huge number, considering World of Warcraft has only 12 million subscribers. That’s not a 100% fair comparison though, as both of these games are free to play and WoW is pay to play. Plus the 50 million number is registered accounts, not active users.

Most Underutilized MMO Genre

2010-05-11T17:36:00.001-07:00

So what is the least popular MMORPG genre? I’m not talking about type of game, but rather a game’s setting. Obviously the most popular setting is a fantasy themed one, as there are countless free to play and pay to play fantasy MMORPGs. The most popular one is obvious, but what about all the unpopular ones?

There are only a handful of sci-fi MMORPGs out there and even less steampunk MMORPGs. There are even fewer MMOs set during modern times. Well, there are a boat load of MMOFPS games like War Rock and Operation 7, but I don’t count those, as they’re all the same. I don’t think there are ANY actual MMORPGs set during modern times. Everything is fantasy themed. There are a fair amount of Sci-fi themed MMORPGs from RF Online to the more popule Eve Online. Plus there are a bunch of obscure ones like Face of Mankind and Galaxy Online. On the other hand, there are VERY few steampunk themed MMORPGs. The only two I can actually think of is Neo Steam and Allods Online. Both are pseudo steampunk as well, as they play largely like fantasy themed games.

Sword of the New World by GamersFirst has a unique theme. The game is set during the baroque era, so the game’s architecture and art style is really interesting. Just looking at character models and clothing is fun too, as its genuinely different than other games. Obviously a game’s setting isn’t THAT important, but it’s worth mentioning that 99% of games are fantasy themed. I guess Korean and Chinese MMORPG developers prefer to develop fantasy themed games. I Can understand Chinese developers, as many of their games are based on the romance of the three kingdoms novel, but Koreans should be doing more hyper awesome futuristic stuff.

Just my thoughts though. Any other underutilized genre out there that I didn’t mention? If so, let me know in the comments.

Turn Based MMORPGs Are Big Business

2010-05-10T17:04:00.000-07:00

I never knew how many turn based MMORPGs there were out there until today. I’ve always known turn based RPGs like like Final Fantasy and Tales were big, but apparently there are numerous free to play turn based games as well. There are over 10 of these games. The most popular is probably 2D MMORPG is Wonderland Online, which is by IGG. Wonderland Online is popular because it’s remarkably simple. The 2D graphics and straight forward gameplay ensure that anyone can pick up the game and learn it within a few minutes. The most popular 3D turn based MMORPG is Atlantica Online, which is developed by Ndoors. I actually like Atlantica Online the best, as I prefer good 3D graphics over 2D.

What’s surprising to me though is the sheer quantity of turn based MMORPGs. The two above are the most popular, but there are so many more. Fairyland Online is probably one of the oldest. It was released in 2005. Then there’s Myth War 2 Online, which replaced Myth War 1 a few years ago. Next up is Zodiac Online – a fairly new game by EnjoyMMO. Then there’s the turn based fantasy MMORPG with card elements called Wizard101. It’s a real high quality game, but most of the game costs money. Poxnora is turn based as well, but it plays like a table top game (like Warhammer / MageKnight). Nanovor and Digimon Battle are two new turn based games as well with Altis Gates coming out in the near future.

What’s interesting is that so many of these turn based MMORPGs are 2D. In fact, the only 3D one is Atlantica Online. I guess 2D is easier to develop when it comes to turn based MMOs. Unfortunately though, even though there are so many of these games, I feel that only a handful of them are actually popular. Aside from Atlantica Online and Wonderland Online, the rest of these games are almost empty.

MMORPGs I've Never Heard Of

2010-05-08T20:11:00.001-07:00

After cruising around the net for some new MMORPGs to play, I found many many games that I never heard of. MMORPGs that I didn’t know even existed. One such game is Carom3D, a billiards MMO. Apparently it’s like Cue Online, except much popular. I follow the gaming scene quite a bit, and I’m surprised I’m quite surprised that I never knew about Carom3D up until now. I’m surprised because Carom3D is featured in the World Cyber Games, meaning it is played competitively world wide. Awesome, right? I gave the game a download the other day, and it’s quite fun. Billiards sounds like a boring sport, but Carom3D is easily one of the better sports MMOs I’ve ever played.

Another game that I never knew about until yesterday was Hero Online, which is a fantasy MMORPG by NetGame. NetGame also publishes Cloud Nine, Scions of Fate, and Operation 7. Hero Online is a fairly generic game, but I still find it fascinating that there are so many MMORPGs out there that I never even heard about. Forget about the mega popular games, there are so many underground less known MMOs that are worth checking out. Savage 2 for example is a game that’s not too popular, but the gameplay is incredible. It’s a game i’ve been addicted to for the last 24 hours. In fact, I actually ended up buying the game in order to support the developers over at S2 Games. Purchasing the game doesn’t really grant me any bonuses, but I wanted to support the developers.

There are just so many MMORPGs out there. I don’t think it’s possible to play them all. Another interesting game I learned about recently is Mu Online, which is published by Webzen – the same people behind Archlord and Soul of the Ultimate Nation. Mu Online isn’t exactly anything special, but it’s a game I found entertaining for a short while. I guess the reason I wasn’t too fond of it was that it plays a lot like the original Diablo game. That’s not a bad thing, but the original Diablo game is well over 10 years old now. I’m looking for something a bit newer.

Anyway guys, I bet there are more MMORPGs out there that I haven’t heard of. If you know of any hidden gems MMORPGs, let me know!

Browser MMORPGs Will Rock in 2011

2010-05-07T18:54:00.000-07:00

2009 and 2010 have been great years for browser MMORPG Games. With the incredible growth of free to play gaming, browser games like RuneScape, Earth Eternal, Dark Orbit and Heroes of Gaia have enjoyed incredible growth. These games are all incredibly high quality and offer a gaming experience comparable to traditional downloadable MMORPGs. Earth Eternal for example has graphics that are easily better than most free to play MMOs. For example, the graphics in Earth Eternal are easily better than the visuals in older 3D MMORPGs like Talisman Online and 2Moons. It may not be much, but those visuals on a browser is ridiculously impressive. It opens the door for HUGE possibilities in 2011 and beyond. Who knows, maybe we’ll be playing Eve Online on the browser sometime in the future.

Another aspect of the browser MMO industry that’s really been taking off is strategy MMORPGs. Ever since Tribal Wars and Travian pioneered the genre years ago, the genre has REALLY exploded in popularity. I was surprised to hear that even Electronic Arts made their own free browser strategy MMORPG – Lord of Ultima. A big Western game developer launching a free browser MMO is news to me. This means that more and more western developers will likely enter the arena, raising the bar in terms of quality. I say this because Lord of Ultima is an awesome browser based strategy MMORPG. Maybe even the best. The visuals are top notch and the interface is good too. I’m not too surprised though, as EA’s studio that’s in charge of the free to play department made Battlefield Heroes and Battleforge – and both of those games are amazing.

If it sounds like I’m a bit too optimistic about browser games in 2011 and beyond, it’s because I am. I’ve been a gamer since my father first bought me Super Mario World 2 for the Super Nintendo, and this free to play MMO revolution is intense. So many awesome high quality games coming out, and the entire free to pay space is still niche. What do you guys think? Am I too optimistic ?

Away From MMORPGs For a Bit - S4 League 4tw

2010-05-05T23:39:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I re-downloaded S4 League again, one of my favorite third person shooter MMOs. In fact, it’s one of the only third person shooters aside from Battlefield Heroes. I used to play the game regularly about a year or so ago, but I sort of got bored of it. After playing a boat load of generic tactical MMOFPS games, I wanted to give the game another try, and I’m glad I did. S4 League is crazy fun and it’s just as fun as I remembered it to be. Since I last played a year ago, Alaplaya did a lot with the game. The most notable change is the elimination of lag. Multiplayer matches have practically zero lag now. Plus, there are a boat load of additional maps. Another neat thing is that unlike games like Soldier Front and Sudden Attack, weapons don’t disappear over time, so even though I didn’t play in a year, all of my weapons were saved, which rocks.

I’ve spent much of last week studying for finals and getting school stuff finished. I still have a few more finals to get through, so I can’t really commit to an MMORPG, though I do want to try the new game by IGG – Tales of Fantasy. For those that haven’t heard of it, it’s a 3D MMORPG with largely realistic graphics. So until my finals are done, I’ll probably stick with S4 League is a bit longer. S4 League is fun because I can play it in short bursts without ever spending too much time at once on it. Kind of like Heroes of Gaia and other browser MMORPGs.

I’ve always been a big fan of GunZ too, as I’ve played that game on and off. I played it even before ijji began publishing it 3+ years ago, back when the developer published it worldwide. I do like that ijji is publishing it now, as there are so many less hackers. I think anyone that likes GunZ will also love S4 League, as they’re very similar games. S4 League is just newer so it looks nicer. If anyone plays S4, leave your IGN below and maybe we can play sometime?

One MMORPG Server

2010-05-03T07:00:00.000-07:00

Every MMORPG should combine all of their servers into one big server. This would instantly make every free to play game better as the one combined server would have more players. More players means more interaction. I’m tired of running around dead MMORPGs with only a handful of people ever online in each server. Games with low playerbases like Asda Story, Cabal Online and Cloud Nine would all benefit from this. Even games with higher playerbases would benefit as more players on a single server would enhance the overall experience of any game. There would obviously be some hardware concerns, as having all those players on one server would be difficult. The obvious solution would be to divide players into different channels. The only games that do this are MapleStory and WonderKing.

Just think of all the possibilities if every MMO did this. ALL players could interact with each other. Each game could have an auction house that included buyers and sellers from every channel. Finding people to group with would be easier. PvP would be more intense. Overall, MMOs would feel more MASSIVE, which is what they’re supposed to be. Just think about it. How much more fun would Battle of the Immortals, World of Kung Fu or even Secret of the Solstice be if they only had one server? Players would be divided into numerous channels to avoid lag. Overall, MMORPG players would be able to interact more as everyone would be on the same one server.

As an MMORPG gamer I absolutely hate seeing an empty game. No matter how great a game is, no matter how great the graphics are or gameplay, it means nothing if an MMORPG has no playerbase. The most popular MMORPGs remain popular because they already have a large playerbase. Large playerbases just make games more fun.

Anyone here agree with me? Post your thoughts below!

So Many New MMORPGs On The Way

2010-04-30T03:41:00.001-07:00

There are so many awesome new free to play MMORPGs launching soon. Out of all of them though, I’m most excited about Vindictus, which is a 3D action MMORPG published by Nexon. Vindictus, for those that don’t, is actually just Mabinogi Heroes with a different name. Nexon changed the name for the North American release for some odd reason. I’m a bit surprised that a company like Nexon would publish Vindictus, as unlike Nexon’s other games, Vindictus is extremely bloody and ’sexy’. The game is supposed to play a bit like Warrior Epic, in that players must join games through a lobby and each game is a mission in the game. Vindictus is supposed to come out into open beta sometime in Q4 2010, so it’s not THAT far off.

Another MMO i’m really looking forward to is Genesis A.D, which is an awesome new sci-fi themed MMOFPS by ijji. For some reason ijji seems to have some sort of obsession with FPS games, as it seems like half the games on their portal is an FPS. Aside from Genesis A.D ijji is also launching numerous other MMOFPS games, the most popular being Karma: Operation Barbarossa and Huxley: The Dystopia. I don’t think Huxley will come out anytime soon though, as it seems to be one of those MMOs that’s never going to come out, along with Priston Tale 2. I think Genesis A.D is awesome because the game’s name was determined through a ‘name our game’ contest ijji hosted. It’s awesome that a game publisher would do that!

I’m also looking forward to play Forsaken World. It’s an upcoming 3D fantasy MMORPG by the same guys behind Perfect World, Jade Dynasty, Ether Saga Online and Battle of the Immortals. Perfect World Entertainment has been a top notch publisher ever since they launched their first game in North America. The company is based in China and their games are much more popular over there, but I think they’ve done a great job as all of their games are high quality. Heck their games are better than most korean MMORPGs out there in my opinion.

Anyway guys, with all the new upcoming MMORPGs, which one do you look forward to the most? Leave your answer below!

A Break from 3D MMORPGs

2010-04-28T05:50:00.001-07:00

Last week I took a break from the two 3D MMORPGs I was playing, Battle of the Immortals and Runes of Magic, to play a few browser games. I don’t normally play browser MMORPGs, as they aren’t nearly as in depth as client based games, but I decided to give a few games a chance. The first game I played was Deepolis which is a submarine themed MMORPG published by BigPoint. BigPoint is easily one of the biggest players in the browser game space, as they publish Seafight, Dark Orbit, War of Titans and numerous other games. Now, all of their games are remarkably similar, but for some reason I really liked Deepolis. I guess I liked it because of its simplicity. Also, the fact that players can compete for a chance to win cash Is pretty awesome.

The second browser MMO I played was Heroes of Gaia, which is actually a fairly new game. Heroes of Gaia is published by gPotato, the same dudes behind Allods Online, Aika, Luna Online and Fly For Fun. Heroes of Gaia plays a lot like other strategy MMORPGs, but with a slight twist. Players can control their heroes and fight enemies outside of their ‘towns’. I recommend the game to anyone who likes real time strategy games. In fact, the game plays a bit like the old school Heroes of Might and Magic games.

After playing both Deepolis and Heroes of Gaia for a full week, I definitely learned to appreciate these browser games a bit more. Sure, they aren’t nearly as in depth as most client based games, but their simplicity and accessibility makes them great games. If I’m ever at a friend’s house, I could always hop onto their PC and check up on my town in Heroes of Gaia. That would be impossible in Runes of Magic, as its a 4+GB download.

Anyone else here play Deepolis? Or any other browser game? What do you guys think about them vs client games?

Chat Room MMORPGs

2010-04-26T00:38:00.001-07:00

Just the other day I found a new MMORPG – Oz World. Now, Oz World isn’t exactly a new MMORPG, but it’s new to me, as I’ve never played it before. After downloading it and playing it for five minutes, I was quite disgusted. Apparently, the entire game is just a 3D chat room. So it’s basically a social MMORPG. Now, this wouldn’t exactly be a bad thing if the game had some decent visuals and smooth gameplay, but that isn’t the case. The graphics are quite bad, worse than Priston Tale, which came out in 2001. I probably would have played the game a bit longer than five minutes, if I had seen other people in the game, but I only saw like four or five people in the entire game, and they were afk somewhere fishing.

Now, It’s not that I don’t like social MMORPGs, but I want something a ‘bit more’ from my games, as I tend to like action MMORPGs. One example of a social game with a little something ‘extra’ is 5Street, as it’s a dancing game with a large social component to it. Neopets and Gaia Online are more examples of social games that offer more than just a social experience. Both Neopets and Gaia have minigames in them to keep things fresh. The concept of a 3D chatroom is pretty lame, if that’s all it is, as there’s nothing wrong with regular chatrooms.

Oz World was made by a company called OnGamePort, they also publish another terrible game called Deicide Online. One company, two bad games. I actually played Deicide before, and should have known any game published by the same dudes that made Deicide would be bad.

What do you guys think? Are chat room MMORPGs fun? Bad? Let me know!

Malaysian and SEA MMORPGs

2010-04-24T06:18:00.001-07:00

While on my quest to find a new free to play MMO, I found several large Malaysian / SEA game publishers. The biggest one I found was AsiaSoft and they publish several interesting games currently not available in North America or Europe. Well, it’s not that they’re not available, it’s just that no North American publisher has these games, but gamers can still access them on the South East Asian servers. Two games that AsiaSoft publishes that aren’t available in North America are RayCity and Warriors of the Three Kingdoms. RayCity is an interesting racing MMO that plays a lot like Drift City. Warriors of the Three Kingdoms is generic 3D Fantasy MMORPG. Both of these games are fun, so it’s a shame that few people know about them outside of SEA. Luckily though, there are no IP Bans in place for any of these games.

There are actually numerous other free to play MMORPGs available outside of North America and Europe that gamers can play freely without restrictions. Another example is a little gem called Emil Chronicles Online, which is a free to play game by Gravity (The same people that make Ragnarok Online and Requiem). Since Emil Chronicles is published outside of North America, the game doesn’t advertise at all here in the States, but the game is playable from anywhere in the world. As a gamer, I want to know all my options, so it sucks not knowing about these games. Those with slow internet connections may lag while playing some of these games, but I never had any trouble. There are also a bunch of MMORPGs based in Europe which advertise in North America. So if you don’t lag in European games like S4 League and Florensia, you shouldn’t really lag in any Malaysian MMORPG.

Point and Clicks MMORPGs Are Lame

2010-04-20T02:19:00.000-07:00

If there’s one thing that makes me irrationally angry, it’s MMORPGs that use point and click controls / gameplay. Well, not really ‘angry’, but upset at least. WSAD controls are just so much more fluid and responsive. If you look at all the best free MMORPGs, they all have WSAD controls. Games like World of Warcraft, Allods Online and Runes of Magic all have WSAD controls. I understand that some games, specifically Diablo 2 style action MMORPGs, work better with point and click controls, but there are so many point and click games out there that would be better with WSAD. Games like Tales of Pirates and Ragnarok Online would be awesome if they had a decent WSAD or DPAD movement.

There’s a very easy fix out there for developers trying to decide on a control scheme. I can understand that some people prefer point and click, so it would make sense for developers to just incorporate both control schemes into their game. A lot of games actually do this. Tales of Fantasy and Cloud Nine just being the first two I can think of. The benefit of having both systems is that everyone is pleased. After all, developers and publishers need MMORPG players to succeed.

What do you guys think? Which do you prefer point and click or WSAD controls? Pick a side and defend it!

Action MMORPGs Are The Best

2010-04-17T21:38:00.000-07:00

Out of all the free to play MMORPGs out there, my favorite kind of game is an action oriented MMORPG. It’s not that I dislike traditional fantasy MMORPGs like Dragon Oath or Esteria Mythos, but rather I enjoy playing action MMORPGs more. I guess it’s because simply left clicking my opponent and waiting for the battle to end can get boring. I like it when a game keeps me on my toes and has be fully engaged. A few of my favorite action MMORPGs are Dragonica Online, GhostX and Dungeon Fighter Online. Dragonica online is actually one of the few MMORPGs I still play regularly. It's a side scrolling MMORPG well worth checking out.

That new Diablo 2 type game – Battle of the Immortals is also quite fun. I actually find it quite fascinating that there are so many World of Warcraft clones, but so few Diablo clones. Diablo 2, in my opinion, is easily one of the best video games ever. I’ve spent countless hours on that game and have ‘went back’ to it more times than I’d care to admit. As is though, there really aren’t too many Diablo 2 clones. The best one I can think of off the top of my head is Battle of the Immortals, so if you’re looking for something like Diablo, definitely give that game a try.

Another reason why action MMORPGs are fun is that they’re more interactive. I never get ‘bored’ or ’sleepy’, as i’m constantly pushing buttons. Action games also tend to be more skill oriented, which I find interesting. Point and click style MMOs like Secret of the Solstice are fun, but there’s no real skill involved. Just having to move around and attack manually adds a layer of skill to the game.

So, what are YOUR favorite action MMORPGs? Do you like the genre? or do you like point and click more? Post your comments below!

Asian MMORPGs Starting to Copy Western Graphics

2010-04-11T18:27:00.000-07:00

One interesting thing that I noticed is that more and more Asian MMORPGs are copying Western art style / graphics. It really shouldn’t come as a surprise, as World of Warcraft is currently the most successful MMORPG of all time, but I found it interesting because for a long time, MMORPGs from Korea and China were anime inspired. Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with anime MMORPGs, and in fact, I prefer ‘anime’ style graphics over realistic, but there are so many WoW clones out there now, it’s pretty ridiculous.

Eastern games like Neo Online, Gates of Andaron and Runes of Magic for example are examples of how Eastern game developers are copying the art style of World of Warcraft. Even Chinese MMORPGs like Perfect World and Battle of the Immortals look a bit like World of Warcraft.

I’m not a big fan of this trend as I prefer sleek anime inspired graphics over ‘Western Style’ cartoony graphics. Brightly themed free MMORPGs like Cloud Nine and Bright Shadow look gorgeous in my opinion and are much more ‘pleasing’ to look at than Realistic games or even Western style cartoony games. Even MMO Shooters like K.O.S. Secret Operations and Alliance of Valiant Arms are starting to look and play like Counter-Strike and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

Anyone else see this trend? Or is it just me?

Global MMORPGs Are The Best

2010-04-08T00:47:00.000-07:00

The most ridiculous thing for an MMORPG to do is to place IP bans in place. There is absolutely no reason for a game publisher to restrict access to their game for some users. It only aggravates players and cuts down on potential revenue for publishers. Just yesterday – gPotato banned ALL European IP addresses from accessing their newest game – Aika. I’m pretty sure Europeans can still play Fly For Fun, Upshift StrikeRacer, Luna Online and gPotato’s other games, but not Aika. The worst part of all of this, is that there were no IP Bans last month. That means, many European players have already committed hundreds of hours into their characters, only to have the game taken away from them. That’s just plain wrong.

As a gamer in North America, the IP Bans don’t really affect me, at least in the Aika example, but it sucks that so many people won’t be able to play Aika anymore because of this IP Ban. As a gamer, I want the game I’m playing to have a healthy playerbase – as MMORPGs need big communities to thrive. I’m sure most gamers will agree with me here, empty games tend to suck. Another reason I’m no fan of IP blocks is because I’d love to play a few European Fantasy MMORPGs like Priston Tale 2 and Y’s Online, but I can’t due IP Blocks. One thing I did notice is that browser games don’t tend to be IP blocked. Only client based games do – which is interesting.

So what’s the solution? Simple. Global MMORPGs. Games that have their doors open to every country. I know Netmarble – the guys behind Mini Fighter Online, Prius Online and Koongya Adventure, has all of their games available worldwide. I also believe that Nexon offers their games all over the world, meaning anyone anywhere can play MapleStory, Mabinogi, Dungeon Fighter Online and Combat Arms. I feel that not only will Nexon make more money by offering their games worldwide, they’ll also appease their players. After all, the more the merrier right?

Anime MMORPGs Look Great

2010-04-05T16:41:00.000-07:00

I don’t know about you guys, but for some reason I really like MMORPGs with anime inspired graphics. I’m not wapanese or anything, but I find brightly themed games to be easier on the eyes. Heck, I don’t even watch anime, but I still like the visuals in anime MMORPGs. Games like Cloud Nine and Lunia look absolutely gorgeous. Sure, these games don’t look nearly as ‘impressive’ as 3D MMORPGs with realistic graphics (ie.. Atlantica Online and Karos Online), but they’re just overall more pleasant to look at. Don’t get me wrong, both Atlantica Online and Karos Online are top notch games, but I just prefer the visuals in Cloud Nine over any 3D other 3D game.

If you look at all the MMORPGs out there, the most successful ones seem to be either ‘western cartoony’ or anime inspired. Games that try to have realistic graphics (ie.. Age of Conan and EverQuest 2) aren’t doing so hot. To be fair though, there are boatloads of free to play games with anime inspired graphics that are also doing rather poorly, but my point is some of the most successful games have brightly themed cartoony graphics. A few examples off the top of my head are MapleStory, Runes of Magic, Allods Online and even World of Warcraft. MapleStory is easily one of the most successful free to play MMORPGs on the entire market. Its a very simple 2D MMORPG with side scrolling gameplay.

One reason why ‘cartoony’ games tend to do well is that they age better than realistic games. EverQuest for example looked great when it was originally released back in ~2000, but the game looks terrible today. MapleStory on the other hand, looked fine when it was released in 2003 and still looks fine even today. Since release the game’s graphics haven’t changed one bit. Heck, they don’t need to change because ‘cartoony’ graphics, especially 2D graphics don’t seem to age as fast as realistic 3D MMORPGs.

What do you guys think? Which do you prefer Anime / Cartoony graphics or realistic 3D graphics?

Where are all the Sci-fi MMORPGs?

2010-03-13T11:15:00.000-08:00

As a big fan of Scifi I’m a bit disappointed that there are so few free to play scifi MMORPGs out there. With well over 120+ fantasy MMORPGs, you’d think that one or two game developers would decide to put out a sci-fi game, but nope. That never seems to happen. MMORPG Devs seem to think fantasy is the way to go. As of now (March 13, 2010), the only free to play scifi themed MMORPGs are Megaten, RF Online, Zero Online, Project of Planets, GhostX, Anarchy Online and 2029 Online. Unfortunately every single one of these games are at least 2+ years old. There hasn’t been any new scifi themed MMORPGs in ages. Luckily, Black Prophecy may change that. For those of ya that haven’t heard of Black Prophecy, it’s a 3D Sci-fi MMORPG that aims to compete with Eve Online.

You’d think with the enormous popularity of Star Wars and Star Trek, there would be more similarly themed MMORPGs out there, but that isn’t the case. I guess you could argue that there are a few pay to play scifi themed MMORPGs, but I’m not a fan of paying for the MMORPGs I play =). Besides, I hear Star Trek Online is a total flop anyway. And that’s sad to hear. Atari and Cryptic could have done so much more with Star Trek Online.

One of the main reasons why I’m shocked to see so few scifi MMORPGs is that with so many fantasy games out there, you’d imagine game developers would try something new. I mean, what’s the point in competing with 100+ GOOD fantasy MMORPGs, when you could release a scifi game and only compete with 10 or so mediocre MMORPGs. I guess we Scifi fans have to wait until Black Prophecy to have our day.

MapleStory Got a Lot Better

2010-01-27T00:35:00.000-08:00

I originally started played Nexon’s flagship MMORPG ‘MapleStory’ back in 2006 and played it for a good two months and quit after reaching level 40. Just last week I decided to re-download the game and give it another try. Naturally, I created a new character to try out one of the game’s many new classes. I decided to play as one of the new Cygnus Knight classes, more specifically the ‘Thunder Breaker’ class. All I can say is wow! Leveling up in MapleStory got A LOT easier. It only took me an hour to reach level 10 and I made it to level 30 in 4 days of casual playing! Back when I played the game in 2006 getting to level 30 took me over a month!

So what changed since I last played MapleStory? Well…. a lot did. Nexon has always been ‘well known’ for keeping their games up to date with content updates and patches. Nexon’s other titles – Mabinogi, Combat Arms and Dungeon Fighter Online have also enjoyed consistent updates. The last few ‘major’ updates to MapleStory ‘Cygnus Knights’ and ‘Aran’ really expanded the game though. The Cygnus Knights expansion added some 5 new classes to the game, each with multiple job advancements, as well as countless new ‘maps’ and quests. The Aran update was much smaller, but still added a good deal of content to the game. What really sped up the game’s experience gain since I last played was the countless new quests added to the game. The best part of these new quests were that many of them were ‘chain’ quests, so there was always something to do. To this point, I never had to ‘grind’ to gain experience as I would always have at least one active quest at any given time.

Anyway, I guess the point of this post is to point out that Nexon’s MapleStory is an awesome game that changed a lot since release. It’s not nearly as ‘grindy’ as it was when I first played. If you haven’t played it yet, definitely check it out. It’s a lot better than all the MapleStory clones out there (ie. WonderKing / LaTale / Wind Slayer).

Interface in MMORPG Games

2009-12-07T15:33:00.000-08:00

Without a doubt, one of the most ‘overlooked’ features in any MMORPG is its interface. Even an MMO with solid gameplay and graphics can be ruined if it has terrible interface. Nowadays, there a few features which I expect from any new free to play MMORPG. One example of a must have feature in any MMO these days is a map that clearly marks every quest location as well as quest NPC. Having to run around just to find new quests can get terribly annoying. Plus finding where certain quest monsters are can be equally tedious. Luckily, games like Grand Fantasia and Perfect World address these issues quite well, as they both have great maps. Runes of Magic as well as Gates of Andaron do a swell job in this regard.

The actual hotkey bars and interface ‘look’ also has to look ‘modern’. The interface in games like Eudemons Online and Magic World Online are just so dull and old. They remind me of games like Diablo and Baldurs Gate. Both of which are great games, but they’re old. Luckily though, all newer MMORPGs are starting to put more detail in their interface. Cloud Nine and Karos Online, which just came out recently have solid interfaces. Hopefully this trend will continue and even browser games will keep upping the aesthetics of their interface.

MMORPGs - A Return to the Classics

2009-11-23T16:01:00.000-08:00

There has been a rapidly growing trend over the last year or so that’s been pushing video games in general to ‘return’ to the classics – the days of old. I guess the entire video game industry goes through this phase every once in a while, usually when the industry is running low on good ideas. The shift towards ‘returning to the old ways’ is best observed just by looking at the most recent game releases. Perfect World Co just released a single player action RPG called Torchlight which was designed to resemble Blizzard’s Diablo games. Torchlight is currently a singleplayer game but an MMORPG version is expected to launch in the coming year. TorchLight though isn’t the only game trying to copy Diablo though – Esteria Mythos was released recently in North America and it looks and plays a lot like the original Diablo game and also a bit like Mu Online.

Both Dungeon Fighter Online and Battle of Destiny are fine examples of relatively new MMORPGs that are trying to ‘return to the classics’. Both of these games were designed to look and play like retro arcade beat em’ ups like Gauntlet Legends and Streets of Rage. I don’t know about you – but I loved these games as a kid, so I don’t mind the sudden interest in returning to the classics. I’m not sure though if ‘new age’ gamers who never played the Diablo games will appreciate these side scrolling beat’ em ups. I mean – why would a new age gamer want to play these kinds of games when they could be playing much better looking 3D MMORPGs like Runes of Magic and Dungeons and Dragons Online, as after all – most of the gamers that play Dungeon Fighter Online / Battle of Destiny – play those games almost purely for nostalgic value. It’s like getting a 10 year old today to play the original Donkey Kong arcade game – he’s going to think it ‘sucks’ and go back to his Call of Duty game.

Even on the non MMORPG front – games seem to be going through the ‘return to the classics’ phase. Bioware just released their epic RPG – Dragon Age: Origins which was designed from the bottom up to be a spiritual successor to the classic Baldur’s Gate 2. Btw – for those of you who haven’t played Dragon Age: Origins yet – do check it out. It’s one of the best single player RPGs…. ever.

Electronic Arts Embraces the Free to Play MMO Genre

2009-11-21T14:16:00.001-08:00

Electronic Arts is one of the first big Western game developers / publishers to embrace the rapidly growing ‘free to play’ micro transaction based industry. Free to play MMORPGs / MMO games are huge in Asia and have only started to become popular here in North America and Europe. The few ‘extremely’ popular free to play game in the West are MapleStory, Shaiya and RuneScape – but that’s about it. Everything else is pretty small – but still growing. Electronic Arts finally entered the free to play business with the launch of Battlefield Heroes – a cartoony MMO third person shooter from the enormously popular ‘Battlefield’ franchise. The game is technically still in the ‘beta’ phase – but it’s still extremely functional and popular. It’s actually one of the best free to play shooters out there.

After the enormous success of Battlefield Heroes – Electronic Arts decided to launch BattleForge – a 3D Fantasy MMORTS / Card game hybrid – as a free to play game. BattleForge was originally developed and planned to be launched as a standalone ‘pay to play’ PC game, but EA made a solid decision in launching it as a free to play title. The fact that the game is free to play allows it to reach a much larger audience. So far from both of these free to play titles have done very well since their launch. Hopefully EA will continue to develop new free to play titles.

Sony actually decided to ‘experiment’ in the free MMO business as well. They launched Free Realms about a year ago and have since enjoyed enormous success with it. Free Realms is a casual / social MMORPG geared towards teens – but just about anyone of any age can enjoy Free Realms. I know Frogster has been on the ball with free to play MMORPGs – as they are the folks behind Gates of Andaron and Runes of Magic – both World of Warcraft clones. They have also developed a whole bunch of browser games. Hopefully though – more Western companies start embracing the free to play industry.

More Story Less Grind - The Big MMORPG Complaint

2009-11-19T11:50:00.000-08:00

Most free to play MMORPGs have two things in common – and that’s a lack of story and a whole lot of grind. This wouldn’t be such a big deal if 99% of MMORPGs didn’t suffer from this exact same problem. After playing through Bioware’s dark fantasy epic RPG – Dragon Age: Origins I realized how much depth a good plot can add to a game. Obviously – these low budget free to play games can’t come close to matching anything Bioware can churn out – but it would be a welcomed change to see an MMORPG really ‘try’ to have a story. I know pay to play MMORPGs like World of Warcraft and Warhammer Online do have a lot of story – but those are premium high budget games. I’ve yet to see a free to play MMORPG with a solid story. At least us cheap gamers can still play some of these pay to play MMORPGs – as most of them have free trials.

Don’t even get me started about browser games though. As not a single browser game I’ve played has even remotely tried to weave a story. At least free to play MMORPGs make crude, poorly translated attempts. Even more high budget browser MMORPGs like Earth Eternal, Runescape and Adventure Quest Worlds have fairly pathetic in game stories. Even though these games lack a story though – they sure as heck have a lot of one thing – and that’s grind! At least our beloved MMORPG developers have never let us down on that front.

It’s sort of sad to associate the word ‘RPG’ with the term ‘MMORPG’ as traditional single player RPGs are usually rich with story while Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games aren’t. I guess regular ol’ MMO games can be forgiven – as they’re not role playing games. I mean – it makes sense for MMOs like Rumble Fighter, Nanovor and BattleForge to lack in depth stories – as they’re not RPGs. Anyway, that’s enough ranting for now, I guess I’ll have to hope more Western game developers get into the free to play MMORPG business – as Western game companies tend to make ‘higher’ quality games – at least in my opinion.

Latest Wave of Free MMORPGs

2009-11-08T17:25:00.000-08:00

In the free to play MMORPG market – it’s really not uncommon for games to…. ‘copy’ each other. It’s actually a rare occasion when a developer goes out on a limb and actually creates something unique – as it’s more profitable these days to just copy popular established games than trying to make something entirely different. One growing trend for free to play game developers lately is to shamelessly copy Blizzard’s World of Warcraft. I say ’shamelessly’ because these games copy nearly every aspect of WoW – from graphics to gameplay. I’m actually really surprised Blizzard isn’t trying to shut these knock offs down – as they’re total WoW clones. Anyway – without further adu here is the WoW clone List!

#1 Runes of Magic – Runes of Magic is free to play shameless WoW clone MMORPG. Probably the most shameless of all of them – as it’s one of the first games to COMPLETELY copy World of Warcraft. Words cannot describe how similar Runes of Magic is to World of Warcraft. The developers must have been running WoW on one computer at all times while developing the game. I guess this isn’t exactly a ‘bad thing’ though as WoW is a good game – so copying a good game and making it free to play is a good thing in my book.

#2 Gates of Andaron – Gates of Andaron, also called 4Story in some parts, is yet another game which was surely inspired by World of Warcraft. Gates of Andaron was developed by a company called Game Forge – who also made Metin 2, Air Rivals, NosTale, Gladiatus and Bite Fight. The game’s graphics and interface are nearly identical to Blizzard’s game and the combat feels unusually similar as well. Though Gates of Andaron isn’t nearly as polished as World of Warcraft the game is still a great alternative – especially since it’s free to play. Personally, I like Runes of Magic a bit more than Gates of Andaron, but both are great games.

#3 Talisman Online - Talisman Online is a relatively old 3D Fantasy MMORPG that was certainly inspired by WoW to a degree. The game isn’t nearly as shameless as Runes of Magic and Gates of Andaron – but anyone who’s played Talisman Online and World of Warcraft should be able to quickly notice the unusual similarity between the games. I do remember the spell icon for frost bolt in Talisman Online was IDENTICAL, not similar… IDENTICAL, to the frost bolt icon in World of Warcraft – and I doubt it was a coincidence.

Hopefully in the near future more game developers focus on creating…. unique games rather than regurgitating more and more clever WoW clones. It would certainly be a welcomed change in the gaming community.