Dead Free MMORPGs

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.

Under the Radar New MMORPGs

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 ^_^.