Spicing up old MMO Ideas

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 With a Twist

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.