Sci-fi MMORPGs – The Untapped Genre

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!

Browser MMORPGs Worth Playing

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.