Playing MMORPGs in Korea

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.

Malaysian and SEA MMORPGs

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.

Asian MMORPGs Starting to Copy Western Graphics

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?