Felspire Browser MMORPG Review

Felspire is a browser-based MMO that takes place in the magical world of Eremos where, like every MMO, it’s up to you to defeat evil. The story is bland and practically nonexistent, but not more so than you’d expect from a browser game. The gameplay is also just about as fun as you’d expect, with a nice bit of flair from PvP arenas, although the game is heavily detracted from by the intensive auto-questing. This is remarkably similar to other Chinese browser games such as Magerealm and Siegelord.

After a relatively simple login the game presents a rather standard character customization system. While there isn’t a whole lot in terms of customization, you can choose between male and female characters and you can customize enough to stand out. The real impressive aspect here is the class system. The initial 3-class system expands to about 15 specializations once you level up.
The gameplay itself works. It’s nothing really beyond pointing and clicking, but an impressive amount of armor and weaponry is present. PvP is a real surprise in a game of this scope, although not much skill is involved because of the simplicity of Felspire.

However, the auto-complete system is out of hand. In the time that between creating my first character, switching tabs, and then switching back I had missed the entire intro and had leveled up. Many browser games, and even some MMOs, have automated systems. Most of these just include automated walking, but there are exceptions. Felspire on the other hand is the exception. Not only is walking automated, but so is combat and full-on questing. After starting the game I didn’t have to touch anything for a full 15 minutes, and my input was only required after arriving at the game’s hub. I understand some automated gameplay to pass over boring parts of the game, but these issues could be solved in other ways (i.e. not including stretches of the game that are known to be boring). At the very least this system needs to be toned down.

I’m aware that being a browser game, Felspire is prone to issues that are caused by the browser of choice rather than the game itself. However, after testing the game on multiple browsers I still could not get the in-game map to work. There were a few loading issues here and there, but the issue with the map was the most prevalent. One positive aspect of Felspire, and other browser MMOs, is that they're Mac compatible. There aren't too many Mac MMORPGs out there, so Mac users should be glad to see more and more browser games get released. This certainly applies to Linux users too. In fact there are probably less Linux MMORPGs than Mac MMOs!

Felspire is an average game all around. While it isn’t particularly bad, it’s not great either. It doesn't bring anything new to the browser MMORPG market, but the game does have technologically impressive 2D/3D graphics for a browser game, but the graphics still don’t look that great. Combine this with a bland story and a ridiculous amount of automatic gameplay and you get a pretty average title. At least they give you a kickass sword to start with. I'd much rather play a western developed browser game like Aberoth or AdventureQuest Worlds, but that's just my 2 cents.

FreeStyle Street Basketball MMO Rocks

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.

Why Are Some New MMOs Terrible?

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

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?

A look at Anime MMORPGs

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

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.

EverQuest 2 is Free to Play! Awesome

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!

MMORPG Culture - Roleplaying, Marriage and Casual players

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?

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

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.

MMORPGs and MMOs With Great Graphics

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.