The Clash of MMORPGs

April 18, 2009

It’s mindblowing how many massive multiplayer role playing games litter the internet.

Many of them have nice graphics. They’re also quite user-friendly, and easy to play. What angers me about them is how generic most of them are.

  1. Enter game,
  2. Kill ‘x’ monsters,
  3. Gain a level,
  4. Lather, rinse, repeat

I’ll admit that some MMORPGs have a unique selling point of some kind. Sometimes it involves controlling more than one character, flying through the world instead of run, or completely unique character classes. It can a nice change from the usual, but in the big picture, it only really adds 30 mins to 1 hour to my playing time.

Maybe it’s just me, and I’m picky when it comes to MMORPG games, but can you blame me?

I’ve played Everquest for a good part of my childhood, which in my opinion is the game that carved out the road for modern MMORPGs. It was great for its time; an immense world full of suprises, addictive combat, and interesting NPCs. I, like tens of thousands of other players, was rooted to the game.

I don’t think the MMORPG model is a thing of the past. Besides, World of Warcraft is still around. What the next big MMORPG needs is something truly unique. Eve Online did a pretty good job; high tech space world with endless factions and missions, including a complex economic system. It’s the first of its kind that I’ve seen to this date.

So, what’s next in the world of MMORPGs? I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.

5 comments

  1. Giuseppe - April 25, 2009 12:13 pm

    I personaly dont mind the 4 steps you said up there but if the game ever takes away from the useres illusion of playing a game then the game gets borin. i like games with advanced battle systems where i can doge and choose when and where to attack. I think it makes it mutch more fun then just hack and slash with a mouse

  2. alex - April 27, 2009 12:37 pm

    i agree :)

  3. Coeco - May 7, 2009 1:01 pm

    The 4 steps are true indeed but it all comes to ones personal opinion about enjoying or not enjoying a certain game, FPS, RPG, CCG, MMO, RTS, A mix of them, you name it.

    MMORPG will in my view, be the first genre that will start to die out since its like you mentioned, log in, kill mobs, gain level and repeat.

    Ofcourse, Game developers might come up with new ideas like mixing it with etc FPS (Like Tabula Rasa which now is dead) that will make it more interesting. All we can do is wait and see.

  4. KrisBelucci - June 2, 2009 11:54 pm

    Hi, good post. I have been wondering about this issue,so thanks for posting.

  5. kent - August 22, 2009 4:48 am

    Every can help me i want a educational games, thesis.help how?

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