Gameloading's MMORPG blog

The new world is a crowded place

2007-08-26T14:48:00.000-07:00

As you may or may not know, Sword of the New World: Granado Espada has recently gone free to play. After only a month of retail, K2 network decided that a monthly fee was not the way to go, and changed to a full micro transaction. this is really a missed opportunity, had the game been advertised as free to play from the very beginning, the game would have probably caught a lot more interest.

Now if you look around on different forums and boards, you will find a lot of "K2 network bashing". K2 network scams, has bad servers, bans posters on forums and will claim your first born child. Now after having played SotNW back in beta and retail, I found out that most of that is not true. But today I found out that K2 network made its first big mistake with Sword of the New World.

Sword of the New World is not really a social game, thats probably because there is really is no reason to socialize. I personally blame this on the lack of grouping content. There is a serious lack of group based dungeons and areas in the game. If the game had some more group focused environments in the game, players have more reason to socialize with each other. Another reason is the competive nature of the game. When you see another player walk into your hunting spot, you don't think "Ohhh, how nice, another player..maybe I should group with him?"No, you think "That bastard is taking MY mobs damnit". There are 3 things you can do. Live with it, Move to another channel (Similar to Everquest 2) or beat the living crap out of him in pvp.

K2 network noticed that the community was pretty quiet, so they decided to live things up a bit.
They thought it was a good idea to close 2 channels and jam all players in one single channel in order to socialize with each other and to establish new friendships. (Really, I'm not kidding: http://forum.swordofthenewworld.com/index.php?showtopic=9508)
Sword of the New world has a very linear world. there are a lot of maps, but each map is really small.There is only one map for each set of levels (Say, map 1 = lvl 1 - 5, map 2 = lvl 5 - 10, etc). thats right, only one. thats why the game has 3 different channels in other versions.

The reason the game is so fast paced is because there are so many monsters to kill due to the high spawn rate. the "goal" is to kill mobs as many mobs as possible with different skills and abilities. Its the fast paced gameplay that makes the game fun. But in order to keep that fast paced action, every player needs enough mobs to kill, If there are not enough mobs to kill, the pace will go down significantly. Because everyone is jammed in one channel, there simply aren't enough mobs to kill.

But as if that wasn't bad enough, K2 network made this change at the same time as the game went from pay to play to free to play. So not only is everyone stuck in one channel, there is also a huge wave of new players joining the world. And to finish the chaos, a whole load of chinese farmer bots made its way to the new world.
Yeah, I'm sure that will establish a whole lot of friendships Mr SotNW producer.

So the result is that the fast paced action is simply gone. whats left is an auto - attack afk grind fest because there is no reason to use skills. there are simply not enough monsters, its to crowded.

I mean, seriously, what were they thinking? The fact that this is done at the same time with the recent free to play change is just a horrible idea.

According to K2 network: "Also, we have currently reduced the number of channels per world to 1. This is so that we can closely monitor and encourage the growth of the in-game community."

I honnestly don't understand why you need to jam everyone in one spot to closely monitor the growth of the community, and I'm sure this change didn't help encourage the growth of the in - game community at all.

Its like K2 network is looking through pink coloured glasses.

What K2 network wants: "Oh joy! I just started playing this wonderfull new game, and oh look, the world is so populated! I can't wait to make all kinds of new friends and donate my entire paycheck to K2 network!"

What they get:"What the hell!? This place is freaking crowded, I lag like hell and I get kill stealed from left and right. you know what, fuck this, I'm out of here"

The western and eastern MMO market.

2007-07-16T15:19:00.000-07:00

I often discuss the MMORPG market with other people. Which MMO will be the next MMO to dominate the market? Will an MMO do well or will it fail? What company will reigh supreme? Things like that. I often refer to the asian MMO market, and people often ask me "Why?". Why should we, as western gamers, care what happens on the other side of the world? Who cares which games are popular in Korea, China or Japan? Well here is why.

The most obvious answer is ofcourse, without the asian market, we would have less games to play. No Lineage 2, No Ragnarok Online, No Silkroad, etc. Now you can like or hate those games, But they do cause more competition in the western market. But there is more to it.

Lets take NCsoft for an example. Everybody knows NCsoft. NCsoft became the company it is today thanks to Lineage. Lineage is still to this day one of the most successfull MMO's in the world. NCsoft reported that, at one point, Lineage had 3 million active subscribers. To compare, Everquest peak was about 500.000 subscribers. Almost all of those subscribers are from Asia.
Its safe to say that it was Lineage that made NCsoft the biggest MMO publisher in the world.
Because of its success in Asia, NCsoft was able to publish not only asian games, but western games as well, such as Guild Wars, Auto Assault, City of Heroes. There are more companies who let asian companies publish their games. Flagship studios lets Namco publish Hellgate london in the west, while Hanbitsoft & The9 take care of the publishing in korea and china. All points bulletin will be published by Webzen. Tabula Rasa will be published by NCsoft. Gravity Corp made an investment of 8,5 million KWN in perpetual entertainment, the company behind Gods & Heroes.

The Asian market has a direct impact on our market, its that simple. Discussing the MMORPG market without the asian market is like discussing the console wars without including Nintendo.

Audition? For what? the trash can?

2007-07-02T13:09:00.000-07:00

So a friend of mine recently pulled me in an online game called Audition online.
Now I'm sure many of you know of a game that dominated the arcades and even some public schools called Dance Dance Revolution. You move your feet on a panel while you follow instructions on the screen in the form of arrows. Simply move your feet to the right place on the pad and you score points. The better you perform, the more points you score.

Now take away the pad, and replace it with a keyboard, and voila, you get Audition Online.
Audition is by far the most boring online game I have ever played.

Hit your arrow keys in a random order then hit spacebar and see if you had any fun.
Thats the entire gameplay of Audition. There is a bar in the center of your screen that shows in you what order you have to press the arrow keys, then hit the space bar at the right moment. Thats all you do in this game. Its frustrating and gets old very, very fast.
Now your character does actually dance in the game, but the goal of the game is to hit the arrow keys in a certain order. It has nothing to do with dancing. In fact, the characters dancing is actually distracting you. The Animations are horrible. In fact, I think I can dance better.

The game has generic looking characters with little to no customization, unless you use the cash shop.
If your planning to spend any money on this.."game", please do yourself a favor and buy some bread and go feed it to the ducks. Not only does it make the ducks happy, its much more exciting then playing Audition.

The fact that the game only plays the worst thing that ever hit the music industry, Hip Hop and R&B, doesn't help either. You have to hear to annoying rappers and whiney R&B singers over and over and over again. Even the lobby music is plagued with an annoying female rapper.

It took everything that was good from Dance Dance Revolution & Beatmania, and took it out.
There really isn't much else to say about this game. Its a bad game, period.

Just don't play it. I played it so you don't have to. If you really are into these type of games, go play a game called O2jam. Its still no classic material, but it has more depth, No Hip Hop and better gameplay.

O2jam can be found here:
http://o2jam.com.my/

Right, Back to Resident Evil 4.

SOE haters can cry me a river.

2007-06-26T18:58:00.000-07:00

Before one of you start to label me as a SOE fanboi, Keep in mind that I do not play any of SOE's titles. I am not looking forward to any of SOE's titles, including Pirates of the Burning Sea.

Now that we got that out of the way, lets get back on the subject.

Recently Flying Lab software announced a partnership with Sony Online Entertainment. What does this mean? It means that FLS will develop PotBS, it will take care of the community, customer support and it will host the servers, while SOE will take care of billing, distribution, localization, marketing, and they will develop a launcher that nobody really cares about.

As pretty much expected, many forums exploded as SOE haters feel a need to tell everyone they will not play PotBS and preach that SOE will destroy the game.

So for those who aren't really up to date on todays forums and community aspects, what is a SOE hater?

Well, 9 out of 10 SOE haters (If not, all of them) are ex - Star Wars Galaxies players. Or "Veterans" as they like to call themself. It all started with the Combat Upgrade, or "CU".
The Combat Upgrade changed things like combat, armor and weapon systems. It also changed the game from a skill based game to a level based game. It was probably the first time SWG players were in different camps on the direction of which the game was taking.

Some people liked the change, while other people, mainly the ones who were used to the Ultima Online style of gameplay, didn't like it at all.

If you thought that was bad, then you haven't seen the New Game Enhancements yet. The NGE was one big slap in the face. No, it was more then a slap in the face. It was kicking you down, grabbing a hammer and bash your face into the ground. Twice.

If you didn't play SWG NGE, then just try to imagine. Its like playing Half Life , Resident Evil 4 or Final Fantasy for months, then all of a sudden, the game turns into barbie horse adventures, and there is no way to get your game back. Its gone. forever.

Probably the most noticable change is that the game turned into some sort of 3rd person shooter/hack&slasher (depending on your weapon). The playable proffesions went down from 34 to 9, and Jedi Knight, one of the big achievements in the game was now avaible at the start of the game.(Actually it only required a lot of time and patience, but in the MMORPG world, the standards for "Achievement" are a bit lower, don't ask). There are many other changes, but I'm not going over all of them. If you would like to know more about the NGE, surf the web.

This seriously damaged the playerbase and a lot of players left. Everybody agreed: The NGE sucks

So after reading all this, you might understand where they are comming from, And to be fair, SOE isn't really doing a lot to restore the damage. Sure, they admit that the NGE is a mistake they do not want to repeat, but thats not helping much. The least SOE could do is open up one or two pre - NGE servers so that ex - SWG players could at least play their favorite game again. There are plenty of servers which are low populated. I'm sure you could merge 4 of them and use the remaining 2 servers as pre -NGE servers.

But some SOE haters take it, waay, waaaaaaaay to far. Most SOE haters claim they will never play a SOE game again, but some even take it as far to never buy any Sony product ever again. This is downright stupid, as Sony makes some excellent technical products. besides, the ones responsible for Technical products such as TV's and stereos have nothing to do with SOE. The only one your really hurting is yourself.

Never playing a SOE product again just because of SWG is rediculous. For one, SOE admits that the NGE was a mistake. SOE clearly lost a lot of players due those changes. I mean, what are SOE haters thinking? Do they think SOE devs are sitting in the office at the meeting at 5 pm, saying "Well, We had the CU, we had the NGE, we lost a lots of subscribers.....lets do that again!"

SOE is a company. A company who wants to make profit. They are under more pressure because they are part of Sony. They really won't do another NGE ever again after the flop of CU and NGE.

And remember that SWG is just one game. I think SOE has done a great job on its other titles such as the Matrix Online and Everquest 2. It proves that SOE CAN do a good job.

SOE is not the only company that made mistakes. How about Turbine with Asherons Call 2? Asherons Call 2 was basicly an NGE from AC 1, except it was a different game instead of a revamp. Or how about Blizzard, with the old Honor system? or Gravity corp, who refused to update the international version of Ragnarok Online to the version the korean version of the game was running for more then 6 months.

Companies learn from their mistakes, and a company has to take risks every now and then. Some turn out good, some turn out bad. If it turns out good, great, if it turns out bad, then the company will learn from it.

Now a trump card SOE haters love to use is Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. Sigil also told us that Sigil will do the development of the game, while SOE sticks to the publishing, but eventually, SOE got control over the entire game. But Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is a poor example.

-FLS clearly says that they have more then enough funds. Sigil didn't.
- Vanguard was taken over because it wasn't very succesfull.
- If SOE didn't take over Vanguard, then Vanguard would have been shut down.

And aside from those points, SOE didn't pull any NGE or CU on Vanguard at all, and according to SOE, its not going to happen. In fact, I went through hell to get my hands on a trial code, made an account, logged into to the most populated Vanguard: SOH server and asked as many players as I could find how they felt about the SOE take over, and both of them said they are satisfied with SOE.

So if your an ex - SWG player who still refuses to touch a product just SOE does the publishing, please get over yourself. The only one who you are really hurting is yourself.

My rant on Playonline and Final Fantasy XI.

2007-05-28T17:21:00.001-07:00

Warning: Still needs grammar check. I had a few complaints about my grammar from previous posts. Please keep in mind that english is not my native language. Also, I usually write my articles at night. I can't just write whenever I want. Sometimes I get a writing kick and I just need to write or type my thoughts somewhere, thats what this blog is for.

Play Online is the worst thing that ever hit MMORPG gaming. Ever. its slow and completely useless. Want to know why? Keep reading.

The chore starts with the instalation of the damn game. I bought the package which comes with the full game and the first 2 expansion packs. Thats 7 freaking CD's! why can't they just use one or two DVD's, or use an updated download version?

That would actually save them some costs. Take the Chains of Promothia expansion for example. 88% of the content is on CD 1, the other 12% is on CD 2. This requires Square to produce thousands of extra CD's just for 12% content. Props to them for actually doing it though, if it was SOE, they would have just removed the 12% content and only deliver 88% of the expansion.

Anyways, I have to keep swapping CD's. On top of that, its impossible to download the game anywhere (or at least, I never found a download). So I start by installing the PlayOnline launcher. After installing the launcher, I open it and make an attempt to login. I found out that my PlayOnline account has been de-activated, I'll assume its because its been a while since I logged in. My question is, why was it de-activated in the first place? In fact, why do I need a PlayOnline ID anyway? its not like I'm going to use any of its features. but anyway, I re-activate the damn account, and I start installing the actual Game. I insert Final Fantasy XI CD 1. After a while, I get a message: "Please insert Final Fantasy XI CD 2". okay, no problem. "Please insert Final Fantasy XI CD 3" sure thing. after a while, I get this message: "Please insert Final Fantasy XI CD 1".

Why? I already gave you CD 1. Why do I need to insert CD 1 twice? Are they scared I got rid of it or something? like "Oh, I used CD 1, No need for it anymore, might as well throw it in the trash can.......oh fuck"]
Its the same thing with Chains of Promatathia expansion. This expansions is 2 CD's. First I have to insert CD 1, then I insert CD 2 and when its done installing, I need to insert CD 1 again. thats rediculous, why should I have to do that?

well anyway, I continue to install the game and its expansions. If its your first time playing FFXI, then you will have to register for PlayOnline, which requires a key code. this will hold your accounts for both Final Fantasy XI and Tetra Masters, which is nice. PlayOnline has some other features.

Your own PlayOnline Email. Why the hell would I want a POL email? I can get one with much more free space for free, and it takes much longer to login to POL then it takes to login to other email providers such as Live and Gmail. but you'll need it anyway.

Chatrooms: Most of them are empty or near empty. you probably will never use these.

other stuff: Change your POL wallpaper, E - Cards, that sort of thing.

So that sums it up.The thing is, you will probably never use any of them. Next you have to use the keycodes to activate your games. One for Final Fantasy XI, one For the Rise of the Zilart expansion, one for Chains of Promathia, and another one for Tetra Masters. Along with the Play Online key, thats 5 freaking Key codes. I bought this as a package, why do I need to input 5 different key codes? Why can't it just be one? So after you set up your account and keycodes, you can play two different games. Tetra Masters and Final Fantasy XI.

You might Remember Tetra masters. its the card game from Final Fantasy 9. I personally would have prefered the card game from Final Fantasy 8, or Blitzball from Final Fantasy 10.
I have 2 questions about Tetra masters

1: Why isn't this in the actual game? Why is it a game outside the game? In Final Fantasy 9, you can card battle with NPC's in the game. it was in the actual game in FF9. It would have been much more fun if this was part of the game. This would actually allow SE to hold ingame events and prizes with Tetra masters. There are very few people playing, so most of the time you'll be playing against the computer.

2: Why does this game requires an additional monthly fee? I have to pay another dollar for each month of Tetra Masters. Why? its just a small minigame. Its not even a part of the real game, why should I have to pay for it? Its not like its anything special. There are only a few players online at any given time, most of the time its less then 50. That 1$ isn't going to make you rich Square.

So, on to Final Fantasy XI. first you have to login to Play Online, then you have to patch the game, (If you bought an older version, go to your TV and go watch a movie or two. Patching can easily take up to 5 hours) then you have to go through an agreement, a warning not to play too much (Like anyone gives a crap), and then the game actually starts up. From desktop to the actual game takes roughly 30 to 45 seconds. Its playOnline that is seriously slowing things down. I can go from my desktop to World of Warcraft in less then 5 seconds. Why does it need to take so long?

For me, its clear.

Once you get through all that, you can finally create your characters, and your starting town. You can pick any of the three towns, but I recommend that you start in the town of your race. you will receive a pretty nifty ring. As you probably noticed, you can not chose which server to play on,

Dear Square enix, did you notice that you are the only game company that forces its players to play on a server? There is probably a good reason for that!

This is the worst idea ever. If I want to start this game with a friend, we're screwed. Chances are big we will land on different servers. Yes, you can invite friends to your server with world passes, but these things cost Gil, which is something new players won't have. So your best bet is to look around on forums, hoping that somebody is kind enough to give you a world pass. World passes only work 5 times, and it only lasts for a short while.

Edit: I found out that they actually changed it and you can now pick a server when you create a new character......4 years after release.

Speaking of characters, you can only create one characters. If you want to create another one, you have to pay an additional 1$ each month! That is rediculous! I can live with a one time payment 1$ for an additional character slot, but 1$ each month!? what the hell Square enix? No seriously, What..... the.... Hell?

Once ingame, you will find out that the controls are very different from other MMORPG's. It also uses a strange menu system in combat that takes some time to get used to.A new player will already be overwhelmed by the huge city they start in, the least you could do is have a normal interface and control scheme. There are some other newbie things that bother me of Final Fantasy XI. There is no tutorial whatsoever, and the mobs Square Enix picked for new characters to fight is just rediculous. A proud Elvaan Warrior should not have to run in terror from a sheep or haze!

I'd like to go into more detail about Final Fantasy XI, but right now, I wanted to give you some information about the more technical side of Final fantasy XI.

Top 5 most overhyped games

2007-04-21T17:40:00.000-07:00

Warning: still need to proof read and grammar check the whole thing. Too tired now, going to bed.

Hype can be good thing and a bad thing. When a game is hyped, people will expect the world from a game. If a game lives up to the hype, you have a solid game with a big playerbase. however in most cases, the game won't live up to the hype. It isn't what people expect it to be. You will see a lot of dissapointed faces.

Over the last few years we have seen a lot of games who did not live up to the hype. So here is a top 5 of the most hyped MMORPG's.

5 - RF Online: RF Online was supposed to be an epic mix of Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Its been a while since a Sci-Fi game was released in the western market, so it would be a breath of fresh air from all the fantasy clones. Unfortunatly, RF Online did not really live up to its expectations. It didn't make much use of the Sci fi elements at all, aside from the guns and mechs. No real sci-fi area's to level in, No Sci-fi vehicles, and most of the time, you were fighting monsters that might as well fit in a Fantasy based MMORPG. The gameplay was shallow, especialy in the PVE area. Because of its instant potion spamming, there was absolutely zero challenge in PVE, making the game feel even more like a grind.

The PT system was a nice idea, but it was poorly executed, forcing you to kill lower level mobs just to keep your PT's up.
It doesn't really help that it takes you to reach up to level 30 before you can finally reach the PVP content either. If your willing to put in alot of time, then RF online is a decent game and can be an enjoyable experience. However, I think most people will drop the game before they get that far.

4 - R.O.S.E: Rush On Seven Episodes, perhaps one of the worst titles you could think of. But I guess it fits with one of the worst MMORPG's ever made.
R.O.S.E was published by Gravity, The company behind the smash hit Ragnarok Online. Sure, R.O.S.E had this little icon named "Triggersoft" (the development company behind R.O.S.E) on the bottom left of every advertisement, but that didn't stop us fans of Ragnarok to hope that R.O.S.E would become the next Ragnarok Online. we were hoping for new, refreshing gameplay that took the best elements out of Ragnarok Online. This game would be the next Ragnarok Online, the true Ragnarok Online 2!

Unfortunatly, R.O.S.E Online turned out to be a shameless Ragnarok Online rip off that was inferior to RO in every possible way. Movement and combat was slow and clunky, especialy at the start of the game. it took forever to get somewhere. It simply missed the fast paced gameplay of RO. The questing was poorly done, none of then had a slightly intresting storyline, and were little more then "Go kill XX or go find XX". Foruntatly, there were few quests avaible, so most of the time you spend your time grinding mobs over and over again. The Graphics were horrible, It had this "cute" look, which made every character look like a 7 year old. Enviroment lacked detail, and was actually quite repetive. R.O.S.E backs up my opinion that its better to make a good looking 2D Game then a bad looking 3D game.

There isn't much else to say about this game. It did pretty well back when it was in beta, mainly because it was free. However as soon as the game started to charge a monthly fee, the servers became quite empty. The European version crashed soon. Recently, the korean version shut down and the developers were placed in other sections of Gravity. I can imagine the others versions will pull the plug any moment now. The Philippine version is empty (Ragnarok Online is still domination in south east asia), and I can't imagine the NA is that full either.
Pity.

3 - Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. Not a surprise to anyone, main reason its on this list is because the hype it got. Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is made by the big man behind Everquest. Vanguard was supposed to bring the old Everquest feeling back. It turned out to be a loooong grind that was bugged beyond oblivion, required a NASA computer, with a world that felt lifeless and dull. Vanguard didn't bring anything new to the genre (no, I'm not going to bother with that "diplomacy" minigame) nor did it improve on anything.

Its easy to see Vanguard was released way to early, and this might have been an excellent title if it was pushed back a couple of months. And to be fair, Vanguard: Saga of heroes isn't one of the worst mmorpg's ever created. But this list is about the most overhyped MMO's, not the worst MMO's.

2 - Realms of Krel, Mourning, Age of Mourning, Thrones of Chaos or whatever you would like to call this pile of scrap, this is by far one of the, if not THE worst MMORPG ever created. The game was one big bug, NOTHING worked. One of the biggest problems was actually being able to play the darn game. the servers had to be reset manualy, and the staff members weren't avaible at the office 24/7. If the server crashed friday night: Tough luck, try again next monday.
The game had some epic quests. well, make that quest actually. There was one quest in the game....and it was broken. it didn't work. Also, None of the features promised by the company were implanted in the game. Looking at the features promised, its easy to see why so many people were hyped about Mourning. The idea was there, its just that the company clearly had the intention to scam its fans all along. those who pre-ordered the game received a blank re-writable CD with an old client on it. No box art, no manual, no CD art, nothing. According to the company behind Mourning, It should be considered a "collectors item". Nice.

There was nothing even remotely fun about this game. The combat was a joke and...well, thats it. There is nothing else in the game. It even missed actual players, and I believe its peak is somewhere around 30 players.
Few people played longer then 5 minutes.
After much kicking and screaming, Mourning closed down and the game was sold to Loud Ant Software. LAS had the intention to publish the game under a new name: Thrones of Chaos. but they never did, and according to the CEO, they were more intrested in the engine then the actual game. Right now it seems the game is dead. Lets hope it stays that way.

1: And number one, the most overhyped MMORPG in history is....

*drumrolls*

*even more drumrolls*

Well lets cut the crap, this won't be a surprise to anyone.
Dark and Light was the most overhyped game ever. This game had an enormous following, and I believe all of its beta spots were away in a matter of seconds. They clearly messed with the screenshots and gametrailers, as the real game looked nothing like the screenshots, and most of the game was broken. The world was pathetic. Yes, its indeed the largest playable world in an mmorpg, they kept the promise, but 99% of it is computer generated. No detail, nothing. endless masses of unused land. Characters were often broken, such as stats disapearing, unable to equip or unequip armor, characters disapearing, stats stacking up with items and more of those nasty things. combat wasn't fun. it simply wasn't, neither was its pvp. Come to think of it, there was only one thing that was fun about Dark and Light, and thats flying. Its the only enjoyable thing to do in Dark & light.

The game also had some serious out of game problems. Dark & light scammed hundreds of people by charging credit cards of canceled accounts, sending emails saying that they owed money from them, and more nasty tricks like that. Even its GM team, Alchemic Dream ditched Farlan and D&L.

Dark & light is in my opinion the 2nd worst mmorpg ever created, right after mourning. The reason it is number 1 is because of insane amount of hype the game received.

Dark & light and Mourning are proof that a feature list doesn't say anything. If its too good to be true, it usually is. *nods at Darkfall*

The Lord of your Credit Card

2007-04-09T12:11:00.000-07:00

I'm sure many people are looking forward to the release of Turbine's new MMORPG: The Lord of the rings Online. And, it has to be said, the game is actually a pretty good game. Its not groundbreaking, its not innovative, But its well polished, its finished and its fun to play.

But thats not the point of this post. The subject of this post is about the so called "Lifetime membership" deal. By purchasing this special subscribtion, you pay "just" 200$ (actually its 199$, but who are we kidding?) on top of the 50$, and you will never have to pay a monthly fee ever again for Lotro.

MMO's can be around for many, many years so a one time payment of 200$ might seem a good investment. However, I feel that its important to show you what exactly you are getting yourself into, as 200$ is a lot of money.

First, lets take a look at the things you should consider. 200$ is equal to roughly 13 months of 15$ a month gameplay.
When you play this game, ask yourself this question: "is this REALLY something I want to play for 13 months?". Let alone, how many MMO's did you actually play for 13 months or more? Probably your first or second mmorpg, but how many more? is it worth the risk?

Also, look at how the game is build. You depend on Turbine to entertain you, since Lotro is not really a strong sandbox enviroment. besides questing and crafting, there is not much to do in Lord of the rings Online.If Turbine turns out to be very slow with releasing content, your pretty much screwed. You can't wait and see how it turns out, since the lifetime deal is pre-order only. You can't cancel, they already got your money.
Then there is the endgame, which not many have reached yet. if you don't like it, again, your screwed.

Another thing to consider are the other games released in a few months from now. WAR, Age of Conan, Aion and more, there is a chance you will switch to one of those games, but you already paid for at least 13 months of Lotro.

One Arguement I have heard to justify the lifetime membership is "Well, I can jump back whenever I want to". I find this a silly arguement, you can jump back into any mmorpg whenever you want to, you just have to pay a fee of 15$. You will save a bunch of money.

Ofcourse the decision is yours, not mine.
But make sure you take these things into consideration when you decide if you take the offer or not.

Phantasy Star Universe review

2007-03-26T16:06:00.000-07:00

Warning: Still needs Grammar & Spell check

Phantasy Star Universe has been in released for a few months now. the reason why I'm writing this review now, and not 3 months ago, is because Sega has an unique bussiness plan. Sega unlocks new content every month. At the release of the game, there was very little content unlocked. Now that the game has been out for a number of months, I think its time to write a review about it. So, here is my review of what is one of the worst games released in 2006.

Phantasy Star Universe is the sequal to Phantasy Star Online series. Phantasy Star Universe takes place in a diffrent world, and has no connections to the old Phantasy Star Online series story wise.
The game has two play modes, single player and multiplayer, with the multiplayer being the most important play mode.

I will start with the singleplayer game.

First the story. In the singleplayer game, you play as 17 year old Ethan Waber. And Ethan is someone that every kid from 10 to 15 years old wants to be. Ethan lives on a space colony, owns a hoverboard, has a pet robot, is fully dressed by simply pushing a button on a device on his back, and travels to diffrent planets to bust all kinds of monsters with laser swords and laser guns.
Together with his little sister, Ethan lives a nice peaceful life on the Guardians colony, which is a colony in out of space.The Guardian colony is protected by the "Guardians", a private force acting as police. Ethan's father was a guardian, who died in an accident on a mission. Ever since, Ethan holds a deep hatred for the Guardians. One day, the colony gets attacked by monsters called "The SEED", and Ethan gets seperated from his little sister. After finding his sister with the help of some Guardians, Ethan decided to join the Guardians. Together with the Guardians, Ethan travels to 3 diffrent planets to get find out the mystery behind the seed, while fighting against a secret orginazation and even pirates.
The Story is actually pretty intresting. Don't expect a deep storyline with a lot of twist as in a game like Final Fantasy, but its decent. Its pretty much the only thing that will keep you playing.

So on the Gameplay. Phantasy Star Universe is a hack & slash game. In Phantasy Star Universe you run from one room to the other, beat the living crap out of everything you encounter, grab the key, open the door, and repeat. Phantasy Star Universe is not challenging in any way. The Monster AI is terrible. Monsters don't work together at all, and most of the time they simply run up to you, making it very easy for you to kill them. All you have to do is hit them till they drop dead, and move on to the next, while using a special ability every now and then. Attacking a monster is done by simply tapping the attack button over and over again. there is no timing required, no skill required, just tap the button over and over again. Its actually a step back from Phantasy Star Online, Which at least required you to time your melee attacks.
Your move on from area to area, while you get interupted by cutscenes every now and then that further explain the story. After you completed an area, you will gain a certain amount of "Job" experience and a certain amount of money depending on your performance. sometimes you will have to fight a boss fights, but not of them are any hard or intresting. most of the time, you just bash away at them like you would fight normal monsters.

Phantasy Star Universe works like most other RPG's. by killing monsters, your characters will gain more experience and level up. There is only one annoying feature. The character which delivers the final blow to a monster gets the most experience. The problem is that your partner NPC's will always be a certain amount of levels above you. For example, one of the characters will always be 1 level above you. When you reach level 10, he will automaticly be level 11 the next time he joins your party. No matter what happens, the result of this is that a lot of bonus exp goes to waste because you get killstealed by your own allies. good idea Sega.
Your character will also gain Meseta, which is the currency in Phantasy Star Universe. You can purchase new weapons, armor and items in diffrent towns of the universe,
the usual stuff, nothing new here

Your character will be able to take on a number of classes. a Hunter (melee) Ranger (Ranged) and Force (your typical magic user) Picking a class determines which weapons and skills you can use. Let me tell you that the hunter is pretty much the only viable choice, and the reason for this is because of very poorly thought out AI of your party members. Your party members will only attack things that come close to you, so they will just stand there while your busy shooting things from a distance. A force is so incredibly poorly thought out that its not worth playing.
There are a lot of problems with the AI. your characters will constantly get stuck behind rocks or walls, even doorways. Not to mention they are not that good at taking care of themself. they die a lot because they simply refuse to heal themself.

Graphic wise the game isn't impressive in the least. None of the characters look good, and the enviroments are dull and very repetive. there is no sign of detail whatsoever, just bland empty space with a rock or a tree here and there.Even the level design is horrible and can't even hope to compete with old Phantasy Star Online. The monsters are fairly original and look decent, but thats about it. the animations are done pretty well, they are flashy and pretty much what you would expect them to be.

When your walking around in town, PSU has a very weird way of showing characters that are not close to you. they will apear fully purple or pink or any green color, and when you walk up to them, they disapear!.
So that pretty much explains the singleplayer mode.

On to the multiplayer.
In the mutliplayer, you create a character of your own. you start at the character create screen where you will be able to create a character of your liking. the customization options are fairly decent, you can change hair, face details, heigth, weight, and clothes. other then that, you can pick a race. you can pick between Humans, Beasts, Newmans (elves) and CASTS (robots). The class you wish to play pretty much determines which race you have to play. Humans are your jack of all trades, which means they suck at everything, Beasts are good at melee combat, Newmans make good forces, and CASTS make excellent rangers. You can play as a newman hunter or beast force if you wish, but you will always be half arsed compared to a beast hunter or newman force. After you created your character, you will be send to your own personal room. In your personal room, you will be able to talk to your Partner machine, which is basicly your storage and crafting device. Your Partner Machine will also activate the tutorial, if you wish to do so. Other features of your room are the phone, which you can use to move to rooms of your friends and look for player shops, a storage that all your characters can access, and some decoration space

The gameplay is pretty much the same as in the Singleplayer game. You run toward a mission counter, you decide if you want to open a new mission or join an already exising one and off you go. You run from area to area, beating the crap out of everything you see, while picking up a key to open a door every now and then. key diffrence is that your now playing with other people. The game doesn't require any teamwork or coordination. at all.
The playable levels are set up ranges of five. first instance is designed for level 1, 2nd is 5, next is level 10, level 15, level 20, etc. what does this mean? it means that you do the same instances over and over againt untill you can handle the next one. making the game very repetive. it doesn't really help that the XP gain is extremely slow either. the sad part that this is pretty much all there is to the game. Other then the normal missions are the story based missions. every once in a while, Sega unlocks a new story mission for you to play. These story based missions continue the story of the single player mode, but this time, you will follow the story from your own characters perspective. the bad part is that these missions are singleplayer, which means you have to work with your horrible AI partners again. The fact the story is followed from your own made characters perspective doesn't work that well. Your character is not involved in the story, and during conversations between the NPC's, your character is pretty much always being ignored. Not to mention that its very annoying that not all story related missions are not unlocked yet. For example, At the end of the levels, you are told that hyuga has is missing, you are told to come back to Headquarters as soon as possible for your next mission, problem is, the next mission wasn't avaible untill 2 weeks. Oh by the way, if you haven't played the game yet, don't read the previous sentence.

Playershops are a little bit more intresting, but are actually more annoying then usefull. From your room, you can go to other people's shops. you can search for shops by looking for certain advertisements, or to type in the item your looking for the. the problem here is that everytime you move to another shop, you have to go through an annoying loading screen to move to that shop. this is very annoying when your looking for the best price on a certain item. While I can apreciate the thought behind it, after all, it does makes player rooms and player shops a bit more intresting and personal, it was poorly executed.

All in all, Phantasy Star Universe is a big dissapointment. it misses the fun, the atmosphere, and the addictive nature of the previous Phantasy Star Online games. I don't see 6 years of improvement here people.

Gameplay: 5 - Very repetive, boring and dull. There are no new idea's the games, it lacks content, and most important, it lacks fun.
Graphics: 5 - Its really the animations that save it here. Enviroment is dull and repetive, and lacks any kind of detail
sound: 6 - the music is often annoying. but there is a catchy track every here and there. the sound effects are pretty decent.
Lasting apeal - None.

Total score (not on average): 5.0

When is a game an MMORPG?

2007-01-26T18:06:00.001-08:00

A question that has been asked many times. Wars have been fought over this, villages have been burned to the ground, and nations overthrown. ok, not exactly, but it certainly is a hot topic for debate. This topic began a few years ago, with the release of the game "Guild Wars". Guild Wars is a game that has many MMO features. You can talk with other players, meet up with them in towns, it has stats, weapons, levels, quests,trading (although not exactly an MMORPG only thing, the way it is set up in GW is related to MMORPG's) it is fully instanced,except for the towns, but it is set in a persistent world...or is it?
We will get back to that later. GW is not the only game that uses this set up. Another well known game is Dungeons & Dragons Online. Other lesser- well known titles that also use this setup are Phantasy Star Online (1+2+3+4) and Phantasy Star Universe.

Right, so these games have a few things in common.
1: In all of those games, all dungeons & fields which feature combat, quests, etc, are fully instanced.
2: Things like towns,outposts, lobbies etc are all open for everyone to visit. BUT, it has to be said, each area can only hold a certain amount of people.

So what do the companies behind the games have to say about this?
Arena net, has taken a stance right from the start. "Guild Wars is not an MMORPG".
Jeff Strain, producer of the game
""Guild Wars is not an MMORPG," said Jeff Strain, producer of the game."

Turbine, on the other hand, has always promoted Dungeons & Dragons Online as an MMORPG.

So we have two companies,two games, both which use the exact same set up. One claims this set up is part of the MMORPG genre, the other says it isn't.

Lets make things even more confusing.
ign Guild Wars Preview
"The first thing that needs to be said is that Guild Wars is not an MMO"

okay, so guild Wars is not an MMO, according to IGN.

IGN Guild Wars Review
" Guild Wars has slickly sidestepped most of these issues by being only partly an MMO. The cities and some far-flung locations act has hubs where players can socialize, trade, buy gear, sell loot, and gather up into parties, but everything outside of those relatively small zones is an instanced experience, where you either fly solo, with your four-person party, or with game-controlled henchmen."
Good, so we have that cleared up. According to IGN, GW is only partly an MMO. Its not a full MMO because it makes use of instanced zones.

Now, lets see what IGN has to say about Dungeons & Dragons Online.
Dungeons & Dragons online IGN Preview
And what do we see here?
"Rather than being a strict translation of the 3.5 rules, D&D Online merely uses the core concepts as the foundation for an MMO."

Dear IGN, would you please make up your mind? so a game like Guild Wars is not an MMO because 4/5th of the world is instanced, but D&DO, Who also has 4/5th of the world instanced, is an MMO?
Am I missing something here?
If you look at the review made by IGN, you will see that D&DO is also considered an MMO in that article.

So IGN isn't exactly helping us here.
Oh, and in case your wondering, Neither reviewers nor Sega consider PSO/PSU an MMO.
So the big review sites aren't going to clear it up for us.
So let me give you my view on the subject.

My arguements for saying DDO, GW, PSO and PSU are not MMORPG's are like this:
- Wikipedia: MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) is a genre of online computer roleplaying games.(RPGs) in which a large number of players interact with one another in a virtual world..
and
MMORPGs are distinguished from single-player or small multi-player RPGs by the number of players, and by the game's Persistent World,

so my arguement is that games like DDO, GW, and the others are not set in a virtual, persistent world. they are set in multiple virtual worlds which can not hold up a massive amount of people, they are not sharing one world. One party of 8 are going inside a dungeon, another party goes in the exact same dungeon, but will receive their own world of the dungeon.
Sure the same thing could be said for a game like WoW or Everquest, but in those games, its only a small portion of the game. in the other games, its almost the full game, aside from the time you spent in towns. in WoW or Everquest, You have the CHOICE to do instancing, in DDO and GW, you do not. Yes, to advance in WoW or EQ, you will at one point have to do instances, but that isn't really the point here, so I'll skip that.

My next point is a simple one. There is nothing Massive about GW or DDO. You never really have the chance to play with hundreds of people at the same time in the same world. this is possible in games like WoW, Everquest, Lineage, etc. In most cases, it would be downright stupid to go hunt with hundreds of people at the same time, but that isn't the issue. its POSSIBLE.
So because of those reasons, I don't think GW, D&DO, PSO, and PSU are part of the MMORPG genre. they are online roleplaying games with some MMO aspects.

Feel free to post a comment, but please keep it civil.

Great news

2007-01-23T13:32:00.000-08:00

2007 seems to be a golden year for MMORPG's, and today, another golden MMORPG for 2007 has been announced: Granado Espada, which will from now on be known as "Sword of the new world" in the west. This epic title has been developed by the master mind behind the smash hit Ragnarok online,Hak Kyu Kim, who is considered to be one of the best korean game developers, and the game has received "Best game of 2006" in Korea, which is a great achievement, considering the amount of MMORPG's that are released in Korea every year. With a budget of 56 million USD, this time, we won't receive a low budget MMORPG from Korea.

The things that make Granado Espada unique, is its theme. It takes place in the 17th century. Which is not used in MMO's a lot. another intresting feature is its Multi character controll system. Instead of 1 character, you controll 3 characters. You can give seperate commands to your characters, let them use stances, use combo's, and more things like that. You can trade your characters with other players, and you can recruit NPC's as well.

You can find a video about it here:
Video

A "the making of" video can be found here:
The making of Sword of the new world

Its in korean, but it also shows a great deal of gameplay.

I truly believe Sword of the new World will change the face of Korean MMORPG's in the west forever.

in case you already want to pre-order this game:
Play.com Pre-order

finally, the news announcement can be found here:

News announcement

IRVINE, Calif. – January 23, 2007 – K2 Network, Inc. (www.k2network.net), an online game publisher, announced today that it is bringing Korea's most popular and highly decorated massively multi-player online role-playing game to North America and Europe this summer. Winner of the 2006 Grand Award for Best Game in Korea, Granado Espada, which will be titled Sword of the New World (www.swordofthenewworld.com) in the U.S. is developed by famed developer Hakkyu Kim, the creator of Ragnarok Online.

"Sword of the New World is truly an MMORPG player's dream come true," said Grantley Day, Vice President of Product Development at K2 Network. "It is alive with beautiful artistry, baroque-inspired architecture and enchanting music, and, of course, the multi-character control system."

Licensed to K2 Network by Hanbitsoft, Sword of the New World is developed by imcGAMES, which is headed by CEO Hakkyu Kim, the creator of Ragnarok Online, one of the world's most popluar MMO's with more than 25 million subscribers. A fantasy MMORPG whose story is modeled after Europe's exploration of the New World, this gorgeous, original title allows players to create and simultaneously control a family of characters utilizing the excusive Multiple Character Control (MCC) system.

This innovative fantasy adventure lavishly unfolds its luscious graphical style through a rich and compelling story comprised of thrilling missions and quests. Swept by an exotic New World fever in the 17th century, this fictional yet profoundly historical exploration of the new found continent includes features that are all-new and exclusive to the U.S. version of the game.

K2 Network's version will offer a new character customization feature with hundreds of costume options, while an improved control scheme and in-game tutorial makes controlling multiple characters familiar and comfortable (for MMO players). In addition, the game includes an all-new story with hundreds of new quests.

Key Features of Sword of the New World:

Control three characters simultaneously - While most games allow you to level just one character at a time, Sword of the New World allows players to develop, mix and match a team of three distinct characters simultaneously.
Combat - Get the best of both types of MMO worlds with Player vs. Environment (PvE) and Player vs. Player (PvP) combat fully integrated into gameplay. Sword of the New World also includes additional combat options, Family vs. Family (FvF) dueling and City vs. City (CvC) in specific arenas.
Stunning audio and visual offerings - Alive with beautiful artistry and baroque-inspired architecture and fashion, the game offers stunningly attractive characters with inspiring clothing and armor sets. Evocative music completes the diverse atmospheres found throughout the game's many locations.
Multiple Character Classes with unique stances and skills
Character classes include the traditional melee champ Fighter; the spell-casting Wizard, and the dual-purpose assassin and healing Scout, with more classes to be announced later. Each class can learn and perform unique stances and unlock advanced skills.
Free Trial and Premium Editions - Download and play the trial version of the game for free or buy the premium, boxed copy for additional content and gameplay experiences.

To see the new screen shots of Sword of the New World and for continuous updates on the game visit the Web site at www.swordofthenewworld.com.

About HanbitSoft

HanbitSoft, established in 1999, is one of the largest online game publishers in Korea as well as in Asia. After establishing itself as the No. 1 publisher in Korean PC game market, HanbitSoft has continuously invested in developing and publishing excellent and promising online games. HanbitSoft has broad portfolio of online games ranging from casual games to high-end MMORPG's, either developed in-house or by external development studios such as Studio Mars (Neo Steam) and imcGAMES (Granado Espada). Most of its games already have been introduced in the Asian market as well as in the North and South American market. For example, PangYa, a fantasy-themed online golf game, is now in commercial service in more than 12 countries including Japan, USA and Brazil. Now, HanbitSoft is focusing on pioneering overseas online game markets in an effort to be a "global leading publisher."

www.hanbitsoft.com.

About imcGAMES

imcGAMES was established in 2003 and strives to Impress, Motivate and Connect by creating the highest quality games to make a deep impression. Second, they seek to imbue in their games a passionate and perpetual sense of motivation. Third, they foster new connections to enable relationships for each person who plays their games. imcGAMES is staffed by people dedicated not only to making players happy, but also to enjoying their work. job.www.IMC.co.kr.

About K2 Network

K2 Network, an online game publisher and community service management company, publishes and services highly engaging online games and cultivates dynamic player environments. The company puts "Gamers First" with compelling titles, exciting communities, creative pricing models, quality customer service, and frequent updates based on user requests. K2 Network currently offers War Rock, Knight Online, Global MU Online and Golf King. Company headquarters are in Irvine, Calif. More information can be found at www.k2network.net.

5 evil things I did in MMORPG's

2007-01-14T02:58:00.000-08:00

We all did some evil things in MMORPG's. We can't all be mother theresa eh?

Here are some evil things I did in MMORPG's.

1: I looted corpses of players I didn't kill. Back, at the start of my MMORPG career, I played an MMORPG called Tibia. Tibia was hardcore. REALLY hardcore. Fully open PVP, full item looting and if you died, you could easily lose DAYS of hard work. One time, there was this nasty high level person killing people in town. Me, being the low level noob that I was, decided to stand and watch. After a while, I remember I could playerloot people. So what I did was drag all of the bodies out of town and looted them one by one. After I returned to town, I noticed that a couple of guys were about to take down the high level pker. After they finally took him down, I rushed in, grabbed all of his stuff, and ran for the church as fast as I could (the church is the only place PKing was impossible). So there I was, a mere level 12 newbie with extreme high level gear, in just 30 minutes. $$

2: Back with the old WoW honor system, it was was hard to get to the top rank. I was one of the few people who said "screw my social life for a while" and went to take the challenge to become number 1. I was doing some quest solo. As some of you may know, in WoW, some quests lead you to those small dungeons filled with mobs. One time I agro'd too many of them, and my Vanish and sprint skills were on cooldown. I was about to die when an Orc Warlock came to help me out (I was a Night elf rogue), and ultimatly saved me from death. He used the /bow emote and moved on to kill more mobs, probably for a quest. I was still in the honor race. So what I did was activate stealth, moved behind him and killed him to gain honor. Gosh I'm evil!

3: I don't really remember what game it was. It was a game that really gave a lot of starter money, and I mean A lot! In the game, it was easy to find weapons. Very easy. So what I did was collect the items, told new players that it were extreme rare weapons and offered to trade it for all their starter money. Easy way to get rich!

4: this one was in Lineage 2: The Chaotic Chronicle, back when it was in beta. Lineage 2 was all about clan politics. When I joined the beta, a friendly person, a few levels higher then me, Really helped me out. he gave me equipment, helped me level, and even let me join his clan, which was one of the biggest around. I played in that clan for a while, untill I got into an arguement with some of its members and moved to another clan. Ironicly, it turns out the new clan I joined was at war with my old clan. It seems the two clans bashed into each other quite a few times, and once I got high enough level to join the fight, I joined in in one of the clashes. After quite a big fight between the two clans, There were only 3 people still standing from my clan, and I was one of them. there was only one left from the other side, and it turns out it was the guildmaster, the friendly fellow who helped me out so much in the beginning of the game. He was fighting with the other 2 still standing from my guild, and killed them, but he was only barely alive after that, and he was about to heal. I quickly rushed my character to him and delivered the final blow to kill him. on top of that, he lost his chest piece of his armor, which I picked up and kept it.

5: Not really in an MMORPG, and I'm really ashamed of this one. One of the most annoying trends started a few years ago are companies who have "Invite your friend to Beta!" events. What it means is that they basicly send every person already part of the beta a couple of keycodes to send to other people to invite them into beta. the result of this? every forum even slightly related to MMORPG gaming gets spammed to hell by people, usually freeloader kids, begging for an invite so they could play the MMORPG for free. It could completely ruin entire sections of forums. To give you an example:

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/forum/804

Thats what happened to the Scions of fate section on mmorpg.com

Forums like that are filled with people posting their email adress, begging for an invite. One time I was so pissed off, Copy/paste'd every email from people begging for an invite I could find, went to a site that sends out spam email, and I signed up ALL of the emails of people begging for a key.

Small update

2007-01-05T12:01:00.000-08:00

Hey guys.

Just a small heads up, the new article is on its way and will be posted in a few days.

Just a few news items you might be intrested in, Everq..*cough* ahum, I mean Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is reaching open beta soon. You can currently get in the beta by going to fileplanet, although you have to be a fileplanet subscriber to access the beta.

Granado Espada will also reach Closed beta soon. If your intrested in the game, make sure you sign up at: http://survey.iahgames.com/survey/survey.html

Also, a happy new year to everyone. 2007 seems to be a golden year for MMORPG's. be sure not to miss any of those titles!

Balance

2006-12-18T04:43:00.000-08:00

Balance is one of those things that is hard to find in many MMORPG's. Balance in PVP, Balance in PVE, Class A gets better equipment, Class B gets better skills. Its hard to balance things like that. And the worst part is, this has STILL not been fixed.

Most MMORPG's use a class system. These classes are usually "Tank" "Damage dealer" "healer" or a mix of those. A Tank class usually has a high defence and lots of HP, but can deal little damage. a Damage dealer can deal a lot of damage, but has little defense and not a lot of HP, A healer can't deal damage and doesn't have a high defense either, but has the ability to heal itself and other players. This may seem balanced, but this is actually far from the truth.

The truth is,The main goal of many players is to make their character as strong as possible. This is one of the reasons MMORPG's are so addictive. Many players want to level up their character as fast as possible. There are two ways to "hunt" mobs in an mmorpg. Either solo or in a group. When in a group, the class system works pretty balanced when speaking in terms of EXP gain. Every member in the group gets the same amount of EXP, and every Class has its own role in a group. However, when it comes to solo, it becomes a complete diffrent story. A Damage dealing class, such as the mage or the rogue class, do a lot of damage. They kill mobs faster that way then other classes. A Tank class is based on defense, but has little attack power.So it takes much longer for a tank class to kill a mob then it does for a damage dealing class. In many games, the healer class can't even solo at all or just barely. One way to fix this that developers have come up with is to give the healer class anti-undead spells, but this really restricts the healer class to certain leveling spots. What brings us to this is that a damage dealing class will level faster then Tank & Healer classes.

A few games made some attempts to fix this. One way is to add "downtime" to damage dealer classes. But lets face it, nobody enjoys sitting down and waiting till your characters Mana/MP is full again. Not really a good solution to be honnest. Another one is to have special reagents before you can cast a spell or use a skill. The problem with this is that it would be harder for those classes to get money.

Looking at all this imbalance and problems that come with a class system, it is no surprise that a company like Squarenix decided to make the game forced grouping. However, grouping isn't excactly balanced either.

It is important for an MMORPG to have many classes, Because diffrent people like diffrent things. Picking a class that that suits you is one, if not THE most important decision you will make inside an MMORPG. I would even go this far to say that picking the right class means the diffrence between loving and hating a game. To make sure everyone can play a class he or she enjoys, a lot of diffrent classes are needed. The classes that are used in World of Warcraft kind of represents the class setup in pretty much all mmorpg's that use a class system. These classes are: Warrior, Mage, Warlock, Rogue, Priest, Druid, Shaman, Paladin and Hunter.
While this looks nice, those experienced with MMROPG's can see where the problem is.

as mentioned above, every group needs a tank, healer and a damage dealer. in WoW, pretty much two classes can tank, the Warrior and Druid. A shaman & paladin can tank at the early levels, but not higher up. Next, healers. Druid & priests can be the main healers, and shaman can heal for the first few levels (although I suppose a healer specced shaman can heal pretty well for quite a while, VERY little people actually use this build since it slows down on leveling).
Damage dealing can be done by Mage, Warlock, Rogue, Hunter, Shaman and even Warrior, by giving up his shield, and thus his ability to tank, in trade for a 2 handed weapons, or dual wield.

So what does this brings us to?

Tank classes: Warrior, Druid (although Warrior is the only one that can tank endgame)
Healers: Druid, Priest.
Damage dealers: Mage, Warlock, Rogue, Hunter,Warrior & shaman.

What does this mean?This means that, when looking for a group, a mage will have MUCH more competition for the damage dealing spot then a priest has for the healing spot. My point is, there are too many classes that are based on Damage dealing. This is a problem in pretty much every mmorpg that uses classes. WoW, Everquest 2, Final Fantasy XI, Lineage 2. Some classes are based on de-buffs & Crowd control, like we see in City of Heroes. But those classes are pretty much useless, why bother debufing or controlling them when you can just kill them?

A solution for this would be to make people change classes whenever they want, without having to receive a heavy penalty like in Final Fantasy XI, where one has to start all over again at level 1 when changing jobs, but this brings yet another problem. This means that there is no use to make an alt character, which means people will probably play less longer. To counter this, you could make the trip to the cap level a lot longer, yet this brings us to ANOTHER problem: an insane grind, and nobody likes grinding.

Its hard to come up with a solution that will please anyone, but my point with this article is to show people how hard it is to balance an MMORPG. If your thinking about becomming an MMORPG developer, always keep in mind that creating an MMORPG is not an easy task.

I hope you enjoyed the article. I know,This article is not as good as the other ones, and it feels like something is "missing". I promise my next one will be better. Feel free to leave a comment

Its a World of Warcraft clone!

2006-11-22T06:25:00.000-08:00

Those active on forums, or are part of an MMORPG community will probably have heard people say this before. "World of Warcraft is popular, so now every company will clone World of Warcraft.". And who can blame them? It happened before with Everquest. It happened before with Lineage. Some Games copied a lot of those games. Even World of Warcraft, the most succesfull mmorpg to date, is in many ways similar to Everquest. Will this happen again? will developers really follow the old receipe?

If look at the history of MMORPG gaming, then this is possible. It happened before, Why wouldn't it happen again? Also, the fact that Mr. Richard Vogel, BioWare Austin costudio director, Seems to think every MMORPG that will be released after WoW is a WoW clone doesn't exactly help the arguement give a positive turn either.

Some things Mr. Vogel said at the "Austin MMOG rant".

"Why are so many companies risk averse," Vogel asked. "Why does everyone want to look at what WOW's doing, say 'Let's just slap on a user interface like WOW and make it look and run just like WOW'?"

And

"When I went on the E3 floor, I looked at all the new games and said, 'I know how to play that. I know how to play that, I know how to play that. It's just like WOW'...Looking out at E3 this year, there is nothing innovative coming out in the next three years, and that's pretty sad."

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6157195.html?sid=6157195&part=rss&subj=6157195

If we can believe Mr. Vogel's words, Every MMORPG that will be released in the next three years will be a WoW clone.

I personally think Mr. Vogel couldn't be more wrong. It could be Mr. Vogel spend 5 hours at the Lord of the rings Online stand, which does look very similar to WoW, But I think if Mr. Vogel actually took a better look at the MMORPG's not only at the E3, but also in general, he would have not come to that conclussion.

A few titles that are diffrent from WoW: Age of Conan, its gameplay is completely diffrent from World of Warcraft, for the fact it uses twitch based gameplay. Tabula Rasa, Gods & Heroes, Huxley, Darkfall (although Darkfall was not present at the E3), Pirates of the burning sea, EVE online (although its already released, there is an expansion comming up),Granado Espada (Granado espada was not present at E3) Just to name a few. I think its better if Mr.Vogel would be a little more carefull when he is talking about the MMORPG genre in general.

I will not deny that a few MMORPG games will try to clone WoW, I also think there are plenty of new, innovative titles that will be released over the next few years. More then ever before in the MMORPG genre.

As always, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section

MMORPG payment: Item shops, the future?

2006-11-18T10:37:00.000-08:00

Those who play MMORPG's know that most MMORPG's require a monthly fee to play. This is usually 14,99$ USD a month (although some games drop down to 12,99$ a month, and a rare few to 7,99$ a month)
This is basicly how its been since the 2nd generation MMORPG's launched. the first generation AOL MMORPG's, with Never winter nights being the most well known (Not to be confused with the Never winter nights released by Bioware a few years back) used a pay per hour system.

However, this is slowly changing. More and more MMORPG's decide to go for a so called "Item shop" payment system. The game is free to download and free to play. Players can buy special ingame items to enhance the gameplay, such as better equipment or potions. in some games, only "fancy" things can be bought in the item shop, which have no influence on the game.

All of those MMORPG's come from Korea, where this payment system is very popular. In many cases, Item shop MMORPG's are doing better then MMORPG's using a monthly fee (Or an extra fee on top of the internet usage fee in internet cafe's).

While it is not as popular in western countries as in Asia, We do see more and more MMORPG players play item shop MMORPG's.Games like Flyff (Fly for fun), Maple story and Silkroad online are doing very well. in fact, all of Silkroad's servers are full any time of the day, and its in the top 10 most played games on Xfire.com . Obviously, a lot of those players have no intention to buy anything from the item shops, playing the game fully free.

Yet here in the west, we still see many people who prefer a monthly fee over an item shops. reasons for this are:
- Many believe trading ingame items for real money will result to unfair gameplay
- A lack of a monthly fee often leads to an immature community.
- Most Western MMORPG players prefer diffrent gameplay then our fellow Korean MMORPG gamers, and all of those MMORPG's are based for a korean audience, not a western.
And what I think is the most important reason, The free to play MMORPG's that come from asia are most of the time low quality titles often made with a limited budget.

This, however, is not the case with Korea. Korea actually has quite a few quality item shop titles. such as ArchLord, RF Online, R.O.S.E (three titles which still charge a monthly fee in the west), and the soon to be released SUN (Soul of the ultimate Nation)

While we have received nothing but item shop junk games from korea ( to say it boldly), It seems that a few of those quality free to play titles are reaching the west. Most important examples are: Dekaron (Known as Two Moons here) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VldwZgGLaTo and SUN (although I am not sure if an item shop has been announced for the west, it certainly does have an item shop in the east) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh_wvLQ4ljc

One has to wonder how many people are still going to pay 15$ a month (and often 45$ for client +30$ for each expansion) when the same quality gameplay can be found for free? Even more intresting, what will mmorpg developing companies do when people start leaving the game for a free to play MMORPG?

If item shops are the future is yet to be seen, But the item shop market is certainly growing bigger and bigger.

Feel free to leave a comment in the comments section. Tips & constructive critism for my next post are also very welcome.

Hello everyone!

2006-11-14T05:46:00.000-08:00

Hello there!

As you can see, I just started with this blog. This is my first time I write a blog, so hang in there!

As you can see, this blog is made simple. No annoying pictures, No annoying links to other blogs, and a background that is easy on the eyes.

What can you expect from this blog in the future?

Basicly, this blog is about MMORPG's. (MMORPG stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games) Some of you might heard of them before, I'm sure the names Everquest, Ultima Online and World of Warcraft might ring a bell.

You will be able to read the opinion of someone who is unbiased, has a strong passion for MMO's, and can look further then just World of Warcraft. One time I will post about a certain MMORPG (Such as World of Warcraft, Everquest 2, Lineage 2, or any other MMORPG), another time I will post about the MMORPG genre in general. At any rate, there will be something for everyone. If your an Ultima Online veteran or a World of Warcraft player, A pro or a newbie, I'm sure you will be able to recognise some things in my posts.

I hope you will find this blog intresting. I shall write my first post in a short while, so check it out later.