Long ago, there was a web game called Neopets.  It was basically a collection of minigames, combined with Pokemon-like cockfighting.  When I was about 13 or 14, EVERYONE was into it:  Male, female, kids, pederasts… It was a sensation.

If you’re unfamiliar, I’ll give you a quick rundown.  There are a bunch of cute little animals you could adopt in a variety of colours and designs, with whom you can play games (Which are more often than not cutely redecorated clones of Apple IIe 5 1/4in floppy titles reprogrammed in Flash), train at various schools to raise their stats, and of course, have the viciously beat the hell out of each other.

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As a product of an oddly eclectic Christian upbringing, I’ve encountered quite a bit of radical stuff during my Sunday school classes.  One of the things I’ve always had problems with, however, is the principle of turning the other cheek.

Not that it made  sense to me at the time. For me, not retaliating was the ultimate excuse for being a doormat. Turn the other cheek? Yeah, right. I’d rather do the eye for an eye thingy–even in an MMORPG. (continue reading…)

I’ve been playing MMORPGs for a long time. I started the year Everquest came out, and save for the occassional break between games, I’ve pretty much always been active on one or another.

In all of these years, I’ve never once hit the level cap.

Oh sure, I came close on World of Warcraft (67 priest I think) and I often wonder why I’ve never once accomplished this dubious honor. Well, after much meditation on this subject (minutes and minutes, in fact) I think I came to the conclusion. Instead of blaming my own resolve, I think I’ll do instead what comes instinctively to humans as a species: I’ll blame someone else. MMORPG developers, all of you, pull the old bait and switch on your consumers. At first you mask grinding with quests and other shit but by the time you’re painfully close to the level cap all pretext of distraction is removed. Fuck you, you’re grinding. I suspect the reason they do this is because they reason they already have you paying, and you’re already that close, so you’ll surely endure those last few levels of pain because the glory of a maxed character is forever.
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“Woah dude, where did you get that cool stuff?” “Oh this? Yeah I bought it from xxxxx.com”. This is a common conversation in MMOs nowadays, the amount of people purchasing online currancy is rising steadily. Often now more than ever, people just go out, spend a few hundred dollars on gold for let’s say World of Warcraft, and are content with themselves. I may be a bit harsh when I say this, but these people are immoral tools, and furthermore, assholes. Why? Let’s look at it from some different perspectives.
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What’s that? More RPGs? Alright, alright… I’ve got more RPGs for yah. Sit back, relax and prepare for some good ones!

Etrian Odyssey 1 & 2

I’m not gonna lie to you. If you want a challenge, if you want a serious RPG, then this is the game for you. There aren’t flashy graphics, there are only stats, items, monsters and a very cool map-making system. You and your party of adventurers goes down into a dungeon few go into to find the treasure. You can pick classes, have as many members as you want. but can only carry a few around. The monsters get viciously difficult to kill very quickly. The battle system is your standard turns based on speed/surprise factor. Lots of fun, but I’m warning you now: Almost as addictive as an MMO(but so much cheaper!). I thoroughly enjoyed them, even if the god damn F.O.E.s obliterated me for days.
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MyMMOshop.com, responsible for selling in game currency to numerous MMOs, including World of Warcraft, Warhammer, and Final Fantasy XI, has recently been bought out by My MMO Inc. for the sum of $10 million, according to an article on Yahoo.

One of the top RMT sites in the business, MyMMOshop.com has specialized in customer service, 24 hour availability, and quick delivery of in-game currency, despite the highly contended issue among more legit MMO players. The store has been running since 2003, and has locations in the U.S., Ireland, and Australia.

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World of Warcraft is one of today’s largest online games, with over 11 million subscribers, each one paying $11 to $15 a month on fees. And yet, the game itself plays like a generic action RPG – You run around, cast spells, and fight the same monsters over and over, with some varying tactics based on whether you get additional creatures attacking you, or if the enemy is resistant to an element. For the most part, you use the same moveset over and over again, repeating a set – For example, a battle in Warcraft can go as such: You run up to an enemy while attacking, cast a beneficial spell which heals you for every swing, then do an offensive move, and then recast the healing spell once it wears off, and then repeat from there – means that for the most part, the game is a monotonous grind of whittling away one monster’s health down to nothing only to go to the next, with the occasional new monster type thrown in.

With such an obvious grind in a game, why does it have so many subscribers?
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In a world with so many MMORPGs on the market, it can be tough to decide which games have actual content, and which are just meant to be profit machines for companies. The latter seems to be happening more often recently as companies fear to break the ‘be like World of Warcraft’ mold for fear of making no profit. This causes the market to turn into one bland, singular blob of mediocrity in our games. It’s for this very reason that this gamer in particular cannot recommend any new MMO releases this year. So what are we left to? Well not much.

Despite all that I’m about to say, I want to make it clear that I’ve played my share of MMORPGs (and still do.) I do not dislike them, I do however see many, many flaws in them. I would like to outline a few popular MMORPGs with established (or not so established in a few cases) playerbases so that you– the gamer- can decide what is worthwhile and what isn’t. The first thing this gamer can advise however, is to avoid any free or web bases MMO like the plague (you’re going to get exactly what you pay for.) So what’s good? What’s bad? What’s just plain laughable? Well it all depends on what you’re looking for. Let’s start out with the most popular and work our way around from there…
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Blizzard Entertainment has announced that World of Warcraft, its incredibly popular MMO, is now played by more than 11.5 million subscribers worldwide. The landmark was aided by the November 13 release of WoW’s second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King.

Apparently, WoTLK sold over 2.8 million copies within 24 hours of launch, making it the fastest-selling PC game of all time. And it has gone from strength to strength, having sold 4 million copies total in its first month.

“We’re pleased to welcome the new and returning players who have helped World of Warcraft reach these new milestones, and we appreciate the enthusiasm and support that the game’s global community has continued to show,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We look forward to providing all of them with an excellent entertainment experience for a long time to come.”

I recently started playing the American open beta of a game called Runes of Magic. And it looks like the game will be a big hit.

Runes of Magic is an MMORPG that is free to play, and the American open beta was recently opened. There was already a European open beta going on, so most of  the bugs have already been taken care of.

My character in RoM

You start out with one of six classes in the Pioneer’s Colony of Taborea, where you’ll quickly become familiar with Runes of Magic (RoM). After a mini-tutorial, which explains the bare basics of the game, like movement and camera control, you’re thrown into the world. And boy,was I surprised. On my skill bar, I found 4 skills waiting for me! At level 1!

While other games are scarce with giving you skills, RoM is definitely not. A common complaint about MMOs is that you have so little skills to use, that you just end up spamming the same skill over and over again, making the game very boring. But not in RoM. You start out with a couple of skills that have synergy with each other, and every level you get to upgrade them as you wish. You also gain a new skills every level or two. And this makes the combat really enjoyable.

The other thing that really surprised me, is how the game kept throwing quest after quest at me. There are so many, especially with the daily quests that you can repeat, that it’s not odd to still have quests of levels far below yours! So you’ll never be forced to grind on your own, but instead you’ll be questing.

However, these quests don’t have a lot of variety. Most of them are simple “Kill x wolves” or “Collect 10 fangs”, though there’s also some quests that ask you to scavenge for items or kill bosses (that are way too strong for their level, I might add- you definitely need a group of multiple people to kill them).

Aside from the combat there’s also a foraging and crafting system. While the foraging system is straight-forward (though it’s annoying how you cannot chop down certain trees or pick flowers until your skill level is high enough), the crafting system is not. I didn’t find out until level 10 how I could create new items, because you have to initiate the crafting from your skill window. Because of this, I accidentally sold a lot of materials that I could have instead used to create new items.

A unique feature in Runes of Magic is that, like Guild Wars, you can gain a secondary class. At level 10 you can choose one of the remaining classes as your secondary, and you get to use some of its skills. However, unlike Guild Wars, you separately have to level this class. I’m a big fan of the dual class system, as it allows for a lot more variety.

For now, I’m really enjoying Runes of Magic, and I hope this game stays as good as it is in the lower levels. If you’re looking for a free MMO, definitely try this game.