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.

The site was initially started by two Welsh people in California, named Adam Powell and Donna Williams.  It was essentially a website full of games for college students to pass the time.  Of course, the cutesy look attracted more and more players, mostly young kids like myself, and the whole thing began to take off.  The site grew, the staff grew, and eventually they realized that they were losing ridiculous amounts of money.  They tried to make it up without advertising on the site:  Merchandise was the way to go.  Limited Too, Hot Topic, Claire’s Boutique and others began carrying stuffed animals, t-shirts, jewelry and action figures, and admittedly, it was pretty cool.

Obviously, it didn’t work for long.  And along with adding small ads to the site, service started to slip: Reports of accounts being banned by mistake, rude responses by customer service personnel, and just an overall feeling of ‘what happened’ plagued the site.  I would later find out that it had been owned by a group of investors, as a publicly traded company, for quite some time.

And it was still losing money.

I quit, for a long time.  It happens, I guess:  It was an addiction I just outgrew, unlike heroin (There are no 12-step programs for Neopets to my knowledge).  I went on to other things, better games, communities with an average age higher than 12.  That was a long time ago.

Recently though, I saw my foster-sister playing something vaguely familiar.  I cocked an eyebrow and asked ‘Is that Neopets?’  She responded that it was, and was surprised I knew about it, after all I’m almost 7 years older than her.  I started to wonder if my old account was still there.  It was.  But it was buried in a mountain of obnoxious flash ads, a cash store for additional content, and many, many ‘updated’ games.

Much of the site now centered around ‘Neocash,’ the game’s RMT currency, with spotlights for the pets who have had the most of mom’s hard-earned cash spent to make the look tacky.  Many years-old promises have not been fulfilled, like finishing old plot arcs, and making the collectible clothes already in existence wearable by your pets.

Worst of all, the flash games are either drawn at such a high resolution, or just so poorly coded, that it takes a modern computer to run them.  Read that again:  IT TAKES A MODERN COMPUTER TO RUN A FLASH GAME THAT TAKES A MAXIMUM OF 3 MINUTES TO PLAY.

I really don’t know what else to say.  Humanity is doomed?  Everything has to evolve and change, but this feels more than a little sick.  I guess there’s not much else to it though:  It’s a publicly traded company, so it exists to make a profit.  Even so, fighting as a Cybunny soldier in the great Sloth wars is one of the few fuzzy memories of my early-mid teens.

I remember Eliv Thade, the great Lord of Anagrams.  I remember the Lab Ray which could perform unwanted Sexual Reassignment Surgery in seconds flat.  I remember my pets who fought valiantly against the evil Dr. Sloth, lord of all things slow and lazy.

I miss Neopets.  As casual-market video games go, it was tops.  Seriously.

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.

I got my first taste of PvP combat in CCR’s Rising Force Online. That was my first and my last massive scale PvP game. While it was fun at first, the prospect of enduring repeated backstabbing by higher level players got to me after a while.

To make a long story short, I eventually mellowed out, PVP-wise. While I still log onto the game, I tend to use it as an over-glorified chatroom these days.

Strangely, the specter of potential PvP refused to leave me alone. An editor of mine recently assigned me to cover the local launch of a new PvP-based game called Rohan Online.

For those of you who may not be familiar with the game, this is how the Rohan Online revenge system works: whenever someone KOs you, that player character’s name will conveniently appear on your hit list. You may then choose to be instantly teleported to that character’s location (more specifically, behind that character’s back) so that you may exact your  revenge.

The trade-off is that if you ever get to repay him or her, your character’s name will then appear on your foe’s hit list. That way, the cycle of vengeance can go on indefinitely.

This was one of the points that I brought up during the Q & A portion of the launch. Since I was in a bit of a weird mood at the time, I asked the question that some small, inner voice had been prompting me to ask for the past hour.

“Does Rohan Online give you any incentive for not exacting revenge on someone who has backstabbed you?”

The game’s marketing manager looked at me as if I’d grown another pair of eyes.

After he’d recovered, he told me that there was no real reason for not getting revenge. The best thing a player could do, he said, was to “make friends with your former enemy and then go out and backstab someone else together.”

It sounded like a strange way to turn the other cheek. Satisfied, I held my peace for the rest of the launch event, fully intending not to play this game at all.

Don’t get me wrong. I think Rohan Online has the potential to be a good game–for PVP enthusiasts, that is. The local marketing head of Rohan Online here gave a good presentation, but it wasn’t enough for me to get out of my “no PvP” comfort zone.

You see, I’d discovered something even more satisfying than exacting revenge: that of making other players your friends even before they have a chance to become your enemies.

I learned this principle from some of the nicest folks I’d ever met online, and this has brought about a total paradigm shift.  After all, I very well know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of a backstab. Why should I do the very thing I hate to someone else, especially when there are better alternatives available? Easy? No. Ultimately satisfying? Definitely.

Maybe there’s something to turning the other cheek after all.

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.

Well they’d be dead wrong. I can appreciate trying to mask the grind, which all MMORPGs do to at least a degree of success. Games like World of Warcraft mask the grind well in theory, because it takes relatively little time to grind your character from 1-70 and I assume to 80 now, but the fact that with every expansion your previous achievement is immediately negated by the crap you find floating around in the first 5 minutes of the new content pretty much makes all you just did meaningless.

I suppose one might argue  that the point of video games and all games in general is to have fun, but there you’d be dead wrong. Tell me, what was the best part of leveling in World of Warcraft? Final Fantasy XI? Yeah, let’s talk about Final Fantasy XI’s leveling. What was the best part of that? Was it killing the snippers, clippers, or one of their ten thousand reskinned cousins? Or perhaps it was the worker crawlers and their reskinned brethren. I challenge, nay, dare, anyone to name one objectively good thing about grinding in MMORPGs.

At this point some might be wondering why I play these games at all when I clearly don’t have fun with them, and there you have a good point. I suppose what I enjoy most is the odd sense of accomplishment at finally hitting a new level, getting a new piece of equipment, et cetera. Games that convince (lie) most effectively that what I did was indeed challenging and worthwhile I tend to stick with the most. Final Fantasy XI’s tedious grind scheme meant each level actually felt like it had meaning, compared to World of Warcraft’s smooth, easy clip. However, the illusion of progress is shattered in Final Fantasy XI when I’m level 41 and still can’t effectively solo enemies 15 levels below me, and in World of Warcraft it’s shattered when everything I had collected previous is immediately rendered meaningless by Blizzard’s latest expansion.

So, to make an already TL;DR post even more TL;DR: MMORPG developers, please learn how to lie to me better. Blizzard, you don’t have to throw new shit my way the second I step into the new expansion’s first zone. My gear can keep until, say, 73. Square, let me solo the banshee. It’s okay. I guarantee I won’t figure out a totally awesome, game shattering scam by being able to kill it without back up. Trust me, I’m not that smart.

“Oh man, I’m going to be so cool now with my expensive gear and my flying mount, I’m gonna get all the bitches”

The person who plays the game normally:

“Why should I even bother doing the work and the grinding when I can go online and buy some monies”

Doesn’t seem harmless right? Well this is the case where this stuff is just beginning, let’s take a look at what happens after a while of this kind of buying.

The new player:

“Crap, I can’t buy anything because of how high the prices are, guess I have to buy stuff online or quit”

The Company:

“The economy has gone to shit, people are no longer playing because of how pointless currency is”

GAME SHUTS DOWN

The company selling online currency:

Oh well, let’s move on to X of Y MMORPG.

then repeat ad infinitive.

This has become evident in more MMORPGs, certainly it’s become common in World of Warcraft, it’s caused Runescape to shit itself a new leaf but completely destroying free trade, and all it is doing is hurting the companies and the players. If you don’t have the time to play an MMORPG, then don’t. Don’t go and play just so you can spend money and stagnate the game. Besides, how fun is it to not work to achieve what you’ve earned, maybe it’s just me but I never feel right getting something without working for it. It’s much, much more rewarding to have achieved something by your own means, not by outside means. Hell it’s like cheating in Grand Theft Auto, sure it’s a blast for maybe an hour or two, but after that you just feel bored because it just becomes you doing the same thing over and over again without any challenge. I understand there’s a whole industry out there for people working to produce the online currencies, but you’re only killing the game you want to play by buying from them. So unless you want to kill that game, why not just play with friends to achieve currencies yourself?

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.

Persona 3 (FES), 4

If you like jRPGs at all, I’m sure you’ve heard about these. I honestly haven’t played the first two, but I do know that they were changed pretty drastically to appeal to Western audiences. These weren’t.

These game is broken up into two different parts: Dungeons and Towns.  In dungeons, you fight. Turn-based battles involving your party members and you either attacking with your weapon or summoning your Persona, a representation of your soul, to preform magic that uses HP(Physical magic) or SP(Special magic). In towns, you can socialize and make social links, one of the big parts of making strong Personas, buy stuff and increase your social attributes, allowing you to make more social links.

There is a really really really big difference between these two games, however.

In P3, you only directly control the Main Character in battle, and in P4, you can, if you choose, to control your entire party manually.  This was a big step for me, and a bit of a sad one. If you choose to play these games, play Persona 3 before you play Persona 4, because you will NEVER be able to play 3 again.

Despite Aegis being the most fuckable robot ever.

The World Ends With You

I’m pretty sure I’ve said I don’t like SquareEnix. If I didn’t, then here it is.

I really hate SquareEnix.

But they still make some good games sometimes. This one proves that.

TWEWY is a very interesting DS game. You play as Neku, as well as Shiki, Joshua and Beat. The three characters that change change with the scenario in game, but Neku is playable the entire time. The battle system is very VERY interesting. Neku is on the bottom screen, and one of the other three is on the top screen. Neku is controlled with the stylus by tapping, slashing and making circles. The top screen is controlled with the control pad or face buttons. The enemies on either screen are the same and share HP. When you kill something on the top or bottom screen, it dies on the other. Thankfully, you don’t HAVE to control both of the screens at once, the top screen goes to auto play(or not) after 6 – .5 seconds. Pick this game up, or you’ll be so Zetta sorry!

Fallout 3

I’m sure if you’ve head my first “Play These Games” you’d have seen I pissed a good week away on this game… and I’m still putting time into it.  In this game, you play as a custom young man/woman from Vault 101. The setting for this game is bleak at best: 2277 is post apocalyptic Washington D.C. Everything has been destroyed and new stuff has popped up.

First thing you come across is giant mutated mole things that, while not difficult to subdue, look rather scary. Your part in this game is simple: Be good, be bad, or be someone no one cares about. The game is so damn open-ended it isn’t even funny. You get awesome weapons, from the plasma pistol to the Fatman, a mini-nuke slingshot and you can even make your own weapons with schematics you find. The big thing in this game, though, is the main story.

It’s compelling, depressing, hilarious and infuriating. The one thing I found angry about the game is the ending does not allow you to continue after you finish the main quest. Now, this is a very open ended game, a damn good one… Now why is there an ending with no continuation? Why is there no alternative because you can bring a character to the ending that could complete the task as easy as you and live!

Sometimes, I wonder if developers do shit like that to games just to get reactions like mine from the players.

Last one for today:

Pokemon (Series)

Like you didn’t see that one coming eventually.

That’s right. A whole damn series. You need to play ALL of them. You’re a kid starting off in a little backwoods town and you wanna be the very best like no one ever was. You can start with any one of three Pokemon, and go on your journey. It’s hard, it’s long, it’s fun, and it never ever ends. There are nearly 500 Pokemon to catch today, and more to come soon. There are tournaments, the newest versions support wifi battles and trades, and there’s a new version coming out in mid-March to screw over everyone who bought one of the other two versions released last year.

Oh, Nintendo… I love giving you my money.

Alright, I think I gave you enough to chew on this time. Think about it!

Don’t forget my good ‘ol radio up there under “Live Streams”!

Till next time!

Jumpluff~

Written for GIANT ENEMY BLOG

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.

The company that purchased the website, My MMO Inc., is owned by a private equity firm, and was only recently formed in 2008, apparently for the single purpose of buying the store. Media Relations Agent for My MMO, Hunter Crowell, issued the following statement:

MyMMOShop.com appealed to us because of its strong reputation for providing optimal customer service. That focus will continue with our purchase.

Crowell also commented on the current state of the video game industry in the wake of the current economic crisis, stating that people are choosing to stay home and enjoy less expensive forms of entertainment, instead of going out. Simply put, the video game industry is going strong, despite the current problems, and RMT (real-money-trade) sales have (unfortunately) also been on the rise in recent years, though whether it’s depression proof or not is another matter.

No game companies have issued a response to the buyout, and are expected to continue to enforce their terms of service in prohibiting RMT transactions. However, one can imagine the players of online games will voice their dissatisfaction in due time.

With such an obvious grind in a game, why does it have so many subscribers?

The answer is the fact it’s online.

Well, okay, most play it for the multiplayer, and about two people enjoy the Warcraft plotline.

A single-player version of World of Warcraft would be a stifling affair: You’d level up, and level up, then run through instances… With no big crescendo, no end in sight. This would be a very, very bad game. However, by being online, the human desire to be the best kicks in, making players want to level, and grind, to be considered the best in the game- Even if it means very little. Another reason multiplayer saves Warcraft is the cooperative aspect. Players may not enjoy the grind but have an ultimate goal for the endgame: to work together in large parties in order to defeat a boss and receive the loot. For some players, the loot isn’t the goal, but to help others get the loot and see more of what the game has to offer.

Players may stop playing the game, too. This is usually because they value the $15 they pay every month over the time and entertainment the game offers. In short, they’ve found something better to do with their time.

In short, the MMO World of Warcraft is a good game, but it isn’t for everyone. People who enjoy a community, having a somewhat living environment around them, would like it, but the slow paced gameplay (Outside of PvP, that is) before you reach the endgame may turn you off.

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…

World of Warcraft – “You want a cookie? Here, have one.”
Release Date: 2004
Expansions: 2

The Good:
-Large playerbase
-Very casual ‘pick up and play’ gameplay
-Established communities

The Bad:
-Until late in the game, it’s not very multiplayer oriented (kind of the idea behind the genre…)
-A bit too easy
-The average player usually isn’t helpful, intelligent or nice

The Ugly:
-*Gank*
-Endgame

Alright, so here we have it, the big cheese of MMORPGs out there. So why so big and addictive? Anybody from your mom to that basement dweller next door can play it and get into it. The casual factor is a major selling point in any market, and WoW nails it right on the head. By all means it’s a wonderful waste of time if you want one, however it does come off as awfully easy. With the average quest being ‘kill 10 of X monster’ and money being easier to earn than the affection of a dying kitten, the game turns more into a reward simulator than anything of a challenge. PVP can vary wildly depending on what class you are (read: unbalanced.) For all it’s worth however, the world is beautiful and it’ll keep you entertained for as long as you want it to. While the art direction does feel oh-so-right most of the time, every now and then the comically oversized weapons, large variety of funny looking mounts and armor that trails pixie dust give an ‘over the top’ feel.

Moving into our next most popular RPG, I’d like to note that while you might not consider it to be a big player in the market, it’s Japan’s number one most played MMO and it has a very large following in the United States. It doesn’t get mentioned often enough for how large of a playerbase it -still- carries, so let’s move on to…

Final Fantasy XI Online – “You’re going to work for this cookie.”
Release Date: 2002 (JP)/2003 (US)/2004 (EU)
Expansions: 4

The Good:
-Established servers
-Party based leveling and gameplay
-Friendly–but Wapanese-players
-Large class selection with defined roles
-Story
-Global and cross platform servers

The Bad:
-Large learning curve
-More restricted gameplay elements (read: no jumping)
-Forced group interaction in most aspects of play
-Extremely restricted PvP

The Ugly:
-Archaic game interface
-Unnecessary waits on everything from fighting to healing that make the game even more of a time sink than it should be

Enter FFXI. Ready to feel even more stupid for being an American? They say patience is a virtue– so get ready to be more virtuous than a saint. Viewed from a typical WoW player’s eyes, this game is going to seem challenging, slow and painful (and they’ll be mostly right.) So here we have a game where the primary mode of leveling isn’t quests (in fact there are only a small handful that even give an EXP reward,) but rather forming 6 person parties and grinding on monsters 10 levels above you. This has both positive and negative effects, one being that leveling is PAINFUL. On the bright side however, you will actually interact with players (albiet forced) and you will either learn to play your role correctly or be crushed under the weight of your own dimwittedness. This doesn’t mean everyone is a pro at their class however, since you can change your class at will in towns. So if you don’t lose your mind from leveling or not being invited to parties by Japanese players, you’ll feel a pretty good sense of accomplishment– you’ll need it, because it’s all you’ll have left.

Our last little stop on our journey brings us to a recent release. One that’s had more hype than Duke Nukem Forever and has burned out just as quickly…

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning – “COOKIE! WAAAGH!”
Release Date: 2008
Expansions: 0

The Good:
-Warhammer art and story
-PvP based gameplay

The Bad:
-Much work to be done in balance and game issues
-Quests carry much less weight midgame, turning leveling into a PvP based chore

The Ugly:
-A completely unoriginal UI, interface, and quest system that looks oddly like a game we’ve all seen before…

Welcome to World of Warh– err, Warhammer Online! A game we all waited for with more anticipation than a crack fiend with a roll of money, ready for his next fix. This game is a shining example of how an awesome game idea can go astray when developers fear to stray from the WoW design. WAR brings up fun and interesting concepts like Public Quests (where whomever can just run up, join and get some quick rewards,) detailed PvP scenarios and a nifty little tome that puts the Bible to shame. The art is a tabletop gamer’s wet dream of a dark and war filled world. So where did this all go wrong? Unoriginallity. Now before you say anything, I’m not speaking of the art, monsters, classes or story; I speak only of the interface design. From the minute you start playing, you’ve never felt like you left WoW– and this really takes away from the immersion. Many people also complain about the many fixes, bugs and updates, stating that the game was released unfinished, but you have to understand that this is typical of any MMO on launch. Despite what has been said, a major fan of the Warhammer series is not likely to be turned off by all this games flaws.

So there you have it. A simple analysis of a few established MMORPGs. I leave it up to you, the reader to decide which games are worthy of your money and time. Today’s MMORPG market will never get better until you, the consumer, put a little time into what you’ll pay for.

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.”

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.