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.

This one is going to turn into a hurricane, first NCSoft, then SOE, Blizzard, the sky is the limit. I wonder if Sony are regretting having released HOME about now…

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.

Above: What we played.

The release of Age of Conan was hugely successful. Many turned out to buy what was to be a revolutionary MMORPG. The combat system alone was to bring the genre out of the rut it had gotten into, and make it a far more active experience. It was also to be the best PvP focused MMORPG since Dark Age of Camelot, with an active risk/reward system giving out the best gear in the entire game.

The sun looked bright around release, shining on the release of AoC and blessing it with a record breaking amount of pre-orders. It was hyped to not only match WoW, but beat it into the ground, I even gave into it against my better judgement and bought it at launch. Alas, we all should have known better.

The first sign that all was not well on the good ship Conan was probably the somewhat significant cut of DirectX10 features from the game. Graphically AoC was set to be a beast, only bested visually by games such as Crysis.

Above: What we expected.

The cut of DirectX10 features showed that this was not the case, and set in some fears as to whether FunCom could handle even DirectX9 graphics smoothly. At release these fears were not allayed in the slightest, with many players left with abominable performance on otherwise brilliant cards; memory leaks were discovered left right and center, and patch after patch seemed to only generate more issues among those who were originally able to play. Content post level 50 was reportedly unfinished, which was a crucial issue, considering the leveling speed was comparatively fast as opposed to other MMORPGs. The omens didn’t look good for the future.

Above: What we actually got.

FunCom continued to make promises, after the first month was over very few of those original players remained, and the community at large took a wait-and-see approach. Could FunCom bail out their boat in time? Or would it just sink like many began to predict.

It’s December now, so what have they done? They’ve had 6 months to patch the leaks, and attempted to make us all believe that November is the new July. For one, their PvP system seems to finally be implemented in full. A few tweaks are probably necessary as is with any major patch to any game, but at least the main draw of the game is now actually existent. A whole new level 80 area, Ymir’s Pass, has been brought back from the box of cut-content and fleshed out into a real zone for end game players looking for a fresh new alternative.

Above: Ymir

FunCom mysteriously seem to have managed all of the class boards to contain the same amount of whining, which is the closest thing to actual MMORPG balance, so they are actually making an attempt to please the fans.

An expansion is already announced to be in the works, and DirectX10 is reported to be in the finalising stages before it is pushed out onto the public beta servers. So perhaps by February, it will be July.

MMORPG = Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. 

I don’t see the word “dating” in the above acronym.

Before I continue, let me get something straight first: I don’t have any complaints about people hooking up through online games per se. That’s cool; you managed to bump into someone who shares the same interests as you (as do a bazillion other people, no doubt), and it’s way better to meet someone who at least shares your interests than meeting someone from a random bar, or a dating site.

If you could help it, though, it’s best to steer clear from checking out that cute pally in your guild.

Online romance is inevitable, but nonsensical

The concept of having in-game relationships is already inevitable, thanks to the boom of cyber-romance in the past decade. It’s not entirely a bad thing – after all, one of the biggest draws in online gaming is the forging of friendships and alliances between gamers who roleplay as knights, archers, magicians, etc. Of course, this also includes romantic relationships.

However, should the quest for romance be one of the main reasons of playing online games? The common consensus – or just plain common sense – may probably dictate a big fat NO. Problem is, common sense does not always prevail, and players wooing fellow gamers online is already an everyday affair. Some of them even make a career out of it.

Most of the time in online gaming relationships, you haven’t seen the other person aside from receiving a couple of pictures whose authenticity could not even be proven, save for meeting IRL – and even that isn’t foolproof. I’ve seen men who ask their sisters or girlfriends to act as the pilots of their female avatars, and they themselves usually tag along as “chaperones” to make sure their accomplices act in character.

I am aware that I’m painting online romances in a somewhat negative light, and I should; aside from dating those who you already met IRL, it doesn’t make sense to pursue a relationship with someone whom you do not know, assuming that you haven’t met yet in person. You may say “but I like her for what she is!” The question is, is the person who you met and fell in love with in an online game truly real? 

Can’t trust ‘em girls…and pseudo-girls

Let me go off-tangent a bit.

It’s a tried and tested theory that when you opt to play a female character, other players will tend to be more patronizing or generous towards you, generally speaking.

In many instances I have found myself to be on the receiving end of such contrived generosity, especially back when I was still starting out in my first online game, Ragnarok Online (yes, I went there). 

My first ever character, created six years ago, was an archer with a maxed out Str attribute – don’t laugh, RO players – and being the clueless ditz I was back then I began to ask other players how to this or that. Most of the time I got help, and some even went so far as to accompany in my quests. I would have thought that their virtual kindness stemmed from…well, being kind, if it weren’t for the fact that they asked for personal information almost each and every time I asked for help.

Eventually I got sick and tired of that annoying trend, and it never failed to grate on my nerves: the player who, upon meeting a female character in-game, know nothing else to do aside from asking for “her” contact details. The players who seem to have the annoying non-word “asl?” hotkeyed, ready to be pressed upon seeing a nubile virtual princess prance along gaily in the fields of god-knows-where. The player who, upon refusal to give him personal details or contact information, will then harrass the female character about not having a vagoo.

Apparently, men caught on as well, and decided to advantage of the male’s innate desire to be immensely gallant and generous towards females. Most of them took to roleplaying as girls, charming equipment off every eligible virtual bachelor they see. Some even go so far as to use voice changers and modified their voices to keep the illusion even in Skype, Vent, or TeamSpeak. 

See where I’m getting at?

Here’s the tl;dr version of this part of my article – every time you communicate with your online beloved, try to imagine an unwashed, topless man living in a basement controlling the virtual apple of your eye, laughing and smirking all the while professing “her” love for you.

Yes, it is a crass over-generalization, but it helps to keep this fact in proper perspective: you do NOT know who your online sweetheart really is. Sure, things may turn out for the better and the girl you’ve been raiding with all this time may be a Felicia Day, but are you willing to gamble your sanity and dignity over pixellated hormones?

I hate Felicia Day

While I don’t have any personal hate for Ms Day (she’s awfully cute, I’ll give her that), I hate her Asylum interview that also happened to be featured in Kotaku. In the article titled “Felicia Day Explains How to Meet Girls in World of Warcraft,” Felicia gives advice on how to snag the hearts of girl WoW players. Some of her tips include:

If you’re a noob you probably won’t get a second glance. Just like in real life when a guy drives a Ferrari, it might not be an automatic thumbs up, but it does catch the eye. So if you have the Ferrari of broadswords, yeah. 

One of the things that make online relationships different from real-life ones is that the boundaries that separate the rich and the not-so-rich (as long as they can pay for the games and broadband connection), the whites from the colored, and pretty much other distinctions are not only blurred, they are blotted out altogether. However, Felicia’s ‘tip’ somehow defeats that ideology with implying that your character has to be draped in legendary equipment to catch attention. 

But I didn’t mention Felicia because of her opinions. I mentioned her because I hate the fact that the interview existed in the first place, further reinforcing the annoying trend of male players constantly seeking the attention and affection of their female counterparts. Nay, the existence of the interview practically tells people that the whole affair is awwrriiight and no one finds fault in it.

No love for me

By now, you would probably want to tell me that I should just use a male character when playing online games. Sure, that worked, until one of my former guilds decided to use TeamSpeak during guild wars. No, I cannot be bothered with using voice changers and risk lagging my already clunky machine. That, regrettably, is only a short-term solution, even if it worked.

I realize that I am ranting against an established social contruct that happened to be reflected on online games, but please, next time you see a cute female character, just try to see her as that character and that character only – do not talk to her as a female player playing an online game. Chances are that you would just be disappointed in the long run, and it would her good to be spared from the usual “asl plz” lines.

Ever since the dawn of the gaming industry, developers have spent a lot of their time creating games based on magical fantasy worlds where knights, wizards, dragons and damsels in distress were more than mere possibilities. There was a will to interact with these stories in reaction to centuries of spectating them. After years of toying with the limitations of A.I scripting, the bread and butter of the RPG genre, the Internet finally provided the necessary tools to connect role players worldwide and make them mutually interact inside virtual dynamic worlds, huge online theaters where every actor played an independent and unique role while affecting others at the same time. Thus MMORPG genre was born from the RPG and proceeded to replace its predecessor gradually, while not completely, attracting a considerably larger and more diversed fanbase and spawning an unusual amount of success and response.

However, what game developers failed to predict was how seriously some people would take this form of entertainment. Even though an excess of dedication of a player over a video game is taken as a benefit for software companies, since it usually translates on a larger income, growing obsessive behaviors towards a video game can generate hazardous effects, both game and real life based that will consequentially damage both players and developers.

Over the last few years we have heard of people who ruined their lives, commited suicide and even murdered others over MMORPG-related issues. Now, it is absurd to think or claim that this game genre carries some kind of curse or that its a threat to public health, but these facts clearly illustrate that something is indeed wrong with the way some players face it. What was initially intended to be a way to relax people is becoming more of a new source of problems and worries for those who use it. Though this social phenomenon might be a shadow on the role video games have started to play in our society, it is quite a fact that the MMORPG genre, with its so called “freedom” and “social interaction” has given birth to some of the most controversial cases and situations ever spawned by the game industry.