MMORPGs Need Better Quests

MMORPG developers have gotten way too lazy when it comes to designing quests. Almost every single quest in any MMORPG involves either role playing as a FedEx driver [Take this item and give it to an NPC named John Thunderhoof across town!] or a genocidal maniac [Kill 50 Baby Gnolls, 20 Mother Gnolls and 10 Gnoll Brutes]. Personally, kill quests in MMORPGs are an excellent distraction from mindless grinding, but I feel that quests should add a little more variety to the game. MMORPGs like Runes of Magic, Fiesta Online and WindSlayer are genuinely good games, but they have rather dull quests. To be fair though, 95% of MMORPGs have this same issue, I just used the three games mentioned as examples.

There’s nothing wrong with delivery and kill quests, but there’s no excuse for developers to use only these kinds of quests. Games like MapleStory and Dragonica Online for example, really take questing to the next level because they have a lot of unique quests. MapleStory has a boat load of ‘plat forming’ quests which require players to make it from one end of the screen to the other by dodging obstacles, sort of like a stage in Super Mario. Keep in mind MapleStory has the generic ‘go kill X amount of Y monsters’ and ‘fed ex’ like quests, but the fact that it also has other types of quests makes the game a lot more enjoyable.

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Some Shameless MMORPG Clones

Why is it that so many free MMORPGs are shameless rip offs of more successful games? It’s always been acceptable to borrow certain select elements from  other games and building on them, but games like Runes of Magic and WonderKing take it too far. For those that haven’t heard of Runes of Magic, it’s a 3d Fantasy MMORPG that both looks and plays almost exactly like Blizzard’s enormously popular World of Warcraft. The graphics are so similar that distinguishing the games from each other simply through a screenshot can be difficult. There’s no doubt in my mind that the game’s developers had one thing in mind, and that was to copy every aspect of World of Warcraft as much as possible without getting into any legal trouble. I’d like to point out that Runes of Magic isn’t a bad game, heck, it’s actually one of the best free to play titles of 2009, but it lacks even an ounce of original material.

WonderKing is also one of those MMORPGs that borrow a bit too many features from another well known game. In this case, WonderKing is a shameless rip  off of Nexon’s enormously popular side scrolling game ‘MapleStory’. Those that played both MapleStory and WonderKing will agree with me when I say that both of these games are practically identical in terms of gameplay, graphics and audio. That’s right, both games have unusually similar background music. It’s as if the WonderKing developers were playing MapleStory while developing their own game. Like Runes of Magic, WonderKing is actually a good game, but this shouldn’t be surprising because the game is a shameless clone of one of highest rated free to play MMORPGs on the market.

The thing is, there’s nothing wrong with borrowing good features from other games. Lots of games do it without going overboard. Dragonica Online, a relatively new game, for example borrowed a lot of features from MapleStory, but developed a lot of their own unique features. This sort of ‘copying’ is actually good for the MMO market as a whole, but when games just blatantly copy each other, it does nothing to advance the gaming industry. Anyway, the point of this article is to urge developers to actually do their jobs and develop new games instead of copying old ones.

Third person vs. First Person MMO Shooters

There are quite a bit of MMO shooters on the market, most of them first person, some of them third person. Everyone has their preference, but I feel that third person shooters require more skill, mainly because players have a lot more to focus on than just a cross hair. Using the camera effectively in a third person shooter is extremely important and can be the difference between a kill and a death. This is especially true in games like Battlefield Heroes and GunZ where players are given such flexible control of the camera. The ability to control and use the camera effectively adds another layer of gameplay to an otherwise simple genre.

Even though I feel that third person shooters demand more skill from players, there’s no doubt that first person MMO shooters also require some skill. This is especially true in tactical MMOFPS games like Sudden Attack and Soldier Front where players literally die in a single shot or two. Normally in these types of games, players with the fastest reaction times almost always win, making them extremely brutal for newbies. The only way for newbies to actually do well in a lot of tactical MMOFPS games is to fire rapidly towards their opponent’s general direction hoping for a headshot. Players new the MMO shooter genre should stick with games like Combat Arms and WolfTeam, because headshots are much more difficult to get, allowing newbies to stay alive longer and enjoy the game a bit more. WolfTeam is actually one of the most unique MMOFPS games out there because it allows players transform at any time into a melee oriented werewolf with superior speed and attack.

Are Free to Play games better than pay to play ones?

For a long time, pay to play games like World of Warcraft and Warhammer Online were considered untouchable, but as it stands the MMORPG market is evolving. More and more free MMORPG games are being released every week while only one or two major pay to play MMORPGs are being released every year. Just because there are a lot of free to play games though doesn’t mean any of them are really ‘great’, but I can safely say that the ‘latest generation’ of free to play titles are downright amazing.

New free to play titles like Atlantica Online, Runes of Magic and Dragonica Online can actually stand toe-to-toe against pay to play MMO juggernauts like World of Warcraft and Eve Online. These game’s aren’t ‘cheap’, as they have great production values. Heck, Runes of Magic looks just as good as World of Warcraft graphic wise.  Those who have played Dragonica Online will vouch for me when I say that game is downright amazing for a free to play title. Heck, it’s a lot better than some pay to play games like EverQuest and Star Wars Galaxies.

The real question is, when will pay to play games die off? The free to play market is just growing way too fast while free to play games are only getting better and better. Games like World of Warcraft and Eve online won’t be able to charge $15 a month when there are literally hundreds of free alternatives that are equally as good.

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