MMO’s Coming Out In 2011 Are Already Behind The Curve
2011 sure seemed like a year that would be promising us some exciting upcoming titles in the MMORPG world. With Star Wars: The Old Republic, Rifts of Telara, and DC Universe Online it appeared at first glance that there finally would be some promising games out there which fought back against the monster known as World of Warcraft. I, for one, was in this crowd of believers looking forward to something fresh and a chance to move onto to greener fields.
Unfortunately, from my time playing the beta for some of these games and then also playing World of Warcraft’s latest expansion Cataclysm, I have to say that World of Warcraft has trumped the genre yet again.
But Umar, how can you say that? Those games are in beta and things always change!
Yeah, okay. People said that about Final Fantasy XIV, Age Of Conan, Warhammer Online, and Champions Online. Where are they now? Age of Conan is struggling to show some respectable numbers while being considered another tally of fuck ups by Funcom, discussions about putting FFXIV on a free to play model are on the table with Square-Enix already boasting a whopping 2 million active characters (look closely at the bolded word), Mythic is essentially dissolving with employee blogs ranting about the horribly typical EA experience they are suffering from (WAR really needs a F2P model if it’s going to stand up ever again), and Champions is already on a F2P market and is shitting bricks from the upcoming DC title.
Beta did not change those games. They have remained garbage and will never be something worth a purchase.
It’s time to take off those rosy glasses of hope and look at reality for a minute. Nothing has come to close to taking a slice of this market no matter how much you whine.
For the longest time, you’d hear me complaining about World of Warcraft and its flaws and its lack of this and that, but those were the days of Burning Crusade. The game has progressed leaps and bounds from release. I honestly have no qualms about it. What were the typical issues people had with WoW?
It’s too easy, Umar!
Okay, you nerdy Sephiroth cosplaying queer. Have you played Cataclysm? A PUG can barely clear a heroic now if most of the people you group with have downs. Oh, and don’t say “The WoW community is filled with bad players.” That’s easy to say. Most people I know that say that and then either play WoW or another MMO with me are usually just as bad as any other idiot I could PUG with.
WoW’s graphics are out of date!
Yeah, they are but it works with their art style. You need things to look pretty to have fun? Plants VS Zombies wasn’t enjoyable? Mario Kart isn’t fun? Let’s go play something pretty like Final Fantasy XIV. I’m sure that’ll be a great experience. Or let’s play Age of Conan where even the most high end computers at the time were struggling to display some of the graphics. Graphics shouldn’t be on the top of your list for playability as opposed to the actual style of the game.
I think you’re stupid and gay, Umar! Star Wars is going to be awesome!
Thanks, asshole. Enjoy Star Wars then. I’m not telling people to not play it as much as I’m saying that future upcoming MMORPGs are already behind what Cataclysm has presented. Star Wars will have what? Epic dialogue and a story? That is fantastic. Cataclysm already makes your character feel like they were part of a story, maybe not on the scale of Star Wars with all the cinematics, camera angles, and voice acting, but they did make your character more involved in the storyline.
Bioware already claimed that they won’t have much endgame and that they encourage people to roll alts to see the story from a different perspective. This is a “Choose your destiny” book in virtual form. All you’re getting is a story and not many innovative mechanics. They barely ever talk about actual gameplay and mechanics as much as they talk about the story portion of the game and the classes. “Hey guys we’ve got spaceships and Jedi! Cool shit, huh?” This is a niche game and once your story is over that’s it. Bioware isn’t known for making difficult games that require strategy and skill. Putting Mass Effect 2 on harder difficulties just meant you took more damage. Wowzers!
Rifts of Telara has already thrown in the towel by conceding the fact their game is more like Vanilla WoW than WoW in its current state. Vanilla WoW was one of the most raw and broken starts to an MMO. Gamers today are crying for innovation and polish. Not a throwback to olden times. Rifts is going to be what Vanguard was to Everquest 1. An old school reincarnation that will fall flat in the present.
The only game I think that can even grab a slice of the MMO market is DCUO. I’m not talking about a game that will take subs from World of Warcraft but a game that can fill that super hero niche that Champions failed to quench. City of Heroes is already too old school and bland even with all their amazing patches. DCUO has that opportunity to grab the market from those games and even pull in more people who cream to “Smallville” and “The Dark Knight”. It isn’t competing against the elephant in the room but against the carrion dogs roaming about.
If you don’t agree with me, that’s fine. You can think what you want and I can still think you’re a bag of dicks. What am I saying is going to come to true because my word is not only correct but absolute. These MMOs will fall flat with the exception of DCUO if Sony actually markets a game this time. Time will allow you to see the truth and your bottled-up, unbridled nerd pride will nourish me when you fail to accept my prophecy.
Visits: 2137
They are going to have to pull out a miracle if they ever want Star Wars: Old Republic to be even slightly as good as any of the previous KOTOR games. Good RPGs don’t make good MMOs because MMOs appeal to the masses.
I am a noob for the most part when it comes to MMOs but I played WoW for about 5 minutes and was bored to tears. It is dumb, which is why it is so popular. Same reason Michael Bay’s Transformers movies make soo much money but are possibly the dumbest movies in the history of dumb movies (this includes SyFy Channel originals). People don’t want to think. They just want pretty graphics and effects. Then they want to be told that they have accomplished something when all they’ve done is gathered wolf pelts or dear horns for 5 hours straight to level up. WoW is the pop music of the MMO world, mindless fun that anyone can enjoy and succeed at. Until some one makes a dumber, prettier game (Star Wars maybe since that franchise has gone the way of mindless) nothing will trump WoW.
DCUO? When will people learn that superhero RPGs DO NOT WORK!! This includes tabletop RPGs with which I am VERY familiar. The superhero genre doesn’t mesh well with leveling and experience points. How many levels has Superman gained? None. He had his powers from the start, learned how to use them and then went to town on evil. Because of this inherent opposition to leveling superhero RPGs make no sense. Or, perhaps, it doesn’t make sense to shoehorn a superhero game into MMO standards. Same way it was the dumbest thing ever for the makers of Star Trek Online to try and force that universe into an MMO mindset. It can be done but it has to be done in an innovative way, not by (forcefully) adapting a system that works for one genre to something that is entirely different. It also doesn’t help that balancing out a superhero game is near impossible. How do you have a Batman-like gadget guy fight alongside a Superman-like guy who can fly and do a million SUPER things? Superheroes don’t fall into TANK and HEALER archetypes as easy as other genres do. Superman is not ‘A’ Tank but THE Tank. When you write a comic it is easy to work the story to take advantage of each character’s strengths and weaknesses but in a video game it is close to impossible because you want to give players freedom. But if I can fly and you only have a Bat mobile then things are already unbalanced. I’ll make it to the fight days before the Bat mobile even gets to the next gas station. Speaking of which how does Batman gas up that thing? Never mind.
Superhero games need to be very story intensive and force players apart even when they are in a group or else Batman punching something is never going to be as cool as blasting something with heat vision and so, all you will get are a shit-load of Supermen all up on every server. Also, to further my argument, how many “healer” type superheroes are there? None. (There was a Morlock in the Marvel Universe that healed and he was killed off in like 3 issues.) From what I’ve seen and heard about DCUO from my friends playing, it is pretty–but boring. Just like City of Heroes and Champions. It gets extremely repetitive very quickly. “Go kill 10 of this” Yay! You got a badge. “Now go kill 20 of those same things.” Yay! You got some bullshit worthless accomplishment. “Now, ready for this, go kill 30 of those same things AGAIN!” Yay! You have just wasted 5 hours of your life doing the same thing over and over.
With ALL that time you could’ve watched Transformers 2 twice!
(makes a grinding noise) OOPS!
Wow what a hostile article. Bleah!
Chip, meet shoulder.
WoW graphics ARE out of date and should be fixed.
Wow is done. Has been for years. Just because a few million moronic assholes continue to pour in mommy and daddy’s money doesn’t make it good. It’s a pile of steaming puke. And Rift is just a dripping chunk that got hurled away from the main pile of regurgitated crap that is WoW.
dude your forgeting one major key mmo thts comeing out….guild wars 2 . personaly if you want to play midless wow clones or the shity fucked up outdated boreing ginding game thats wow go ahed but your wasteing ur presious time grinding…”go kill 10 zombies” “you get exp good job…..” wtf? i personally have no fun grinding for 5 hours to get a level but also have no fun when other games try to spice things up by graphics and combat but getts boreing after like 2 hours then u just wastes 2 gb of memory for ur com. guild wars 2 will blow wow out of the water ….wait it already did bitch….. guild wars is way better than wow…enough said….but one major accoplishment of wow was that is got alot of people to play it …..who cares how many people play it that dosent mean they PLAY it it just mean they creted a account and then got bored of the game in 2 min like i did. also wow is PTP. the biggest complaint i have with wow is that your have to spend 11 fucking dollers amoth to play that shit. at lest runescape hase a free to play mode..but come on pay for that shit no way. i mean if it went free to play i guess i would put alittle more time into the game but NO they will stay pay to play. and if u really want to bash on FF then just stop that is the most reconized franchizes in the world bitch and you say sephiroth is gay …he is the baddest badass super villian in the world….well to contredict myself sephiroth is not very badass as other villians but he make up with that by effectivly geting a huge LOVEerbase of people. the last thing i would like to say is wow ,although haveing alot of players and mabye new content updates once in like 2 years, is SHIT peer shit and u say that the new addiction was challenging …wht about the rest of the game is that challenging? NO and if it is well is it really fun, NO, the game is somewhat interactive but there are plenty other game that offer way better combat and storyline that wow can ever manage to get. By all means if i ever came close to playing this shit i would play runes of magic-free to play wow clone that is just like wow– but better.
Don’t know if your post is serious or if you’re totally wasted but you’d fit right into the World of Warcraft or League of Legends community. By the way, monthly fees have been $15 a month for almost all MMORPGs for 6 years.
Also, Guild Wars 2 isn’t an MMORPG. It’s a Persistent Online RPG.
You’re cute though. Your response was just adorable.
“If you don’t agree with me, that’s fine. You can think what you want and I can still think you’re a bag of dicks. ”
Are people suppose to take this website seriously?
im new to this site, and I don’t play mmos at all, but after reading this article, I find no reason to ever come back to this site for any reviews.
it told me nothing but “world of warcraft exists, it is good ENOUGH” Star wars is coming out, world of warcraft will still exist, and still be good enough….. therefore go fuck yourself?
having your own website made your opinion less impressive, surprisingly.