In the distance, Nathard could finally see his home
city. He still couldn’t believe his rotten luck.
The dragon was slain, half of his companions were
dead and all the land knew about his bravery, but
the helm he was after was still not his. Even worse,
the cleric in his party managed to get his hands on
the legendary Staff of Wisdom. Tired and annoyed he
decided to make camp and hope for better luck in the
future. After all, he had another raid on Samath scheduled
for the following evening.
What are MMORPGs?
The term MMORPG
(Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) is
relatively new to the gaming scene. As the name suggests
games of this genre put large amounts of players into
a role playing environment (typically a fantasy world).
Obviously the nature of playing requires access to
the internet, preferably via a broadband connection.
Since most of the world is only now getting proper
broad band infrastructure it comes as no surprise
that MMO games have only recently started to gain
true popularity.
Another thing that kept more people
from entering the huge online worlds (and is, to some
extent, still keeping them) are subscriptions. Maintaining
the servers costs money, as does paying a dedicated
team to keep the game stable and fix balance issues.
Unlike most games which only get patches to fix stability
issues, MMOs require a constant stream of updates
which usually include bug fixes, balance corrections,
new features and additional content (quests, territories,
items).
What makes MMORPGs popular?
In short – the human desire
to be better than others and the possibility to play
with/against human players. Playing a regular single
player RPG usually offers the player an engaging storyline
and an experience revolving around the player himself.
When finished the player feels a sense of accomplishment,
which he sometimes shares with his friends (or online
forum members) to boost his self-image. In MMO’s
on the other hand, the world is filled with live players,
so defeating a dragon or claiming a rare item earns
you respect from your peers. Respect is also the guiding
force behind most of the hardcore guilds which strive
to be the best in the game (more on guilds later).
People (even die hard computer
geeks) usually try to meet other people which is impossible
in single player games and very limited in regular
multiplayer games. Opposed to this, MMO’s revolve
around players interacting with each other. This interaction
can take several forms: adventuring together, role
playing, crafting, fighting and socializing are just
a few. Lately PvP (player versus player) fighting
seems to be the main selling point of MMORPG’s
while crafting and role playing are both taking a
backseat.
Components of a MMORPG
PvE (Player versus Environment)
Literally every MMORPG offers a
PvE experience. This part of the genre is similar
to regular single player games, as players usually
complete story-driven quests for various in-game characters.
Some MMO’s force the player into joining forces
with other players to complete such quests, but for
the most part the player is capable of handling the
dangers alone.
The majority of MMOs offer several
zones, each of them appropriate to a certain level
range. This approach has players progressing to new
zones as they level up which helps the game maintain
a certain freshness and keeps players from get bored
and leaving the game.
Completing PvE quests and/or just
PvE adventuring (killing enemy creatures) yields experience
and gives the players the chance to acquire common
and uncommon items (weapons, armors, crafting components…).
Raiding
Raiding is an extension of PvE.
Generally raids require a larger amount of players
than regular PvE. Logic dictates that the rewards
for raiding should be greater then those of PvE questing.
Thus, items found on raid bosses (creatures which
wait at the end of raid dungeons and are usually extremely
hard to defeat) and other raid encounters (regular
raid enemies found throughout the dungeon) are generally
better then items acquired in PvE.
These items are often used as trophies,
marking out players that have them as “better”
then the rest of the population. As such a lot of
players try their best to get hold of these items.
PvP (Player versus Player)
People are competitive by nature.
Owning the rarest piece of equipment is nice and all,
but what better way to prove your superiority then
to use that item to smash another players face? Today’s
MMO’s are almost required to have a PvP component
if they wish to succeed. It usually takes form in
one on one combat and team battles. While the first
usually happens when two enemy players unexpectedly
meet and forces players to stay alert at all times
it is the team PvP that can make or break a MMO. Team
battles are usually limited to fights between the
various factions the players belong to and to battles
between player guilds.
Team PvP is usually controlled and takes place in
designated arenas/battlefields while one on one combat
occurs in the regular game zones (obviously there
are exceptions to both rules).
Crafting
Some MMOs give the players the
ability to craft items. Depending on the game such
items can be extremely rare and hard to produce, making
crafting a viable option to earn in game money. Some
MMO’s in-game markets are even entirely driven
by crafters, who set the prices according to supply
and demand. In most MMO’s however, crafting
takes a secondary role as it is impossible to achieve
anything through crafting alone.
Role playing
Role playing in its purest
form means that players not only act their roles in
combat (a mage casting spells of a fighter fighting
up close for example) but also act as if they were
the character they control. This includes speaking
like the character would probably speak; using only
knowledge the hero has access to and committing only
acts the player avatar would.
Role playing itself doesn’t
require the game to offer any specific mechanics,
but role players tend to use a lot of emotes so having
lots of them is a big plus. Most games even separate
the role players from the rest of the player-base
by providing RP servers. Both involved parties (RPers
and non-RPers) like it this way, since the play style
of both often interferes with the others ability to
enjoy the game.
Guilds
Guilds are the MMO counterpart
of clans. Their purpose is to enable players with
similar interests to play together, make sharing items
easier and help with their socializing. Different
games give guilds additional tools which offer players
more reasons to stay in a guild. Everquest 2 (as an
example) only allows buying of rare house items to
characters that are part of a guild.
History of MMORPGs
Looking at today’s
MMORPGs it is hard to believe that just over a decade
ago this genre did not exist. Sure, there were MUDs
(Multi-User Dungeon/Domain/Dimension), but they were
text based. The first graphical MMORPG that came out
was Meridian 59. It came out in 1996 and it was the
first web based game that required a monthly subscription
to play. It was also the first online RPG to feature
a 3d engine. Meridian 59 still exists
today and its newest expansion was released in 2004
(8 years after the original came out). In its lifetime
the game saw several changes including an engine overhaul,
which brought dynamic lightning to the table.
Just after the release of Meridian
59 another MMORPG was launched – The
Realm Online. Unlike Meridian this game was
in 2d. It featured an interesting take on combat,
as all of the fighting was turn-based (after that
not many MMOs were turn based). The interaction with
the environment was rather simplistic, but the interface
was very user-friendly as it imitated the interface
found in other graphical adventures of the time.
Both games had a small player
base and it wasn’t until 1997 when Ultima
Online was released that the genre
became more widely spread. Although extremely buggy
at release, the game delivered what players wanted:
a huge fantasy world filled with dangers just waiting
to be discovered by an adventurer. For the time the
game was extremely advanced (in certain areas it is
still more advanced than current generation MMO’s)
as it offered player housing (with houses built by
the players), a deep crafting system and full out
PvP for anyone who wanted to give it a go. Crime was
also a viable way of living, but it was nearly impossible
in cities with the guards stationed along the streets.
March 1999 saw the release of Everquest,
the game that made MMORPG’s what they are today.
Many of the current MMO game play mechanics were first
seen in Everquest. During the years
since its release 12 expansions were released for
it, each delivering new lands and quests. These expansions
also brought several graphical overhauls with them,
the latest just recently – in 2006. To this
day the success of Everquest is amazing, topped only
by the figures of World of Warcraft. 1999 was also
the year Asheron’s Call came
out. It wasn’t as successful as Everquest or
Ultima, but it is nonetheless considered as a good
MMO (that just had the misfortune to come out right
after Everquest).
At the beginning
of the new millennium the “big three”
(Ultima Online, Everquest and Asheron’s Call)
were still going strong and new MMO’s were having
a hard time stealing their player-base. Anarchy
Online, released in June 2001 had big problems
at launch, as the game servers were unable to cope
with the surprisingly big player base. A large number
of bugs which were later slowly patched prevented
the game from being more popular. It has to be noted
that Anarchy Online was the first Sci-Fi MMORPG that
saw the light of day (the rest were all fantasy based).
A few months after
Anarchy Online came out another big MMO was born –
Dark Age of Camelot. Its launch was
not problematic and the introduction of Realm PvP
made the game quite popular. Regardless of these facts
it never managed to beat any of the big three. At
the time market analysts believed it was due to market
saturation (World of Warcraft proved them wrong).
2002 was the year
Final Fantasy XI hit the market.
It was the first cross-platform MMO, as both PS2 and
PC users could play it. It introduced random server
selection at character creation – the player
could change the server later for an amount of in-game
money. To this day Final Fantasy XI remains one of
the best MMO’s with a notable market share.
In 2003 three
bigger MMO games came out: Eve Online, Star
Wars Galaxies and Lineage 2.
Eve Online was the first space-based
MMO to be released and because of its nature (empty
space) it allowed huge numbers of players to be playing
on the same server. The game is still going strong
and is expecting a major graphical update with the
release of DirectX 10.
Star Wars Galaxies was
very successful at launch (mostly due to the Star
Wars lore it contained). However, since then the population
has fallen drastically – this can be accredited
to the major changes SoE (Sony online Entertainment)
made with the game. They changed the entire game play
mechanics of the title with modifications to how combat
works, the scraping of the old player classes and
the overall simplification of how the game works.
Old players criticized the ongoing changes, but SoE
didn’t seem to care much about the complaints.
Today, SWG is only a shadow of the original game,
both in terms of game play as well as the number of
subscribers.
The sequel to Lineage (a
very successful MMORPG for the eastern market) was
developed with the help of Richard Garriott (the father
of the Ultima universe). The game used the Unreal
engine (a first for a MMO) to create a fantasy world
filled with PvP combat. Because of the grinding nature
of gameplay Lineage 2
was never very successful outside of Asia (although
the game is still going strong, especially on “private”
servers).
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