An MMO Evaluation - Part 2

An MMO (mostly mmorpg) Evaluation, that is- "My 2 Bits on MMO's thus far." - part 2

I know that the article itself might seem very long, but the truth of the matter is that I am after all not talking about one game alone, but an entire game genre, it's history, my likes and dislikes on it, comparisons to other gaming genres during this time, as well as a small review on titles as well. Taking head on such a large topic cannot be done in just few words, unless the idea is to point out to only some things and keep posting new articles to cover different areas each time. To make one complete reference to it all in one go is indeed a lengthy journey.

Seems there might be hope after all.  Art from ESO (Elder Scrolls Online)

For Part 1 to the article click here.

Now, where to begin, or shall I say continue...

SWG: Star Wars Galaxies

My first introduction to mmo's was Star Wars Galaxies (SWG).
What followed after that first experience was a close reflection of the same thing. Low end graphics, cooldown crowded gameplay, target lock type combat and interface that although was not exactly turn-based, it was certainly closer to a turn-based form rather than real-time. My personal taste on all the above? Is disgust.

My stay in SWG was small, but long enough for me to see the basics. After 15 years of gaming I am a veteran and do not need more than few hours (much less) to understand where a game is going. Now my gaming years have ranked up to 25. The comment "later on the game gets better" is so overrated and overused. No, the game will never get better later, and it is about time people started to realise this. The content will get better, but not the game. It will have the same graphics, the same mechanics, the same animations, and the same gameplay.

The skill trees and the things you unlock are not the reward for playing an rpg for hours, they are reasons you like to play the rpg (meaning that having them from early on in the game is a good start to help you enjoy the game, waiting for 30 dings of leveling up to get to some skill or ability that will make the game fun does not suffice). You should enjoy building up a character, not building towards a character, hence constant rewards are the way to go and also the means to make you move up into the world which you are experiencing, making it more fun as well as more versatile. These extras are there to keep you going instead of boring you out, they are there to be enjoyed and not to be waited on. Content advancement apart from maps, story, enemies and loot, includes skills, traits, abilities etc, and if indeed the gameplay of a game is stale to begin with, making up for it after 20 hours of play with a cool skill or adventurous map is not an excuse and doesn't save the game. I can see screenshots if the most an MMO can give is better maps later on.

If a game is not fun for you within the first 15 mins, most chances are it will never be fun. "It gets better later" is not a phrase that convinces me, and I have put it to the test. Of course I always give the benefit of the doubt, and never try a new title for less than 30-60 mins. That is more than enough to know everything you need to know about a game, where it is headed, and what you can expect. Above all it is more than enough to know if you like it. I have forced myself to keep to those 30-60 mins for titles that I disliked within 15 mins. The result was the same after spending the extra time. Some titles I hit hours of play to try and get into them when I had more time and it still simply didn't work.

My introduction to the mmo genre, SWG, a game I actually enjoyed but only due to my Star Wars fandom.
Seeing Tatooine and the Binary Sunset, as well as laser pistols and lightsabers, was enough to give me smiles.

What bothered me as much as the graphics in these games was the turn-based-like gameplay. Given that there are many out there that like turn-based rpg's I am sure that they found comfort in this form of gameplay mechanic that was adapted by most if not all popular and leading mmorpg titles throughout time. And to be honest I don't have a big problem with turn-based gameplay in rpg's itself, so long as that is what I am in a mood for. I have enjoyed myself plenty of Baldurs Gate (1 and 2 as well as similar spin-off turn-based rpg titles that followed the pc adaptation to the DnD ruleset). And also played Neverwinter Nights excessively (1 and 2) which where also titles I really enjoyed and had lot's of fun with. SWKOTR is also among these fun titles for me. So clearly, I am not against turn-based rpg's.

I am however against being force-fed a turn-based gameplay model without wanting it, every single time I want to play an MMO title. That for me is really frustrating. Where is the variety and choice that gamers deserve to be given? Don't we have the right to chose what kind of game we play? It seems however the entire mmo genre was focused on pleasing only one side of the coin. Titles that tried to please the other side where barely good enough to even play for more than 2 mins, and the quality and time spent from developrs to provide for that other side of the coin was below average. Even so, for the turn-based idea, I still found the quality of mmo titles back in the day to be bellow average and thus paying a subscription fee for them seemed, although it was at the time in my mind justified with server maintenance and customer service, quite ridiculous. This made my stay in several mmo titles very, very small.

My stay on SWG was not all bad.

The graphics (although a concern of mine) where not my biggest concern.

For an mmo and for it's time it was average, bearable even, seeing that the sprites and textures where in many means used right. There was a clear attempt that they tried to get the feel of the SW universe right, providing a palette that aimed into doing so, and the general design direction was ok, even good at times.

It just was indeed too simplified but again, a small problem in the equation.

My biggest problem was the combat mechanics, that made it really a pain to enjoy.

Keeping a fixed top down perspective for the view would have helped to give the right feeling, and perhaps I would have enjoyed this and many other mmo titles more had this been the case.

Mimicking a 3rd person shooter and providing a very small amount from their mechanics in return simply encumbers you.

I never stopped feeling as if I just couldn't do the things I wanted in the world they provided me with.

This was the main reason I enjoyed Neverwinter Nights 2 and SWKOTOR much less than I did Baldurs Gate too. A 3rd Person perspective with mechanics that didn't quite suit it, although SWG did not feel entirely so much turn-based in gameplay, it sure was clunky and felt wrong.

The MMO model thus far... You're doing it wrong.

In time, even those justifications on server costs and customer service, began to blur and lose their way in the distance. It wasn't long before server maintenance was a joke that was fed to the gullible  and  as for customer service/support... well, we all know that was a joke, and if we don't, it is time we all became aware of it.

First of all, customer support is something ALL games had prior to and after mmo titles, ALL! Every serious company back in the day had even a customer hotline we could call on. We never payed extra fees for those services though did we?

Second, ALL games prior to and after mmo titles experienced patching and bug fixing, free of charge, free of costs! ALL!

I wonder why we accepted this trend of paying companies to fix the product that they sold us. They are bound to it by law with selling it. A product that does not work must be refunded or replaced and if the company does not either refund, replace or fix the product, they can end up facing some serious charges.

When did our tolerance allow for such behaviour to exist on the behalf of companies? Charging us to fix the product that should have been working to begin with? Of course the companies themselves in order to be legal perhaps or just likable to their communities, claimed that the bug fixes and the patches are all free of charge regardless, and that the subscribers are paying for the server capacity alone. However they have also made claims to constant content releases and "improvements" to the game content as well that is also covered by the subscription fees, and that their improved customer service which includes ingame help (I admit that is a plus) is where the customers money is also going. Phrases such as "We have an in-house team working constantly for you, to make the game even better..." have become so common among their excuses they are used even today.

However, I honestly failed to see content changes and additions or improvements in most of these titles and all I ever saw was update notes on patches and bug fixes alone in most cases. Of course no content comes out during these bug-fixing phases and the companies hide behind the excuse "we are trying to solve the problems and are working hard to do so, new content is also on the way but it will take more time". So quite frankly (since we all know that a launch of an mmo is always rough) all money in the first months, and back in the day even first half of the year, was all going to bug fixes. Something that they should have done free of charge.

If they indeed where not in the "money-making business" instead of the "game-making business" they would freeze subscription payments until the problems where solved. Or (the equivalent) give free time to subscribers equal to the amount of time the game is in a broken state. The only time I have seen them do this is when the servers are offline for longer than expected, where a small number of days, from 1 to 2 usually, is added to each active account. The honest truth is that they owe people a product without bugs. And if their whole bug fixing situation lasts them a month, then that month should be free, or the next. Two months of bugs? Two months subscription-fee free.

Part from that, the excuse for the large amounts of server costs is also untrue. A single person could pay for a personal server to maintain plenty of people for a monthly price a little more expensive than a subscription fee. And that one person covers for many people on the server for that one single monthly payment. That is a much smaller price in total for each and every user than what is paid. Every single player pays the developers a significantly higher sum, and the total is ridiculously larger.

The very reasoning developers gave behind justifying a subscription failed to convince me 100% even though it sounded right at the time, and before long I knew that I had done right not to completely believe it, and it quickly fell to a 0% within moments.

That was not my initial complain at the time, however it did make me very mad with some developers. My biggest complaint for not wanting to pay a subscription for those games was their quality and the products themselves. A quality I saw to be quite poor. Hence why I didn't bother to want to play any of them even in their later free 2 play models (which where in most cases also very restricted versions of the full games). Thanks but no thanks.

After playing games such as these here shown, some before SWG and some marginally after, it is clear why I was not so pleased.

The visuals seen above are much better, and they are also games that proved multiplayer realtime combat is not as hard as they want us to believe. 
Battlefront on PC allowed for up to 64 players on one map.

Provided that an mmo has many more players running around, back in the day it didn't have much more people in one combat at a time.

Even so, dropping graphics to be able to handle the load seems ok. So why was realtime combat also dropped?
Dropping one of the two is more than enough, and their excuses in many models chosen seem to be void of logic.
The truth is simply that they wanted to dumb down the controls to make it more accessible to newcomers and children, taking the edge away perhaps from veteran FPS and 3rd Person Shooter gamers, and thus the downfall of the genre and in a large way gaming as well.

The popularity of such mmo titles as WoW (which is a children's puzzle playground with barney and friends costumes) made a severe impact on other genres based on the comments and perspectives from a new consumer group of gamers that seemed much less mature in gaming than anything else as time surely came to also prove.
Other genres, although they kept evolving and innovating, they started to shy away from PC's more and more.
When leading FPS developers id software reach the point to make a game aimed more at consoles rather than PC's, then you know that something is just not right here.
What troubled me the most was the fact that in the years to follow many praised this concept as something it wasn't!
And worse yet, developers followed it's footsteps constantly.
If it had a smaller appeal and if the variety out there gave option to good products for all kinds of gamers, I would be much less vexed by the whole genre of mmo games today.

What I really could never forgive to begin with in terms of quality where in most cases the graphics. I clearly stated in the first article labeled "part 1" how important graphics are in the gaming industry. Anybody believing otherwise is kidding themselves, and most are kidding themselves because they got used to making this excuse to justify their love for some games. Like I already stated, a preference of taste is part of our own right to free will, but honesty with these preferences can go a long way as well.

Eye Candy - Not everything in a game, but it Matters!

The gaming industry is a visual form of media, graphics are the main concern. And I do not mean polygon counts and texture map sizes alone, I also mean the direction of art, the very designs themselves as a form of what graphics they create and bring together. I for one did not agree at all for example with the graphics to World of Warcraft, neither the content, neither anything else in that game for that matter.

Excuses to drop graphics at the time where mostly 1) to be able to handle many players on the screen at once in large combats and cities, and 2) attempts to make seamless worlds. Some of these ideas where the very boundaries which actually created the downfall to the genre and apparently never changed in taste by many developers (and gamers alike). Seamless worlds get in the way of making better landscapes, dropping visuals dramatically, sacrificing in one important aspect to add another that is generally pointless if the technology is not up to it. Between the choice of better landscapes, visually impressive enough to keep me enjoying the world and satisfied over the many hours I will be staring at them on end, for an instanced world and the second choice of a seamless world with tiring monotonous visuals that are anything but enjoying to look at, much less play in for many many hours on end... I would definitely chose the first of the two. If the developer has a means to make the instanced world look much more connected and as one despite the borders of each map then even better. (examples of this is seeing landscapes in backgrounds beyond your map that resemble the maps you are going to, a method which has been barely used properly thus far in mmo games to it's full capability)

Apart from the fact that loading in packets whilst playing can be used to help with instances or locations to create a part seamless part instanced world effect, hence render both the instanced feel and loading times to smaller observable (in-game/playable) margins, the general problem with a seamless world is that you are creating locations that the player will never see on the screen at once! Either because they are behind the current map, or, because the draw distance cuts it off, defying the whole point to a seamless world anyway. Drop the seamless world, throw in backgrounds, and get rid of empty horizons as seen in many mmo titles thus far.

Instead of most mmo games wanting to follow the steps of this idea, they should have steered clear of it, understanding that it is a no-brainer for the time in period for which these games tried to achieve it. Partitioned locations, giving views with pre-rendered and part 3D static backgrounds of the locations the player will go to and load into are more than adequate to give the feeling of continuation (thus seamless) within the world. This can be used to create more detailed maps in each location (obviously). It baffles me why some companies felt this was a good idea many years later (in an age where seamless worlds are now possible) and not before?!

The following are examples of draw distances from first person shooters (given they are newer than say WoW, Crysis being 3-4 years later) that steer clear mostly of pre-rendered backgrounds. This is hardcore real-time terrain rendering.

As opposed to these draw distances:

I'm not saying neither expecting the quality to be that of such titles as Crysis,
but I am more than certain there is an in-between. The simpler terrain modeling
of WoW should allow for much more than this!
A result perhaps to wanting seamless worlds?

What I don't agree with on the other hand but it also does not baffle me is the reason why other developers tried for seamless worlds too. Well, because of gaming communities obviously, why else? The boast of gamers that they are playing in a seamless world seemed to be so important to gaming communities that it was always an argument for games not providing seamless worlds. I doubt any of those gaming communities ever really stopped to properly analyse what exactly a seamless world results to.

As for handling many characters on screen at once... well we saw how that turned out. Overcrowded hubs of cities and locations would render dozens of players completely invisible despite the drop in detail that was made in their modeling and creation. So as a result, again quality in graphics was sacrificed to avoid server load problems, which where still present. Sometimes a product speaks better about itself by setting standards and limits to certain areas in order to achieve quality, not the other way around, a drop in quality in the attempt to be rid of standards and limits which a technology may not even be up to.

By trying to do more developers done less. Perhaps it was never the right time for mmo's to go onto the scale that they did. I for starters know I would have appreciated many more mmo titles in my time had they been more limited yet actual products of quality. I enjoyed many titles more than mmo games and they had all the limits of maps and small multiplayer crowds... I still enjoyed hours on end on many of those titles, and few if any mmo games ever achieved a funfactor even close to these other titles.

Had developers made limits to their mmo games (server capacities, map scales loaded at a single time, etc) the evolution of technology and the genre alone would have taken them into new developments time and time again without them ever sacrificing anything. Larger server loads and larger character capacities in one place at the same time would become possible in the same titles already released. Most of these improvements and leaps forward in advancements could have been easily added to existing mmo titles. Those are changes that can be made after a title has been released, however, graphical advancements and quality improvements are much harder to achieve. And judging by the idea of an mmo (which aims in lasting many years) I am certain that the graphical quality would be easily outdated, especially on a product that is aimed to last years and seems outdated on it's very release.

Trying to reach too high brought the result of aesthetically appalling visuals at most. Outdated graphics on products that where actually already outdated on their release date! How could they expect such graphics would not be looked down on after one year of release and further more down the track? Not to mention the direction of the art on most of these games. I wonder if they tried on purpose to either make them look bad or like children's drawings. I am all up for colourful games from time to time to add a more childish appeal in terms of art, however that does not mean looking at designs that seem as they have been made by children themselves! No, just.... no.

Colour palette choices and design techniques alone could have made an amazing difference to the visuals. How could anyone have aimed for the results these developers aimed for?

How could we have gone from this-

(Some games displayed are a couple years before, others the same year, and few perhaps at most a year later than the following comparisons below)

To this-

And don't even get me started on the HUD for mmo's. A wrong turn in gaming that has never stopped turning wrong!

What troubles me most is that they where actually successful in doing all of the above things mentioned! Really makes me shake my head at the modern gaming community out there.

What's done is done and that is how things go, and I wouldn't be so frustrated if they simply remained in history. What frustrated me in the years that passed however as a gamer was the fact that what was done was not done! Different developers actually thought of sticking to the same idea in terms of design. Developers also sought to stick to that 5 year old rating (it might as well be for 5 year olds) to get a larger customer base, dumb-ing down everything created afterwards. The genre got a dent in it and instead of fixing it, instead of innovating and moving forward, it took that dent for example and used it again and again. The genre died, and if it didn't, it was in a comma all this time and hopes are little for it to come out. Yet there are hopes.

An Interface Headed in the Wrong Direction

My other concern was the combat system. Now, I have played plenty of first person shooters back in the day that where not on dedicated megaservers or whatever they would have us believe and they displayed large numbers of players and accurate real time combat! Not being able to do it is an excuse, not a reality. Speaking of older first person shooter games, Quake 3 is aesthetically more appealing, with less or even the same polygons as the mmo examples given above. It is so light on the graphics it has been implemented into a browser game. And might I add, with even better graphics than the original. Visuals are not all about adding polygons and large textures, they are about taking care of the product with appealing design and making good use of both polygons and textures even at small counts and sizes.

Indeed, for those who don't know, the images to the right are the later version of
Quake 3, renamed to Quake Live, in the form of a free browser game...
Quake 3 was released in 1999!!!

Mmo games thus far feel like clunky designs slapped on and copied everywhere with the same repetitive palettes. Skins are an example of this, some mmo's portraying what I could only see as no skins at all on their models. They looked and felt like the models I myself made on 3DS max before putting textures onto them. That is just plain sloppy.

Back to the combat design for mmo games. Like I stated before I can't say I have a huge problem with this mechanic, it is a matter of taste. I really do not agree with the WoW combat system, never did, never liked it, however I can imagine and I can also see (at least for it's time and for a number of years after release) an appeal in it for some. That is truly just a matter of taste. What bothered me so far and got me to like mmo games less and less was the fact that this patent was copied (by WoW as well) and slapped onto most mmo titles worth grabbing my interest, which in turn made me lose interest once seeing the same mechanics yet once again.

The first obvious attempts into a new direction where Age of Conan (AoC). I know there are always other mmo games somewhere that has done something first as opposed to the titles we believe done them first or we all as individuals saw them doing them first, yet the idea is for people to know them as well or have heard of them, or for them to have some sort of popularity to make it to our attention, and of course have enough gamers for a community to actually want to join in and take a look at it. It is unfortunate but mmo's are very much dictated by their popularity as well, even though they should be assessed on quality alone it is not always the case.

The first popular attempt to steer in a very new direction to try and offer in one complete package a variety of aspects that other titles failed to put together, was AoC.

AOC: Age of Conan

Developers for AoC focused on trying to take care of all of the above complaints that I have thus far written. And in order they are the following:

What they tried to do or promised to offer:

1. Graphics - aimed at being simply better, and the art direction steered clear of child-play (again, not that anything is wrong with that style, as long as it is done right)
2. Mature Content- Goes hand in hand with the above, not a game for children alone. Thus not dumbing down themes and visuals, adding purple bunnies and yellow balloons. Sexual references and the gorish violence gave AoC an 18+ rating. They didn't shy away from making mature content, giving as buckets of blood on the monitor with each fatality. Simply great.
3. Instanced World- they dropped the idea of a seamless world to include great visuals for terrains and maps, which where very detailed and large enough as well for each instance.
4. Storyline- They aimed for better story telling, and a flow that allowed for players to complete the game both solo and in parties. And promised no grinding. OMG, how could I forget to complain about the gear grind or the general grind of mmo titles? Seems I am just too tired of picking on the negatives alone and want badly to change the light of my thinking into something more positive. God knows I need it after so much dwelling in the disappointment of the most popular mmo titles. (one example of this promise was that no longer will you need to kill thirty bears to get 5 bear skins, implying the realistic and logical solution that ALL BEARS have skins!!!)
5. Action Combat or Realtime Combat - AoC aimed for being able to hit multiple targets at once and adding a mechanic that detects where your weapon actually reaches. A new combo system that was to change the button hitting cooldown counting skill layouts of old. It was also aimed for using controllers to be more action driven. Geometry was also to be used as obstacles for hiding, as was the general idea of party formations (tanks guarding and pushing back attackers) and healers where also more combat driven rather than just sitting there healing people. That reminds me, I also forgot to complain about the trinity system of current mmo games, which for me is just so wrong, so unrealistic, and does nothing more than to just remind me that I am just playing a game, that I am confined or deprived of combat choices, and that the form of game I am playing is more of a puzzled childishly colourful experience of the world I am in rather than an actual transcendence of my own self into a world that I can enjoy and experience in a way it would otherwise make sense.

These points brought forth where more than enough to have me hoping for the future of the mmo genre. They where also more than enough to get me interested into buying a subscription to try it out on launch, even though nothing in my opinion justifies subscriptions for mmo games. My love for Conan as a child was just the greatest part of the whole excitement to finally get a game like this in my hands. First rpg or game that would look with such detail into the Hyborian world of Conan, and the first mmo to do things (or aim in doing things) the way I liked them to be. The situation was filled with wins. All that remained was having the expectations lived up for.

What they actually did offer:

1. Graphics - They delivered with some small problems here and there which where constantly fixed and very minor. The promise to DX10 graphics at the time did not come with the release of the title which was a shame, and they did take indeed some time to be finally added. This proved that the scope of the game and the goals put forth was a little too big for the developers to handle, no matter how big or small their team would have been. It was never an easy project, but the graphics, for an mmo title, delivered. Especially the DX10 version. Simply brilliant for an mmo of its time. Some elements of copy and slap-paste where still evident, especially on character skins, but it was a great improvement. There where other things on the graphics that seemed a little off as well, but in general, for 2008, for an mmo title, it delivered a lot, even though it could have worked in presenting some things a little different to get better results.
2. Mature Content - They delivered as such. The only problem with the content is that it became a little repetitive, and although some designs where great and portrayed the comic world of Conan in a great way, some other content was a little on the downside in terms of design. One major complaint I had with the game was the armour variety. That side of the content was simply a huge let down. Having reached the level cap I had seen many armour styles and types that where really nice, but even so the variety was still too small for an mmo. That was a partial disappointment. Also, speaking of reaching level cap, this is another thing I again forgot to complain about. I wont let this one slip away, I'll get back to it after completing this list.
3. Instanced World - they delivered greatly on this. Some maps had quite a lot of variety and beauty, especially on the borders of Cimmeria. Some of the best map designs and details of it's time.
4. Storyline - although they managed to get rid of a small portion of the grind (killing one hundred mobs of the same kind again and again and again and most of the time to get a third of the drops in number was not there) people where still not satisfied, as they began to complain that the quests still include kill X number of certain type of enemies. Do I agree with them on this one? Of course I do, this was one of my own complaints for years, but when it was done in their own games it was ok and not something they needed to complain about. That aside, AoC delivered with a very great start and compelling story approach to the game. Everything was voiced over in the first location that was aimed for players starting from lvl 0 to lvl 20 and it was very well taken care of. Part from the voice acting, there was an actual storyline that developed and evolved and felt really great. If only the rest of the game was up to the same standards and not filled with great small stories and glimpses to that first achievement. The later addition of Ymirs' Pass had a great sense of the same story telling, and there where other parts to it too that felt they where done well. All in all, the game indeed left you the sense of a story, it's just that they had a lot on their plate. Filling up 80 levels of such content on the go is never an easy task.
5. Action Combat or Realtime Combat - here I was left a little un-satisfied. The combat was a step in the right direction. They lived up to a portion of their promises in a way. Hitting more than one target at once was indeed possible and changed the pace somewhat. The structure of life bars as opposed to enemy life bars and the means of the combat went back somewhat leading again to one on one encounters and pulling enemies (taking away from the idea of attacking multiple targets at once and making the fact that you could hit multiple targets useless at times. Sometimes however it was not thus and it proved a great mechanic). The combo system ended up replacing the skill bars of other mmo titles with the same result of play, sometimes worse since you would do the same button combinations again and again for each combo. The movement during combat was a little improved and use of geometry and terrain, whilst the blocking ability was quite useless as was the guard direction (placing your defense left right or front). Seeing where the enemies defense was on the other hand did put some more strategy into the fight yet it did not steer away from the feeling of a puzzle game. You ended up reaching a point where you would react to symbols seen on you HUD once more and that once again took away from the combat in a sense. Other aspects where by far improvements to older mmo titles, and although it wasn't exactly (for me) on the level I wanted it to be it was still a huge step in the right direction.

With such great visuals, AoC was onto something really good. It's a shame
it was brought down by other problems, one of the most important was a smaller
customer base than one it truly deserved. It was clearly a better approach than
many mmo titles to date before it.

The starting era to AoC was quite buggy, however they looked into fixing problems MUCH faster than previous developers of popular titles. It seems to me the complaining of most gamers came from the fact that they where so ungrateful and biased, forgiving in their past other developers that had done much worse, and complaining about everything done by a new developer although by comparison they had done a better job. Perhaps even as a way so as to justify their return to other MMO titles just so their years of progress does not count to nothing. Ridiculous really.

Gamers involved in the mmo genre have proved to me time and time again that their word cannot be trusted.

They easily defend half baked products without being honest on half of their critique points and not being able to back up half the things they say. They tend to focus in the wrong areas of gaming just because it suits them and judge other games based on irrelevances, kind of like nitpicking, especially the fans of a certain popular mmo title! They tend to turn shoulder to the good things because it is not to their advantage to notice them and hence try to look for the problems alone (even though most of the time they are not new problems, if anything, they are on the same level of the problems in the titles they themselves defend, thus portraying hypocrisy as well). No game is perfect, whence looking for shortcomings you will find them. Honesty toward the product one defends usually brings about the realisation that their "loved" product is just as bad if not worst.

This hypocrisy is further evident when they end up agreeing on things they have been disagreeing on for many years, or even more when they ask for certain changes and never appreciate them when they are made in new titles. This has helped my views on the mmo industry fall to even smaller graces, because unfortunately the masses till now control a great deal of what developers make and if the masses are portrayed by such gamers, what future can the mmo industry possibly have? The only future I see is one where developers set out to make products to their best of their abilities and tastes and not cave to every silly remark made my the common denominator of gamers which has proved time and time again that it doesn't know what it wants in the end.

A very good attempt, AoC in 2008 gave me hopes for the mmo industry in whole.
A title that despite it's shortcomings was much deserving of  a rating of 8/10 to my opinion.
Perhaps 7.5/10 but no less. Much higher than the rating I would give to most
if not all other mmo titles before this one was released.

The developer team for Age of Conan overreached, and the end product was left lacking in several areas. Another area they showed overreach was the guild vs guild battles and the kingdom pvp battles, an attempt to have hundreds of players all in one battle at once, and although it was far from an age where that was possible, they showed great effort and where still making progress into the right direction. AoC in general was a great attempt and it got many things right too. It was also a step in the right direction. Two thumbs up for effort and one for result. Actually, provided the load they had and the competition, the bar was raised pretty high and they still done a great job even though there was room for much improvement, so two thumbs up for result as well.

The blood and gore, mostly depicted during fatalities, although sometimes
buggy at first, was much deserving of a 10/10 just for being there, let alone
for having such great visual appeal and such variety in animation.
Very deserving of the Conan franchise.

Now to get back to one of the complaints that I don't want to leave untouched. The crazy need for gamers to look at a game in terms of end-game content alone. That is a very big complaint of mine.

End Game Content...... NO.... Just, NO!

A game is not about end game content. It is about in-game content. Anyone judging a game based on end-game content simply has no idea what the initial idea of a good game is. A good game will simply keep us playing again and again because we love it. That is the end game content, the replayability of a game. End game content is indeed much appreciated and looked forward to in an mmo title, always, however it isnt and shouldn't be the driving factor that makes it successful or not.

Again, I shake my head in shame at gamer communities that only rate/rank their games based on end game content. I have actually played games/mmo's where I talk with online friends made within those communities to exchange opinions on the game itself and have found  myself face to face with this complaint again and again.

To my questioning of the games quality, or question of ones opinion on the game generally, I distinctly remember such phrases for replies as the following- "it's good, but I am more concerned about the endgame content once I reach the level cap and if it will have enough".
-My reply, "indeed, but what about the game at the moment, are you liking it, are you enjoying it?"
-Their counter reply, "well yeah, but blah blah blah", their blah blah blah was some way of them turning the conversation again back to endgame content whilst also getting me to understand that they actually really do like the game and enjoy it, however their liking is toned down and seldom enjoyed with endgame content being their only fear and concern.

Like I said, me shaking my head at the realisation once more that the majority of gamers out there are so consumed by this silly endgame concern that they end up not even enjoying the game as they play it.

This line of thinking puts into perspective all those gamers running around rushing to get to endgame, leaving me behind in the party at times thinking to myself "What is the point to this? Why am I even playing or in this party? I have no clue what the quest is, what the story is, I haven't enjoyed any vistas, I haven't enjoyed anything, and all I have been doing is trying to rush and keep up with everyone else that is also rushing to get where? At the end of the game without actually playing the game? Or at a level cap a few days earlier than I was going to reach anyway?"

And so sadly my chat goes a little something like this after that line of thought, "going to solo for a while guys. it was fun and thnx, take care..." Provided I can actually convince them to leave me alone and at the same time avoid flaming, it always takes at least one quest and more for me to finally get out of the group to go solo in game that was designed to be played with others (how irrational is that for an mmo?), at which point I have missed things I didn't want to miss out on thanks to all the rushing and now have no desire play the game at all thus simply log out.

Good friend communities are also important to find people that enjoy the lore like you do, and they exist (although few in number) and that indeed changes the feel to the game and I have stumbled across such people as well. The point however is what the majority of gamers out there focuses on, because since they are the majority, they influence developers on taking their side to many things. Hence another reason why I am not pleased with mmo developers thus far and their products. I still have to see a developer that respects their product and the direction they want it to have without giving in to all the consumer complaints that prove they are simply in the wrong game.

For all of us who remember, a great title who's sequel was cancelled in favour
of mmo fandom and the money-lusting turn of THQ on that specific project
with hopes to take a piece of the mmo market for itself. A noble attempt perhaps,
so long as it wasn't at the expense of a studio working for them.

A Community Against Gaming

Let's think of it this way to make it simple. If a large gaming community starts hopping onto every title that is outside of their genre likes, and starts demanding changes to make the game suit/fit into their likes, and developers give in to such demands the result would be catastrophic for all other genres out there as well as the other gaming communities that might even be as big or smaller. That matters not. This is why developers that want to make good products for other gaming communities need to stand up for what they are making, because unfortunately they will indeed be attacked by large mobs of mindless gamers that have not learned their place in gaming and prove with the demands and critiques they make that they are clearly in the wrong game to begin with. You simply don't belong there guys, so please move along.

To make it even simpler, a horde of gamers playing a beta of a first person shooter, asking it be made into a 3rd person shooter, are clearly filling up space in the wrong game and need to, like I said above, simply move along. This is the reason why TitanQuest 2 was cancelled, in favour of the mmo market for Kingdoms of Amalur to be made, when the developers wanting to make TQ2 where no longer funded for that project and pulled off it to make KoA. Sadly enough another company was signed on from THQ and the IronLore guys where completely out of the picture neither making KoA neither TQ2 nor having funds to make a new ip (since TQ was owned by THQ). That is a nice slap to the face now isnt it? And all in favour of THQ entering the "money making business" since lets face it, every single company for many years saw mmo's as the biggest means of money making since the target market was duped into seeing subscription fees as a good thing and agreed to it.

The cancellation of such a title was thanks to these mobs of mindless gamers (other things transpired as well during this whole project to make my point even more obvious and back it up but I will not dwell into writing of them, apparently they have done a great job to have those stories trashed to protect the image of some companies and now 5 years later I find no articles on the matter whatsoever, making it hard for me to point out things that readers will not be able to research and prove to be true). For me, gaming took a pretty big blow with that event, since the original TitanQuest was my favourite ever top down hack and slash rpg. Thanks a  lot guys. I hope someday you learn your place and just don't even bother to involve yourself with things that apparently do not concern you, and along with you I hope developers that seek nothing other than just making money find their way to deserving ends.

And so, it isn't without a sense of justice that I feel THQ got exactly what they deserved for getting bankrupt. Perhaps we all end up paying for our choices and actions, and I honestly believe that businesses should not be taken on as something so light as to claim "it's nothing personal it's just business". Running studios that do a great job and hard work out of business and forcing them to try and make ends meet just to make more money out of a given situation is indeed personal. You are quite literally creating unemployment and bringing difficulties to others.

Thankfully the IronLore team turned indie and was able to in time fund a new and better project, Grim Dawn. Justice after all does indeed seem poetic sometimes.

Without THQ in control or anyone else at that, the new company
Crate Entertainment is free to put the more mature darkness and gore
into their new title Grim Dawn. Judging by Titan Quest and the visuals
of this new game, it looks promising. Fingers crossed that it delivers.

Am I a little too harsh on the mmo community? Perhaps, it is not their fault for the turn of gaming in the past decade alone, but above all it is also the fault of the developers of our time too. AoC was a ray of hope that there are indeed developers out there that will seek to first make a serious attempt to make the other side of the coin happy, and second not sell out to much wider market by making a kiddies game, just for the sake of pulling in a larger community to make money.

At this point I thought that there was hope, even though it was small. I still didn't agree to subscriptions and AoC got the better of me only because of my love for the Conan lore. Apart from my hopes that big mmo titles would start to look away from subscription based models (a hope that had really died within me at the time) the hopes that they would at least up their game in graphics and realtime mechanics (as well as head into making better stories, less grind and needless tasks, and generally raising the bar on fun factor) was rekindled within and things looked good.

So, why on Earth didn't a single company deliver? My hopes kept getting smaller and smaller with time. No matter what I played it was again too simple for graphics, too shallow for story, too automated for combat, and too much like the titles I had grown to really dislike before the release of AoC. The notion that mmo games might actually start heading in the right direction after AoC died out.

SWTOR: Star Wars, The Old Republic

News popped in of Star Wars The Old Republic being in production. I was very skeptical. Every single other mmo released before and after AoC was the same thing with a different theme. Once I popped online to see the graphics for this new title I was quickly put off and closed the window right there and then. How was this possible? After all this time, again outdated graphics in our time? For a game that I was certain was going to be instanced. I thought to myself "how else will they cram all the different planets into the game without it being instanced?" And sure enough, the game was indeed instanced. So why on Earth would the graphics look to be on such a low end? Always giving the benefit of the doubt to every title, I stepped back from all thoughts on the matter to wait for further news.

Indeed the news came in time, and a short while before the game came out (perhaps 3? maybe 4 months? perhaps less) I was convinced that it might be good and worth a try. New images of the graphics where not bad. They didnt seem as outdated as the previous shots, however they did seem way too simple in many ways. It was obvious that they where going for a more childish or more paint-like comic art palette (remember I stated that I have no problem with that what so ever) and indeed I don't as long as it is done right.

SWTOR seemed to put the palette and cartoon style to good use, and it didn't look that bad. I was not 100% pleased, I would of really enjoyed a very different look, or perhaps a blend of cartoon and realistic detail in some areas that where absent (on the characters at most). For me the graphics where an 8/10 in total and the style choice was a 7/10. Hence, more than good enough for me to give it a shot.

The other promises I heard along with everybody else from BioWare was that it was going to be much more story driven, that it was again going to be rid of the grind (I thought to myself "if only I had a penny for every time I heard that story on grinding from a developer that didn't deliver"), and that the combat was going to be much more interactive. An attempt to go into something more towards realtime, where auto-attack was no longer an option and the player will have to be engaged in the combat much more.

I then thought to myself, it's BioWare, these guys when it comes to story have never failed me, and it's also Star Wars. Needless to say I love the Star Wars universe. The visuals aren't too bad. And the combat (assuming they are saying the truth) will be more to my likes/tastes. So, how bad can it be? I was sold, I needed to try this game out. And I did...

Long story short, the visuals where great in detail despite the cartoon style that was aimed for the game.

The combat was nowhere near what I expected. Once again I found myself playing the same old style of combat with a small updated kick to it. Pressing buttons for attacks that are all on timer to execute (length of each attack and stacks) and cooldowns. Before long I was bored by the same old button keyboard pressing in a combat that didn't involve anything other than that. I have never been more tired than watching toons standing in one location doing a set of the same amount of combinations of attacks based on learning a bunch of strategies with regards to similar attacks made to your own toon and so on so forth.

I enjoyed it on some level, and for a simpler take on gaming it was ok. It wasnt as dull as other mmo titles. It was indeed a bit of an improvement. The content to the game seemed to be very nicely done as well, with things as space missions to spice things up even more. And lets not forget, it is Star Wars. Like always, seeing a lightsaber puts smiles on my face.

The grinding I felt was to a pretty good minimum relatively (for the solo campaign at least). It still had the kill X amount of mobs, and many of them came in the sense of bonus events that did not force me to do them. Whilst doing them did not expect much travelling around on my behalf.

In general it was a nice take on mmo games. The way the story played out was indeed very good for an mmo, voice overs, choices, the works. Perhaps the best story model I have seen on an mmo to date.

So what was the problem with the game that made me want to stop it? The subscription fee. It wasn't worth the money, no mmo truly is. I am completely spent on arguing this point and this game proved it once again (as did the next mmo on my list on which I will write).

Apart from the fact that no mmo truly is worth the money, when you are paying a subscription fee you know your time is counting down. In this instance you are forced at times to play to get your moneys worth. If a game is the kind of game that can get too repetitive, you really need the breaks to do something else and then come back to it to enjoy it completely. It does become a grind after a while. One of the most important things to an mmo is the way it plays, since that is what you will be doing on many hours on end. And TOR was yet another title that became tiring and a button bashing adventure that really needed a break from time to time. I could really appreciate the game and enjoy it from time to time if it had a Pay to Play model, buying it once and then having access to the game no matter what after that.

After playing for so many hours, I began to tire of the game in such a way that it started to really feel like a bore even in the content. The enemies, the confrontations in general, and the rest of it, made it much smaller than the epic of a galaxy it should have been. I felt many things where done right, and also felt many things needed to be improved in this new portrayal of the SW galaxy. My complains where not entirely big, but neither where my praises. It just became a bore. I would gladly re-visit the title for a more simple and fun, casual stay in the SW galaxy, so long as I didn't have to pay for subscriptions. I know the game is now on it's free 2 play model, but I refuse to touch it. That model is so restricted there is no reason for me to get into it unless I get some kind of premium subscriber boosts for having purchased the game in the past and not downloaded it for free. Anything less of that is simply teasing us with a f2p model that truly hides a subscription based model underneath it. No thank you.

A great game, not exactly heading into the direction that I myself like, but it did good on some of my complaints. No seamless world and no completely out of date and repetitive graphics. Combat was a small improvement but again far beyond what I had been asking for 4 years earlier. Content was not exactly mature either, but that was not a big problem. The greatest strength that the game brought to the genre was the story. As far as innovation goes and moving forward, it was again another title that failed to give me hopes for the mmo industry. It didnt move forward. It simply done what was already done thus far but with flying colours. Not enough to get me to invest the bigger part of my entertainment on it. If it was purchase to play, it would be easily a title I would enjoy just for the SW lore and nothing else every now and then on a monthly basis. Nothing more.

Almost ten years had passed since SWG, and this was all that they could do? It was pretty much a newer and up to date version of all previous mmo games, doing simply what they all had done before but just a little bit better in but a few areas and up to reasonable standards for today's technology. And that was all.

TERA
Next up. Oh boy was the next one a surprise. Around the time of SWTOR news where abouts on a new mmo to be released. Having only just been let down by SWTOR and another mmo in total once again, I took little note of this news. It didn't impress me much from the small moments I took to look into it, yet it did get my attention just enough to make me interested.

After it's release I happened to get a hands on from a friends subscription. My hands on was nothing special or bigger than me watching the other person play for a short 5 minutes and later commenting and talking about it together. Since we have almost the same views on mmorpgs, it was clear for me that the impression the game had made on him was not without purpose.

And without further delay, I set out to buy myself a copy of TERA.

I was not disappointed. Having prolonged on all my complains and dislikes with mmo titles for almost ten years in count, even after the let down of AoC, and then the let down of SWTOR as well, it is easy for one to imagine what state of mind I was in before this game. The two small rays of hope (Star Wars The Old Republic and Age of Conan) faded quickly with their flaws as only small tiny steps where made to push the genre forward. The first and most innovative of those also done absolutely nothing to the genre in terms of effect. I was spent, I didn't think that they would ever implement my wants and needs of realtime action combat into an mmo. And there TERA came along and did just that.

This was the first big scale mmo title to come out that included the one thing none of the other titles ever could. This is the first and only mmo title that did not promise action combat and deliver something less. This. Even Guild Wars 2 is not on par with the realtime combat and combat animation of TERA. Absolutely stunning. The timings where all perfect, and the difference in classes was versatile to allow for different means of combat. The block or dodge (depending to the class chosen) actually worked, and it worked with flying colours. Definitely the biggest pro to the game. What's more to this, it is the only AAA mmo title out there that sticks to this action combat without trying to slowly push in different means to dumb the gameplay down so that everyone can play it. Archers, sorcerers or any other ranged units, have to actually aim at their targets or select them through aiming over them. Finally, I can dodge my way around a less skillful archer that doesn't know how to play as well and hack him/her to bit's and pieces. Finally a game that is balanced on skill.

Anyone countering this has obviously not played the game, or worse yet, played and had no clue how to play it. I took down players 5 levels higher than me in duel, was downed by one player 2 levels higher than me twice in a duel (the third time unfortunately didn't come for me, after seeing that I almost killed him on our second round he didn't want to try another go). And I was indeed beaten once by a smaller level player too.

In all cases it was balanced, my defeats where from my own mistakes in tactics, my wins where either from mistakes of other players, or my just being better. It really was fun to see an archer running around to escape me hopelessly as I dodged out of his attacks and chased him down to finish the job I had started. As an old time FPS player, I was given a small edge over players that had been involved with just playing mmo titles and keeping away from games that where much more realtime. But it is nothing that cannot be picked up and learned as one keeps playing.

To further add to how important skill is in this game. I was with a party of three players and we where trying a boss that was meant to be for four players. His level was 30, our levels where one player on level 30, one on 34, and one on 28. I was the level 28 player. I was the one trying to jump in with some attacks here and there and jump back out to keep my distance. I was also the one that survived some strange combination of attacks that seemed to get the job done and incapacitate the other two players. Now, lvl 28, vs lvl 30 boss made for 4 lvl 30 players. His health was around 50%. Needless to say, I killed him on my own! That is the kind of game I am talking about. I was dodging running getting away attacking healing and back to dodging with more dodging to lead into more running and getting away. It took me around 10 mins, but I did what I would otherwise believe to be impossible. In other mmo games, it is impossible. I don't think I ever played on that same level of skill again in all my time on TERA. Maybe the fear of dying had gotten to me. Resurrected my party after that, and all was good.

The other thing TERA achieved in doing and very well at that as well, was the graphics. When I had first seen the screenshots I was convinced it was just an anime mmo like all the rest. It sure does look like one with a quick glance. It isn't until you are within the game itself that you start to realise all the work that has been put into the design to deliver on a fantasy world like none other. It has no equal in terms of mmo games. The textures, draw distances, the map designs, every single thing is just amazing. I myself have made a set of videos and uploaded them on my YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/user/HazaRDReBorn under the game uploads playlist, showcasing all the general locations that one can fly to. The videos are also in HD resolution, and anyone interested in seeing how much beauty, detail and variety the graphics have, I suggest they hop over and take a peek. And there are another that many locations beyond the videos I made.

Further more, the world is seamless. Quick travel from location to location, which is done through flight paths on mounts (Pegasus or Dragon according to location, the design of the Dragon is something of awe) may seem like the land is not seamless since it pops into a loading like screen. However, the fact is that you can go by foot to the locations and test it for yourself.

TERA proved that it is indeed possible nowadays with our technology to finally do exactly that which I have been waiting for all this time (and also believing could have been done even with less detail) and it also proved it can do much more with doing this all on a seamless world as well. The mechanics and graphics of this game made me believe in the mmo genre simply because of it's existence. To better explain, TERA gave me no hope for the mmo genre, neither made me look forward to other titles following its steps, neither did I start to believe again that the genre might after this title start heading into a better direction. I've made that mistake before and my hopes for mmo's are still damaged. It simply made me like the genre because of it's existence on my shelf and for that reason alone, nothing else. If the future of the genre has more of this in store, then all the better. Yet I am not keen on hoping neither waiting for it.

From textures to geometry to shadows and lighting to design, to everything else,
the visuals of TERA are nothing short of stunning. If only the same quality
and attention was put into the storytelling as well.

Now for the bads of TERA. For starters, it is a subscription based game. That is always a con in my list.

The other is the story, in that, there is none. The team obviously focused much more on the detail in designing the world and everything else, that the story seems just so empty. The short pre-rendered videos here and there are also nothing of note, and the game does feel a lot like a low end anime. Although I like anime, or once perhaps liked it a lot, I am not so keen on it's story telling anymore, especially in games. I truly find it empty or wrong or something, I don't know. That is a matter of taste of course. Even the angles used in the cameras for videos are dull in my opinion.

But apart from that, TERA seems to lack a story period in both content and the way it is told. Taking the time to read a fair few of stories shows that they have a little bit of humour or cleverness or perhaps interesting themes at times, but they seem to be very poorly treated and then passed on to the gamer. And even those that have some small grace in them as small as it is, which are very few in number, come across sometimes lame. Generally, the game has no story. AoC is a masterpiece when compared to TERA. And I'm not talking about the first good storytelling 20 levels of AoC either, but the later.

The other problem to the game was a large number of quests which where absolutely pointless and nothing other than sending you to locations within a town or near a camp, back and forth between a dozen npc's, just to talk to them. It is as if the quest designers not only didn't want to steer away from making people go back and forth, it seemed as if they were trying to make a point to actually purposefully make us run back and forth. The forms of quests where also quite a bit on the grind side however that was not a real problem since the action and the fighting was so good it never to seldom bored you. I played on end TERA twice as much as SWTOR. Compared to TOR TERA had grindlike quests galore. And still, I got bored of TOR and not TERA. Proving indeed that it is important to have fun in an mmo because like I already said, you will be playing it for many hours on end. Making the experience fun is a must.

Cross TERA with TOR and there you have a title worth perhaps even calling a hobby.

TERA done so many things right, and only few so wrong. But by fixing the main complaints that have been present in other mmo titles thus far they managed to make a much more enjoyable game in all. If it wasn't for that subscription fee. Rumour has it they will be turning to a f2p model. I can only hope.

GW2: Guild Wars 2

After TERA I was mmo free for half a year. Until Guild Wars 2 came out. A title that I had very little enthusiasm for playing or getting into before it was released. And then more and more news kept coming my way without me trying to look for them. It was mere chance as it always happens. And I was in time convinced I wanted to try it out and that I would enjoy it. They didn't disappoint.

What to say about this game? First of all, it has no subscription fees. This alone puts it above all other mmo titles in my graces. Second, the graphics are very well taken care of, they are not on the level of TERA, but they are not compromised either. And although they do have a feel of cartoon in a way, they are done with that detail I mentioned before and always wanted such graphics to be made of. A detail that gives them a feel of paintings rather than comics. The lands are instanced, and very well detailed, whilst also giving at points the sense of continuation from one map to the other (example, the initial starting village for Norn, looking up towards the mountain to the west one can see the large statues that are built over the city which they later walk through and into).

The design of the land is amazing, simply love it, though like I said it is not on the level of TERA. TERA is just on another level of it's own alltogether with regards to map designs, from giant axes in the middle of the map seen from even adjacent maps to statues and ruins and waterfalls and so many other unique styles. Still, GW2 lives up to a very complete and a very good design. The cities are very detailed as well, especially the human city. The game is not short of visuals that stun you and make you want to just stand there to gaze in awe.

Content is also vast in number, it amazed how vast it actually was. The variety and how easy it was to mix and match and transmute items into your own custom armours. Everything about the gear creation is amazing.

The combat is again not on the same level of TERA, however it is much more realtime than all other mmo titles. Where you stand makes a difference, whilst I have managed to also get out of the way from attacks from enemies simply by walking around them. No auto targeting, and the skills are played out in ways to give you on the go options without leaving cooldown times to be the major aspect of your strategy. Such things like switching weapons to use other skills are part of the mix and you can keep yourself constantly engaged. The addition of a dodge is one of the elements that truly help towards making it feel more realtime, as is the block with shields. It isn't on the level of TERA and dodging is a little off by comparison. However, it gets the job done for a very fun combat mechanic. Even though it isn't entirely realtime.

The story is also great. Very enjoyable and it has been done to detail with voice overs and cut-scenes everywhere, and even though it does lack to some extent before the likes of TOR it is great. Of the two, TOR has a better depth to the story, yet GW2 gets the job done nicely enough. At some points the story seems to be less invlovling, at other points more. In general it is an above average attempt and the result is varied between a 5/10 at some rare occasions and usually a 7/10 and 8/10 at all other times.

With these things aside, GW2 already shows promise that it is indeed yet another title heading into the right direction. Even though it hasnt done any of the above better than some other games (graphics are better only in TERA, combat is better only in TERA although GW2 has better skill sets and a better attention to classes etc, and story is better only in TOR). So it seems, that GW2 coming a close second in every aspect to different titles that came first in those aspects is a good overall start.

The upside to other elements of GW2 is the autopartying system, the questing system, the level capping system (dropping you down to the level of an area, this is brilliant idea making the ability to play with any friend available and also fun at the same time) and a whole bunch of other treats in the interface, the crafting, and pretty much everything else as well, that all really help your stay in the world. A focus in making things easier but not too easy is the greatest trait of the game, whilst another focus of making exploration an important part of the game is also a great addition that I have not experienced in any other mmo thus far with such pleasure.

There is also so much to do and levelling up to the cap is an easy task, achieved much sooner than the completion of all the other things that you might want to do. I myself have 50% map completion and have reached the level cap, with many other things still there waiting for me to do. The ability to enjoy any map lower than you is a great addition even for solo gaming. Whilst the World vs World vs World is the most fun PvP I have played in a very long time.

And all this subscription free. The game has done exceptionally well in all areas, almost as good as some titles that have excelled in only one of these areas, and it has done much better in completely new areas as well. I am sure that a large number of the mechanics and ideas in the game are not entirely unique to GW2, but all of them being present in one game is indeed what makes GW2 as a whole unique. In many ways, GW2 is the most complete mmo out there, with room also for improvement. A 9/10 is easily achieved with this title, whilst the fun factor is also right up there.

In all, it is the only mmo that has ever come so close to pleasing me enough on all fronts, and definitely a keeper. With such titles as these this last year, it is clear that finally the mmo genre has decided to move forward too, to innovate, to change it's outdated idea (which to me was outdated by the year 2006) and finally, my hopes are restored. TOR done some things really good, TERA brought the meaning of realtime to life in mmo games and took the graphics to an entirely new level of it's own with regards to mmo standards. GW2 brought the most complete package coming close behind the best qualities of both TERA and TOR, and surpassing them in many other qualities. Perhaps the future is not so dim any more, there might still be hope for better days to the mmo genre, days that will finally see it bring the element of true online rpg's to life. It is still obvious that some of the basic qualities of rpg's, especially noticeable in single player titles, are still on their way to be included in mmo's and have not been thus far completely achieved with success.

The shot itself is from my own character when he was still on level 79. He
is the one on the right.

The Future of MMO's

I have come to experience a nice variety of mmo's, but what was nice about the experience itself was the fact that it was just a variety of many games. I have been left completely unmoved by most if not all, and they were too many on count to either include or to even remember. The mmo titles that made the biggest impact on me where in chronological order AoC, TOR, TERA and GW2. There where many ups and downs, but GW2 seems to have gotten the recipe right on many levels.

What else is show of promise is ESO (The Elder Scrolls Online). With titles such as the last three that came out I can be a little more optimistic at last and expect a better result than I usually expect from a new mmo. ESO claims it will have realtime combat the likes of the single player titles of The Elder Scrolls (Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim), decent graphics (I hope so, thus far screenshots have left me a little sceptical) and a story that resembles much more the likes of true rpg's rather than anything else. If these are indeed true and they deliver, they are in their own respective ways reasons to get excited for the title. What other game mechanics will drive this game are still to be seen, and even so, nothing is ever clear on how it plays out until it has been released. I only hope that they strike an overall balance that GW2 has, bringing to the mmo genre even more depth and quality, the likes that other side of the coin deserved to see all this time.

To start off the article I mentioned in Part 1 that there are even more ideas that dwell in me now as to what the future of the mmo genre should be. And the truth of the matter is that even if ESO delivers in all ways that it claims and more, there is still a large number of things that I doubt they will include from these ideas. Such things that I believe should be the future of the mmo genre include all fronts of what I have very thoroughly explained, and furthermore a range of mechanics that I did not get into writing about. Too small and unimportant for the time being to even worry about in current and past mmo titles. Some of the major ideas include above all the storytelling of a world, and how to incorporate ways and means to highlight this throughout an entire game's structure. Game lifetime (I can't get into details what I mean about this yet) and so much mroe.

Of course it goes without say that realtime action combat is indeed part of the deal, as well as things to make this combat mechanic more interesting and innovative and fun. And graphics, well, what have I been saying about graphics and their importance all this time? And hence it goes without say that the future generation of mmo titles should aim for levels higher than TERA. It is very much possible provided developers are serious about making a good game.

But all that is too much to dwell on for the time being. I will sit this one out and see where it goes, taking notes down for future implementations and ideas, and perhaps when the time feels more in place I will finally get to write that other article that has been scratching the back of my head all this time, "The Future of MMO's". Until then it seems we have some good times coming ahead of us. Lets hope they don't disappoint. This might be afterall the turning point in gaming history for Massive Multiplayer Online Games. Till then, take care ;)