User:Shard/MMORPGs

Runes of Magic

Runes of Magic is basically a free WoW clone. My main character is a mage20/priest16.

I had to complete a certain quest where a powerful wolf boss spawns and pretty much kills anything it touches. When he spawns, he also spawns a bunch of wolf underlings (5 or 6 of them, but they're much weaker and can be dispatched within a few seconds if focused). I joined a group of other people who also needed the quest, as you typically do in MMORPGs. We had one tank who would trigger the spawn. Ideally, he would grab aggro of all the enemies. I was the only priest, so my job was to keep the tank alive.

We all say we're ready, and he spawns the enemies. He runs around like an idiot, but the boss goes straight for him anyway. One of the minions goes for our other caster, and the other 4 or 5 minions aggro to me. I kite them for a little bit, still trying to heal the tank who is making no effort to kill the wolves who are chasing me. Now, these wolves don't do too much damage (5 of them do), but they have an attack that stuns you for 2 or 3 seconds. While stunned, you cannot do anything - you can't move, you can't use potions, and you can't use skills. Five of these things were chaining their stun on me while our tank was busy dying. The ensuing conversation looked a little like this:

Tank: "OMG ur the worst priest ive ever seen"

Me: "I had all the enemies on me and was dying"

Other caster: "Why were you running? They hit you anyway" (as it turns out, kiting works in RoM, so this guy was wrong)

Me: "You know what kiting is right?"

Tank: "wow you need to heal me next time and not worry about damage"

So after everybody resses, we spawn the boss again. The exact same thing happens - all the wolves aggro to me. Again, nobody does anything to relieve the DPS I'm taking or to get the wolves off me. Again, I am continually chain-stunned and our tank ends up dying. Neither time did the tank try to kite while near-death, he just stood there and took it all.

Tank: "OMG HEAL ME NOOB"

Tank: "UR THE WORST PRIEST EVER"

Me: "I can't heal while stunned or dead, unless you know something I don't"

Tank: "I know plenty"

Me: "You don't know how to tank"

Tank: "lol noob"

Well, here's the breakdown. In Guild Wars, monks get blamed for everyone else's failures, and in Runes of Magic, it's pretty much the same thing.

While I'm talking about RoM, I want to mention something I noticed. My character is part priest, and one of the skills you can use on a priest secondary is Holy Aura. Holy Aura costs 60 mana (medium-cost compared to other spells), casts instantly, and its effect makes you immune to damage for 5 seconds. Sound familiar? Here's the catch: In Guild Wars, Ether Prism recharges in 20 seconds. In Runes of Magic, it recharges in FIVE MINUTES. Even the developers of this pve game can understand that invincibility is broken, and the only way they managed to put one in the game is by making it an "oshit" button that you can only use once per battle, and still costs a good amount of magic to cast. Oh yeah, and it doesn't GIVE YOU MORE MAGIC THAN IT COSTS.

MMO Plague

Seriously. Why does every intellectual property have to eventually become a massively multiplayer online game?

It used to be that only fantasy RPGs were able to succeed with MMO status, but nowadays it seems every bad game company is jumping on the "our online world is a substitute for real life" bandwagon.

I just got an ad in my spam email account (the one I use to register user names on sites I don't ever want mail from) for, no joke, Need for Speed World Online. Seriously. What. The. Fuck. Racing your friends with separate controllers in the same room wasn't enough, so they added online play, but then online play wasn't enough. The only way you can make a racing game more online than that is to make GTA4, where you have an avatar that can do nothing but run around and select menu options between the reasons you actually bought the game - races.

It's not just bad racing franchises either. The new Star Wars MMO (I forget what it's called and don't remind me, because I don't care) is gaining a lot of hype. Bioware, the game company that made games of Blizzard proportions 8 years ago has announced that you will be able to do two things at the same time to repel women - enjoy Star Wars, and play a video game online all day long with other men who have never seen a vagina. I watched about 2 seconds of gameplay footage, and I remember thinking "This game looks almost as exciting as making a cup of tea." Keep in mind, I rarely make tea, because coffee kicks tea's ass so hardcore it's not funny. Let me explain what the gameplay of the new SW game will be like:

1. Find an enemy you want to kill.
2. Click on it.
3. Watch your avatar and your target's avatar stand still while firing lasers at each other very slowly.

Imagine playing Guild Wars, but where the only profession is ranger, and female characters can't wear slutty armor. You just imagined SWO.

I swear to god if the intro movie for the game consists of giant yellow text floating through space, I will murder someone. It was cool when it was new - you know, thirty years ago. It's not so inventive after over 60 total movies and video games have used this cheesy bullshit.

Besides genres that don't work as MMOs (like bad racing games), the MMO game lists are littered with endless amounts of garbagey MMORPGs with unoriginal combat systems and/or poor graphics. It's 2010. DirectX 11 SDK has been out for like two years. Stop making games that an N64 could run.

Now, let's remember the reason MMOs existed in the first place. RPGs, the only genre that can pull it off (some still fail) incorporated a massive online environment so you get the feeling you're in a living, breathing world full of other people. Racing games aren't RPGs. There is nothing an MMO racing game can do that a GUI menu cannot, other than waste your time and make you feel like you're playing GTA, but without the things that make GTA worthwhile (freedom).

By the way, I actually looked up what that new Star Wars game is. It's called TOR. It stands for You're a faggot if you buy this game.