So it is the end of the year my girlfriend is very happy, and hence I'm happy. Based on the games I played this year I'm going to make a MMORPG blender to see what comes out.
What are my evil plans? Well I'm going to take what I liked from the MMO's I played and blend it and see what comes out.
Well since you are my guest, and I certainly could not have played every single game that came out in 2007, I invite you to collaborate,if you found a certain feature from a game you think we should add to the blender then feel free to pm me, leave a comment, or email to me. I will gladly add it and show what you found.
Character Customization:
This feature I will take from Perfect World, because you can model you character in a wide range of options, some of them are:
Skin color (Full color palettes)
Eye Color
Hair color
Eye shape
Body Shape
Nose Shape
And more facial customization…
Race
The Blood Elfs from World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, what can I say, they look very stylish. Male elves look really regal and tough, hair styles are very cool. And the female elves are very sexy, they are not half naked as in most of the MMORPGs but I liked them the most.
Character Image
Sword of the New World has some of the best looking characters, they look gorgeous but not childish, yet sexy without being slutty. They have very good facial features and they are nicely detailed.
Building Architecture
World of Warcraft plus its expansion The Burning Crusade definitely took my breath away when it came to architecture. The main reason is because in other games like Lineage II I like the game a lot, but the extended flat planes just bore me. WoW has really nice lit roads, and when I entered the cities I was just amazed at the attention to the details. Also competing in this section was Sword of the New World (Granado Espada) but there are long stretches between the towns with not much to see, and the dungeons were kind of plain.
EverQuest 2:No spam, no bots. Although you still get a lot of spammers, the filters work so great that I've played for months without receiving a single spam call. Its as easy as activating or deactivating spam! The open channels are kept clean and I've only seen a single bot in my 3 years playing this game.
Landscape
In this category 2Moons is my winner, never stepped into a boring landscape in this game. The swamp area was one of my favorites, always something different after the next portal and never a long boring walk to make a quest. Do notice, this is not the Town Distribution category, because 2Moons towns are a bit crammed.
Game Transitions
By transitions I'm referring to screen transitions that are not the usual fade to black then from black to something. The winner on this category goes to Lunia, they did a great job animating the transitions from character selection, and other screen with very smooth and out of the box ideas.
Control
Gunz The Duel is my pick for best controls, with few controls you can make a large amount of combinations to take out your opponents before they even realize they have been spotted. There are styles that had been made, there are guides to what you can achieve. You can be creative and combine your own set of cool and original moves to deliver the final blow/shot to take out your enemies.
Best Trailer
Although CGI trailers are the norm for MMORPGs I think the best trailer I have seen is from NCSoft's Aion, the animation looks very smooth, and everything seems to be alive and natural. The game looks very promising, and I will be looking forward to more media. Aion Trailer Direct Source
Weird thing, but most of the players in EverQuest 2 are extremely friendly. Not the usual name calling to the new players. There is some like in most games, but compared to other games it is a friendlier environment.
New Player Friendly
9Dragons by Acclaim was the most beginner friendly game I played this year, the tutorials were in text as well as spoken which was very nice and welcoming. They take you step by step, to ensure you are ready to start the game.
Story Telling
Most of the games I played just threw me into the game to grind myself to a death of boredom. Nevertheless, some games did a great job at keeping me in my role. My pick for best story teller goes for Lunia, the stage mode and smooth transition made it really enjoyable. Maybe some players skip the story part, but if you are looking for a good story that progresses as you play Lunia isa good choice.
With 4 CD's worth of soundtrack Sword of The New World, gets the cake for best Soundtrack, according to some blogs I read players like it because they don't have to mute the background music and play their IPods.
Thank you for reading, I'll be looking forward to your suggestions.
