Theme
So what do you want to be? A quiet elf living in a mythical world? A brave knight that fights humongous monsters? how about a captain of a space ship?
There are a wide variety of themes to choose, and usually plenty of games in every category. There are also games specifically for a more mature audience like 2Moons where chat is not filtered and you can curse until your fingers hurt (the NPCs will treat you like trash, but anyway....).
Even if you are looking for a game for your child, beware that childish looking games have plenty of older, even senior, players in it. So follow the steps below to make sure your child doesn't get bullied or other bad stuff.
Consider your theme to be the starting point of your quest to find your MMORPG.
PC Requirements
Video
Many games require you to have a video card, I won't explain in this article what a video card is or where to get them, but it is additional hardware you might need in order to run the game. If you are below the system requirements you will have a poor gaming experience.
Internet Connection
If you have a slow internet connection, it would be a waste to buy a very expensive pay to play game, because you are going to have major lag (delay). So if that is your case, go for something free to play first and see what kind of performance you get.
Size
Don't be fooled, if the game is for example 1 Gigabyte in size, that will NOT be the final size, you have to have additional space for game updates, and possibly for expansions of the game. You might reach a point where the game plus the updates reaches 5 or more Gigabytes.
Hardware
You keyboard was made when the first PC was released to the market? well it's time to hit the store and buy a new one, because you are going to spend quite some time on the PC. You don't want to spend your gaming time wrestling with your mouse or your keyboard in addition to the virtual monsters on the screen.
Pay To Play or Free To Play? (F2P or P2P)
There are several business models when it comes to MMORPGs, here are some choices you are going to see.
- Pay once - play forever. Some games want you to buy the game for the usual retail price of a single player game but don't charge you anymore later. This pricing model is interesting when you plan to play a game for a very long time. But it could proove to be very expensive when you decide that you don't like the game anymore after one or two months. Example: Guild Wars
- Pay monthly. Many games want none or a very small entry fee, but charge you about $10 a month for playing. The advantage over the "pay once" price model is that you can stop playing whenever you like without feeling that you are wasting the money you paid on the game. On the other hand they can become much more expensive when you play the game for a half year or longer. Example: World of Warcraft.
- Free to play but pay for goodies. These games are free to play but there is a cash shop where you can pay money for conveniences in the game. Be careful, these games seem cheap at first glance but can become really costly when you become addicted. Example: Fly For Fun
- All is Free. These games are wonderful and require no money to use all features. They can become addicting though, and are sometimes slower than games which require monthly or yearly play. Two examples are VMK and Nicktropolis.
Pasted from <http://www.wikihow.com/Choose-an-MMORPG>
Game Media
Okay, lets get dirty. It鈥檚 a very competitive world out there, and everybody wants your attention. The first time I was looking for a MMO pretty much everything amazed me (shame on me). And now the sad truth, images LIE. What?! Why would companies want to trick me into playing their games?
1.- It took you too long to download it and now you feel like you have to play it.
2.- You can't find anything better
3.- "OMG the trailer looked awesome!!"
4.- They want your money
I want to stress the third point, sometimes game trailers could mislead you to think that the graphics you see in it will be the same quality you will be playing in. Usually the art you see in their websites is concept art, which does not resemble very much the characters inside the game.
OK, so what to do:
- Go to to http://gamelist.mmosite.com/ and look for the game you are researching about; mmosite has some videos, screenshots and reviews for the game.
- Go to YouTube and enter the name of the game, for sure dozens of players' videos will pop out.
- In the game website go to the "Media" section or look for the Screenshots or Gameplay Videos.
- Go to a search engine and look for images of the game if the website doesn't have enough screenshots.
Community
Don't quote me on this, but I believe every player's individual experience in a MMORPG is different. Why? because no two players will meet exactly the same people in the same order. Remember that the same people from the real world are logging into the virtual world bringing their personal problems and personalities.
Some players will be very rude, even if they are in your same faction. Other players will not even bother responding and will just ignore you. If you are lucky you will find a friendly person that would not bother answering a few questions and befriending you.
There is no secret formula to find out how good or bad is a community, but here are some tips:
- Scan the game forums, is there activity? If the forums are deserted run away as fast as you can. Usually a very low percentage of the players that login into the game use the forum at all. So if there is almost no one using it, it means the game is almost empty.
- Read some reviews, even though the might not be accurate depending on the reviewer, give it a shot, you might learn something you didn't knew about the game.
- Register on mmosite and go to the forums, there is a forum for every game, go there and ask the current players some specific questions that you have. Do NOT ask "Is it a good game?", "Should I play it?" and that sorts of generalized questions. http://forum.mmosite.com/
Cue Points
Things you should keep in mind when reading reviews, or asking questions.
- How much does it take to level? Usually from the starting levels it doesn't take too much to level, but this is because you are just starting. Don't measure it in experience points, measure it in TIME because if you don't have a lot of time to play online it will take you years to reach a high level status.
- Money, the precious "bling bling", every games calls it a different name: gold, penya, adena, etc.. Ask if it is hard to get, because you will be buying potions, armor, weapons and more.
- Always scan the "Problems" Section of the game forums. But why if I haven't even logged in yet!!?!?! Well, because all of the problems you see in there might be potential problems you could face when playing. Look for the Game Master replies and check if they are really taking care of the problems or if they are just ignoring players.
- Do a "(game name here) gold" search in the search engine of your preference example:
http://www.google.com.mx/search?q=warcraft+gold
What does this mean?, if you see a lot of "Cheap (game name) gold" Websites it means they will be a lot of players in the game cheating and exchanging real money for virtual money, this sucks because it won't be a fair game. If you see a lot of these, think twice, because many annoying people with money and nothing better to do play online.
- Language: Is the game you are getting in an international edition?, anyways, go to the forums and check to see if there are people speaking a language you can understand if you speak two or more. Many games have Language sections.
In my opinion it is like choosing a boyfriend/girlfriend, you will be spending quite some time with it, so it better make you happy. And if you are going to pay for it (or your parents are) it has to deliver and deliver good. I hope you find the game that makes you happy and gives you endless hours of fun and excitement.
