Dexcross' Wish

Well, this is my wishlist.  Not so long ago, MMOSite Writers Club had a topic to be written about bringing video games to MMOGs.  I have wrote my part in my previous article, but somehow I wonder, which game that I would really want to be brought as MMORPGs?

5. Feeding Frenzy

You might be surprised and shout WTF when I mentioned this mini games.  But seriously, have you ever thought that being a fish with evolution capability, which is one of interesting RPG elements, can be so much fun?  If this game is ever brought online, we will compete not just on how to eat as much lower class fish as we can, but also avoiding higher class of fish.  It’s eat or being eaten.  No need for PVP ground cuz everywhere is PVP ground, and being in higher evolution level doesn’t mean you are safe, but all the fields is about feed or being the food.  As for the bonus status of every special food you take can still be implemented.  And if they build the fish world just like many cinematic animation movie such as Finding Nemo or Shark Tale, we can implement funny equipment too.  I heard that some people complaining th

Yes, it’s an art because we can’t say that adding multiplayer or even online feature to a stand alone video game will guarantee the game to be a success hit.  It is not an exact science that can be formulated as:

Video Game Title + Online Feature = Great MMOG

This is WRONG!!!

Is it possible to adopt a video game to be a successful MMOG?  Yes it’s possible, but it will depend on many factors!  The stand alone game and video game will still find it ways to survive EVEN WITHOUT online feature.  Many people believe that the future of game will be the online one.  That may be true.  However, if we take a look at game (not just video game) history, each new genre of game is growing into culture and not just trend.  A trend would kill the last category, but a culture will give birth to a new category.  Confused?

Let me give an example:

Before we know any video games in this world, people already play games using card.  Before we play any MMORPGs, people already play RPGs based on physical rule.  Can we still find card game and non electronic RPGs today?  Yes we can still find them.  In fact, some of

I don’t mean to underestimate the power of women.  I truly understand how cesarsuki explained that at many points, women really overpowered man.  But if you want to compare MMORPG with military, and how women can influence decision of the “main actor” of the stage, I will have to say: men came first, my friend.

Why would I say that?

Let’s be realistic.  First, we are living in a world that has change in progress BUT hasn’t changed yet.  It is a patriarchal one, where men are considered dominant.  Most of the leader of nations are men.  Most of the wealthiest people in the world are men.  Most of the military generals are men.  MMORPG is about role, and it is not about how to live peacefully happily ever after in the game, because so far, the concept hasn’t changed from how to slay as much monster as possible, how to achieve highest level as fast as possible, how to conquer as much areas as possible.  It’s about aggression, and men response well for that areas (Coi & Dodge 1997, Maccoby & Jacklin 1974, Buss 2005).  And guess what, in my country the leader of strong guilds are mostly men

I don’t want to use the terms guild war because I don’t want people to misunderstand that this article is about Guild War, a great game from NCSoft.  I am talking about guild vs guild.  Some games called this guild with another terms, name it: faction, circle, order, etc.  But still, usually the have a feature to have a war between guild. 

Btw, this article is inspired by Hyuk’s article. 

So if you want to have a guild vs guild, here’s the best reason to do it in my opinion:

7. Game event

GMs announcing that a special event is being held and it’s a contest between guilds.  Or maybe the game is implementing this routine event, guild vs guild.  You have an active guild, so it’s no harm to participate in it, right?  It’s a very logic reason to have a guild war.  No further explanation needed, I think.

6. To show who’s better, who’s the best, who’s the strongest

Why would you form a strong guild if you never show it to other?  Show them who’s the biggest, who’s the strongest, who’s the best, just like what Muhammad Ali did.  It’s a good reas

Last April 2008, Pangya has closed their services in my country.  It was a popular casual online game.  But due to many factors, it has to be the new inhabitants in the online game graveyard.  There are several popular online games that loosing their players and finally ended their services or has a state of “brain dead” in my country.  Nexia, Tantra, RYL, were some of examples where popular games finally ended or loosing players.  We don’t have to cover about unpopular ones like TS Online, Laghaim, Stargate Online, Deco Online, and so on, because it will eventually be dead.  So a once popular online games, doesn’t mean a long lasting popularity.

In Memorial Of:

However, when it comes to game mods, we have different cases.  Some popular mods are even still played until now!  I barely find players that still playing Tantra in the internet café of my country nowadays, but I still find some players training their team in Counter Strike.  I have friends to play many online game together as a guild, but our guilds has been inactive for quite some times in some online games.  But we still routinely play

I haven’t had a chance to read blogs in MMOSite lately.  So, during past few days, I spent some times to read them.  I have to say you guys really done great jobs writing articles.  I really enjoyed them.  I also discovered some articles regarding cyber love (and an article with that exact title from cesarsuki).

It will be really sweet to found your soulmate during your gameplay.  The one who understand your other life, your cyberlife.  It is a life that not all of your relatives and your closest ones would understand.  So if your spouse can be found in an online game, I have to admit IT IS very very ideal.  You can spend your time together, knowing that she or he will understand your passion in that “other” world, eliminating the boring grinding because you found an excitement slaying monster together, and still many more things to do together.

HOWEVER, all things in this world usually come in the form of 2 side of balance.  Dark and Light, Yin and Yang, Good and Bad, The Forces and Dark Forces, and so on.  That’s why, I also understand that game (online or not) will bring 2 effects too, good and bad.  I

I have this funny conversation during one of my gameplay, while L is me, and A is a player in that game:

A: (shouting) GM, where can I find NPC Z???

L: (whisper to A) You can find NPC X by reading the website guide for NPC.

A: (whisper to me) Which part of the website?

L: (whisper to A, after take a look at the website) Just go to coordinate x, y, u will find NPC Z.

A: (whisper to me) R u a GM?

L: (whisper to A) No I am not.

A: (shouting) GM, where can I find NPC Z???

L: … SWT!!!

I thought to myself: OMG, just because I am not a GM and you don’t believe my information?  And it is only some click away for you to find it by yourself at the website, but you need GM just to find an NPC???  So, I try to “enlighten” him about the usual GM function.  I never become a GM in an online game, but I am sure that one of their job is not to help a newbie to find an NPC.

L: Have u tried the coordinate?  It’s there, u don’t need a GM to find it.  Contact GM if you find bug.

A: R u a GM?

L: I told you before, I am not, just try to help u find the NPC.  Besides GM will only respond to you for bug or special report like when you try to repo

First of all, I will say this:

“LET THERE BE CLONE!”

Why?

Because I have seen too much in my life that the act of copying (or borrowing the idea) lead to many great products in their future.  I’ll give an example later.

Another reason is, it will promote the genre heavily.

Some will say: “BUT CLONING IS NOT THE SAME AS COPYING”

Exactly!  Clone in terms of genetic biology science refers to a word of identical EXACT replica.  So if you really never find a game that EXACTLY the same, why do all people keep using this term as a word to represent someone who copy some aspect of game to develop a new one?  They are not doing the real cloning in this term.  Splices point of view explain it, so I won’t cover it anymore in here.  Go read it here.

Yes, I understand there are so many terms out there for clone’s meanings.  In this case, from this point onward, I will use this terms as the ‘usual’ meaning tendency, that a game is similar to other in many many ways.

Genre Promotion

Before I explain my first reason to support the clone, I will go to the second: clone war will promote the genre heavily.  If the genre become alive, it will attract many people or companies to consider penetrating the gen

First of all, data about subscribers sometimes can be varied according to many sources.  (I recommend MMOSite to upload a better image for the chart).  If you really want to take a look at clear chart about Mike’s data quickly, maybe you can visit here. 

But if you read this article, you will read that Lineage II has surpassed it’s predecessor by many times.  And even if the data must be debated for the sources have their own reasons, just take this into your consideration:

Releasing products in nowaday MMORPGs market, would be really different compare to previous old day, because of one thing:COMPETITION!  During 1998, when Lineage I was released, I can barely see a new MMORPG in 6 months.  While today, I am even confused to try which new game to start because sometimes a new MMORPG can be released in a spread of days!  Lineage II was also has to compete with private server, a problem th

In 2004, I had a chance to visit Korea.  During my visitation, I also met with some people from several game publisher such as Paha Schultz from NCSoft (half Germany half Korean), Luke Byung Ho Park from Neowiz, Michael Lim from Softmax (now he owns an online game publisher in Germany), and Min Kim from Wizet (yes, maybe you noticed him in North America as a person from Nexon, but he is actually from Wizet).  Their explanation about Korean gaming world really amazed me.  And although I knew there are professional gamers in Korea, but that’s the first time I knew about Lee Yun Yeol and Lim Yo Hwan (please do not misunderstand me, I didn’t meet them), 2 top professional starcraft players.  Celebrity in Korean gaming world.  Lee Yun Yeol earned a 3 years contract from sponsor worth US $ 830,000 while Lim Yo Hwan is known as the highest paid professional gamers in the gaming world history.  His annual earnings exceed US $ 300,000 with additional US $ 90,000 annually endorsement contract.  The starcraft league is aired in 2 major games dedicated channel TV, MBCGame and Ongamenet.  And those 2 guys really had a huge fans because of these conjunction.  Game became a serious industry that