I bet that everyone these days can hear things like "New Unreal Engine 3 based MMO" or "Next gen MMORPGs that uses Unreal Engine 3". And then some of questions appear on our minds like "What is Unreal Engine 3 after all?" and "What kind of changes or improvements it will bring tho MMOs?". To clear some of this questions I will try to explain in a simple way what UE3 is and what changes it'll bring to the games that uses it.

What is Unreal Engine 3?

"The Unreal Engine is a popular game engine developed by Epic Games. First illustrated in the 1998 first-person shooter game Unreal, it has been the basis of many games since, including Unreal Tournament, Turok, Mass Effect, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas, America's Army, Red Steel, Gears of War, BioShock, BioShock 2, Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror, Mirror's Edge and so forth. Although primarily developed for first-person shooters, it has been successfully used in a variety of genres, including stealth (Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell), MMORPG (Vanguard: Saga of Heroes) as well as RPGs with Mass Effect, The Last Remnant, and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone."

As you can see, the Unreal Engine is like of "tool" that games' producers use to creat their games. Depending on the Engine, you can improve a lot of aspects on your game, like: graphics, gameplay and other features that depends on the creator's imagination. The better the Engine, better the improvements that can be applied in the game and you can also have a wide range of possibilities when creating a game.

(In this pic you can see the evolution since Unreal Engine 1 through Unreal Engine 3)

Which plataforms uses Unreal Engine 3?

Unreal Engine is designed for PCs that uses DirectX 9 and 10 and for the next gen consoles such as Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. And maybe this is the reason that makes possible having a lot of multi plataform games with such high graphics and complex types of gameplay.

What kinds of improvements are offered by using UE3?

Unreal Engine 3 provide advanced techniques as HDRR (High Dynamic Range Rendering), per-pixel lightining, dynamic shadows and builds upon the tools available in previous versions of the engine. All of this techniques are focused on providing an even more realistic game experience. 
Lately, UE3 has received some improvements such as an ability to add "high-quality static lighting with next-generation effects, such as: soft shadows with accurate penumbrae; diffuse and specular interreflection; and color bleeding." The new improvement was named "Unreal Lightmass".
This version of the engine for Unreal Tournament 3, Gears of War and an improved version for Gears of War 2. Midway Games has also used this generation of the engine for Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe.

Unreal Tournament 3

Gears of War 2

Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe

The Role of Unreal Engine 3 in MMOs

As well as the console games, the MMO world is making its nexts steps through the next generation. Since the MMO market is having problems with the leak of original games and intriguing gameplay, an evolution is more than needed, don't you think?
The benefits of UE3 in MMOs are just the same of the Console games, since is the same Engine and it offers the same tools and techniques for both console and PC games, the difference is simple: the way that producers uses this Engine. I can personally say that in the games' industry, imagination is the key, especially in MMORPGs.
The first improved aspect that we can note at first sight in MMOs that uses Ue3 is the advanced graphics, which are compared to those of the Next Gen consoles. Secon, comes the gameplay and features in-game, but we need to play the game first to evaluate these apsects.
One disvantage that can be noticed in PC games that uses UE3 is the high recommend system requirements to play it, what can make people who don't have cash to buy new hardware pieces to their PCs incapable of playing UE3 games. But gladly, most of the UE3 MMORPGs that are being produced lately requires the same PC specs of the previous gen of MMORPG, excpet for a better graphic card that is required to play the game 'cause of the shadows and light features.

(Mortal Online)

One of the problems that I hope that will be used with the UE3 use is the creation of atractive types of gameplay. No more grind-based MMORPGs or idiot quests (which are grind-based too lol). It'll be good if they could creat more social features in the game, making better to play in parties and joining guilds, 'cause playing alone can turn the game boring (at least for me).
 

(Blade & Soul)

Thanks to the wide range of creation possibilities offered by the Unreal Engine 3, is that MMO are assuming different genres and games, for example, Blade & Soul can be named as a "Action MMORPG", 'cause you have the basic features of the MMORPG mixed with an action game gameplay.
This variety is possibilited by the advanced techniques of the Engine used by the game.

(Global Agenda)

(T.E.R.A. Online)

Now we can only hope for the MMOs companies to wisely use these Next Gen Egines to produced good MMOs and bring to us an in-game experience never seen before and bring a succesful era to the PC games market.

Thanks for reading my new article!
I've been away from my MMO blog for some months, and I apologize for that, but I'll do my best to write more nice articles in the future. I'm always reading MMOsite to be update about the MMORPG world and write articles about recent stuff and games, hehehe! Thanks once more for visiting my blog and hope to see you all later!!

Take care everyone