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I've spent a long time in the online gaming industry, playing games ranging from Warcraft all the way up to the present games such as Requiem. Hours of devotion have gone into several companies for volunteer work, and countless nights spent grinding away at the levels have been used. I've journeyed through hundreds of different online worlds, and interacted with thousands of others who shared my passion for the game. I've played games at 5 fps, just because they looked great and my crappy computer wasn't going to stop me. I've played legit to the top of the ranks, and I've played on some private servers just for fun. I've blogged about games for almost a year now, going on and off of the job and changing sites a handful of times. But throughout all my interactions in the industry, only a few games have really stood out at me. These game are the most revolutionary games that have brought the industry to a new milestone, raising the bar up again for the rest of the industry to follow along with. No, I am not talking about your typical 'revolutionary' games such as the World of Warcraft. I am talking about a handful of games that have exceeded in the industry by a large margin compared to what the rest of the industry was like. World of Warcraft was, and still is for the most part, a step in the right direction for the new age games like Age of Conan, but it was not revolutionary. So here are my two picks for the best MMOGs, including my nomination for the best MMOG.
Diablo 2.
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聽聽聽 Diablo 2 was a hit in the industry back when it first came out, and the servers live on today. The game has a large following of players that has slowly been diminishing over the past few years, before that the player-base was incredibly strong. The game is a revolutionary game that is coming to the end of it's time just now. But what makes it so good that it deserves to be in this list? Well, the game did what few other online games did, except Diablo 2 did it to perfection. It combined a single player PC game with an MMORPG mode. Not only could you go online and play co-op, but you could completely interact with others. You had thousands of players in the lobby, along with a large-enough amount in each room. The reason most games that had attempted this back in those days had failed at it was because they focused too little of the importance of the storyline, and more on getting it online as well as offline. 聽聽聽 聽聽聽 Diablo 2 has a great storyline that follows from it's predecessor, Diablo. You're out to destroy Baal and Diablo, the two demon overlords. At first, Diablo was the only one who stood in your way of saving the game's world, but in the expansion that game out entitled 'Lord of Destruction', Baal was introduced. Most games of that time were way behind Diablo 2, as the expansion of Diablo 2 is something that most games today could use but fail to produce. Instead they use a patching system, which is a hit and a miss if you ask me. The story was even better online, since some missions got so difficult such as fighting the three elders, that partners were almost necessary on the harder modes. But one thing I really like is that the co-op on the story and the normal multiplayer such as player vs. player were not separated. You could have an open room and be doing a mission, and someone else could come in and start killing your team. It adds a whole new level to the game. 聽聽聽 Most players complain about the lack of creativity in online games today. All characters look the same, not enough armor choices, not enough diversity, stuff like that basically. Well, how can you get more creative then allowing players to create their own content? That's the best aspect of Diablo 2 in my opinion, and the aspect that kept me hanging around for a long time. When you weren't enjoying the storyline, just leveling up trying to hit 99 with your friends, or killing your enemies, you could be doing an entire range of other activities called 'mods'. These mods could do basically anything. Some made completely new maps, while others changed the current maps and covered them in spawns. Some of which could be anything from duplicates of Baal and Diablo themselves, to stuff like giant killer caterpillars. 聽聽聽 Another huge problem in games is people that don't abide by the rules. They cuss, cheat, use hacks and bots, all of that terrible stuff. Well, the people behind Diablo had an amazing idea to stop this from happening. They simply allowed it. Yes, they allowed players to hack and even made it very easy for them. They removed the anti-hack security for the most part, except for the stuff protecting users, on a secondary server. This server would allow people to create their own weapons and armor as well using Diablo editors created by mastermind 'hackers' of the game. You could draw it yourself, or use some of the ones in-game. Some editors provided specially designed armor and weapons as well, all of which could have the effects changed. You could instantly change all your stats to be maxed out, and the same with your skills. You could be level 99 with maxed up stats and skills, and the coolest looking most bad-ass armor possible in a matter of minutes! The server did have some people that ruined it for others with 'freeze charms', which would lock up an account. Although on that server, it hardly mattered. The player vs. player is insane on this server if you're good at hacking. It can come down to a stalemate of the builds, or simply to who uses their skills better. 聽聽聽 Besides all of the gameplay aspects of the game that amazed gamers and kept them entertained, the creators of the game really had the basics figured out in a new way. They not only made things to near-perfection that other games simply didn't care about, but they went out of there way to create tasks for users. They left easter-eggs in the game such as the Mad Cow level, or the seventh act mod. They also just really had items that every game should have. The best example of this in my mind? The town portal scrolls/books. If you're out on a mission, or just fighting with your team to level up and get new items, you could deploy a town portal at almost anytime using a scroll, which could be kept in books to waste less storage space. These portals would stay up for quite some time, and would vanish when the original caster had transported through it twice. Once to town, and once back. The blue portal would appear on the map twice. Once where casted, and once in the center of the nearest town. When a user stepped through it, they'd appear at town free to talk to NPCs, get items and potions, and sell their loot. They can then travel back through the portal in town to get back to the training area. All members of the caster's party could use these, so if one person died they could use a portal in town casted by a party member to immediately get back to the spot. 聽聽聽 In conclusion, Diablo 2 perfected the basic mechanics of the online RPG and brought them to a whole new level. It sparked interest from companies all over the globe to make similar products hoping the legion of fans would move on to a newer, less outdated game with fresh new graphics. Sadly, most of them have failed because they don't give it the effort or support that Blizzard put behind their game and backed it with. 聽聽聽 聽聽聽 And here it is, my pick for best revolutionary MMOG..
Runescape.
聽聽聽 Now, I know that a lot of people are probably thinking about how wrong I am right now, and how much they disagree with me. But at least hear me out before you come to any such conclusion, as I have a lot to say about this game. Most of which is stuff that can't be denied, no matter how much you hate the game. I am well aware of all the people that dislike this game, but you've got to understand that it's not new anymore. You've also got to understand that it's running on Java, so you can't expect as much from it as you would from World of Warcraft otherwise you're bound to be disappointed. If some company can make a game with the graphics and combat of World of Warcraft run on a browser and have very little lag, I will be amazed. It's simply not possible now-a-days. Maybe in the future it'll be done, but for right now Runescape is still at the top of the market in graphics for low-lag browser-based MMOGs. (Yes, there are actually quite a few to compare it to) 聽聽聽 I think the best place to begin would be something that even the gamers that despise this game can agree on at least a little bit. What am I talking about? I am talking about the system that Jagex used for their player vs. player interactions. Ever since I started the game quite a few years back I was astounded by the awesomeness of this feature. For those of you who have yet to play the game, this feature is called The Wilderness. It's an area on the giant map of the Runescape world where players can roam and fight with each other. As you progress forwards into the wilderness, the level of the wilderness changes. The level indicates the difference in player levels allowed to fight. So if you're in the level six area of the wilderness, you can only attack or be attacked by people within six levels of your character. Apart from being a place for killing others, it's also grown to become one of the premiere training places for higher levels. Dragons that drop high-level rare equips as well as crafting material spawn out here, and attacking them is risking yourself to be double teamed by the dragon and another player. While some will hunt in peace and allows others to hunt dragons alongside them, some will try and kill all those who come near them in the wilderness. Several quests and trainers are also located in the wilderness, including some of the most important NPCs for players wanting to be magicians. 聽聽聽 No classes. That's one of the first things you'll notice when you're going through the great tutorial Jagex has set up. The tutorial is good because it quickly gives you a brief overview and training of all the basic skills you need to survive in the Runescape world. But players are not limited to one skill. Every single character has access to all of the skills. That means you can be a priest, a magician, a warrior, and a ranger, all on one character without having to sacrifice anything. A character does not have a specific class or job, although some will pick one skill to work out and build their character around, such as pure-breed magicians. The level of a character is determined by the a formula based on the accumulative skill levels earned by that character. This is why some people choose to focus on one style of combat. A character who has reached level fifty in range, swordsmanship, magic, and prayer could be say a level 75 combat character. While a character who has left range, swordsmanship, and prayer alone and has reached a level of fifty in magic may only be a level 35 character. This makes them more effective in the wilderness, since others users around their level may not have a combat skill above twenty yet. 聽聽聽 Job skills are my personal favorite part of the game. These allow players to ignore the ground from time-to-time and just talk with friends while having fun in game. Take a break from slaying monsters and just go to the local mining pit with your friends. As you mine you can talk with your friends and just relax. They also have a great system of random monster spawns when you're training in order to prevent people from using automatic programs to level up while they're not even at the computer. Jagex provides an array of job skills ranging from mining and smithing to woodcutting and fletching. They are constantly adding new skills as well such as farming and carpentry, expanding the world and making it more player driven. These skills make the economy great, because a level one who has spent weeks training his mining and smithing levels up to around eighty can be making armor for level seventy characters, earning a ton of money already at such a low combat level. These skills give you wide variety of things to do, rather then just killing monsters and other players. An excellent feature that all games should have. 聽聽聽 A great company is backing Runescape up called Jagex. They provide the most active customer support available. When my membership was taking a little longer then what they said on the website to be activated, they quickly handled it within thirty-minutes of an email I sent them. And besides from their customer support, they provide constant updates that include new features, bug fixes, and fun events that can stand up to even the best pay-to-play game company. They have numerous updates every month, compared to normal downloadable MMOG companies that rarely have updates at all. I am not talking about updates like bug fixes either, I mean new content and such. 聽聽聽 A huge world. Runescape's world is extremely large, larger then most MMOGs out there. They are constantly adding new areas to it that don't show up on the normal map such as the barrows. Within this world there are loads of towns, NPCs, quests, armors, and weapons for everyone to collect. There is also a large variety of monsters ranging from zombies to dragons and bats. Your journey is pretty much limitless in a game that would take months and months of playing to be able to explore it all without breaking the rules. 聽聽聽 Low membership costs. Membership gives you the full experience, without it the game can be pretty bland and dull. You get a ton of new places to explore, new skills, tons of new quests, armors, and weapons with your membership, and at $5 a month it's hard to beat. They also allow you to send money in through the mail, which is great for younger gamers who do not have access to a credit card yet. 聽聽聽 One other feature of the game that absolutely astounds me is the amazing quests that it offers, a lot of which are not even just for members. Most games have a quest style of going to kill some monster to get some drop, then reporting back to the person that issued the quest. Runescape's are a lot more creative. You may have to journey through an underground labyrinth to find a lost girl and rescue her. The game thrives off of a storyline that is as simple as you being a hero who has to protect everyone else. Whether it be fighting an evil witch so that a kid can get his ball from his yard, or rescuing a lost cat. (Which is a great quest since you can then own a pet cat!) Some quests even lead into other quests, creating an enlarged version of a specific storyline within the general storyline. 聽聽聽 And to end my rant about the great feature of the game, I will talk about the great minigames. One in particular actually, a game called Castle Wars. It's a large scale CTF pvp battle with no level restriction. The winning team gets points used to buy special items in the Castle Wars store. The game is more about teamwork and skill then level and equipment though. There are secret underground paths, cannons, and places for archers to rain arrows down upon their enemies. As well as doors and obstacles to be broken down by the opposing team in order to gain access to the castle. This game kept me occupied for longer then most F2P MMOGs in the market now-a-days. It's absolutely astounding! 聽聽聽 To wrap it up, this game has so much to do, so much variety, such a huge world, and a great company behind it. The community can be a little immature, and the combat is a little bland. But how many MMOGs in the market AREN'T point and click to attack enemies, even in player vs. player? Very few. If you changed up the combat, re-amped the graphics, the community issue would resolve itself as older players would join up, because right now Runescape is where younger kids hang out until they get older and get sick of it. I can't even stand playing it anymore because it's too old and outdated for myself. I still love the game though, as other game companies can learn a lot from Jagex and Runescape. Graphics should come way after the other aspects of a game, and that's why I still love Runescape. If/when Runescape 3 is made, it will be absolutely amazing. No other browser based game has been able to accomplish the player base or success Runescape has had since it was created, but it has sparked such an interest in the industry on online browser-based MMOGs. Several new games with good graphics are coming out, including my favorite, WebWars Eve. Jagex is also rumored to have a new game coming out called Mechscape. 聽聽聽 Well, those are my personal opinions. Like them or not, I feel these two games are the most revolutionary in the industry. They took the bar and raised it when no other company could. That's why they have the honor of being my two best/favorite MMOGs.
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If you have any other topics for me to blog about, feel free to send me a message through my blog.
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