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Was 2007 really a bad year for MMOGs?
聽聽 Over the past month or so there has been a lot of people writing about how last year was such a terrible year in the MMOG industry. But are these people really looking at the whole picture, reviewing the entire year and all of its ups and downs, or are they just making random assumptions because they were disappointed with the lack of originality in MMOGs this year? I plan to look into last year, and give you my reasoning behind my judgment on the overview of the year.
聽聽聽 A lot has happened this year in the MMOG world. From new game expansions such as The Burning Crusade and Eye of the North, to entirely new imported games, straight out of the generic MMOG factory, such as Holic, Fiesta, and all of the abominations that Ijji released. We also had terrible news such as the delays of WAR and Age of Conan, two highly anticipated MMOGs. We've had more clones come out, and all of them seem to be centered around the oldest milestone for MMOGs, Diablo 2. I mean, take a look at Mythos, Dungeon Runners, and so many other MMOGs that came out in '07 alone, and a large percentage of them were clones of another MMO. But behind it all, Diablo 2 clones ruled the cloning industry, and took in the hearts of the old MMOG gamers who once enjoyed the jam-packed online action that helped establish the new phenomenon.
聽聽聽 With all of the generic games that came last year, there were also some MMOs that may not have been completely original, some may have even been clones of other MMOGs, but they were still refreshing and provided a good gaming experience for quite a phew, for a while at least. Let's take a look at some of the MMOGs that came out this year that I personally feel were refreshing from the rest of the run-of-the-mill games.
Refreshing Games of 2007.
聽聽聽 Secret of the Solstice - It brought back memories from the old days when Ragnarok was at the top of the charts, attracting more buzz then anything else on the market. Except this time the game was free. The game started out slow with little hype, but the community built up and got a stable base to build off of. With the companies last abomination, Fiesta, becoming a total flop and laughing stock to many gamers, the company really had something to prove. It was a pretty weak move to do a clone after such a failure the first time around, but a safe move as well. 聽聽聽 Pi Story - Finally, a game came out that wasn't based around the graphics being better then other games. This game has a company behind it that actually knows what a lot of gamers want. We don't need fancy, incredible 3D graphics and effects. We need features! We need innovation! We need to be able to play the game freely, whenever we want to, and not become bored after a measly ten minutes. This game brought a cool house system, in-game web browser to check your Myspace page or forums on your favorite game site, it brought intuitive combat, it brought a hell of a lot to the table and when it's finished in '08 it'll be amazing. I can't wait. 聽聽聽 Fantasy Tennis - Sport MMOGs have been risky for as long as I can remember. People that like sports that much would prefer to go and actually play them, rather then click the mouse in their house all day. And the rest would prefer to stick to console versions which have always been pretty popular, at least in the North American market. But this game wasn't just tennis, you didn't just click to hit the ball and wait for your opponent to make a mistake. This was a challenge, a fun competition, and a refreshing change from the Asian-import grinders. I still enjoy playing it on-and-off from time to time. Definitely one of the more original games of '07. 聽聽聽 Kart Rider - Yes, Nexon's third wheel. (Before Mabinogi was announced that is) They had two successful games already, Maplestory and Audition, and wanted to expand even further in the NA market by adding yet another title. In closed beta the game was really fun. The community was good, and even though the game was bland and lacked the story mode that it now has, it was fun just to race and compete. But now Nexon has completely ruined it with the terrible lack of updates after the incredibly long delay from CB to OB. But earlier, it was a great change from slaying monsters, to just kick back and race around colorful, playful environments with friends. 聽聽聽 Fury - This game provided a challenge for me. It didn't live up to my incredibly high expectations after reading their website, but it was still a hit. The miss came later on however. In the Fury Challenge OB phase, the game was fun. Mainly because it was free. I participated in it hoping to win a new computer because mine is terrible, but unfortunately only broke the top 500 in the rankings because of my crappy computer. (Which made me enter the game around the four minute mark each time, when games were seven or eight minutes long..) The game brought a cool lobby where you could communicate with others and buy/trade items, rather then just a lobby where you type stuff in and have a list of users, with no characters involved. The gameplay was fun and fast-paced, and was good until we had to pay to play it unless we wanted to get the crap end of the stick. I highly doubt they fixed the lag either. 聽聽聽 Dream of Mirror Online - A great game that we had been anticipating for awhile now. The game had quite a huge rep and hype for a long time before-hand, and after the IP blocking of the EU version Game Tribe made, the announcement of Aeria Games NA version was greatly appreciated. The game is just a fun game that allows you to play as all classes, rather than picking one specific one and sticking with it. It also makes you party up, and the graphics are just great. Storyline is also very good, and the monsters are absolutely funny to fight. Dogs with heads the size of boulders, who could help but laugh? 聽聽聽 Burning Crusade + Eye of the North - Not much to be said about these two. They were both additions to hit MMOGs, and they both hit the mark and impressed users. Two successful expansions if I do say so myself, but knowing the company I could have seen that coming months in advance!
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Games that just missed the list.
聽聽聽 Perfect World -聽 Was a great game with a lot of cool features. The game had a great system behind it with cool skills, great graphics, amazing customization, and cool boss monsters to fight with your guild. As well as great combat in territory wars and all of that good stuff. It was just way to generic, lagged to much, the company was terrible with updates and news, and it was bad for new users. Until you grinded your way up to the mid-30's through killing the same monsters for five levels, or doing the incredibly boring quests, the game was wayy too boring to be played by most.
聽聽聽 Hellgate London - The game was fun, and even though it disappointed a lot of gamers it was still pretty refreshing for the gameplay it had. Didn't really impress me though, and a lot of gamers felt the same way.
聽聽聽 Ghost Online - A well-made clone of Maplestory, as so many would claim. But the game was different, better actually. The game had some really fun player vs. player in it, that made it up to your skill level, not your character level. It also had fishing and cool monsters. If the company had done a better job and built up the community so that more then fifty people were online at any time, it would have been great. Was also pretty grindy, but that's the same way Maplestory is and it's good because it provides a challenge to get to the top of the rankings.
聽聽聽 "Wow, with all of those MMOGs up there, they all sound so great! How could last year possible have been such a terrible year for MMOGs if it contained all of those great games?"
聽聽聽 Well, the answer is simple. Disappointments. This year was the year of disappointments in the MMOG industry. There was so many that I find it hard finding a place to begin my list with. But first, this is what I mean by a disappointment in the industry; A lot of games that were announced attracted huge amount of hype. These games had forums covered in numerous threads about the game, when it would be out, where to download the client, yeah, you get the picture. Then when the game came out, the threads returned. But this time, they all were angry threads, about how the game was so generic, so boring, so grindy, so crappy, whatever lame reasons people could find to insult the game.
Biggest Disappointments of 2007.
聽聽聽 Seal Online - Seal Online got a lot of hype throughout a lot of communities. The games graphics and gameplay were played out to be great, and when YNK finally gave us some insight on it everyone was pumped. When the first deadline was missed, people got pissed. Anticipation grew as well as tempers, and when the delays came it kept on rising. Until the game went CB, and everyone found out what a huge pile of crap it was to most of those who had waited so long. OB only got more people the ability to see and realize that. This game was a lot of waiting, a lot of hype, and nothing to show for it. 聽聽聽 DECO Online - This game had so much hype. I blogged about it a lot, and from the start said it looked like a mix of ROSE Online and Fly For Fun. We all had great hopes for the game, and seeings hundreds of forum topics about it proved it. When it came out so many were disappointed. It was fun at first, but when it took two days of nonstop playing to reach level thirty, the game was just ruined because of the grind. The quest system was terrible, it had no unique features. This was a hit-and-miss, without the hit. 聽聽聽 Asda Story - The graphics hooked so many, the gameplay and lag took them all right back. Some found the game fun, most just hated it. I can't really say much because it was too bad for me to think of some good things about it. Let's see... Well, you could pick out your own costume at the start which was cool. There also wasn't too much hype, but there was still a solid fan-base that got disappointed. 聽聽聽 Twelve Sky - I thought this game would be a huge hit. The player vs. player and player killing seemed fun, with maps everyone thirty levels or so for people to just come and duke it out every hour. But the game was just a long grind, with boring player vs. player, and terrible botting/kill stealing. As far as hit-and-misses go, this was a pop out to shallow right field. 聽聽聽 Shaiya - Yes, Shaiya! So many people, including myself, had such high hopes with all of the amazing features that this game had to offer, including the different difficulties. But the game was really a generic game straight from Europe/Asia. The flips were cool, but didn't do crap. You could make it LOOK like you dodged an attack, but you didn't really, so what was the point? Lame! The game's player vs. player systems like fighting between factions, and the huge battles were cool, but the game couldn't entertain most long enough to be able to take part in those. 聽聽聽 2Moons - So many wanted this game to be great. The graphics looked sweet, the gameplay was fun and fast-paced, the skills were cool and powerful, and the damage you did was off the charts! But when the game went Open Beta, it bombed. The community was terrible and extremely immature, ruining the joy of a 17+ game. The lag made a lot of people leave, and the decreased exp. rates from Closed Beta, or so it seemed, was a turn-off. The mob spawns weren't increased, which was a popular demand from CB. The games player killing was dumb, and the glitches came in the tons. A terrible transition from CB to OB, and a huge disappointment from what Dekaron had led us to want to play.聽 The lack of good events was/is also a huge turn-off. 聽聽聽 Dark Eden - Joymax.. Joymax.. Joymax.. First they delay it, then it turns out to suck. Some people enjoyed it, but it wasn't worth the wait.. at all! Not much more to say about it, just was a waste of time waiting for it. 聽聽聽 World of Kung Fu - Looked to be a better version of 9Dragons, turned out to be another generic Asian-culture, martial-arts, grindy MMOG. 聽聽聽 A lot more.. 聽 聽聽聽 "So, was 2007 a good or bad year overall for MMOGs?" 聽聽聽 I think it was a bad year, that will work in our favor. We faced a lot of waiting for games that didn't bring anything to the table, we saw a lot of unoriginal games such as clones of Maplestory, World of Warcraft, and Diablo 2, and we saw a lot of generic Korean imports. We saw companies ruin their roster of MMOGs with stupid choices, and we saw some establish themselves in the industry. We saw delays, we saw expansions, we saw it all .But it didn't really leave us with anything that will match up with top-runners. Meaning, since WoW came out we've had higher expectations from MMOGs, especially F2P ones. We don't expect them to beat WoW because it costs money to play that, but we expect them to make us satisfied with them, not craving more out of them. The year was terrible to be honest. There's not one MMOG on my list(s) above, or anywhere else, that came out in 2007 that is successful. Some are fun, some are refreshing, some are challenging, etc. But not one of them has the success that franchises like Word of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Final Fantasy, and so many others have. Fury was the front-runner to match those, but it missed the mark big time. 聽聽聽 I do think least year will work in our favor in 2008. Now that companies have seen what we don't want and what we want, they can use that information to provide us with better games and services. We're facing Age of Conan, WAR, Guild Wars 2, Sun, Aion, Rohan, and so many more games that will put a huge dent in older franchises that have been so successful. Finally, with 2007, we may see a new age in the MMOG industry, breaking away from the World of Warcraft age that has already lasted too long. 2008 will be that new age hopefully, as 2007 sure as hell wasn't even close.
Final verdict?
聽聽聽 2007 was a terrible year for the MMOG industry, but will lead us into a better, new age of MMOGs! Thanks for reading!
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