MMORPGs
From Fozzee.net
Contents |
Anarchy Online
Anarchy Online has been moved to it's own page.
Lord of the Rings Online
Never actually played this, though it looked cool. I just don't have time to tackle a full-on MMO right now. I figured it'd be worth my $50 just to wander around middle earth. I mentioned this a while back on the main page, and included this link.
The Matrix Online
I played MxO beta when it first came out and bought the game upon release. I really enjoy the Matrix world, both the "real world" and "the Matrix" and all the weird parallels that are revealed in Revolutions.
So far as the game system itself goes, I especially like the way they handle skills and classes. The idea is that you buy skills (for "cash") and can load and level them (via a skills tree system) based on your character level. Theoretically, with enough cash, you could have 2 or more totally separate skill sets, that can be swapped out at a moments' notice.
Another thing that MxO did well was the quests system. Like many MMOs (AO comes to mind) the quest system is dynamic in that it randomly designs dungeons and positions their entrances.
Probably the single best thing about MxO is the "feel" of gameplay. In short, they did a good job of making it feel like you're in the world of the movie, without feeling that you're just in the background of the movie itself. I'm a big fan of a theatrical, heroic feeling in games, both electronic and tabletop. I've often been quoted as saying "I suck enough in real life, I don't need to role play sucking."
In addition to the feel, and the game play, The Matrix Online has a lot of "stuff". When I say "stuff", I mean, mainly, items. Variety and availability are important, but differentiation is probably key. This usually involves lots of different mechanics, different systems, so each system needs a good variety of stuff. I certainly don't have any interest in 10 items that all do the same thing.
Neocron
Neocron was a game I discovered in college. It's something of an FPS/MMO, which is slick. For instance, your aiming ability is based not only on your in-game skill (which controls the size of your reticle) but also your human skill, which controls pointing the gun at the target.
NC was one of the first MMOs that I really got into the social/political endgame. Fru, Andy and I spent some SERIOUS time on this game, sometimes 40+ hours a week. We each had a few characters, at least one maxed out, and an account or 2 each (4 total, for 3 of us).
Urban Dead
Urban Dead is a web-based Zombie Survival MMO that Ryan turned me on to a few weeks back. Basically, you move around, hiding in buildings and killing zombies (unless you are a zombie, in which case you want BRAINS!!!) The game is limited to 50 "actions" per character per day (24 hours), and you can effectively play in just a few minutes a day.
Currently, TheFu is level 23, totally maxed out on Survivor skills. He's also got almost 2000xp in reserve, to buy some zed skills the next time he is so disposed. To be totally honest, I was really gung-ho about this in the early days, because I'm big into the survival type MMOs and am also a big fan of zombies. I put in some time to build a XSL rendering of Malton. More recently, I'm sort of disappointed in UD for a few reason:
- The endgame is virtually nonexistant. It's really all about "AP Value", that is, making the zeds waste xp and accomplish nothing.
- There's no way for survivors to "win" (ya can't kill em all, and even if you could PKing will still exist)
- The big thing I enjoy about MMOs (the "Stuff") is pretty limited. The mechanics are pretty cool, but there's not a lot of "skill-sy" stuff to be doing, no craft system, etc.
All in all, I'm not sure how much longer I'll be playing.
