Online Games

As I sit here sometimes, I dream of where I’d like Age of Animus to go. I’ve already got a number of things that I want to do that are actually within my current skill set thanks to print on demand services. But there are some things that I dream that are beyond my abilities, like an animated television series and/or movie and computer games, specifically an MMORPG.

This weekend, I delved into the Lord of the Rings MMORPG and it was as I was playing that I thought how cool it would be to someday play something similar set in Pelaria. For those of you out there who aren’t familiar with the acronym, MMORPG (often shortened to just MMO) stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. It’s a type of game where players create their characters in the game world created by the designers complete with quests and adventures to play through. They can be a lot of fun if executed well, but sometimes they can just seem like a lot of work. “I spent three hours yesterday walking around to collect the materials I need to craft a new set of armor”. Some people enjoy that kind of stuff and more power to them, but I spend my day at work working, I don’t need my games to feel like work too.

But you see, these MMOs need content. These kind of grinding tasks offer many hours of gameplay for very comparatively little design work. If I ever licensed an Age of Animus MMORPG, chances are it’d include a lot of this busy work that I don’t much care for personally. But the other stuff, the adventures and dungeons instances and quests…those would have to be made awesome to compensate.

Wouldn’t YOU want to create your own little kitty cat or bunny and have him or her have an encounter with the Undertinker or fight the Coven? Of course you would! Gimme a call software designers!

MMOs I have played (roughly in order):

City of Heroes/Villains – Creating my own superheroes was fun, but there was little to do but fight generic mooks…even the “quests” revolved around fighting localized instances of generic mooks led by an identical but named mook. I paid for the game and the monthly fee.
Star Wars Galaxies – I played for roughly four hours and I decided it was too boring to ever pick up again. The license worked against it for me, because it didn’t seem like they were very interested in creating a Star Wars experience for their players. It felt like a generic sci-fi game that painted Star Wars trappings on everything. Money wasted in every sense of the word (game and monthly fee).
World of Warcraft – It’s the biggest MMO out there. Every MMO that comes out aspires to be the WoW killer. They all move to free-to-play sooner or later. Paid for the game, the expansions and the monthly fee. I have issues with the lack of customization and with the fact that the game focuses most heavily on the aspects of gameplay that I care less for, but there’s still enough to keep me coming back. Currently playing.
Dungeons and Dragons Online – This was the first of the free-to-play games I tried. I liked a lot of it. The quests are all exquisitely crafted. There just didn’t feel like there was enough of them, especially at the lower levels. I like making multiple characters, but with only so many low-level quests, you end up doing those same quests A LOT. Even though I could play for free, I enjoyed the game enough while I was playing to pay for the extra content and the bells and whistles.
Lego Universe – This one was designed for a younger demographic but I still found some enjoyment from it. It’s one of only two games that I tried right at the game’s launch and I feel there was work that needed to be done so I didn’t get beyond three or four plays. If it ever goes free to play, I’d be tempted to take another look.
DC Universe Online – What was there was awesome, there just needed to be more of it. For all the development time it took, I found there was stunningly little content. I played one character to max level in one weekend. Any character you made was guaranteed to go through 76% of the same content as any other character and the other 24% was split between the six mentors, meaning there was 4% that made playing a magic hero different from a metahuman. When they added content, it focused on the end game competitive stuff that I didn’t care for. In less than a year they had lost so many players they had to move to free-to-play to stay alive.
Age of Conan – I really liked this game. I got it just as it was going free-to-play, but I paid anyway. I just felt the stories more engaging in this game than any game I had tried up to that point. I haven’t played in a while. I have a yearlong subscription though so I really should go back.
Free Realms – It’s free. That’s about all I can tell you. I only played twice and while there’s a LOT of content, I just found it too slow-moving.
Remnant Knights – It’s free and it’s anime-based. That’s about all I can tell you. I only played twice and the gameplay wasn’t very engaging. The game was still felt like it was in development (and it may have been).
Wakfu – It’s mega-popular in Europe apparently. It has its own animated television series in French (which I enjoyed actually). It’s more of a turn-based strategy game than a straight up RPG.
Lord of the Rings Online – I started this one last week. I’d rank it a close second to Conan so far. It’s free-to-play and while I haven’t paid for any of the extra content and options, I can see that I probably will do so in the near future. I’ve been having fun with just the free stuff for now though.
Star Trek Online – I started this one last week too. I’ve only played it once and not for very long. I didn’t find it as engaging as LOTR so I’ve been less interested in playing for now. When I’m ready for a break from LOTR I’ll give it another try. It just moved to free-to-play so that’s a plus. Unless the a la carte content is killer, I don’t see that I would want to spend ANY money on it.