I play MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role playing games for those of you who don’t speak geek :-)). I even enjoy some of them. Now, having got that out of the way, prepare for the ranting!
World of Warcraft
This game is…Well, to be fair, it’s not awful…but it’s close. I’m serious. Look, like I said, I play MMOs, I’ve played the twisted abomination you people affectionately call WoW. I’ve played it for a good long while…Not long enough to max a “toon” out, but I don’t have that kind of patience or money.
Honestly people. I play games for plot. That’s what I’m in it for. That’s why I like Guild Wars: the plot may be weak and have more holes in it than Swiss cheese, but by the gods it’s there! There is absolutely no plot to WoW. I’ve played as almost every race; the intro “movie” to each does good at describing the race’s current plight, but you can do absolutely nothing to rectify that plight. It’s just a series of “go here, kill this, bring me proof” quests or "collect" quests which tend to also be “go here kill this” quests. There’s no motivation behind these actions; the quest givers kind of sketch out a reason as to why they’re asking you to do this, but it seems like so much hollow prattling that it’s annoying.
Even the races that are “attuned to nature” like the Tauren or Night Elves have an endless amount of “go kill things kthxbai” quests that makes no sense; in the little bit of back story that I’ve managed to glean from the strategy guide says that the Night Elves revere nature and only kill beasts of necessity (which I take to mean for food and stuff like that, like American’s romanticized vision of the Native Americans before the arrival of the Europeans). Yet here I am as a fledgling level one Night Elf carving a path through the wilderness, marked only by the corpses of beast and bird. Seriously? They claim that it’s because of an “imbalance in nature” and seem to hint heavily that the Horde (read: bad guys) are to blame. So instead of laying waste to low level Horde to fix this “imbalance” I’m taking out the creatures that really aren’t to blame at all. That makes as much sense as America’s stand against drugs by putting the users in jail instead of busting the dealers and drug lords.
Oh lord, I’ve been ranting about this for almost a page and I’ve yet to touch on the most annoying and game killingly bad part about WoW: the endless, hour killing, drooling on my keyboard hoping it will short out and kill me level grinding. God even the name makes my stomach turn and my mouse hand ache. For anyone unfamiliar with the term (who am I kidding, nobody’s reading :D) this refers to basically camping out in an area, killing all the monsters in the area and waiting for them to re-spawn; lather, rinse, repeat, lather, rinse, repeat and lather, rinse, repeat…as needed. If this were required maybe for half a level every now and then, maybe it would be ok; I could get over it but no. It’s required for almost every damn level that you attain; and the level cap is what? 80? I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, and judging by the amount of people playing this cursed game it is.
Update: Ok, I’ve played through yet another 10 day free trial of WoW and I may have found the only class that suits me: the rogue. Like I said, I was only playing for 10 days, but I think I managed to get almost to level 20. Now, you have to realize, I was doing other stuff for these 10 days, like working and sleeping and playing other games. If I hadn’t done any of those things, maybe I could’ve maxed out, or maybe I’d be a drooling idiot with sunken, hollow eyes from the radiation of the monitor and an endlessly twitching mouse finger, a corpse stuck in front of a computer, trying to grind out levels for all eternity. God how depressing an image is that. Not the point. Since finding my ideal class, I realize I may have been too harsh on WoW in my initial ranting. But I still stand by my ramblings. This game is not worth the price of admission; if it were FTP (free to play) I would keep it on my computer and play all the time.
Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar
Ok. Done with that horrible game; let’s move on, shall we? Everybody bitches about LotR: O, saying that it’s a rip off of WoW and whatnot, but honestly, when everyone considers WoW to be the top echelon, it seems to be natural that they would want to take some things from WoW. But honestly, if we’re talking fantasy, isn’t every modern fantasy taking something or other from LotR? Why are we not paying proper homage to this lovely game? Alright, I admit it, I’m biased: I love The Lord of the Rings, the books, the movies (to a lesser extent) and basically all of J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings. So when I found out that LotR: O was coming out I wanted to try it out. I did and I fell in love. The amount of farming and pointless grinding present in WoW is there, but to a much lesser extent. There just seems to be a lot more love and time put into it than in WoW and I would expect no less; LotR has a fan base that spans generations and if they got it wrong there probably would have been fire-bombings by angry fan boys dressed like Frodo. But I digress. I can’t really say they stole the action bar and crafting panels from WoW; the action bar seems present in every MMO, and I would expect the crafting from LotR: O, since Tolkien was fond of including craftsmen among the tales of the great. Like I said, I’m biased, but to me, it outstrips WoW in every aspect: game play, graphics, sound, storyline…Everything. It is what I want in a game, not just in MMOs, but in a game in general. On another note, this fall LotR: O is going free to play; kind of.
There are certain things you’ll have to pay for, although I haven’t read this in detail, as my current subscription comes down to $10 a month, and I’m ok with that.
Guild Wars
This was the first MMO I played. The fact that there’s no subscription fee is what mainly drew me, but it also has a plot. Like I said earlier, that’s what I play games for: story. It’s not a great story; typical xenophobic plot: vaguely humanoid furry creatures want to wipe out the humans, much devastation ensues. There are various other plot points involved, but I haven’t reached them, as I haven’t finished the Prophesies campaign. There are problems with the game, I won’t deny it. The lack of the ability to solo without henchmen (npc’s who you can recruit to help you die less), the necessity of choosing a second profession even if you won’t use it and probably some other gripes that I can’t think of right now because my brain is kind of fried.
Star Trek: Online
I can’t really comment too much on this one: I only played the open beta, but what I saw was decent enough. It was a mix of space combat and combat on foot, the graphics were decent enough and it had what passes for a plot in the Trek Universe so ok. Can’t say much more on this one, as I lack the funds to further go where every nerd has now gone before. Additional note after the fact: I don’t know if there are other races playable; like I said, I only played the open beta and that wasn’t for very long. As far as I know, you’re only the Federation. I’ll admit: I’m not a Trekkie by a long shot, I kinda watch the movies, and I may watch an episode of TNG if its on, but I won’t go out of my way to watch it. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but the Federation is more about exploration and diplomacy, right? I know, the main enemy I was facing was the Borg and the general concensus of the Star Trek universe is that the Borg are EVILLLL, but seriously, I was blasting everything that twitched menacingly, which is normal for MMOs, but if you’re gonna do that, make Klingon the main race or place it during TOS when the Federation was at war with just about everybody. Dunno, makes sense to me.
Star Wars: Galaxies
Don’t really need to say much on this one: from what I’ve read, general consensus says it sucks, I played the 10 day trial and wasn’t impressed enough to disagree.
Star Wars: The Old Republic
Honestly, I’m genuinely excited about this one. I played Knights of the Old Republic and I really enjoyed it. This one is from the same people (I think) and it shows a lot of promise. I saw some game play videos and it looks like it may be decent, but sadly, once again I shall lack funds to keep up a subscription even if it is worth it.
Final Thoughts
This started out as just a way to bitch and moan about the shortcomings (in my perspective) of everybody’s favorite MMO and it changed into a review of every MMO I’ve ever played or (in the case of TOR) anticipated…and that’s OK, because I know nobody reads this and so what? I vented my spleen on all this crap and I feel better.
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