So with the current state of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG) as of late, there is no wonder I am feeling like I have been starving. With games like Archeage Unchained, Black Desert Online, Tree of Savior, and many others turning to be disappointments for various reasons, there really isn’t a surprise why I just feel empty inside while looking for a new MMORPG to play. Now don’t get this misconstrued, there ARE good games out there. I’ve said this many times in my friend circles. When people ask me what are the best MMORPGs out right now, Final Fantasy XIV, Elder Scrolls Online, and Guild Wars 2 are probably the BEST MMORPGs out. With games like Star Wars the Old Republic also on that cusp of being in the top MMORPGs, there are games out there that are pretty good. But I’m still starving. I want something different. I want something more. I’ve played so many games and a lot of them follow the same formulas of grinding till your carpal tunnel goes haywire to reach end game content. Once you are in the end game, you just wait till new content comes out. If you’re lucky to get into a guild, you can farm stuff together, but in the end, it’s really just more of the same. So when I say that MMORPG’s are in a bad state, I mean you basically are choosing which of the same game are you going to play?
World of Warcraft and its Classic counterpart are genuinely the same game when you break down the fundamentals. Of course, you dedicated WoW players will say otherwise. You will talk about how the Classic is different for whatever reason, but when you break it down, it’s the same game. So what makes Final Fantasy XIV, Elder Scrolls Online, and Guild Wars 2 different? When you break those games down, you grind levels, you do end game content like raids and bosses, you farm for items or mounts, so why are they just much better games? Well, glad you asked that question, so let’s break down the games for a bit.
The first reason, they tell great stories. These games have amazing storytelling ability. The developers focused a LOT of time and resources to tell a constantly growing world. FFXIV’s story is amazing. Except for the first main story, which did drag… a LOT… The game constantly delivers on new expansions with new stories and new side quests that complement the world-building. I actually was invested in each character and wanted to find out what happened to them next. Their latest expansion, Shadow Bringers, is a work of art. The game tells a vast and powerful experience and alters the way you look at good and evil. It was perfectly done with an amazing soundtrack to back it up. ESO and GW2 do the same thing with their own respective worlds, with Guild Wars taking it a step further and making dynamic stories that affect the very landscape and environment of the entire game. When in the story, Lion’s Arch was destroyed, they kept that in the game, all the destroyed areas, and showed how they grew out of that strife and rebuilt the city. You got to LIVE those moments and watch as it was being rebuilt in the game. These games put a heavy amount of time and effort to make you enjoy the world around you and to have the world make sense!
The second reason why these games are so successful, their pay modules. With FFXIV being the only one with a subscription-based module, ESO, and GW2 are buy-to-play games. These games also stuck to their guns in making them not pay-to-win, which is a huge factor in their success. Using only cosmetics and minor gaming add-ons, nothing broke the game or made it unfair for those who don’t want to spend money in the cash shops. When I see Black Desert Online, it is a visually beautiful game, but it’s such a P2W fiesta, you can benefit by dropping lots of money to get items that make leveling up your gear so much easier, in so doing, having high-level gear for PVP faster than others. It’s pretty annoying. Also, don’t let me get started on the costs of their costumes and the amount of money I’ve paid for them. You can even buy a tent that makes grinding your character in isolated locations bearable. There are just so many benefits you get when you’re dropping large amounts of money on BDO. FFXIV, ESO, and GW2, you don’t have that problem. They spend a lot of the money you are paying, to make sure they have a good strong staff to keep rolling out great content for the game. I have always loved the B2P and Subscription-based modules. If the game is doing constantly good work with updates and content, then I have no problem paying 12 bucks a month on FFXIV, then taking a break, only to play again a couple of months down the line.
The last reason I wanna touch on these games is that they don’t feel grindy at all. In that, I mean you have many ways to level up your characters. They make doing quests actually worthwhile and that you aren’t stuck mindlessly killing large groups of monsters to level up your character. You also aren’t stressing about your level spots, which is another “fun thing”. Korean MMORPGs like Lineage 2, and all the games that came after it, LOVE their grinding. These games use the grinding mechanic into the ground. This makes the games feel boring, and drag on. You didn’t care about the quests as they are just filler if you want to get them. They weren’t important and worth the time investment. GW2 makes it so that you can level in many ways, but in all the ways, none of them feel tiring or boring. Even when you’re doing map completions, it never felt bad. ESO and FFXIV make it so that you get most of your EXP from quests. Now, if you are leveling multiple classes in FFXIV, you do have to grind up using things like Palace of the Dead, but even doing that wasn’t as bad as sitting in the catacombs of Lineage 2 and pulling the entire place to the front just so that your area of effect damage dealers could kill the mobs.
There are a lot of other things that make these games successful, but in my eyes, these are the most important ones. But the problem now is, what do we have to look forward to in the future? With games like New World, Ashes of Creation, Crowfall, Genshin Impact, Blue Protocol, Tower of Fantasy, and more on the horizon, what does this mean for MMORPGs? Honestly, I’m a little more hopeful. I got to play New World and I loved where the game is now, but I am even more glad that Amazon Gaming said that they were going to push it back to next year’s launch. It was a good call. Ashes of Creation seems to be the biggest hype as of now, and with good reason. The game has made MANY promises, and so far they look like they are going to deliver. Even my housemates here are pretty excited about the prospects of the game. Personally, I am excited about Blue Protocol and Tower of Fantasy. They look so amazing and I have been wanting to play an Anime MMORPG for some time. Soulworker kinda disappoint me in that realm.
If I truly say what would be the PERFECT MMORPG for me right now? I would say that I am waiting for a game like Armored Core to be released. Now I know you’re going to say it’s not an MMORPG, but if that game ACTUALLY turns out to be Project Six, and they keep all of the customizing and ability to make your own mecha, in my eyes, that is still an MMORPG, just not the traditional style. But till then, I will have my eyes on the future of games coming out now. Hopefully, they will change that starving hunger that I have and are able to sate my appetite.
So what are you most excited about in the future? Do you agree with my assessment of the current state? Tell me everything about how you feel.
-William Long