Airfell's Introduction

MMORPGs, computers, and video games are still relatively new. MMORPGs will hopefully evolve, as long as great concepts are not forgotten. A good game will come out, the market will be flooded with copies, the people will get bored, and another will come.

Author: Airphel

The gaming industry is becoming more and more hacked... and I'm not talking about your traditional hacks, server side, information grabbing, server crashing hacks... I'm talking about your "cut and paste into the game folder" script kiddies.

I understand the whole "wee this is fun" crap... but there is a greater issue here, and much more at stake.

What does the end-game of hacks look like? Well let me take you there.

Firstly, its bad for the overall (already not so kind) internet morale. Hacks in an individual game make everyone in a bad mood killing the community around a game, and also very un-trusting of anyone with real skills. Its a downward spiral from there, and that is just within an individual game. As the hacks become worse, the players cant stand to watch their favorite game go down the toilet, so they leave, and those that do choose to stay just become hackers themselves because they can't stand to loose. At this point eveyone is hacking, and when new people find the game and try it out, they realize, this is just a cess pool of hacks, and then the game is soon offline. Dead.

For the overall gaming community, across all games, this apathy towards fair play seems to make people feel that its acceptable to hack other games because it went so well for whatever previous game they hacked, and the bad morale seeps into other games like a disease, until over time, all games are in such a bad shape that nothing is playable... ever. Bad community, no fair play, no fun.

I know that there is always the call for better anti hack software, but at the same time, there are always more people out to bust the code than those who make it. Its a matter of personal integrity rather than countering.

The only other endgame I see possible would be a complete loss of rights. EX: The government, or closed corperations being able to scan your whole hard drive before you start a game, or even while in a game, witch would be a complete loss of personal privacy.

Here is a website that has the same endgame goals as hacks:

http://www.mavav.org.

So, in closing, when you do see a hacker, tell them to stop working for the man, sign up for mavav, and go protest in person rather than protesting in a game. Hopefully that will alienate them to some extent.

You heard me.

To me an mmorpg is an extension of the lost imagination of our childhood, and the ways we would play with our toys. I feel that the sandbox vs. themeparks have to do with how you used your toys as a small child. I grew up poor, and had a random, mix matched collection of Tnmt's, green army men, some Knights of the round table stuff, and tons of woods. (I grew up on a horse ranch) Basically, i used my toys together, and made my own game. But I fear, children with full sets of toys, ended up using them the same way they saw them on tv, and inherently, had a less imaginative, straight lined point of view on how to use them.

-I was playing in the sandbox building worlds, while the rich kids where out at the theme parks standing in line.

Lets start at what is considered the standard... WoW.

Have you played this? It looks like something my 5yo daughter would watch on saturday morning on tv. A friend of mine finally convinced me to try it out and I was stunned. This game is just as bad as all the F2P's that are out. Yet its on the toplist of profitible mmorpgs. No wonder the market sucks.

On to my other pet peeve vs. the mmorpg market... Factions and classes.

What is the need for factions? "You are immersed into a world of Dark vs. Light where you must take sides..." blah blah... there once was a time where your guild WAS your side... no need for factions. A collection of guilds makes a nation, and that is a faction.

Classes- why do there have to be classes? Why not just a list of spells, skills, and whatever else, and then a limit to how many you can learn? Hey, look at me, im a lvl 20 dual swordsman that can heal myself and throw fireballs at your crotch! See, I just made a class out of nowhere.

With these games, really, the problem is, too many restrictions where mmorpgs have so limitless possibilites until restrictions are imposed. Imagine this...

A new game world's server opens up, and its a blank, empty world perhapse say your races noob starting city. You gather some adventurers, explorers, and head out into the empty wilderness. You fight your way pvpve, and then find a good location. Top of a hill, next to a lake, whatever. Start your city, people show up, good or bad, and the city grows, an economy starts up, player made law is needed as it grows, and hey, now you have a player built society, and economy. Oh noes! another city has started near by that has different beliefs that you! sweet, player driven politics too!

Sorry, I got off topic. None the less... if a game has:

-Non player made factions

-less than 10 possible classes

-no player housing

-quests as a focal point

-majority of it as instances

-saturday morning cartoon graphics

-no crafting system what so ever

-pointless "critical hit" or "lucky strike" fighting

than I am not interested. Witch leaves EVERYTHING right now out of the question. The only game that had everything I need in a game was just killed off July 1st 09. RIP SB