Kirkland's Rants

What I think about mmorpg's I've played and intend on playing in future, caution I normally go off topic on to something completly irelevant.

Author: kirk3

There’s all this hype about this game apparently it is a great game which could overtake WoW as one of the best and well know games in the world. Well firstly let me say AoC will never be as good as WoW, it will never have a south park episode. Why? Because half of the bloody mmorpg geeks and fans don’t have computers which can handle the game.

When I saw the graphics of AoC I knew that this was going to be something which will only be playable on great systems the rest of us would have to put up with the computer lagging and presenting us with a nicely displayed power point presentation of us dyeing every 3 hours or having the setting so low that text takes up the whole screen due to the resolution.

Now I have no complaints about graphics but when making an mmorpg generally you go for the tried and tested when making a mmorpg not trying to go ultra high making it more of a multiplayer game with the full extent of the game only being played by the rich kids who get their daddies to buy them a $4000 rig. Well isn’t that great they AoC have already kicked themselves into a hole a niche market and until powerful computer become cheaper the massive after the hype has passed will turn into a game which has a few little kids boasting how super awesome their computer is.

Secondly I’d like to point out this is an mmorpg its not a gene where you go from single player to multiplayer and vice versa. Why the hell would I pay a monthly fee in order to get to level 20 when its practically all single player, that really is a rip off who ever managed to sneak that passed the playerbase should become George Bush’s PR manager. We are paying a monthly fee and your playing a single player game till level 20 its completely ridiculous it’s like playing half life 2 and being charged to play each month when you’re not even on the server. Now I don’t know if you have to play the monthly fee but even so they call it a mmorpg not after level 20 you’ll get to try our mmorpg.

The fact of the matter is this game has something new in that it tries to make it easy and fun for solo antisocial players who rather play by themselves than play with others. Under features it should state that half the bloody game is going to be like staying on a deserted island in other words being by yourself. Like I said in my last blog entry people leave the game if its crap at the start I am not going to hang around if I find out I am in a mmorpg which is filled with me and mindless npc’s I will leave.

                Instances causes a further problem it makes it even more like a single player game with a bit of multiplayer on the side. The whole point of an mmorpg is that the world is full of people all around not just in certain areas this makes it more like battlefield you have a chat room (a city) and then maps with groups on them (instances) what is the point of this is completely pointless and I rather go play Guild Wars.

                That brings me to my next point it’s a copycat of several games instances, single player map section sounds like a guild war copycat again. The mmorpg developers strike again it seems that their brains have been cut in half the creative part gone and the copy one of the top 10 mmorpg side expanded. Even so it does not explain how guild wars manages to pay all its fees with a pay for the cd but not anything after while AoC seems to think that they need to charge $14 I call that a rip off like many companies they know they can get away with it if guild wars can do it with practically the same system of instances why do the developers and publishers of AoC seem to think that their server costs, cost double.

                Finally the fact that its rated mature is going making the market even more niche now I know many parents will allow their children to play mature games but I know for certain that atleast 40% of parents (especially in the uk after all the news on game ratings on tv) will defiantly not allow their teenagers to play the game. I mean the latest GTA was rated m and look at the fuss bbc made about that. Another stupid flaw by a company which seems more like mindless chickens when it comes to research they should know that half the market will be teenagers and by that they should make sure that they make sure that the rating would accommodate that.

                Now I’ll be honest I don’t play this game because of the above reasons and also I am quite happy with my duo core 2.33 ghz, geforce 8600, 2gb ram computer and when playing a mmorpg on a computer like that I expect a decent performance after all its quite a new computer why should I have to accommodate computer games made in the same year as my computer they should accommodate peoples computers not expect people to upgrade their computers.

                AoC has sunk into a niche market and after the hype around it has gone, after a while it will sink down the list below World of Warcraft and eve online, and that’s the true test of whether a game is successful or not in the mmorpg world. If it can’t stay at the top I’ll consider it vapourware if it by some miracle stays there then I’ll take my hat off to eat and announce I was wrong.  I am sure it’s a good game but to me it just has too many negatives to even consider this game to me it truly is like the title another mmorpg like the others just better graphics yawn.

It’s the most famous quote I have ever heard when talking to people playing all these mmorpg’s.  I like many have not found a mmorpg which suits me exactly yet and often get bored very quickly killing seven pig or 100 rats.

Don’t get me wrong there’s nothing else which can be done in a mmorpg but when everyone man and his dog is trying to make a mmorpg you’d think that some developer would of gotten the message that a copy cat World Of Warcraft with a graphic update is not a new amazing different game it’s more like Britney Spears shaving her head it gives a wow effect that she’s crazy but the attention soon moves on to something else.

That just shows all these developers they are afraid of trying something new instead we are forced to continue grinding falling asleep as if watching a documentary of how grass grows. It’s time that a business in the gaming world takes more risks its part of developing a product taking risks and doing research and if anything half these developers go play everquest or world of warcraft and based their latest game from that.

Back to the game getting better later on well yes it may be better later on but what makes a developer think that I am going to stay in a game I am not enjoying at the moment a game where it becomes like washing my underwear.  Why would I continue if I bored there is no way in hell I am waiting for this special amazing end of game content on the contrary I will spend my time elsewhere at least it will be more fun for the present.

Secondly if I see bots in a game there is no way I am sticking in such a game the developers and their bot driven economy can run and ruin the game, because its no fun seeing an army of demented bots running round like hyperactive children on sugar killing everything in sight. I mean how fun is that going to finish a quest and finding a million bots swamping monsters so much that you can’t even determine what is and what is not a target.

Then you have lag what is the point of buying a nice quad core computer with the latest in everything and finding that the servers are so laggy that a fight entails clicking on something waiting 10 seconds before arriving at a monster and then waiting 10 seconds on the edge of your seat praying that you did not die.

I’ll be playing a closed beta game shortly hopefully I’ll find it fun from the start and won’t find a bot in site. If its fun at the start it will keep me playing and waiting in anticipation for the next time I start but if it’s as terrible as Paris Hilton singing I’ll be leaving it as fast as Lewis Hamilton winning another race.

There are some beautiful mmorpg’s but they are few and far in between instead developers decide to ditch creative writers and hire programmers and graphic designers hell-bent on making some ultra graphic computer game which will cause sheer problems on any decent computer. The end is only as good as its start.