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MMORPG Columns

The List

Every week, MMORPG.com brings you a sometimes less than serious countdown related to the MMO genre.

The Five Best MMOs for New Players

Jumping into a new MMO can be an intimidating experience for even the most seasoned players, especially those who have little familiarity with MMORPGs in general. Most of us on the site play MMOs like doing so is our job, and yet there are still some times when I start up a new game, or an existing one that I haven’t touched in a while, and feel the familiar sense of panic when I see how many skills or activities are available.


Five Reasons Why Heroes of the Storm is the MOBA for Casuals

Some time ago, I wrote a piece about whether Heroes of the Storm could achieve the same casual success as Hearthstone, comparing Blizzard’s two new entries to the MOBA and online TCG genres, respectively. It’s difficult to determine just yet how financially profitable is HotS after its official release in June, but it anecdotally seems to have engendered a great amount of critical and community acclaim.


Five Pointed Questions About TESO

When the development of The Elder Scrolls Online was officially confirmed back in 2012, it was one of the most exciting MMORPG announcements ever. The enormous popularity of the single-player franchise on both PC and consoles meant it had a huge core target audience, and the world of Tamriel had a strong inter-faction conflict element that would transition easily. Unfortunately, it seems pretty safe to say that the game has fallen short of the potential it initially seemed to have.


Five Things Update 2.0 and The Taken King Can Bring to Destiny

There are two things that I really like about Destiny: its tried and true Bungie combat, and its phenomenal vistas. As I’ve written about in the past, I find the FPS gameplay in Destiny to be engaging enough, and I really enjoy the game’s visuals, but have been unimpressed by its overall approach to content and lack of streamlining.


The Five Most Interesting Stories from PAX Prime 2015

Conventions are always a great time for developers to spill the beans about what’s next for their most anticipated titles, and PAX is a Prime venue (you’re welcome) for big announcements. Our staff was on the ground for all things related to MMOs and RPGs at PAX Prime 2015. Here are five of the most interesting stories from last week’s conference!


Five Pointed Questions About World of Warcraft

It would be difficult if not impossible to build any kind of reasonable case that World of Warcraft isn't the most influential MMORPG ever. As it approaches it eleventh anniversary this November, it can lay claim to some truly enormous numbers. For example, in 2012, it reportedly surpassed $10 billion in total gross revenue. Last year, it reached 100 million accounts created.


Five Reasons You Should Be Playing Marvel Heroes

Hey folks! If you’ve been with us here at MMORPG.com for a while, you’ll already know that we run this weekly feature called The List for everything related to MMOs and RPGs - because who doesn’t like itemizing things?! For the past while, David Jagneaux has been penning the column, and he’s done a spectacular job with it.


5 of the Most Hilarious & Epic Moments from MMORPG History

MMOs are the perfect playgrounds for chaos. Drop thousands of players into one seamless and dynamic world and you get nothing short of complete anarchy. You’d be hard-pressed to find a game that didn’t have its fair share of terrible people trolling others. With that being said though, a solid community in an MMO can be one of the most beautiful and cohesive things on the planet.


The Five Most Significant Korean MMOs

Here in North America, anyone who is even a semi-serious MMOG enthusiast is well aware that Korea is a major producer. We can all name a number of titles developed there, and probably at least a couple of leading publishers and/or developers. That said, it's pretty safe to assume that few of us are closely familiar with the industry there. So you might find that this list of the five releases I feel have had the greatest impact on the global landscape includes one or more you wouldn't expect.


5 Things We Want from WoW’s Legion Expansion

Warlords of Draenor has not been a successful expansion for World of Warcraft. It started out with a huge amount of hype and lots of potential, but all of that quickly faded once the honeymoon period wore off. After the fresh coat of paint on the surface rubbed away, players were left with repetitive garrison missions and a neverending grind. The story was interesting, but that only lasts for a short while.


Five Pointed Questions On The Future Of The MMOG Genre

Although the modern MMOG era is usually regarded as having begun less than two decades ago, the category has come a very long way in this time span. It has gone from a tiny, virtually unknown niche to a genre that counts millions of regular players and generates billions of dollars in revenue. There's also every reason to anticipate continuing growth. That said, the future isn't completely clear. What lies ahead will be determined by how various questions and issues are addressed.


Top 5 Reasons You Should Not Play an MMO Right Now

You probably read articles on our website because you like MMOs. As a matter of fact, I’d be willing to bet that you play them regularly. You might even have read something on this site today related to one of your favorite MMOs. I’m here to tell you that there are other things you could be doing with your spare time. As great as MMOs can be - and they can be really, really awesome - there are other things worth enjoying as well.


The Top 5 Most Disappointing MMOs of 2015…So Far

A couple weeks ago I wrote about some of the best MMOs we've had in 2015 so far. That list included stuff like new releases, games that saw big improvements, and some of the most promising ones to keep your eye on for the next half of 2015. This list, on the other hand, is going to focus on the exact opposite.


Five Things That Shook the MMO World Before WoW

It wasn't very long ago that the MMOG category was practically unknown. Indeed, with only a very small selection of titles running, none of which had the number of players we can often find these days on a single server, it was barely a category at all. So, for those of us who remember the original Neverwinter Nights, Air Warrior, The Realm Online et al, many pleasant surprises lay ahead. A lot of them took place between 1997 and 2004. Naturally some particularly stood out.


The Top 7 Best MMOs of 2015…So Far

I’m not going to lie to you: 2015 hasn’t exactly been full of big moments of big announcements. Maybe it’s because all of the best ideas are already taken, maybe it’s because everyone likes different things, or maybe it’s because developers and publishers are getting lazy, but there’s no denying the fact that the MMO genre has seen better years. From a lack of real excitement or hype around releases, to a lack of innovation, it’s not like it used to be.