Are MMORPGs evil? The answer may surprise you.

With the recent articles about torture in World of Warcraft(read here) I have decided to investigate what other vices MMORPGs indulge themselves in. If MMORPGs can stoop so low as to have you torture a fellow virtual human being, than I doubt there is no low that the developers will have us sink to. Probably for their own nefarious plot of "world-takeover" proportions. I haven't got any proof yet, so until then I can only show what proof I DO have.

MMORPGs ARE evil.

First I'll start off with one of the more tamer vices, Drinking. I don't mean drinking water or kool-aid, which is all well and good, but liquor! Beer, ale, whiskey, and other intoxicating drinks are everywhere! Especially Ironforge, the city of the Dwarves in World of Warcraft. Apparently this entire "race" of people are nothing but drunks. Why would Blizzard design a game for our children that has an ENTIRE race of potential AA members? They even joke about it with the little quip..

/silly "I don't have a drinking problem. I drink, I fall down, No problem!"

THEN these games actually SHOW your character drinking and the effects of intoxication. The screen gets blurry, and your character starts to weave back and forth. Even your characters speech becomes slurred to where you can't ever understand what someone is saying. This is completely and utterly unacceptable. Yet I wish this was the largest problem I had with my experiences in games like WoW, EQ, EQ2, WAR, and a whole large list of vile, evil, malicious games!

If a whole race of midget drunks didn't throw you off and ban your children from ever touching a "PC" again, this may ban your child from even saying the words "Exp". The entire game revolves around one fact. To get anywhere, to "level" up or whatever, is you have to KILL other people! These games encourage violence. It teaches them positive psychological reinforcement that if you kill someone you can take their clothes and their money. It doesn't have to be people either. My son, Billy, was smashing a squirrel in the face with his "staff of jordan" saying that he could sell the squirrel's teeth to a "merchant" for a couple of bucks. I'm scared to walk my little fluffy wuffy Mittens down the road, afraid someone will maul him for his paws or whatever body part is lucrative that week.

There are other subjects too, like racism. These games were MADE to PROMOTE racism! What are our children to think when they are playing a game that tells them " You must kill all the Night elves you see because their Alliance! "? You are encouraged to kill other people JUST because of race. How can video game companies get away with such obviously misguided and twisted views and encourage our children to think the same? I know that immediately after writing this warning letter I'm going to write to my congressmen about all this. You shouldn't kill gnomes just because they are short! or Night elves because their eyes glow differently than a Blood elf's.

So please, keep your children away from these games! The more they play it, the more likely they will start thinking since your a human, your filthy alliance, and you have to die. Then they will take your clothing and money, and sell your ears to some "merchant"! These games, and ALL games, are evil. If there were no video games we wouldn't have violence! Before television we were a perfect society!

As you may have guessed, my Xbox 360 just became a useless brick. I was just idly watching a movie when I was visited upon by the Reaper of Red. The system died without even a whimper. Apparently I got a very popular error (E 74). While this can sometimes be JUST the av cables, in my case it's not.

So my lil 360 *with Mass Effect Faceplate =(* is going to become some type of showpiece or..something.

Anyway, Both myself and my wife decided to just say fuck it and get a Playstation 3. There is no way I'm going to get a system that can live for a single year*My NES is alive to this very day...just gotta blow in it sometimes..*

So, soon as I go pick it up I'll post my PS name or whatever system the damn thing uses.

Go blu-ray and free online play...

I got to hand it to Cyan Worlds. They have truly done something that may very well cause a revolution in how we play MMORPGs. Cyan Worlds, the creators of the famous Myst series, released some time ago Myst: Online. This was to be an MMO version of their popular series. However recently the company has hit it pretty hard financially. The game was first dropped by Ubisoft and then by GameTap.

Once Cyan Worlds got their IP back, the hardcore fans of URU(Myst Online) decided to stick around as Cyan Worlds held only one solitary server up for its fans. They called this project MORE(Myst Online Restoration Experiment). For the longest time, due to even more financial setbacks everything was quiet.

Until this bit of news. Myst Online Goes OPEN SOURCE! Click here for their official announcement.

So what does this mean for YOU as a gamer? Expect a lot of mods and addons by players to an MMORPG. For some this is simply a dream come true. All the freedom of player/fan modification to an MMO is truly mind bloggling when it comes to possibilities. However this could also be the destruction of URU. Depending on how the modders swing it, it could either be a breath taking achievement...or a complete disaster.

I'm really looking forward to see how this project develops. Depending on its success we could see more MMORPGs releasing their sources, truly changing how we play the genre. Don't believe me? Go check out the large variety of "maps" in StarCraft and WarCraft III. While the game is an RTS*real time strategy*, many of the custom player-made maps range from RPGs, Defense Maps, and other unique maps that really don't fit a genre like Aeon of Strife.

I'm really looking forward to this.

Shameless self advertising = Go to my site or get stabbed.

A very enlightening post by Tenfoldhate has given me the shock of the day. While this HAS to be some type of prank, part of my soul tells me it's not. I wouldn't be surprised to find that is a completely legitimate proposal. Has World of Warcraft invaded our mainstream life so much that there are now fetishes about it?!

My god..

At least there are not television shows and movies with brief cameos of the game just to give nerd smiles..

*Goes to watch The Day the Earth Stood Still...*

Paladin, Stranglethorn Vale. Watch the movie and you'll understand what I mean.

*sigh*

WoW has taken over our lives.

You can read the full "request". I would advise that it contains strong language and isn't for kiddies. You have been warned.http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/lax/878989144.html

A few days ago ShackNews reported that the highly anticipated MMORPG(to me), Star Wars: The Old Republic would be a Micro-Transaction game. This apparently sent an uproar among the MMORPG community(a great example is the comments here at http://brokentoys.org/ ). While EA came around and said it was all a big misunderstanding, the whole ordeal made me wonder. What is it about MT and F2P(Free to play) MMORPGs that upsets the community so? A lot of these arguments stem from the general stereotype that F2P and MT games are not of "Triple A" value.

Now was there an actual misunderstanding or did EA change it's mind after discovering the outrage by the community? The sheer rage by a lot of posts are truly confusing to my fragile little mind. Some stated that most F2P games have nothing but 12 year olds playing. I would like to point out Barrens chat to you in a tiny subscription MMORPG called World of Warcraft. Or trade channel, or ANY channel for that matter. While these "kids" may not be 12, but more like 18 and older...

So with EA silent about what type of payment model they will be using, I can only stare at my fellow MMORPG gamers in confusion. Did we just shoot ourselves in the foot here? We had a game being developed by Bioware, who's record of making brilliant games rivals some of the best, and when it was "misunderstood" as being a MT based game everyone freaks out? These kind of biased responses that can shift a game from being a paragon of awesome to crap kinda scares me. Considering the bully power that has been used on Blizzard before to make in-game changes, what else will change from start of production to release due to angry, confused, and misguided players?

Again, stolen, cleaned, and pawned from my blog. Brought over here for the opinions and shameless dirty self promoting.

Anytime you hear a MMORPG is free to play, you are almost guaranteed for it to be from average to utter crap. However I must say Aeria Games has made a pretty decent game here. For one I've yet to play a MMORPG with combat this active and just plain old fun. With it behaving more like an action game then a RPG, you constantly have to pay attention to what enemy your facing and what attacks you've been using. If the enemy is about to rush you, instead of hoping your 20% dodge kicks in you can activate a defensive mode. This lets you block the attack and then counter if your quick enough. This is me preparing the counter in the Virtual Training Room. The pink tells me it's working!



I guess pictures of me fighting a strange turkey with an onion on its head is a good point to actually talk about Shin Megami Tensei, or MegaTen for short. The MegaTen series is about what happened when some goofy scientists started playing with teleportation. As any game fan knows this is a TERRIBLE idea! Surprisingly, demons suddenly turned up. Of course there is a number of people that can fight the demons, they’re called Demon Busters. What would have been an epic struggle between demons and humans goes to the sidelines as nuclear war breaks out. Most of the planet is eradicated with the few human survivors fighting against themselves AND the demons.

All is not lost however. A huge flood comes to kill the majority of the demons in Tokyo. Humanity finally decides to stop fighting each other and band together. Things are looking hopeful. Then that’s when the plot line of this game occurs. Yes, a plot line. Be shocked and stunned.

Help also comes along in the ability to make contracts with demons. You make a contract with a demon and they help you. Think Warlock pets from World of Warcraft except you can pick almost any demon you come across, as long as you’re at a high enough level. Once you find the perfect demon for you, all you do is start up a conversation with them. Some respond well to simple greetings others to threats or taunts. The whole concept to me is very entertaining. Here is a picture of someone I came across with an “Angel” demon..



While the graphics are actually pretty decent, music exactly what you expect from a JRPG, not all is perfect in this little world just riddled with demon goodness. For one your character moves ungodly slow. With each area being pretty large it takes quite a while to get to places. If there is some type of movement increase later in the game that would just be swell. Also if your playing full screen and you alt+tab out expect the game to crash on you when you attempt to get back to playing.

The UI itself is cluttered, even though the tutorial explains where everything is at I wish there was faster access without having to make new key binds. I would love to see a better mini-map system as well. The current one is just an empty radar with a few dots on it. While it's functional I just would like a more detailed one like the one World of Warcraft uses.

So far Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine is looking to be solid MMO. As a fan of the series this game spawns from I'm pleased as a fan of both the story and the game play. I can only hope it escapes from the drudgery that most MMORPGs serve as you progress through the game. I'll keep you posted. I'll also give you toast...buttery...delicious...toast...

This is an article I wrote up for the all powerful http://www.negativegamer.com and brought over here. I'll be posting the majority of my SMT:I updates there....HA!