mmo-features
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The Daily Grind: How do you define MMO?
Defining "MMORPG" isn't difficult: it means "massively multiplayer online roleplaying game." It's an acronym. But drawing the line between what is and is not an MMO is significantly more difficult. Guild Wars has persistence and shared areas, for instance, but as soon as you leave a town, you're in an instance unique to you and your party. There are elements of persistence in games like League of Legends. Heck, there was a time when people wondered if you could call World of Warcraft an MMO with its instanced dungeons and lack of housing. As with a lot of subjective categories, there's really no right or wrong place to draw the line, but pretty much everyone seems to think that there's a line to draw. More often than not, it's not even a matter of quality so much as a set of consistent characteristics. So what about you? Where do you draw the line between an MMO and something else? How do you define a game as being an MMO instead of a similar sort of game? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Lost Pages of Taborea: Comparing RIFT's looting and multi-class systems to Runes of Magic's
Sometimes I feel like I'm playing the best MMO that no one's ever heard of. Lately, all I see are new games on the horizon that promise new flexible class systems, better functionality in old standard mechanics, improved pet systems, and so on. Every time I read these press releases, announcements, or blogs, I lean back, tilt my head a bit and say, "Interesting. But Runes of Magic already does that." It's why I have a lot of faith -- even if I disagree from time to time -- in Runewaker. The company has made all these great systems that are exactly what newer games are promising, and players are stoked about it. It really has me wanting to embark on a series comparing systems between RoM and other MMOs. RIFT has bulk-looting and class combining that I want to compare with similar features in RoM for this week's Lost Pages of Taborea. I'm tired of feeling like I'm playing an MMO no one's heard of, even if it isn't true -- RoM is very popular and it keeps growing at a fast pace. But dagnabbit, sometimes I want to tell everyone RoM did it before the other guy gets all the credit. Let's look at RoM's dual-class and pet systems to compare looting and multi-classes between these two games.
The Daily Grind: What's the one feature you can't live without?
So many different systems in MMOs, so little time. From crafting to combat, PvP to PvE, housing to sieging, many MMOs offer a wide variety of features to their players. Yet, there's always that one feature that really makes us love our game of choice. It's that one thing that we all read on the back of the box that really ignited our imaginations and made us stick the game on the counter and pull out our wallets. Today's question is quite simple: What's the one feature that you can't live without in your MMOs? When you narrow it down to one, throw it into the comment box below and share it with your fellow readers. Now, discuss!
