MMORPGs flooding the market
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In our first edition, I'd like to talk about the mmorpg's in general. What's coming up, who's interested in what, and what there may be to expect from many of them. Currently, there is a big boom in 2 different area of the gaming market. You have the many settings being put out under the D20 module, and the massive burst of MMORPGs coming out on the market. Do they clash? Do people have the time to play both? We'll leave that discussion to the forums, but most polls that have been posted say that some people just play one or the other, but the vast majority of people play a bit of both.
So what is it that is coming out that warrants the term "boom" in reference to mmorpgs? We have not just a few coming out, but a huge list of games:
. EverQuest 2
. World of Warcraft
. Final Fantasy XI
. Sigil Games presents: (to be announced at a later date)
. Dragon Empires
. City of Heroes
. Archspace
. Atriarch
. Black Moon Chronicles
. Conquer Online
. Eternal Lands
. Fung Wan Online
. Priest
. .
The list goes on and on! All of these, coming out! Now some of them are not targeted at the general world-wide audience. A lot of them are staying "local", as in within the China, Japan, and Korea areas.
What does this massive production of games mean to the general MMORPG community? Is the entire community going to jump on a band wagon and try every new game that is coming out, spreading the community thin where everybody is getting a "share" of the people? I think not.
Who are the big names? Everquest, Dark Ages of Camelot, and anything put out by Blizzard. Many people are interested to see what Sigil Games is going to release, mainly because the developers are ones that originally start EQLive, and most of us know how huge that game is. Final Fantasy is beginning to become a huge hit, but still seems to be more console oriented than PC at this point.
Is this huge outburst of MMORPGs going to take away from EverQuest? Well let's see. Dark Ages of Camelot, Star Wars, Horizons, and a few other hard hitters came out and at first seemed incredibly popular. Many of the concepts they had in their games were either fresh or hardly touched in the first generation mmorpgs, and it was a nice change of pace for some players. The first few months of release were great. but what happened next? Anybody know? Everquest became more popular than it was before the release of these games, and with EQ Live's release of PoP and LDoN, it began to draw more and more attention to itself.
How is this going to affect the coming of EQII and all that it represents? I personally believe that EQII's largest competitor is World of Warcraft. There is little that Blizzard puts out that is unfinished, untests, or otherwise broken. However, EverQuest II was originally thought to go into beta nearly a year ago. The date was pushed back and pushed back and again, pushed back. What does this mean for the players? I say this means that they're going to be putting out a game that is all polished and pretty, a world with more diverse content than imaginable to someone that hasn't been on the development team, graphics that make you want to cry, and a game that hits everything it needs to:
1. Satisfying
2. Fulfilling
3. Fun
4. Goal driven
5. Mindless Entertainment
6. MindFULL Entertainment
7. Challenging
8. Community oriented
9. Solo oriented
10. Story Driven
11. Realistic, but not TOO realistic (I play the game to get away from reality, remember?)
12. Overall, well rounded.
I'm sure I missed a few important things that you's like to see in a game, but I'm sure they've already thought about these when create EQII. The point is, with all of these games coming out, many people just sit there shaking their heads. Some people may decide to give something new a try; I mean, what could it hurt? There are many out there that have already done this with the recent games that came out in the past 2 years, and have found the game lacking in one way or another and have gone back to EQ Live. Some have become so jaded by the current market that they've given up hope that anything coming out is going to be as fun as it used to be when hopping onto the computer. I've also heard many people who say they have become jaded, but are actually excited about what they hear of EQ II, that they're just waiting with baited breath to find out if it's as good as it sounds.
*crosses fingers* Here's to hope!
Date: 02/13/2004
Editorial by:
Ariel R. Bergeron(aka Leonai_art)
LQGaming Editor & Visual Artist
Webmaster of EQ2.LQGaming.com
