MMORPG Overview

[MiyabiHime]

Of MMORPGS I've played - in case you've ever wondered about them or want to find something new. VERY GENERAL OVERVIEWS in my personal opinion ^_^

These are fairly big (widely known) ones. Maple Story is 2nd only to WOW. RO is one of the most well known and STILL played. Trickster however is relevantly new... I never bothered to play WOW so if anyone wants to add their overview of that go ahead.

1- Ragnarok Online
2- Maple Story
3- Trickster

1. Ragnarok Online (Offical Servers)

Great gameplay, not much questing though. Overall item and money accumulation is slow - monsters dont drop money you actually have to pick up items and NPC them. But the general character play is good. Dying equates to 1% exp loss which doesnt seem much but later on...1% can take you an hour or so.

Levelling is kinda slow and there isnt a huge range for training. The party system operates better in other games but the Reborn system was interesting and those who played the official servers - PVP and War or Emperium PWNS though WOE on slow net will kill you.

Graphics and movement is great and depending on server, community life is good. It's got 2D characters on a 3D map. Mouse cursor movement. Hot keys are F# keys, with 3 sets of each. Actual characters are cute - marriage and adoption system. MVP Monster system is a bit lame, especially since everyone hounds them (mainly large servers). Those on small official servers, GMS do more of a job. (I played oRO).

The actual file to play this was a LOT smaller than say Trickster, if you play official server where you dont have to download all other addons just to access the private server you're looking at 1gb or so. Great for those not on pure hardcore gaming computer systems. The sort of game that really gets you started into MMORPGS. I played this for nearly a year but left coz of personal issues (namely some chick suicided cos of the game and I thought man... thats bs). But after playing this (on oRO) and playing others like Maple, Trickster.... RO pawned. Am awaiting Ro2's release in mid-end 2007 but I think it might not be better than the first.

2. Maple Story (GMS)

2D mapping, 2d characters. Chibi-like characters. GM system SUX, non existent almost. NX system for thsoe who are willing to pay money for extra items and bonuses. Quest system is particularly good, especially at lower levels. They really boost you and give you some random items of which can be worth a couple mil. Pretty good for a level 30 quest. Monsters drop items and money (for those who have NX, pets loot for you).

Levelling system is substantially faster than most games. Especially if you know what you're doing. But the 2nd - 3rd job transition gets ESPECIALLY slow around 60-70.

Major Issue - Hack problems. You will find they are out of control on GMS. Also be prepared to receive backfire from false reporting, GMs will read and believe random emails. Legit players have been known to be banned from false scammers and hack reports. The general community is a bit... out there. A LOT of the players are 12-16 and for some reason, I find have some sorta attitude problem where they like to be racist and ks and etc. Mind you I played this for 8months.

Updates occur every week or more. The file isnt that big, approx 1gb or so. But lag can kill you.....VERY EASILY. At higher levels its mainly -> take more than 1-2 hits and your dead. Mage, archer, thief class can take one and a half hits from most monsters at higher levels so if you lag - you die. % loss when you die depends on class/luk. You lose at least 5% high luck classes, the rest lose 10%. This will take you 1-2hours to get back >.>

3. Trickster

The lastest one I'm on and currently still using so I havent gotten that far in game. The graphics are VERY similar to RO. 2d chars, 3d map. Mouse cursor movement which is kinda slow which annoys the hell outta me. CUTE chars that are separated into animal classes with attributes (Sheep/Dragon class - magic, Bunny/Lion - Power, Cat /Racoon- Charm, Fox/(forgot the male counterpart) - Sense) rather than the typical Warrior/mage/etc.

Its not in open (official release) but there are no more server wipes just updates every now and then. The file is about 2gig. There are some issues with downloading and the patching takes about 8hours -> seems to be capped. But its worth having a play around!

Trickster is similar and very different to the typical MMORPG. It has a quest system similar to Maple Story. Movement and Graphic style is similar to Ragnarok. Monsters drop items and money. The mapping system is similar to RO2. They have a monster card system which allows you to play games = similar to omok and monster card matching in MapleStory.

Stat system is very broad, same with skills. Skills are upped through BOUGHT cards - which means you are not totally limited to your class. You can be a Sheep thats built to be a power type with power skills if you want but...thats stupid... even thugh I'm making a power build Cat.... coz cats are cuter than bunnies and I wanted the bunny build but the cat look >.>

Unique to Trickster is the drilling system where you drill holes in the ground which gives you experience and random items. Drilling is fun, you walk around drilling holes everywhere if you're bored. Levelling is average for lower levels but as you get higher its *insert profanity*

Other mentionables:

Gunbound - not Rpg but its dying anyway. Good to kill time or play around.
Rakion - I hated this.
Flyff - Good mention, VERY active GMS. Large download and file. I've heard it's pretty good but some other girl gamers of mine mention harassment is pretty strong on here.
WOW - This is the biggest one in the world so you probably might check that out.
Runescape
SilkRoad
GatewayToHeavens - I played this in beta and it was the worst so I gave up on this VERY early on.

Thats just at the top of my head. Getting sleepy so thats it >.> maybe this wasnt the best but its just a say hoo :P

[rmz]

Uhhhhhh

Maple Story is not "2nd only to WoW." If you're talking about popular MMORPG's in the western world, as far as I know it would be something llike:

WoW
Final Fantasy XI
EQII

*WAY* before shit like Ragnarok and the stuff you listed.

[Akkaraju]

Originally Posted by rmz

Uhhhhhh

Maple Story is not "2nd only to WoW." If you're talking about popular MMORPG's in the western world, as far as I know it would be something llike:

WoW
Final Fantasy XI
EQII

*WAY* before shit like Ragnarok and the stuff you listed.

Yeah, that looks about right, and after those are more pay to play ones, not free. Maple Story is not even close to any of the major pay ones, and even then the game Silkroad usually has more people, even if half of them are AFK people selling stuff.

But for the purposes of an overview I'll contribute what i know about the one i spent most time pissing away hours at:

EQ2: I would describe it as a more Liquid-like MMORPG. Things change, a lot. New stuff is constantly added, stuff is always changed and revised. So much so, the game barely resembles itself when it was launched, it has become much easier to play and get into the higher points of the game where I had the most fun.

The overworlds are generally pretty big, and are divided into tiers corresponding to stuff that fits in a bracket of every 10 levels, such as the first areas are meant for people 1-10 while a tier 7 place would be meant for people 61-70, the last areas of the game so far.

Your class levels up and gains new skills to use, like any other MMO, but after a while, the skills you get are upgrades of a skill you had before, only more powerful. Also, your skills have levels that are upgraded by using scrolls, or books that you find on enemies and such.

The game is slightly harder to get into than WoW, but in truth is not all that much harder to play until you get into parts of the game where your group is wiped easily by a wrong move, such as the higher-up dungeons and raid zones.

Although your character is not customizable upon every level with things like skill trees, you gain new abilities/bonuses every few levels and are able to customize yourself with Alternate Achievment lines which allow you to give yourself benefits after level 20 that can help you in the long run, and each tree leads up to a major benefit that a class would obviously want.

The graphics as well are nice, but in some ways the art design is quite dry, unlike WoW, so they kind of balance out with WoW's.

In short, I guess i could say, its fairly good for a pay-game, but make sure you have friends to play it with, because its not much of a solo game, like WoW can be, it is much more group oriented.

[MiyabiHime]

In terms of current player population. Like you mentioned, they're 'older'. I'm talking about what most people play now and the most well known. This doesn't mean the gaming community - it means overall. There's an actual ranking for this somewhere, I dont remember where I read/heard though.

[dat shit cray]

Originally Posted by MiyabiHime

In terms of current player population. Like you mentioned, they're 'older'. I'm talking about what most people play now and the most well known. This doesn't mean the gaming community - it means overall.

Because most people don't want to pay for games so they resort to free korean (or other asian countries') ones.

[HioMrSan]

I'll just offer my 2 cents on all these games,

Trickster, wow someone else played that game. I got up to the 70's and It got so extremely boring that I nearly lost my mind. Yay for no 2nd classes even though the Japanese version has had them out for ages and ages. They purposely stagger the release of new content simply to make more money. Just a bunch of mindless Otaku anime losers anyway, just like maple and RO.

Anyone mention Gunz yet? Its really fun for about a week, and then you'll never play it again. EXP system is retarded. Once you hit lvl 21, you can't play with anyone lower without losing huge amounts of exp.

PSO on dreamcast was one of the best back in the day. Ah the memories. Everyone needs to get the gamecube version and play on private servers. Granted Phantasy Star Universe should be out very soon.

FFXI is for when you don't have a life, and even the hardest of the hardcore WOW players pale in comparison. The depth and commitment needed to play this game, and to reach high level gameplay, is probably the greatest in any modern game.

RO, is a mindless hack and slash that is completely broken, unbalanced, and openingly biased towards new players. You can't get anywhere in that game without having high lvl friends help you exploit the system. The economy is so baddly broken by the botters its pathetic. Majority of maps are completely broken just because of anti-botting prevention. For example, the level 10 newb dungeon added huge numbers of ultra high level monsters just to kill the botters. Unfortunetly theres no where to level for new players.

Maple Story.... its crap. Ffilled with hacks and anime loser teens. Nothing else needs to be said.

So yea... MMORPGs.... yea.... *Goes back to having a life*

[Akureikaze]

I have been playing Maple Story since it came out in Beta.
Honestly, i fucking hate it at the higher lvls.
It's nothing but grind grind grind.
Most of the things at high lvls won't kill you, unless you're stupid :S
The 10% loss, warriors can counter this somewhat with their high HP/power guard, since it reduces some of the dmg, DKs have HB so...yeah. And they party with priests most of the time so, it's pretty sad if you die :S
Mages have MG blah blah.
Chief Dits/Master Thieves have Meso/Meru Guard + the high avoid, Hermits just have avoid to work with, and Flash Jump as a manuverability skill....
Archers are got the short end of the stick, sorta. Puppet and the bird summon crap are helpful, since the bird'll stun, and puppet can take the Aggro off of the monsters from you.
Only way you can possibly die against high lvl creatures for training, is if you're careless.
The only real fun things i can see at higher lvls, is just fighting Bosses, and such really.
Most of the people who play Maple are retarded dumbasses.
Hacking is a problem as well, soon as a update on Gameguard occurs, BYPASS'D OLOL?
GM's are useless, hardly do crap to begin with.
But that's my two cents.
This is probably the only MMO i have played :S

[incogn(egro)ito]

Me personally, I hate Maple Story with a passion. When I tried FFXI, I hate the controls and I hate the fact that you can't solo. I never really played EQII, but I never hear good things. So I stick to WoW.