MMORPG

What is MMORPG?

MMORPG is an acronym for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. It’s the new genre in gaming. Traditional role-playing games, such as Dungeons and Dragons or the famous Final Fantasy series, involve in player controlling a character or a party of characters to defeat boss characters using tactical strategies. The typical characteristics of RPG’s are storyline, exploration of the world, leveling up through experience gained from combat and quests, character class, and windowed interface. RPG has evolved from simple text games to 3D experience. MMORPG is just like a traditional RPG except for the fact it is not a single player game. In traditional RPG, one player decides on the action of the entire party, where as in MMORPG, the player is just one man party in the world. As the name suggests, MMORPG is a multiplayer game that is played online. Players coexist in a virtual world of the game. Interaction is real-time and people spend hours on end playing such games.

The History of MMORPG

In 1997, Richard Garriott, the creator of Ultima Online, coined the word MMORPG with the release of Ultima Online. It became the firs tof its genre, and provided a solid foundation for many more MMORPG to come. But Ultima Online was not the first game to be played online. MUD, which stands for Multi-User Dungeon, with later variants Multi-User Dimension and Multi-User Domain, games were developed as early as 1974. MUD games are the first online games but they were primarily displayed in simple text. Graphical interface did not exist and players made choice of the action by pressing buttons. In early 1990’s, AOL was successful in developing the first graphical online game, Neverwinter Nights but it did not attract enough players to be called “massively.” Another reason was because the internet was not available to the public. In 1995, NSFNET lifted the restriction on the internet, allowing game developers and users to fully take advantage of the internet. Just two years after the restriction was lifted, Ultima Online was released and many more title began to pour out to the market. Following Ultima Online, another successful title was Everquest. Developed by Sony Online Entertainment in 1998, Everquest and Everquest II is still one of the dominant games in the industry. For the next 5 years, Everquest defined MMORPG even though Ultima Online popularized the genre. In 2003, Square Enix, the creator of the Final Fantasy series, released MMO version of the game, Final Fantasy XI. Just a year later, Blizzard Entertainment released their version of MMO, World of Warcraft, continuing the storyline of the game that put Blizzard’s name on the top of the list, Warcraft series. Although these mainstream titles require monthly subscription and fee, other free MMORPG, such as Guild Wars, developed by NCsoft, still cannot compete as fiercely in the market. NCsoft released Aion in 2009, but it was still not enough to catch up to Blizzard. Now MMORPG is synonymous with World of Warcraft, or simply WoW.

Current state of MMORPG

Currently, there are more than 400 titles available. Some are free, some require initial payment of purchasing the game, and some require monthly subscription and fee. As of October 2010, there are more than 12 million World of Warcraft subscribers world-wide. Blizzard holds the Guinness World Record for the most popular MMORPG. In April 2008, 62 percent of MMORPG subscription market was held by World of Warcraft. Apart from a never ending storyline and breath taking graphics, all the MMORPG’s offer similar gameplay. Players log in and are asked to create character. Players can change the way their characters look online and choose a name. After the basic information process, players pick “job” or “class” that determine the abilities of characters. They begin their journey in the starting town where they can meet new people and figure out the gameplay. They gain experience from killing mobs, exploring, and completing quests give by the non-playable characters, NPC. As they level their characters, new abilities and talents become available. As they reach the maximum level, more difficult and strategic encounters become available as well.

There are two different aspect of MMORPG. First is the role playing aspect, or player versus environment, PvE. Players who prefer PvE aspect form parties to down challenging encounters that require thorough planning and execution. These are often referred as Raids. In any given raid, more than 20 players enter a dungeon and clear their way to the boss and loot. There are usually couple tanks that focus the mobs attention to them, holding threat, so the boss’s damaging blows don’t one hit kill the party members. They are usually low on damage but their armor can withstand the deadly attacks. While the tanks hold the threat, damage dealers deteriorate the boss’s health, and the healers heal the tanks’ health to full. After the boss is defeated, it drops rare and valuable loots that are not easily obtainable. Since communication and execution need to be impeccable, the players create guilds that run on regular schedule. Players who obtain these items often flaunt their armor and brag to other players. The other aspect is the player kill aspect, or player versus player, PvP. PvE, as the name suggests, challenges against the environment, and the actions of the environment is pre-determined by the game developers. PvP however, matches the player against a real-life player and because other players aren’t very predictable, PvP players aren’t easily surprised and are good at multitasking.

Relevance and importance in context of WWW

You might ask the question, “what does a game have to do with WWW?” At first, the answer is not very clear but MMORPG’s have a very close relation to the WWW. The subscription rate to MMORPG is growing rapidly and for the sake of gameplay, the game itself does not cover everything about the game itself. When the internet was first available, because of the bandwidth speed, all the websites were text based websites. Now, as cable service is widely spread, websites become more interactive. Emergence of Web 2.0 offers the game players a medium to communicate with each other interactively outside the game. Blogs, wikis, and video hosting sites are swarmed by MMORPG users who search for answers, share thoughts, or even to brag about their equipment. Facebook now incorporates World of Warcraft into their platform. MMORPG’s have been parodied by numbers of websites. MMORPG’s do not just offer different gameplay; it offers users to contribute to development of the Web.

Future development of MMORPG

MMORPG is not just a game anymore. It became a way of life. Some are not even able to tell the difference between the virtual world and the real world. There was a case of murder over a very rare item obtained in game. Mobs hire people to play the game without rest to obtain such items and sell it for real money. Such crimes could result in formation of international or domestic internet ruling committee that oversees the gameplay. Marriage in games is common now and in the future, virtual marriage could be legalized. Also since people spend more time online playing games, corporations could have a virtual storefront implemented to the game so people may not even have to leave their game to go shopping. There is a big opportunity in MMORPG for any kind of market since the growth of MMORPG user database is exponential. Just within 10 years, MMORPG user population grew from 0 to over 10 million. The addition rate doubles every two years. That’s something even Intel co-found Gordon Moore could not predict with his Moore’s Law trend, although it only applies to computer hardware. In near future, there will be no boundary between the virtual world that exists within the games and the real world. This may cause serious health threats and create psychological and sociological issues. People could become socially awkward and may not be able to communicate face to face any more. The development and progress of the MMORPG is definitely the moneymaker of current industry, but it’s time to think about the future as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mmorpg

http://www.cracked.com/article_15657_10-ways-online-gaming-will-change-future.html