Jumping on the “Top Ten” bandwagon begun over at the vaunted f13.net, here’s my own list. This will be posted here only; I am not an f13 member nor do I have any interest in becoming one at this moment in time.
- World of Warcraft. I spent two years in Azeroth, the latter year being sorta-kinda hardcore-ish, raiding and all. Plus a few months adamantly testing The Burning Crusade during its Closed Beta phase while raiding in the evenings. I no longer play, and will never (yes, I’m saying never) play again, but for all its flaws World of Warcraft certainly has the subscribers to say that it, above all others, is truly massively multiplayer, and it has brilliant and fun play mechanisms. In short, it’s a tremendously fun game and that is primarily why it remains so popular.
- Lord of the Rings Online. Not for everyone, and not quite the WoW clone everyone so erringly claims. It’s the genre’s only low fantasy title. That alone can be off-putting. It stuck as much to Tolkien’s lore while still being able to be a playable game, which, it turns out is also off-putting to some. But LOTRO also presents us with with a rarity: a very playable game set in a virtual world crafted so meticulously that it is a believable place. Zones flow naturally together with few, if any, choke points other games such as WoW use for zone switching. The number of creatures in a field or forest evokes images of nature shows on television rather than overcrowding such as in WoW where your character can barely walk ten paces without an encounter. Gorgeous vistas, beautiful architecture, lovely graphical and audible effects and clever scripting in the Epic Quest’s dungeons all coalesce to immerse you — if you allow it — in Turbine’s vision of Middle Earth whether you are a Tolkien fan or not.
- Guild Wars. Ok, so I continually grapple with whether or not to categorize Guild Wars as an MMO or not, but f13 says it’s allowed on the list, so here it is. No other title has the type of story telling as Guild Wars, period. Are the stories ground-breaking masterpieces of modern literature? Hardly. However, one of the attractions of the fantasy genre is the romanticized notion of being a hero. In every other MMO you are merely Hero #3,235,683 in a sea of identical Heroes. When you enter a Guild Wars mission your group is the star of the story, told through in-game cinemas. For that time, your small band of adventurers truly are heroes. Add to that the skills-based game mechanics rather than the tired levels- and gear-based mechanics. Want to customize your character? Guild Wars allows you just that, with the ability to freely re-spec your character at will and select your skills out of a pool of hundreds to choose from. Multiple sets of armors to choose from, titles to display, and the Hall of Monuments to brag about your Guild Wars accomplishment and carry them over to Guild Wars 2.
- Everquest II. While this one has failed to attract me on a personal level, one cannot deny EQ2 is the unequivocal King of Content when it comes to the MMO genre. More races, more classes, more quests, more zones… just more than any other title on the market. It continues to grow and improve, and the community is top-notch.
- Vanguard. Oh, Vanguard, how maligned art thou? I purchased Vanguard and EQ2 the same day, fully anticipating to fall in love with EQ2 while Vanguard was the inexpensive bargain bin morbid curiosity. Curiosity, in this case, failed to kill this cat. Who could have imagined my apathy towards EQ2 and, wonder of wonders, my amazement at Vanguard! All those classes to choose from and — amazingly! — they all stand on their own merit. A huge, open, non-instanced world to explore with virtually no hand-holding. Not only was my newly created orc starting his adventures in Telon, but I was starting an adventure as a player. I haven’t had an opportunity to play since Game Update #3 has been fully implemented (I will rectify that this weekend) but with all the attention (and yes, drama still) the Vanguard team is showing the game, they just might be able to stop the Titanic from sinking fully and who knows? Perhaps even get it afloat again. It still has its glaring flaws, and is still not quite release-ready, but it’s certainly well on its way now. I can’t put my finger on what it is, but there’s an undeniably attractive and enjoyable something about Vanguard that draws me in.
- Dungeons & Dragons Online. Want some old-fashioned dungeon crawling? Of the opinion that damnit! MMO’s are about grouping? Enjoy what the dungeons and raids of other games offer but don’t have the time requirement they involve? Well then, step right up, DDO just might fit the bill. DDO is unique among its peers by not truly having a world to explore at will. Of any title described as a theme park, DDO perhaps most fits this description. But for grand adventures, exploration, visceral semi-real-time combat where you make each sword swing, you decide whether to block or dodge not some die roll, and by gods group-based gaming, DDO can’t be beat. DDO sticks closely to the D&D 3.5 rules, making Wizard of the Coast-approved changes where necessary to bridge the gap between paper and pixel, in an RPGA-esque “here’s the story, now go adventure” format, not the style of D&D you may have played with your friends on weekends. In what other game does everyone get the ability to try to hide, not just the rogue-type classes? In what other game do you get to drop several hundred feet, a feather fall spell slowing your descent, onto a group of mobs with the Rangers unleashing a fury from above, reminiscent of soldiers parachuting into a warzone? In what other game do spells effects such as blindness or fogs not only inhibit your character’s abilities and visibility but inhibits your visibility as a player as well? DDO is fast-paced and immersive fun with a deep meta-magic system to tinker with as well.
- City of Heroes/Villains. Again, not a title I can delve into for more than a month or two of the year, but I applaud Cryptic for making a unique game in a genre that has been untouched: comic book heroes. Casual gamers have delighted in its ease of play and learning, its vast and deep character creation system, and (until recently) it’s lack of gear-centricity. If only the game play itself had any depth whatsoever…
- Star Wars Galaxies. Not for the game in its current incarnation, though it does seem to be slowly (of the watching paint dry variety) improving. Not even for its original form, though I find myself longing for the freedom of development, the freedom of advancement, the freedom of everything that Raph and Co.’s original sandbox provided. No, SWG is on this list for two reasons. One, because it was The First. You all had your EQ or your UO. I had SWG. It was my first full-bore MMO experience, and did I ever fall into it! Everything we used to read about Evercrack players: calling in “sick” to work, staying up all night to play, neglecting life and loved ones, I did it all. SWG pulled me in that deeply. That aspect of things didn’t last long; much like the unadulterated fury of an August thunderstorm, it struck fast and hard but burned out just as quickly. Two, because (as it was often described) it was a virtual social experiment. As a game, SWG failed on many levels. Yet for socialization and adventuring with others, to date no other title has even come close to what SWG had achieved. The memories of chatting in our guild’s cantina while our Entertainers cured my battle fatigue, of the level of roleplaying I saw in the crowded cantina of Mos Espa, of our entire guild dropping what we were doing to come back home and defend a non-guildie Jedi friend from a group of bounty hunters… those memories will stay with me forever.
- Neocron. I can just imagine your face and the unspoken (or perhaps loudly voiced) “WTF?!?!” as you read that one! Yes, Neocron. Mind you, it has its faults. Oh, does it have its faults! But it, above all (ok, the few) others who have dared tread into the dangerous territory that is the Cyberpunk genre, Neocron alone captured its essence and feel. Hacking computer systems and navigating a Matrix-like virtual world to wreak havoc on opposing corporations, equipping your cybernetic-enhanced warrior for the next battle against natural and mechanical monstrosities, and a first-person viewpoint that not only worked but for the most part felt as if it truly were a shooter rather than an RPG combat system. All new characters had their own apartments in a seedy part of town, yet via association with a Corporation or their own independent ambitions could achieve wealth, prosperity and larger more luxurious living quarters in the nicer sections of the city. That city wasn’t your mama’s MMO city either, boy. No dancing elves, prancing ponies or friendly guards. No, this city has dark back alleys where PvP is suddenly enabled and you discover that new cybernetic chip doesn’t pack the punch you’d hoped. Red light districts with strip clubs. There was no need to wait for Age of Conan for the “zomg blood and bewbz” effect, Neocron was there all along.
- Asheron’s Call 2. This is most wistful of all on this list. While SWG was my First — my first subscription, my first full immersion into an MMO — the AC2 trial was my first-ever experience with the MMO genre as a whole. I always remembered that time, and I always regretted staring at the box on store shelves and never diving in alone and playing the game. I wanted to stick with my real friends and the games they played, so AC2 went by the sidelines. Yes, it had its flaws, especially early on. Yes, it was panned by the AC crowd for being so different from the original. (Yet, EQ2 strikes me as quite different from EQ…) By the time of its unfortunate demise, AC2 had actually become a stable and enjoyable game but the damage had been irrevocably done. RIP AC2 — I’ll remember my short time on Dereth fondly.
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