While E3 official starts today and runs until June 14, all of the major studios have already held their press conferences. There were few surprises, no new consoles were announced afterall. But we did get a few controversial morsels. Perhaps the most contentious announcement was that the previous announced Fallout 76 would be online-only and contain no singleplayer mode or [...]
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On May 29, 2018 a new MMO project launched its Kickstarter campaign and quickly shot past its modest $70,000 funding goal. While most MMO Kickstarter campaigns promise a litany of ground breaking features, Temtem stood out for a different reason. Crema, the Madrid, Spain based studio behind Temtem, is developing an unapologetic Pokemon clone with MMORPG elements. The Steam page, [...]
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Its finally here! The Western version of the highly anticipated fantasy MMORPG Bless Online had its founders launch on May 28, 2018. Players willing to pay $40, $70, or $150 for the various Founders' Pack flocked on to the single server on launch day. The server soon crashed and NeoWiz was forced to add additional servers. This process repeated itself [...]
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The impact of user created content, including such things as mods, maps, addons, and so on, can hardly be overstated. Entire genres have spawned from mods like Counter-Strike, Dota, and various Battle Royale modes. The dream of bringing the creativity and scale made possible by user generated content into the MMO genre has been around for years. Before Minecraft, Notch [...]
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Ever since the release of World of Warcraft in 2004, the vast majority of MMORPGs have followed the linear quest progression model. While MMORPGs have had questing long before WoW, they were often rare treats tied to lore or unique item. Progression was largely done the old fashioned way: exploration and killing monsters. Questing certainly proved to be a valuable [...]
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It was during the early years of this century that Western gamers first witnesses an influx of Korean games, with the most common genre being MMORPGs. This influx soon became a tsunami that washed literally hundreds upon hundreds of games of varying quality upon our shores. This 'Korean Wave', as I just coined it, left a permanent mark on the [...]
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The European Union passed a set regulations back in April 2016 called the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR for short. While that was over two years ago, the actual enforcement of the new regulations only come into effect starting on May 25, 2018. Broadly speaking, the goal of the GDPR is "to protect and empower all EU citizens data [...]
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The Battle Royale genre has taken the gaming industry by storm. Playerunknown's Battlegrounds and Fortnite were the defining titles of 2017 and both continue to increase in popularity well into 2018. They've been joined by a few new comers like Darwin Project and Radical Heights, and there's surely dozens more Battle Royale games currently in development. But does this new [...]
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After months of rumors, Nexon has official confirmed that MapleStory 2 is coming to the West! The official website went live on April 16 which immediately started taking applications for a closed beta test scheduled to start on May 9th. The official launch trailer, embedded below, shows prospective players what MapleStory is all about. While the game never enjoyed the [...]
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MMORPGs have been called treadmills and walking simulators. These remarks come from both fans of the genre and its detractors. There is certainly some truth to these claims, many of the core gameplay loops in MMORPGs require repetition and very slow progress. The question this week is whether the genre is doomed to suffer such monotonous and meaningless gameplay, occasionally [...]
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