I have been left very cynical from my experiences playing Final Fantasy XI (online). Yet, I continued to search for an ideal online multiplayer experience. I moved onto EVE online. The game was very attractive to me being a science fiction game. It was very nice for a while. I began working on upgrading my ship by mining ores and selling them. Buying raw materials on one planet and selling it for more on an other. One day I ventured deeper in space. The nightmare returned…PK. It’s an understatement to say that PK is part of EVE. The game is built around player killing. After getting shot down while mining for no reason at all, I abandoned ship. Sadly, the human nature to destroy anything whenever it is possible without any reason whatsoever, will always ruin the online experience (I’m staring at you, Xbox Live).

Next, I found myself playing City of Heroes. Very nice improvements. You didn’t de-level but you did gain experience slower whenever you died. The game still utilized the same old structure of Tank/Healer/Nuker (I wish this format would just go away for good, seriously). Playing the game solo was still kind of tough but finding others to play with didn’t seem to be complicated. The biggest thrill was seeing all the unique super heroes people could come up with. Something was missing in this game. I couldn’t put my finger on it. I just felt like I was doing the same thing all the time and nothing extra was there. At the time, City didn’t have anything alternative for players to do other than level grinding. Most online games had crafting, fishing, or even gambling. At the young level of 30 I grew tired of being a super hero.

I migrated over to Guild Wars. I swore I’d never touch another traditional fantasy based game after Final Fantasy XI. Since Guild Wars did not have a monthly fee to pay, I figured what have I got to worry about. I figured this online game couldn’t be designed for the sole purpose to keep you paying the monthly fee. I did initially enjoy the game. Unfortunately, once again I’m haunted by the mold of Tank/Healer/Nuker. Guild Wars is probably the most competitive of all other online games, hence the name ‘guild’ wars. I played a healer and felt like I was absolutely useless other than healing people. I so longed to be a healer that could also hold ground his own while saving other players. Playing pvp (player vs. player) only meant I’d be the first one they’d all target to kill. I eventually started not logging onto Guild Wars till I eventually un-installed it. Which seems dramatic since it’s free to play online.

To Be Continued…

Tags: CCP Games, NCsoft, Online Gaming, Rant or Rave, WoW

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 1:42 pm and is filed under PC Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.