.omega

The hardest thing to do in the whole world is, apparently, to create an MMO that doesn’t suck ass. Seriously, what’s wrong with you people? Is it really that fucking hard, that you feel the need to spend money and time on the development of crap?

Noone I know have tried more MMO’s than me. Every beta, every trial period, every fucking one I’ve gotten my grubby little hands on. And here’s my primary list, with little or no organization.

Generic Fantasy MMO’s

There are about sixteen gazillion of these fuckers. All with the same fucking boring rip-off of D&D. Orcs, Elves, magic, kings, blah-di-blah. I realize people actually want this kind of crap, because people actually believe, for some reason, that fantasy is interesting and fun. People are fucking sheep. Fantasy CAN be interesting, but most of these bland cock-ups are just not even worthy of my spit. Standard-Fantasy is crap, and if you think different, go suck a goat.

Korean Cutsey-Anime hack n’ Slashers

I think that just about summed up why no same person would ever touch any of these with a ten-foot pole.

World of Warcraft

The most popular MMO right now, I think. Who the fuck cares? Little or no plot, and everything looks like fucking surf-houses. Played for a while on a private server because a friend wanted to play something togeather with me. Well, what a fucking waste. No more.

Ultima Online

Deserves a medal for being around for so long. Crappy interface, controls from hell, but it’s got features and stuff to do that most modern MMO’s seem to have forgotten. Fuck ‘em. This would be gold, if I could stand watching it for more that five minutes.

Myst Online: Uru Live

Beautiful, just beautiful. Excellent gameplay, focus on problem-solving and the social aspects rather than dull combat crappiness and eternal quest for exp. Unfortunatily, the creators didn’t feel there was any need for a “vacation mode”, so if I find myself unable to pay for a few months, all I’ve done goes down the drain, my character gets deleted. Nice people at the support thingie, though.

Final Fantasy XI

Looks nice if you hack it to increase resolution. Crappy controls, somewhere between the awkwardness of the console and the ordinary crappiness of Ultima Online. There aren’t even any waypoints for quests. Sucks ass, and costs too damn much. And, like Uru, it lacks “vacation mode” - unforgivable.

Neocron

You gotta be fucking kidding me. Nice idea, but this looks like badly-rendered Quake 2 with a horrible interface.

Anarchy Online

Bad framerate, a hundred thousand buttons to keep track of, a horrid interface, and little or no chance of improving it. The idea is sound and the game still looks good, but - meh.

Earth and Beyond

If memory serves, there weren’t much wrong with this one. Except, of course, that the buttmunchers at EA decided to cancel it because of their own gross strategic incompetence.

EVE Online

About as much fun as playing with a spreadsheet. An economics simulator with some shiny graphics.

Lineage II

Uses (I’m told) some Unreal engine or whatever. The game itself is pretty OK, if you like grind, anime and getting killed by hordes of PK:ers the second you open a fucking door.

Guild Wars

Doesn’t cost a dime to play, which is a bonus. Looks fucking amazing. Some later patches fucked up some small stuff, and the game is extremely linear (some harvesting/building stuff would’ve been nice). OK, I guess.

City of Heroes/Villains

King of the hill. The best. Extremely good character generation with a frankly ridiculous amount of options and sliders and costume parts… Also, has an excellent “vacation mode”, which is why I keep coming back to it again and again. Looks spectacular, too, though nowhere near Guild Wars. But hey, nothing looks as good as GW. A pure enforced RP server, where everyone actually roleplays, would have been nice. Even nicer would have been if the game ditched the whole “silver age” crap in favor of some nice Iron Age grittiness.

Vendetta Online

Good-looking, but ultimately not worth 9.99 Euro/month. Looks like something someone tinkered with in their free time, and would’ve worked great as open-source or something.

Dark Eden

Looks promising, but the updater crashes. Can’t get the bitch to start.

All in all, the MMO scene is crap. I’m sure I’ve missed a few of the ones I’ve tested, but most can be summed up in one of the two first items on my list, so what the fuck. Noone seems to be able to manage creating an MMO that doesn’t suck absolute ass. OK, almost noone - CoH is rather neat. But the rest? Pah. That people actually pay for this crap is beyond me.