The MMO genre of gaming is not a particularly young one. In fact, I’d say it’s only a few years younger than the modern RTS and FPS genres (I remember playing my very first graphical MMO in 1997). So, suffice it to say, I was a bit surprised when I found out that not one MMORPG has made it onto GameRanking.com’s top 100 list. I’ve checked the list and I’ve checked it twice (ho ho!) and I’m telling you there are no MMOs to be found which raises the question: why haven’t any MMOs made it there yet?

Believe it or not, despite the genre being over a decade old now there really aren’t that many MMOs in the market. In fact, of the actual “pay2play” model of MMO there are typically only a handful of games released each year, as opposed to the thousands of Wii, 360, PS3, PC games that are released each year. This probably has had some sort of impact as to why there are no MMOs on the list. Let’s face it, when there are so many games coming out every year the MMO is bound to slowly get pushed down the list until a new one makes it back up there. In fact, GTAIV actually pushed World of Warcraft right off the list (who now sits at #101). However, that said, this logic does seem to conflict with the “quality over quantity” saying. Despite putting out fewer games than most other genres, there are still many quality issues that exist within the games upon launch… which brings us to our next issue.

One of the most obvious reasons as to why most MMOs never make it to the top of review scores is primarily due to quality. MMOs are HUGE worlds with many aspects of gameplay all running simultaneously with thousands of gamers. The sheer scope of programmability within these games would probably dwarf about ten single player games of near any other genre. Because of this there are a number of quality issues that must be tested and, unfortunately, the best test usually occurs after the game has gone live. As many MMOGamers know many of the biggest fixes and features aren’t readily patched until a couple months after the games release, which cites the mantra of many gamers today: “An MMO on launch day will be completely different 6 months later.” Perhaps if reviewers would put up two reviews of an MMO there would be a better “leveling off” of the scores…

Anyways, take from this what you will. World of Warcraft still sits at a very respectable #101 right above Zelda: A Link to the Past (one of my favorite games) with the next “MMO” being WoW: Burning Crusade at #142. After that there is nothing until beyond the 200 mark. It’s very clear that GTAIV effectively pushed WoW out of the running, but even before then WoW was only at #99 which is just barely scraping it by. No telling what MMO will make it there next. While Age of Conan looks like it will receive fair scores, I seriously doubt it’ll reach the top 100. Anybody want to take bets on Warhammer Online?

Check out the full top 200 list HERE.

I recently had the chance to interview Atanas Atanasov, CEO of Masthead Studios, about the upcoming MMORPG Earthrise. We were also able to bribe Mr. Atanasov into providing us with a new exclusive screenshot of the Eastern Gardens in Earthrise. (right pic) Your son will be returned by midnight.

For those of you not familiar with the game, Earthrise is a sci-fi MMORPG that takes places after the Third World War where society has split into many factions, but the two major ones are Continoma and Noir. Earthrise is based completely off skills so there will be no leveling here. The combat system will use dynamic targeting much like any FPS, however this is not a MMOFPS as other skills will require players to use them as they would in any other MMORPG. Earthrise will also feature PvP and territorial control points where guilds will be able to battle over certain areas in the game to extract resources and impose there own power and rules in that region.

For more information on Earthrise, check out the site play-earthrise.com

Onto the interview:

1] In your FAQ you mention that skills are never permanently foreclosed, does this mean at any time in the game I can reallocate my skill points to change my characters skill set?

Players in Earthrise can learn all skills, but they cannot reallocate skill points. The skill usage will be limited by the equipment, which means that the player has to learn the skill first, and then equip the weapon, armor and other devices that go with the skill. All abilities and tactics, which are not supported by the equipped items will be grey (not usable].

2] Staying on topic, you mention that Earthrise is entirely skill based. Given that there are two factions, how many skills will be shared and how many will be unique?

There are two main factions in Earthrise – Continoma and Noir and many smaller ones. Players can play for one of the two factions or they can choose to be neutral or criminals. All of those choices will not affect the skills they learn, which means that no matter which side you have chosen to fight for, your skills will be the same. Faction items are another story. There will be weapons and armor, which will be available only to members of a certain faction.

3] I read that there will be full looting in Earthrise? How does the looting system work? In what scenario could someone loot all my equipment?

Full looting in Earthrise will be possible, but for players who are careful or willing to spend money, it won’t be a problem. If player A kills player B, player B is resurrected at a resurrection site. If player B has insured all of his items, his former body is empty and player A has nothing to loot, but player B needs to reinsure his items, which costs money of course. If there are uninsured items in player B’s body, he will have several seconds time to pay at the resurrection site and get his items back. This decision will cost much more than a simple insurance. It is for those people who have forgotten to insure their items or are willing to take the risk and go in the wilderness with uninsured items. If player B doesn’t pay for his uninsured items or the waiting time passes, player A can loot everything which remains in player B’s corpse.

4] Considering Earthrise is set in the future, how does it handle transportation? You mention personal hovercraft’s in your FAQ, but will there be air transportation or a quicker way to travel?

Many variations of personal hovercrafts will be available in the game. There will also be teleportation points scattered across the island that will need money to operate. We are also considering some skills and items for faster transportation, but there is no final decision on that yet.

5] Since characters in Earthrise will not gain levels, how will this affect what type of armor or weapons players can use? If I pump all my skill points into weapons, will I be able to use the most powerful weapons within a few hrs of playing?

Players in Earthrise will have wide choice of weapons and armor, but their use will be limited by their character’s genetic code, or their physical attributes – Physique and Intellect. Players will be able to modify their current genetic condition anytime, and it will cost them money depending on the amount of the change itself. Small changes will have affordable costs, while turning a battlefield brute into Einstein will be a massive investment. That being said, it will not be possible to make a new character, and be immediately approached by a guild that shoves the most powerful weapon in the game into your hands and sends you on the field. That would throw the balance of the game off the scales in favor of whoever has the most money or weaponry to entice newbies. Instead, we make sure that players are able to use moderately powerful weapons after a small gaming investment, and everything else onward requires players to actually play to unlock the features of the game.

6] Will newbies be able to kill veteran players with a lucky shot or if they catch them off guards? Or will the skills learned greatly improve veteran players making it so beginners have no chance?

Absolutely! Earthrise is a PvP-centric game, and that means that players should always have a chance to score a successful kill on other players, given that they have the skill and strategy to pull it off. The way we allow that is by emphasizing a variety of options and combinations, thus tactics themselves, over power level. Players who advance their characters will not grow so powerful that newbies won’t have a chance no matter what they do; instead they will have more options. More options means better combinations, but only if the veteran player can use these combinations wisely. If they don’t, one or a couple newbies who use their limited set of abilities in a smart way have a greater opportunity of taking that veteran down.

7] You mention that players will be able to have careers that advance while offline? Is there a limit to how much a player can advance? What part will careers play in the big picture of Earthrise?

The offline advancement system has a more social approach. Players can educate and have a profession in Earthrise, which will give them social standing and constant income. The income will be significantly less compared to the one they can make during online play, but it will be enough to compensate all those people who don’t have the time to be online for hours and hours every day. The social standing of the players will allow them to gain some rewards from the factions they work for.

8] Territory control is a big part of the PvP in Earthrise allowing guilds to extract resources from the territory. However do you think there is any danger to 1 or 2 very large guilds controlling and holding most of the territories in the games?

The vast open space on the island of Enterra where territory control will take place will have hundreds of locations for building a base. The more territories the guild has the more vulnerable it will be. It will be very difficult to control such a large territory where smaller guilds will fight for their chunk of the pie and mutants will try to reconquer what was taken from them. The situation, which you mention in your question may also reflect the real world, where many empires have fallen due to tribes and smaller nations invading their borders, riots and internal problems.

9] From the screenshots I’ve seen, the game looks absolutely amazing. Will Earthrise use DX10 technology? Will there be real world physics in the game?

Yes, we are planning to implement DX10 technology and real world physics, although the physics will not be as advanced as the modern 3D shooters.

Thank you for taking the time out to answer these questions for us.

According to Mike Smith, of Yahoo! Games, World of Warcraft may just be the largest corporation on the planet. Many of you, of course, are looking at that statement and quietly laughing to yourself, but does it actually hold any merit? When you look at WoW from afar you’ll notice that it shares very little with corporations. In fact, much of the article seems to point WoW in the direction as being compared to a nation, as opposed to a corporation. So where does this logic come from?

Well, as Mike states, you can actually invest in the game from a character side of things. This basically means that when you create a character on a WoW server you are actually investing time into what could become a potentially profitable margin. Look at it this way: the World of Warcraft is the largest and most successful pay to play MMORPG ever. As such there is a high demand for the game and for the game’s commodities. Even now you can go to any number of websites and buy gold with dollars, euros, or pounds. This means that the WoW gold actually has a worth value amongst regular society. So, when you are out farming for gold in the Burning Steppes you are actually earning, essentially, money. Anything that can be converted into money as as good as money after all.

However, that said, the article faulters on actually convincing me that WoW is more of a corporation than a nation. You see, in WoW, the players are more like citizens. They live in a world and pay a certain amount per month (just like citizens who pay taxes every year). Also like a nation, the WoW community makes and sells things to each other; just like the grocery store down the street, who gets it’s vegetables from farmers a hundred miles away, will sell you those same vegetables. In a corporation, the entire workforce is making/producing items to sell to an outside entity. The World of Warcraft players are not selling anything to people who don’t play. Based on these observations, you’d be hard pressed in convincing anybody that WoW is a corporation…

Regardless of what WoW actually is (corporation, nation, game), the article is still a fascinating read. I urge you to check it out and to comment back here with your own ideas and thoughts on the matter. Is it completely silly to be comparing WoW to any of these extra-bodily organizations? You tell me…

Thanks for reading!

You can check out the full article HERE.

There I said it… It had to be said and now I’ve gone and done it. No matter how many times Blizzard tries to adjust, tweak, alter, or change the druid class it will always be broken. Why? Because the fundamental principles on which the class is based are broken as well. In an MMORPG you simply can’t have a un-hybrid class such as the druid.

Before all you druid fanatics jump down my throat, allow me to say this: I played as a druid for nearly the entirety of my WoW career. I leveled him all the way to 70 (my one and only character above level 20) before I was done with the game for good (Naturehooves whoo!). I am not a hater of the class, but rather a critic of the way the class was mis-managed during the early stages of the development of the game.

There are many successful druids out there. By saying the class is broken I am not implying that it is also unplayable. However, that said the class also can’t ever be fully realized in the structure that Blizzard created for it. Created upon the theory that you can play as either a rogue, warrior, healer, or mage depending on what talent tree you decide to sink your points into, the druid arguably became one of the weakest classes in the game very early on in the development. While Blizzard decided to give the druid a bunch of “off-abilities” to make it mime a certain class they could never fully allow the class to become as powerful as any of those same classes. As such, druids are usually relegated to being an off-tank, off-healer, or off-dps.

Of course, this all sounds fine to an average MMO gamer. Sure it sucks that the druid won’t ever be as powerful as one of the mimed classes but it makes up for it in the fact that it can technically play as any of the mimed classes through its various shape shifting forms. This is what most players would logically think… they are wrong.

The druid is not a hybrid class, but rather, a class that can assume the role of whatever the person/party needs for the time. This all largely depends on two things: gear, and talents. Without the right combination of each you aren’t going to do a very good job at whatever class you decide to mime. Hell, even with the best equipment and perfect talent spec you’ll only be as good as an average person of the mimed classes. Of course, if you gear/talent up for one specific off-class you are also completely and totally gimping yourself for all of the others. Afterall, bear druids do not make good moonkins…

I haven’t played the game in a while. In fact it’s been many a month since I have wandered the green pastures outside of ThunderBluff. Having said this I do not know exactly how the druid class plays anymore. I keep up with the updates and haven’t noticed any spectacular alterations that would change this fundamental flaw, but maybe there is something you only notice when you are actually playing the game. In anycase, I stand by what I said: World of Warcraft’s druid class is broken.

Oh… please, for the love of god, no “learn2play” type of comments. I was probably one of the most successful druids on my server and when I played the game I knew the class better than the back of my own hand.