"With a plethora of MMOs constantly being released, there are a few elements that seem to be missing in all of them. Commercials focus on the genre of the game when they talk about plot, rather than the actual plot details, and will always emphasize customization even if it’s a low level of customization compared to other MMOs. Sometimes they won’t even go that far–they’ll just show a vague run-down of the classes available and leave it at that. "
Interview with Stephen Russell, Actor for (Nick Valentine, Codsworth, My Handy) in Fallout 4 which is a vast open world role playing game set in the apocalyptic wastes of Boston, the Commonwealth. The career goes further with other Bethesda games from Starfield to Prey to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Replaying Skyrim after 13 years is a reminder of the progress made in western RPGs over the last decade, but also what's been lost.
RPGs are often huge, sprawling endeavours. With limited playtime, we have to choose wisely, so here's the best western RPGs available today.
"I started playing games yesterday" the List... Meh!
How about a few RPGs that deserve some love instead?
1 - Alpha Protocol - Now on GOG
2 - else Heart.Break()
3 - Shadowrun Trilogy
4 - Wasteland 2
5 - UnderRail
6 - Tyranny
7 - Torment: Tides of Numenera
And for a bonus game that flew under the radar:
8 - Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden
What confuses me is that the term "MMO" has become ubiquitous with MMORPG's. When someone says "MMO" there's only one thing people think of: RPG's, usually in the styling of....yup, WoW.
As much as games like Guild Wars 2 and TERA have done for the genre, it doesn't really change what they are at heart. You still gather stat-boosting loot, conquer dungeons and compete in PvP...all in order to get more loot. I'll admit it's still fun and addictive at times, especially in the case of games like Guild Wars 2 that play with the conventions a bit, but it's also become so dang redundant at this point.
MMO's have SO FRIGGIN MUCH unexplored potential, so many other genres that could be implemented into the structure, that it continues to confuse me as to why, after so many failures, developers are STILL using WoW as a template to make their games.
That's the problem I'm seeing...the more MMO games we see, the more fans will be split up and these developers will never have the chance to sell the numbers they set out to.
Simply put, much like the other genre's of gaming, certain games have come out that just aren't necessary. How many MMO's start at pay-to-pay and go free? Quite a few and that's pretty telling of how many people are actually still playing them...
Star Trek, D.C. Universe, etc...all probably set out to be WOW killers but couldn't come close.
Hopefully not just better graphics and recycled features