Nintendo could learn a few lessons from Asheron’s Call, an MMO about to sail off into the sunset.
Raid bosses are easily in my opinion the most important aspect of MMORPGs. Games that fall into a different genre may be more dynamic, but only here will tens and sometimes hundreds of players need to come together and work together to defeat an epic boss in a raid. Just simple getting together as many players as possible is not enough to determine your success. Players usually need to use trial and error with a number of different strategies before they can actually take down the boss. All this is done in order to test the weaknesses, come up with an effective approach and correctly coordinate players in the raid.
Over time, the concept of an “epic boss” has become rather blurred. Colossal monsters, the destruction of which requires a long preparation time, and then became just another episode from grandma’s fairy tales. Some raid bosses have already gained the “cult” status, and veterans of MMORPGs could tell you a dozen stories about those legendary fights. Fextralife's author tried to select the most powerful bosses who once upon a time, caused a burning sensation and will certainly awaken stirrings of nostalgic feelings from experienced raiders!
Haha, yea that's why I had to quit FFXI in the mid 2000s. The game had so many ridiculously long raids and fights. Not to mention the long ass NM camps w tons of gold selling bot users waiting to snatch the kill. So frustrating bc they were always there. Some were close to 24 hour camps if I remember. Some shorter. I loved the game & community, but had to walk away. Too demanding. Pandemonium is after my time.
Turbine has renewed the Asheron's Call domain for a long period of time, yet initial indications don't point to a return for the MMORPG.
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Test Drive Unlimited was awesome, the driving mechanics were pretty poor but the island was fantastic and felt huge. I regularly would race around the outside edge of the map in a loop, each lap would take about an hour in real time.
Player run servers are the future.
Didn't know Red Bull's site has articles about gaming.