MMORPGs: Stagnet Storytelling Waters

MMORPGs are very fun to play with your friends and a healthy way of escapism into a fantastic world where you can be a bloodthirsty warrior or cunning mage, without ever leaving the comfort of your home. However, I feel MMORPGs in general have slammed into a rut of repetition and I’m wondering about the ultimate future of massive online gaming.

Of course when someone hears MMORPG World of Warcraft automatically comes to mind. I personally love the storytelling and the beautiful world Blizzard created to involve gamers with world events similar to real life.

With the “Cataclysm” expansion coming out soon for WoW, everyone is excited and chatting away about the dramatic changes happening to the world. I am also excited, but I still feel like it’s just a thin cover to keep older players on while immense repetition remains.

Honestly, I forget there is even a story while I’m clicking away through quests without much concern for the outcome. My choices do not matter, I do not need to take quests, the world will do just fine without me completing the dungeon. This is where MMORPGs fail in storytelling, the world ultimately doesn’t change due to player participation.



MMORPGs are becoming stagnated in this lack of flexibility within the world. I think it’s time to change the repetitive quest and create a world where every choice can you change the environment.

Tabletop RPGs consider the player’s choices and by directly engaging players; it makes the story more personal and fun to play. Imagine if your choices on a MMORPG changed the game, it would make the story matter again and engage the player to think wisely.

It would pose new challenges to storytellers, game developers and players, but there is a surplus of creative people up to the challenge of allowing players to shape the game.

I do not believe technology is up to standard to keep up with this immense idea in MMORPGs, but when they can, whomever does it first will blow all other MMORPGs out of the water and bring life back online.



Not everyone will be happy with this new engaging idea, but there could be special servers who just support repetitive quests and flat plots. But, I believe it will re-invent MMORPGs for the better by keeping the player on their toes and playing to see how their choices change the world.

Dungeons and Dragons Online; shoulda, coulda, woulda, wasn't

Quickie: This cake was a lie!

Dungeons and Dragons Online


I have attempted to play the tabletop version of Dungeons and Dragons (DD) with my friends, but the games always seemed to fall through. But I did find Dungeon and Dragons Online (DDO) and it was “free”.

Liars. It was only free until level four. Not only that you have to pay to register and guild and to access some dungeons, what the hell.

It was not a bad game visually, it was actually like Guild Wars in style because it was mostly colored in bland colors like brown. At least World of Warcraft (WOW) had some color, it just felt too real to be fun, no escapism could be found in the repetitive sewer dungeons or towns, which was all you could do, unless you paid.

In other RPGs with my friends, like Exalted, the dungeon master (DM) was a least creative and gave us unimaginable challenges that gave us a mental workout, but with DDO it was the same dungeons with three different monsters.

Not only that, but if you wanted the good equipment you had to go through the dungeon again on a different difficulty. What a horrible way to extend playtime, it’s like a bad NES game tactic.

Also, the character choices are minimal:
human
pointed ear human
husky small human
small human

and the other two choices, dark skinned pointed ear human and molted giant human, the Warforged, weren’t available unless you paid. I will never complain about WOWs verity again after seeing how little imagination went into creating races for DDO.

The way you controlled the character was also very difficult. From what I understand the mouse was used for character movement/targeting and the keyboard dealt out spells, special attacks and abilities. This was at least how I play it, but DDO decided to make the left mouse key attack, requiring you to move with the keyboard.

It was jumpy, hard to control and why the hell did they change a good system? I wonder if they even test their ideas sometimes.

I also do not understand why they include what dice was needed for the attack, even if you didn’t actually use dice rolling in the game.

It was also unbalanced in solo playing, but DD was based on group campaigning, so unless you like groups, I would stick with something else, like Navy Field or WOW, which has excellent balance in solo characters.

Monotonous dungeons, enemies, character designs killed this game for me. I expected time and creativity to be poured into it, but found average graphics covering up horrible gameplay.

DDO was a killjoy to the creative tabletop franchise dooming nerds to their homes and fanfiction. Don’t play it, pretend it never happened.