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MMORPG: EVE versus WoW, the quick summary
Sat, 28 Jan 2006

A good single-player or unmassive-multiplayer is a focused experience -- Halflife 2, one of the most awarded games in recent time, is very linear -- like a novel unfolding before the player. It is crafted, not depending on random events. It is excellent fun - detailed, scripted and never derailed - an exciting play-once experience. Quake III, an 'old' game by genre standards, will remain as one of the best 3D-shooters for years to come - designed to strike on nerve and do it well.

The MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) - so-called social games - are the Survivor of the online gaming world. Not so well focused as a single player game, nor as good a multiplayer game as Quake, nor even as good a chat medium as simple old IRC. Of course, what they do provide is a world more life-like in a simulated world than these other mediums -- IRC can get you the twelve year olds, but only an MMORPG can bring a graphicly represented farting twelve year old right into your living room, potty-mouth and all.

I played old text MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) quite a bit -- like Zork but with many players, opposing factions and telnet until your fingers bleed -- and it is amazing to see that WoW really is no different, barring the ratcheting up of graphics. Even there, the graphics are not as modern as say HL2 since they must create an entire world and simply cannot focus on and refine any given area.. but with dozens of players rampaging around you, it certainly brings more to the table. Its been a decade since I played the MUDs heavily (back at school ;) but WoW does bring back some of the grand adventure flavour -- being attacked by a half dozen giant spiders, stung with poison several times over, and having a few real-life other players swing by to fend off the foes. Good times.

EVE and WoW both suffer one problem -- they're shallow games really; for sure there is a lot to absorb at once, but they've got nothing on old school pencil and paper RPGs (so I do look forward to Dungeons and Dragons Online, coming in a month or two). Still, while these games are not so deep, they do offer 'role playing' (action game with skills) in your home in these days when we've all grown up and haven't the time to get together with our friends spread across the globe. So while the games are not so complex (level == skill, stats, toughness, etc), perhaps this is a good thing -- for in our youth, the PnP games were restricted to the nerds.. and here we have games with millions of players. Incredible. Bring the action RPG social game to the home.. awesome! So what if most of those people are twits.. more fodder for the phaser.

Anyway, to sum up my very limited experience with both games -- WoW is more accessible in a way; jump in, your immediate world is safe, and you can buy skills right away; want two handed weapons? Buy it, run off and chop up some monsters. EVE makes you sit back and wait a lot .. learning, observing, flying around a gorgeous seascape of stars all blending into one borish whole. But while WoW is immediately accessible, I would bet almost a fiver that WoW bores after a couple of weeks invested (literally), while EVE probably really only kicks in after a couple weeks. EVE looks like there is more to do when you get tough, while WoW caps out after awhile.

Either way, I'm glad the old text MUDs live on (paid and unpaid, and still successful despite the onslaught of these newer online BG:DA-clone games).. but I'm very glad these new games have taken up arms. What I really look forward to, in the gaming side of my life, is a PSP MMORPG -- bring me a game I can play on the couch, without needing my total attention. My wife deserves my attention, yet my business and work consume it.. I need a casual gamers gamer. As all know.. while I may talk games a lot, it is really because I do not have the time for them, yet think I want more.. or more to point, to code more in that industry. So bring on the casual games that we can all play in our leisure, between Real Life. The real life. Not that diversion one :)

One last comment; it is cool that I know a few folks that play in these worlds. When MUDding, that was really what it was about -- I always played the tough paladin, or the nasty rogue -- either way, interacting with others was what made it interesting. A paladin storming to the rescue, last man standing.. or a thief walking off with someone elses hard earned treasure. Older and unwiser now, I just want to hang out and mug some baddies, so good to know theres friends there to chill with.

MMORPG's are the tailgate party of the 2000's.

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