by Ron Keith
It's been a bit of a lackluster year for commercial MMOs. What has there been so far? Star Trek Online (STO), Global Agenda, and the ill-fated All-Points Bulletin (APB). Star Trek was only half-finished at release, Global Agenda less than half-finished, and APB set a new record for MMOs, shutting down its servers less than three months after it released.
On the other hand, single-player titles have been on fire. Single-player gamers got Mass Effect II, StarCraft II, and Civilization V, games that dazzled, pushed gaming boundaries with innovative play, and, quite simply, redefined their respective gaming genres. MMO gamers? They got blah.
If you were looking for a new, exciting MMO, this year hasn't been kind to you. Maybe you tried one of those new MMOs, thinking STO or APB would get your blood pumping. They really didn't, did they? You probably played them for a bit, maybe had fun for a while, but there really wasn't much there to capture your imagination was there?
Where was the wow factor? Where was the innovation?
Even if you liked STO – probably the best of this year's sorry lot – you quickly realized it didn't offer much new. There was no sizzle.
When you discovered those paltry three titles weren't going to do it for you, you probably explored some MMOs you never played before. Did you find yourself lost in the MMO desert, wandering from MMO to MMO? Maybe you tried WAR or Age of Conan. Maybe you ventured into the free-to-play (F2P) realm and knocked around there for a bit. If you were looking for something innovative, something to set your world on fire, you only found disappointment, didn't you? Eventually you probably gave up the search, returning to an old favorite like World of Warcraft or Aion or EVE?
Yeah, it's been a disappointing year for MMOs and the implosion of APB has just put an exclamation mark on the dismal pall already cast over the entire genre. But looking ahead, there's hope. Maybe bright, shining hope. Hope starts arriving this month and keeps coming for the rest of the year.
The following MMOs are all scheduled for release, or rumored to be scheduled for release, before the end of the year. All of them look like they might bring some much needed innovation and sizzle to MMOs.
Final Fantasy MMOs have never been considered groundbreaking. Sure, they have great PvE and a game world players love to immerse themselves in, but they've never been thought of as particularly innovative. Square Enix's Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV) might change that.
FFXIV promises to bring something to the MMO genre that has been seriously lacking from the MMOs – a strong, cohesive storyline. Single-player games have incorporated storylines for years; MMOs have ignored them. Just as a good storyline keeps gamers playing a single player game, Square Enix seems to have realized that a good storyline can keep players interested in an MMO and have incorporated storylines that dovetail with FFXIV's quests.
For more information, go here: http://mmogames.com/gamenews/2556/mmo-new-releases:-here-comes-some-sizzle/
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