Trends in MMORPG Gaming

While online gaming may have had its humble roots in the first person shooters and real time strategy titles, the recent trend of Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games has become astounding and to a degree exceptionally irritating. While the stalwarts of the genre are gradually done away with and the new kings arrive on the scene, gamers are forced to trudge through a minefield of terrible titles. The sad fact of the matter is that this trend seems to be really just beginning, without no end truly in sight. However, trends in the genre are also pointing towards the upside.

With the overwhelming success of World of Warcraft, one would be led to believe that large and small developers would have to pull out all of the stops in order to have any chance of competing with Blizzard's monster. When Sega's Phantasy Star Online was released, it receieved critical and financial success almost instantly, even for an ultimately doomed Sega Dreamcast. However, even with all of the massive anticipation for Phantasy Star Universe (which was released for PS2 and Xbox 360) it fell immeasurable short of any and all of those anticipations. The game, even with its new features, was largely dull and repetitive. So much so that it won several largest disappoint of 2006 awards.

The failure of Phantasy Star Universe undoubtedly recalled memories of other online console RPGs that ultimately failed such as Everquest Adventures Online. The games do not stand up well to their PC counterparts and usually fall short in every facet, most notably the community feel that is meant to be experienced in any MMO title. Previous failures could be contributed to the lack of hardware available with video game consoles. While the computer is constantly evolving, the video game console remains the same for the entire duration of its lifetime.