MMORPG 101: Massive Multi Player Online Role Playing Games
Have you ever wanted to strap on your armor, meet up with guys and gals from the guild and tackle that dragon issue in the next town? Maybe you need rid the neighborhood of those pesky trolls, elves or humans? How about relaxing by the forge to make that new set of armor you’ve been wanting? Do you ever feel the need to chat with the other smiths? If so maybe Massive Multi Player Online Role Playing Games are your cup of tea.
If you liked to play role-playing adventure games but abhorred the dice and the trekking over to the GM’s house once a week, you’ll enjoy Massive Multi Player Online Role Playing Games. The computer does all the rolling and calculating, and you can play from the comfort of your own home. If you always wanted to be in the middle of you favorite fantasy novel or movie, MMORPGs are a fun escape. If you like to write, the player-to-player role-play interaction is great inspiration.
Massive Multi Player means there maybe hundreds or thousands of players online at anytime on any given server. You can join or form player guilds. You can join a group for an afternoon or you play solo. Heck, you can do all three depending on your mood. Player guilds are great way to meet up with other people to adventure, share resources or chat with friends.
Online means MMORPGs are played on Internet servers. While the artwork is installed on the players computer, the character information is stored on the game server, in other words you have to be logged into the server to do anything with the game. There is a monthly subscription fee for online play. The fee varies with the game it’s usually around $12.00 to $15.00 a month.
Once you install the game and establish an account, pick a server and create a character. In most games you start out in an area with low-level monsters that lets you get a feel for the game and your character’s class. Your first character may not work out quite the way you expected. If not you can delete him or her and start over, or you can just start a new one and come back to your first character later.
Role-play is becoming the character or imagining what you would do if you were the character. It’s fun to get inside the head of your character. Some players create elaborate backgrounds for their characters. Some don’t, not everyone wants to get inside the head of a troll or an undead creature. You can role-play as much or as little you like. Depending on the game, there are servers dedicated to avid role players (RP); these servers tend to be more strictly monitored for appropriate naming and out-of-character (ooc) conversations.
Sure you can beat that computer generated Dragon every time, but what about that guy over there? You know, the one looking at you funny? Can you take him? Will his friends avenge him before you can clear out? Player vs. player is not for everyone. Some people find it more challenging to match themselves against other players. Some just find it anti-social and annoying. If you like the challenge of PvP there are servers or specific areas dedicated to this style of play.
RP servers are not always the friendliest servers and PvP servers are not always the most challenging servers. Experiment with a couple of different servers before you invest time into one server over another because characters can’t usually be transferred from one severs to another.
Every game is a little different in the way it set up classes and skills. In general you have combat skills and trade skills. You develop the combat skills by fighting monsters or players. Trade skills are developed by making things like armor, weapons or potions. In most games the best armor is player made to encourage a healthy economy and player interaction. You can gain experience and special items through quests given out by various non-player characters (NPC’s).
A broadband connection isn’t required to play most MMORPG’s but it does make them more playable and enjoyable. Lag or latency is an issue at some time or other in all games. Lag can be caused by too much information being transmitted from server to server, or may be caused by to many programs running in the background of the players computer, or sometimes it’s caused by heavy internet traffic or sometimes there is no identifiable reason.
To avoid lag keep your computer free of ad and spy ware. Take unnecessary programs out of your start-up menu, programs like MS Office and Quicken have no good reason to run in the background and just take up system resources. Keep your video drivers as up to date as possible. If lag is a consistent problem, try a different server; sometimes the routing your Internet connection uses goes though a traffic jam on the Internet.
MMORPG’s are periodically updated through patching. Patches add new items and features or fix bugs in the game. There are two different types of patches. The program on the player’s computer can be patched, and the server its self can be patched. The servers are not available while a server patch is being done to the server. Player patches usually download pretty quickly and the player is on his or her way. Once in a while a patch, despite through testing, will cause unexpected problems. On the bright side patching is how new and fun stuff is added to the game.
As games grow and gain players etiquette develops specific to the game. The most common etiquette revolves around getting experience for kills. Kill stealing is accidentally or intentionally ‘stealing’ the credit from another player’s kill. Other points of etiquette develop for joining and leading groups. In some games players that are too high or too low will significantly alter the rate which other members gain experience (XP) for their characters. Your account probably won’t get banned for ignoring the game etiquette, but ignoring it won’t make you very many friends either. That said there is always a learning curve no one will expect the character that just popped in at the starting point to know all the ins an outs of the game, and there is always a higher level player either starting a new character or passing by who can help. In some games there are even newbie helpers to answer questions, newbie helpers are usually volunteers so they can’t help fix anything broken in the game.
Communicating with other players can be tricky. Sometimes you have a chat box interface and sometime you have cartoon bubbles or floating words about the characters head. Some games have both. Emoting is representing an action with words, like -wave-. Some emotes have animation built into the game, like -dance- and you little cartoon will do a dance. You’ll get used to it, before long you’ll find yourself emoting in real life.
Every MMORPG has its nuisance and cheating players, unfortunate but true. If someone harasses you in game you can report him or her to a Game Master (GM) the GM may or may not be able to something at that moment, or they may be able to observe the other player. Players who employ cheat programs if caught are given at least a temporary ban and have a warning placed on their account. Be wary of the ‘helper’ programs you find on other sites most of them are prohibited by the user agreement that you agree to, in order to login to an MMORPG. If in doubt, and you want to keep your account, don’t use helper programs.
Try on a few different faces and see if you like them. Remember to have fun.
