Why no MMORPG review on Gamebanshee

Ares2382 · Post by **Ares2382** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 1:30 pm

This is just a curiousity of mine. I see front page news about various MMORPGs, but I can't seem to remember a single review of an MMORPG on here.

So is it a deliberate omission? And if so just curious what the reasoning is.

If not, can we expect some MMORPG reviews in the future?

Viperswhip · Post by **Viperswhip** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 1:55 pm

Reviewing an MMORPG is difficult. They constantly update and change and thus the reviews become obsolete pretty quickly. They do cover them, giving news and updates and links to reviews. I don't necessarily think they should waste their time on doing a review that will probably be outdated in 3-6 months.

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 4:01 pm

Possibly because a lot of people don't actually consider MMO Hack and slash games like WoW to be RPGs?

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Fri Jun 24, 2011 8:49 am

galraen wrote:Possibly because a lot of people don't actually consider MMO Hack and slash games like WoW to be RPGs?

Well - a "lot of people" have definitions of RPGs wanting to exclude games like Mass Effect series. Yet we see reviews of that still (well, question is if ME3 will get one as a lot of people have chips on their shoulder regarding Bioware these days)

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Fri Jun 24, 2011 9:05 am

Xandax wrote:Well - a "lot of people" have definitions of RPGs wanting to exclude games like Mass Effect series. Yet we see reviews of that still (well, question is if ME3 will get one as a lot of people have chips on their shoulder regarding Bioware these days)

I can't comment on ME as I've never seen it, let alone played. As for Bioware, well they don't exist any more.

vio · Post by **vio** » Fri Jun 24, 2011 5:58 pm

one bad game doesn't tarnish everything they may do in the future, only the quality of their future games will decide that. they made mistakes with DA2, time will tell if they can learn from it or not
as for mmo's, many of them actually contain more RPG elements than some of the recent single player RPGs (eg: the aforementioned DA2) but as has been mentioned their constant changing does make them rather tricky to accurately review. also they're highly dependant on the quality of the community which is also constantly changing and different on each realm, not to mention being mostly out of the developers control

mmo's also tend to require more time and money spent on them than single player games in order to get enough information for an accurate review, and there's a lot of games to review and only so many people to do the reviews so I'd imagine they're a lower priority

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 2:04 am

galraen wrote:I can't comment on ME as I've never seen it, let alone played. As for Bioware, well they don't exist any more.

Sure they do. As much as any other company does where people come and go.

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 7:47 am

Xandax wrote:Sure they do. As much as any other company does where people come and go.

Except that the company is now a department of Electronic Arts, so in reality is EA not Bioware any more. The illusion that it is still a separate entity is just a publicity stunt.

OT Xandax, what is the official answer to the original question? I think someone who knows, presumably only Buck, should clear that up. Although I don't consider them to be RPGs, I suspect I'm in a minority.

DesR85 · Post by **DesR85** » Sun Jun 26, 2011 7:51 am

Ares2382 wrote:This is just a curiousity of mine. I see front page news about various MMORPGs, but I can't seem to remember a single review of an MMORPG on here.

So is it a deliberate omission? And if so just curious what the reasoning is.

If not, can we expect some MMORPG reviews in the future?

Final Fantasy XI and World of Warcraft were reviewed here some time ago, but bear in mind that most of the people frequenting this site are mostly RPG players. Very few are MMO players.

Post by **BuckGB** » Sun Jun 26, 2011 11:57 am

We've reviewed/previewed several MMOs in the past (one of my earliest articles on the site was a hands-on DAoC preview), but there are a lot of complications involved with doing MMOs justice. The biggest issue is the steep time commitment that they require - we just simply don't have the manpower to cover new MMOs in addition to trying to stay on top of the single player RPGs being released.

With that being said, I'd certainly like to publish reviews for Rift, Cataclysm, Global Agenda, Hellgate Global, and any other recent titles. So if anyone out there has a good understanding of the MMO scene and the English language, and would like to do some writing for GameBanshee, feel free to drop me an email or send me a PM.

GawainBS · Post by **GawainBS** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 2:11 am

galraen wrote:Possibly because a lot of people don't actually consider MMO Hack and slash games like WoW to be RPGs?

IF (and a big IF) you happen to meet the right players, WoW (or almost any other MMORPG) is as close (and extremely close at that) as you'll ever get to playing an RPG, since you can actually play out a self-designed role.

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 5:50 am

Ah, so RPG actually means Repetitive Puerile Grind, darn I always thought it stood for Role Playing Game!:laugh:

GawainBS · Post by **GawainBS** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 6:31 am

All joking aside, you can actually play out a role together with other people. Granted, it's pretty hard to find decent roleplayers, but the possibility is there. I've done so myself for several months.

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 7:48 am

I actually agree in principle that the best chance of getting a genuine Computer RPG is online, even in a MMO environment, I just don't think it's happened yet, certainly not in WoW from what I've seen of it.

After all what is the real difference between people getting together around a table, and people getting together around a virtual table? I really had hoped that NWN would be the answer but was dreadfully disappointed, mostly it has to be said because of what I perceive to be massive shortcomings in the 3rd Edition rule set.

GawainBS · Post by **GawainBS** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 8:23 am

I've seen horrible roleplay in *every* system I've played with, and seen brilliant roleplay with as many as well. Even in 4th Edition, although that supports it rather shoddily.
3rd Edition has actually the best support for roleplay, if you want character statistics to have an influence as well, rather than "Let everything decide on the DM's whim."
I do agree that the average WoW player can hardly spell "RPG" without a dictionary, let alone role play. Let's stick to saying that MMORPGs have the most potential for being real RPGs.