MMORPG Madness!

by Jake Fiveash

In the beginning, RPGs were usually text-based adventures that involved almost nothing but the story and how it developed. Things evolved, and RPGs were given the treatment of actual difficulty, battle systems, and character customization, but in the end, the greatness of a RPG always fell back to its story.

In the golden era of RPGs, games like Suikoden series, Breath of Fire, and of course the Final Fantasy series always had intriguing battle systems, beautiful graphics, and amusing side-quests. But again, in the end, the playability of the game was decided on how interesting the story was. Story development has always been a major part of RPGs, because simply put, that's what they were made for.

Today, though, an ugly trend is starting to rear its head in the form of MMORPGs, which stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games. Games such as Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot have been out for the past few years, but this trend has never touched the console world. These games, for the most part, are simply character creation, leveling up, PKing (player-killing), and finishing meticulous quests which mainly involve running and finding something, then bringing it to an NPC (Non-Player Character).

I've never really cared for these games, and I have nothing against them, but something is about to change. It's well known that the next Final Fantasy game is going to be a MMORPG. This scares me for one simple reason. Final Fantasy has long been considered by many as the core of all role-playing series, some may disagree, but it cannot be disputed that it is one of the most popular series out there. If a series like this falls victim to the MMORPG craze, what is to say every other developer will try and clone this, and make nothing but MMORPGs?

If this does happen, it may very well be the end of story-driven RPGs, as we know them. I urge each and every one of you who agree with me to send letters to the developers, letting them know your opinion. If enough people try, we can a put to games that are nothing but endless running and boredom. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.