Conquer Online is Really Popular

Apparently the 2D MMORPG Conquer Online from TQ Digital is incredibly popular. I’ve heard of the game before and have played several other TQ Digital games including Eudemons Online and Zero Online, but never Conquer Online. Just yesterday I decided to give the game a try, as I’ve seen ads for it on a few sites and wanted to see what the big deal was. To no surprise, the game’s visuals were very much similar to both Eudemons and Zero Online. It seems like all the games from TQ Digital run off of the same exact engine game engine. The Way of the Five, The Warlords, Crazy Tao and the other MMORPGs published by TQ Digital are the exact same way. I don’t mean to say this in a bad way, as the visuals in Conquer Online aren’t bad. I say not bad, because even though the graphics aren’t Karos Online or The Pirates of the Burning Sea style “shiny”, the visuals are good enough to get the job done. To be honest, I don’t like it when games dedicate all their resources to trying have the newest and best possible graphics out there. I mean just look at games like Archlord from Webzen and RF Online. Both games launched as great looking MMORPGs, but over time their graphics lost their flare. Both games are considered fairly “ugly” by today’s standards, especially with games like Vindictus and to a lesser degree Dynasty Warriors Online pushing the boundaries of graphics.

The way I look at it – if a game is 2D, the graphics won’t really age that much over time. 2D games most certainly age better than 3D ones. I mean just look at Istaria and Planetside – both games launched as games with ground-breaking graphics, but today they’re nothing special. Personally, I think the visuals in some 2D MMORPGs like WonderKing, MapleStory and Fists of Fu to be great. New MMORPGs with 2D graphics like Angels Online from IGG and Myth Angels Online from UserJoy pull off solid 2D visuals. One huge, huge, advantage (notice how I said huge twice to emphasize the importance?) of 2D games over 3D ones is that they’re more compatible with older PCs. Not every PC in the world can play Alliance of Valiant Arms, but MOST PCs can handle Dragon Raja or Destiny Online from EnjoyMMO. A lot of my friends actually can’t play Runes of Magic, even though they want to. This makes me question whether it was a good idea for the game’s devs to make the game so good looking. This might sound a bit ridiculous, but it makes sense. Games like Final Fantasy 14 which demand absurdly powerful PCs are sort of screwing themselves over. People who want to play these game’s cant, because they don’t have amazing graphics cards – so what do these people do instead? They download and play games that their computers can handle. Games like Mission Against Terror and War of Angels which don’t demand $2,000 PCs to play. Because MOST gamers can’t always keep up with the latest technologies.

Anyway, I ranted for quite a while. What I really wanted to say is that Conquer Online isn’t a bad game. It’s not exactly my cup of tea, as the experience rate is way too fast. It’s almost Jade Dynasty or Magic World Online style throwaway because you can pretty much kill everything on the screen with your most basic attacks. I Think game developers need a better way to eliminate grind from MMORPGs without doing it with a built in bot.

Bad MMORPG Ideas

There are good ideas and bad ones. Good ideas in the MMORPG industry led to games like Soul Master, Atlantica Online and Battle of the Immortals to get developed. Bad ideas on the other hand led to the development of some terrible games. Games that are so awful that I’m surprised were even developed in the first place. So what MMOs fall under the “bad ideas” category? Read on!

The first “bad idea” MMO that first pops into my head is Racing Star: Come on Baby from Alaplaya. Now get this. Racing Star is a Baby themed racing MMO. That’s babies racing in strollers at speeds upwards of 100 KM/H with cute anime inspired graphics. Now not only is this a bad idea, but it’s an incredibly stupid one. I’d be embarrassed if anyone saw me playing it. Needless to say, Racing Star is no Need for Speed World Online. In fact, it’s a game that I wouldn’t want anyone to have to endure. I played Avalon Heroes from Alaplaya as well, and without a doubt Racing Star is the worst game by this European publisher. Play S4 League or Florensia instead. Two good games by the same publisher. Whoever green-lighted the development of this the atrocious racing MMO racing star should be fired and black listed from any future jobs in game development.

The next bad MMORPG I had the misfortune of playing was Blitz 1941 from TwoWar – the same company who published NavyField. I can say with absolute certainty that Blitz 1941 is the worst free to play game ever. Much worse than Racing Star. The game’s translations are so bad, it’s laughable. Even worse than the notoriously poor translations in Age of Armor from Snail Games and Magic World Online from EnjoyMMO. The gameplay itself is boring too. I’d much rather play mine-sweeper or solitaire than this horrible world war 2 MMO. Save your time and play World of Tanks Online or Tank Ace instead. Both much better tank games. Whoever decided to license this game is a failure.

The last terrible game I want to mention is Crazy Tao from TQ Digital. Why is Crazy Tao bad? Well. Simple. It’s the exact same game as Eudemons and Conquer Online – except worse. It plays EXACTLY like these two other games. All the spells are the same, the controls are the same and the visuals are largely the same – except a bit more cartoony. There is absolutely no reason to play this terrible 2D MMORPG. Stick with Eudemons Online instead. Avoid Crazy Tao at all costs. It’s crazy bad.

So what does this have to do with 2D MMOs? Well some of the games I mentioned were 2D, so It’s relevant to my blog . Did I miss any terrible free to play games? Let me know!

Zero Online is a Fun MMORPG

Zero Online is a fun 2D Sci Fi MMORPG. I think a lot of other MMORPGs would benefit by looking at Zero Online and copying some pages from its playbook. The first good thing about Zero Online is that it can run on almost any computer. The game has very plain, yet appealing 2D gaphics which can run smoothly on a Pentium 3 computer, making the game very “accessible” worldwide. A lot of fancy new MMORPGs like Dungeons and Dragons Online from Turbine and Age of Conan from Funcom have absurdly high system requirements that a lot of people can’t meet. Game developers need to realize, not everyone has a super gaming computer. The most popular free MMORPGs are usually the most “accessible” ones. Games like MapleStory and RuneScape for example. Another good aspect of Zero Online is that it has fast leveling. This one is a bit controversial probably, but I really like games that have a fast experience rate. I think most people will agree with me on this one. No one likes to grind for hours on end just to level up once. In Zero Online you can reach level 50 in under 4 hours. In most MMORPGs reaching level 50 takes 4 weeks.

Zero Online is also win because the game had “job advancements” very frequently. One thing I really disliked about MapleStory, even though it was such a great game, was that job advancements felt way too far away from each other. I think everyone could make it to the level 30 advancement in MapleStory, but very few people made it to the level 70 one. In WonderKing from Ndoors, it’s even worse. The first advancement is at like level 120 or something ridiculous. Job advancements should be easy to reach, as people like upgrading their characters. In Zero Online, players could advance their characters every 15 levels or so, which made the game progess a lot faster. For some reason I really like Zero Online, but I don’t love Conquer Online or Crazy Tao, both of which are from the same publisher – TQ Digital. TQ Digital did a great job with Zero Online in my opinion, but their other games are only so-so. I think Conquer Online is their most popular game though. Their upcoming MMORPG Heroes of Might and Magic Online looks awesome though. But time will tell if its actually good or not. As is, the game has no North American release date, so it could be a while before it releases.

Obviously not every aspect of Zero Online is good either. The game only has two playable classes, which is terrible. Modern MMORPGs should have at least 5 classes and ideally more. I love it when games have lots of classes. I guess it’s a reason why I like MapleStory a lot. MapleStory has like 12+ starting classes, which is awesome. I’d like to see TQ Digial add more characters to Zero Online, as is the game only has two and it really sucks. What’s worse is that the artillery class is absurdly over powered compared to the game’s melee class. So yeah, Zero Online isn’t perfect either, but it’s a good game.

Only 2D MMORPGs

There’s one free to play MMORPG publisher that ONLY makes 2D MMORPGs. This company is TQ Digital and they don’t have one 3D MMORPG. I think TQ Digital is the only major MMORPG publisher that only has 2D games. IGG has a bunch of good 2D turn based MMORPGs, but they have 3D games like Tales of Fantasy and Zu Online. TQ Digital currently publishes 5+ games, but out of all their games my favorite is Zero Online.

Zero Online is a sci-fi MMORPG with fast paced gameplay. I like it because the game has an incredibly high level cap (120+) as well as a really high XP rate. I played the game for a couple of hours and really liked it. The combat itself isn’t anything special, but it’s so fast paced that it’s hard to stop playing. Unfortunately the game only has two playable classes and a handful of maps, so the game doesn’t have a lot of variety. I found that the Artillery class in the game is absurdly over powered compared to the melee character. Another reason I like Zero Online is that the game is one of the only 2D sci-fi MMORPG out there.

Aside from Zero Online, TQ Digital also publishes The Warlords, Eudemons Online, Conquer Online and Crazy Tao. The only game from TQ Digital that I strongly dislike is Crazy Tao, and that’s because it’s so similar to Eudemons. The game has no originality. The only difference between the two games is that Crazy Tao is a cute MMORPG, while Eudemons has more realistic 2D graphics. On the positive side though, I think cute graphics look nicer on a 2D platform, but no one really plays Crazy Tao anyway. Eudemons Online is just better in every measurable way.

So if you guys haven’t heard of TQ Digital or haven’t played Zero Online, I strongly recommend you guys give the game a download. It’s only 500 or so MB, so it won’t even take up a lot of space on your hard disk. What do you guys think of TQ Digital?