The Most Popular Free to Play MMORPG

We all know World of Warcraft from Blizzard Entertainment is the most successful pay to play MMORPG. So What’s the most popular and successful free to play MMORPG? You might be thinking it’s something 3D and popular like Runes of Magic…. Dungeons and Dragons Online or Even Atlantica Online, but you’re wrong. The title of the most popular free to play MMORPG belongs to MapleStory – a 2D fantasy MMORPG which I’m sure most of you have already heard of. Since Nexon released MapleStory in the U.S. Nexon has been making a killing from the game. Aside from perhaps Kart Rider in South Korea, MapleStory is the most popular free MMORPG Nexon offers. If you look at Nexon’s 2009 revenues, it’s something huge like $500 million. If you look at World of Warcraft’s revenues, it’s something like $600 million.

This isn’t exactly a fair comparison as Nexon publishers numerous other games besides MapleStory – Dungeon Fighter Online, Combat Arms, Atlantica Online (through nDoors), Sudden Attack (Through GameHi) and Vindictus, but these games aren’t nearly as popular as Nexon’s MapleStory. Still though, I think it’s crazy that Nexon is almost making as much money as World of Warcraft. I suspect that in 2010 Nexon will have more revenues than World of Warcraft’s revenues. Again, I understand it’s not a fair comparison, as I’m coming some 15+ games to one game.

What’s the second most popular free to play MMORPG? Probably RuneScape from Jagex. I know a lot of people hate RuneScape, but the game is absurdly popular. Just look how many servers the game has! Jagex recently launched War of Legends, which aims to compete with Caesary from LeKool and Grepolis from InnoGames. These browser based strategy MMOs are actually really popular too. Nowhere near as popular as either MapleStory or RuneScape though.

So there you have it. The two most popular free to play MMORPGs are MapleStory and RuneScape. I still play MapleStory regularly. I tried WonderKing Online, but it didn’t offer the same amount of variety that MapleStory had (Classes, dungeons, skills, areas, etc). I never really liked RuneScape though.

Lost Saga MMO Has Awesome Graphics

Lost Saga, a fighting MMO from OGPlanet, has some really awesome anime inspired graphics. The graphics are actually a mix of Western and Eastern animations, as they blend graphics from games like Cloud Nine from Netgame and Team Fortress 2 from Valve. I’m surprised other new MMORPGs don’t opt for “easy on the eyes” style cartoony graphics, as in my opinion games with brightly colored anime graphics are the best. At least in terms of graphics. I loved the visuals in Battlefield Heroes, Bright Shadow and even Luna Online. One of the main benefits of cartoony graphics is low system requirements. Brand spankin’ new MMORPGs like Martial Heroes and Vindictus look great, but not everyone can play them due to the high system requirements. I figure games like Mabinogi and Secret of the Solstice are popular because they’re easily accessible. Shiny new graphics aren’t always the best, as they require most expensive graphics cards to run.

I think newer games need to start looking closely at games like Lost Saga for inspiration. Lost Saga seems to be the most popular fighting MMO out there and even found its way into the World Cyber Games tournaments. The game is more popular than Mini Fighter Online from Netmarble and Rumble Fighter from OGPlanet. The other reason why Lost Saga is rockin is because of its incredible amount of variety. The game has like 20+ playable characters which can all be leveled up individually. Players can switch between them mid game as well, so if you ever get bored of playing one “class” you can simply switch! Some new games like Heroes in the Sky also have excellent variety, but other newer titles seem to forget that gamers WANT variety. Variety and choice in my opinion is what makes Lost Saga so fun. Gameplay of course is important too.

Seriously though. I appreciate pretty 3D graphics as much as the next guy, but I sometimes think that better graphics do more harm than good. The most popular free MMORPGs today are the simplest ones. Games like RuneScape and Dungeon Fighter Online for example have simple graphics that most computers can run without lag. 3D MMORPGs on the other hand tend to be less accessible all around, at least the newer ones. So MMO Developers. I urge you guys to take a page from Lost Saga’s book and focus on making your games more fun and varied rather than “pretty”.

Dungeon Fighter Online is Finally Here

Dungeon Fighter Online from Nexon is finally released. The game has been in open beta for well over 5 months now and only recently released fully. If you haven’t heard of Dungeon Fighter Online, it’s a 2D side scrolling action MMORPG that plays like Golden Axe. The game’s graphics are 2D and quite poor, but they’re meant to look “retro”. The game has changed significantly since the early Open Beta. The most notable changes include additional content, as the game world has been expanded quite a bit since open beta started. One thing I really like about Nexon is how dedicated they are to their games. I’ve been a long time player of both MapleStory and Mabinogi and Nexon has been doing a phenomenal job keeping all of these games up to date. I think MapleStory was one of the first free MMORPGs ever and one of the most popular. Even though it’s old, it’s been constantly updated, which is why people are sticking with it. Mabinogi too had enjoyed plenty of content updates. I actually quit Mabinogi about 4 months ago, but it’s still a good game. It’s an anime MMORPG, but the gameplay itself is unique.

Anyway, I’ve been playing Dungeon Fighter Online quite a bit over the last few weeks and I love it. I’ve always been a fan of old school arcade action games like Gauntlet Legends and Golden Axe, do Dungeon Fighter Online is a natural fit for me. Even though the game’s graphics are quite bad, they’re original, at least in the F2P MMO genre. The game wasn’t designed to have good graphics. The gameplay is what makes Dungeon Fighter Online fun. The game is a bit linear, sort of like Lunia from ijji, but that shouldn’t be surprising as the game is meant to play like classic arcade side-scrollers. Once you clear all the dungeons in the game though, it could get a bit boring, but there’s enough content in the game right now to keep players busy for many months. Unfortunately though, the fact that the game has a limited amount of content like this is a bit of a turn off for some players. Sure you could keep playing the game, but since each dungeon is basically a “level”, it’s a bit silly to run the same dungeon over and over again. Quests will usually keep you going back to the same dungeon multiple times, but it doesn’t feel too repetitive. Like Runes of Magic and Dungeons from Frogster and Dungeons and Dragons Online from Turbine, Dungeon Fighter Online has a ton of quests to keep players busy.

If you haven’t played the game yet, you’re really missing out. Like all of Nexon’s other titles, Dungeon Fighter Online is free to play, so there’s no reason not to give it a chance. It even has a neat PvP system, so those who like PvP MMORPGs will find something to like in it.

Good Graphics are Over Rated. It's all about Gameplay

I’ve been an MMORPG gamer since the days of Ultima Online in 1999. For me, a good game has nothing to do with graphics, but rather gameplay and gameplay alone. Since I grew up with older largely 2D games, pretty graphics don’t really mean that much to me. I’ve also been a big fan of RPGs since I first played Chrono Trigger when I was younger, so I have an affinity towards turn based MMORPGs. Unfortunately for me though, the only turn based MMORPGs these days that are 2D tend to have lame gameplay. IGG has two big turn based fantasy MMORPGs – Myth War 2 Online and Wonderland Online. Neither are terrible, but neither are exceptional either. In fact, the only good looking 2D turn based MMORPG is Altis Gates, and that isn’t even out yet.

A few weeks ago I downloaded a game called Tales of Fantasy from IGG. It’s their newest game has boasts some impressive graphics. I downloaded it and logged in and play for a few hours. Aside from the pretty animations and environments, I was far from impressed. In fact, I couldn’t even play it for more than a few hours as combat felt stale and moving around from point A to Point B just took too long. I’m not saying all 3D games are over rated, I’m just saying good graphics are over rated. The most important aspect of a game is its gameplay mechanics. If a game isn’t fun, it doesn’t matter how awesome or realistic the graphics are. One of the few 3D MMORPGs I really like is Atlantica Online, but I like that game because of its solid gameplay mechanics, not its visuals. The company behind Atlantica was actually purchased by one of my favorite MMO developers last week – Nexon. For those that don’t know, Nexon publishes MapleStory, Mabinogi, Combat Arms and Dungeon Fighter Online. The last one, Dungeon Fighter Online, being my favorite MMORPG of all time. That’s a story for another day though.

What do you think? 3D vs 2D? Are graphics in MMORPGs important or no? Let me know in the comments below!