5 Most Disappointing Games of 2014 (So far) - #4: The Elder Scrolls Online

Continuing on from #5: Destiny the next most disappointing game that I experienced is 'Elder Scrolls Online'; Bethesda's first attempt at making its historically single player game into an MMORPG experience. Admittedly it was always kind of expected that this game wouldn't be very good but, nevertheless, it was one of those games where I jumped straight onto the hype train. Whilst I hoped and prayed that it may not be as bad as what everybody was expecting it to be and gleefully anticipated the opportunity to play Elder Scrolls with friends, I was disappointed, though not surprised.

#4. Elder Scrolls Online

Developer: ZeniMax Online Studios

Genre: MMORPG

Release date: April 4th 2014

Platforms: PC, (Early 2015/Late 2014: PlayStation 4 and Xbox One)

ESRB: M - Mature

This game was a knife to my heart though admittedly I would probably still go on to buy it on console when it comes out since there are supposedly going to be several changes to improve it. As a lover of Elder Scrolls and a ‘frequent flyer’ when it comes to MMOs I eagerly anticipated the return to Tamriel and, although I enjoyed myself to some degree, the game was disappointing. It was perhaps naively optimistic to hope that the joining of a famously single player game with some multiplayer aspects would result in something beautiful but instead the two parts clash constantly. Whilst quests can be completed together the narrative focuses on you as an individual and any immersion acquired within the quest is quickly demolished by the sight of several other people performing the same ‘individualized’ quest. In quests leading to you making a decision that affects the world around you you can quickly find an incompatibility between your decisions and the decisions of your friends leading you to see two separate worlds and the inability to interact with your friend’s world. You may see enemies that you friends don’t, meaning they cannot jump in to help you as is standard in multiplayer gaming and sometimes you friend may turn invisible such as during the main questline, guild quests and when you’ve made different decisions in certain areas. 

But it’s not just these two halves of a game that won’t fit together; the combat’s targeting system is irritating and the combat itself is clunky with the lag and bugs making it unpredictable. For fans of the Elder Scrolls series you’ll be disappointed at the lack of personality in NPCs, your inability to commit crimes and the complete lack of immersion in that you cannot interact with bodies or objects, fast travel is unrestricted and everything tends to appear out of thin air from fishing rods to horses. This game is infamously buggy and with shed loads of lag but those are likely to be fixed for the console release, if they’re not then there’s a serious problem going on with Bethesda, so I’ll try to ignore those downsides. If you enjoy the Elder Scrolls so much you’ll take anything that returns you to the world of Tamriel then you may get some fun out of it, I enjoy the idea of being able to play co-op and can generally overlook a LOT of negative points as long as I get mine but, still, it’s a very disappointing turnout for what could have been a fantastic edition to the series. 

The Good:

• Decent crafting system
• Environments quite nice
• Nice variation of creatures and enemies
• 'Skyrim' with friends a nice experience
• Very good voice acting
• PVP is acceptable
• Skills trees are very good though not restricting on your play style
• Character customization is good for an MMO
• Lovely music and audio
  

The Bad:

• Dodgy co-op questing experience
• Very little teamwork
• Quite an empty game world for an MMO
• Limited interaction with the game world 
• Repetitive, clichéd quests
• Not many voice actors, bad writing in places
• PVE is poor, unbalanced at times, boring the rest of the time
• Very laggy and bugged in its current form
  

The Score: 6/10 

Final thoughts: "Despite my reservations I'd probably continue playing this, provided more content is included. As a diehard fan of the series I'll probably take anything that's thrown to me purely so I can play it with my partner, but that doesn't mean it's a good game." 

5 Most Disappointing Games of 2014 (So far)

• #5: Destiny 
• #4: Elder Scrolls Online 
• #3: The Sims 4 
• #2: Thief 
• #1: Watch Dogs

Maple Story - MMORPG Review (Online game)

Maple story is a much beloved free MMORPG that’s got a pretty cutesy, chibi feel about it whilst maintaining classic RPG gameplay, albeit in 2D. To begin with, it’s not a browser based game which is quite common of MMORPGs but I found the 5GB download to be a pretty steep commitment for a new player. The game features very in depth customization of your keyboard and mouse settings, which is the primary means of playing the game, so if you’re not happy with the set up you can be sure to change every aspect of it. The game is quite alluring with its simple, 2D style and promise of far and wide adventures across the land however scratching beneath the surface reveals a game that’s fast falling out of favour with its players.

Storyline and quests

Strangely, Maple story doesn’t really have a storyline though there are a lot of quests to complete and skills to train. The lack of storyline is fairly irksome given that the very name implies that they’d at least be something there. There’s some general reference to some evil Black Mage hovering about in the background and that warriors are needed to eventually, at some point in the future, fight him. Black Mage has been banished for several years now and hasn’t re-joined the fray yet so there appears to be no immediate threat. In terms of a plot that’s all you’re going to get. Players are generally citizens in the world and don’t actually appear to have any sort of ‘hero’ status. You can find out the previous storyline by talking to all the NPCs and slowly piece together why the world is the way it is. If you can consider this storyline rather than a history of the world then I suppose it’s alright; it’s a nice little story but more serves as a form of lore than as something you can interact with and become a part of.

Bright, cheerful and varied environments.

Maple Story’s quests are certainly numerous, if a bit repetitive. There are a lot of quests that tend to be along the lines of delivery tasks, killing a certain number of monsters or collecting a certain number of items. For completing quests you tend to get a lump sum of experience and sometimes a few items like healing potions or a piece of equipment. There are however, absolutely dozens and dozens of quests that require increasingly higher levels to unlock so if you intend to complete them all then you’ll certainly have lots to do.

Music and sound

The music is pretty decent and the style of it changes depending on which area you’re in. The music is very varied in the style and can range from classical string music to some hard-core rock. If you’re in one area for a prolonged period of time the music naturally gets repetitive so you either turn it down or turn it off completely, but the fact the music changes style at all is great. Each skill has its own sound and, like the music, fits in well with the whole feel of the game though the death squeals of certain monsters start to grate on you after a while. Overall, the music is fairly cute and pleasant sounding but tends to get repetitive after continued exposure to it.

Gameplay and content

Gameplay generally consists of increasing your stats and levelling up your character by combating monsters and completing quests. Players can form guilds together to make these challenges easier and may trade and chat with one another too. There’s a fairly pointless system that allows straight guys and girls to marry one another but that doesn’t stretch to be inclusive of potential homosexual couples, take that as you will. Maple story doesn’t seem to have a great deal of content unless you really enjoy grinding your combat skills by killing stuff and, when judging when an MMORPG is worthy of my time I do tend to look at how much choice players get when deciding what to do today. Maple story certainly is lacking in choice and content as, after levelling up, you don’t tend to get access to something bigger and better you just sort of have to… do it all again and level up some more. New equipment is unlocked quite frequently in the very early levels but after that it becomes less and less frequent whilst taking longer and longer to level up. It’s frustrating that prolonged hard work isn’t really rewarded and it just makes the grind worse. On the plus side, it’s really easy to level up… I guess that’s a plus side because it means the game will be over faster. I’ve spent a lot of time in games that include vast amounts of grinding as I play RPGs quite often but grinding needs to be counteracted by the reward of good content, new areas or storyline progression and Maple Story just lacks reward for what feels like a lot of pointless, hard work.

Yep... still looks pretty good, shame about all the problems.

Maple Story lacks the feature of player killing which is a shame as combat is a core part of the gameplay. Rather than killing your fellow players Maple Story would prefer it if you worked with them instead. A large aspect of Maple story revolves around the community and playing with groups of people, for instance, through team-quests. This is the kind of game you’ll want to play with friends as it makes levelling up so much easier, especially in later levels. Of course, since there are so many people who play this game you’ll have no trouble finding others to buddy up with and help each other out. This brings me onto the community of the game which, due to the focus on team playing, is extremely important.
Community

Every online game has its good players and its bad players, that’s simply the way things work. You’ll always find people who are selfish, greedy, disrespectful or just plain irritating and that’s kind of a part of playing with people you’ve never met before. So, I was expecting a degree of those kind of bad attitudes but what I was not expecting was the sheer amount of it. In a game that encourages teamwork you’d expect there to be some kind of incentive for people of all levels to be able to work together, where a higher level working with a lower levelled player was of no detriment to either player. I’m reminded of certain MMORPGs where experience gained is relative to your own account when working in groups, not relative to those around you. Unfortunately in Maple Story it’s just simply inefficient to help out or buddy up with low levelled players because it produces less experience and thus is more time consuming. Kill stealing is quite common where, when you’re about to kill a monster, someone else comes in and nabs it thus gaining the experience. In the current release of Runescape that used to be quite common however it was changed so there’s no incentive to be a dickhead to other players and all experience was guaranteed to the player what clicked the monster first. Simple system, discourages kill stealing. Maple Story simply lacks incentive to be nice to one another and actually passively encourages bad sportsmanship.

Graphics and environment

The game looks good, no doubt about that, as a side scrolling 2D game it’s taken on some fairly impressive graphical features. Everything is very bright, colourful and detailed with a very traditional chibi style that relays it’s South Korean and Japanese origins. The backgrounds that are inaccessible behind the primary area are detailed and beautifully shaded whilst not being too intrusive on the main area of gameplay. The fact that the game is actually a platformer of floating islands is quite interesting and it sometimes feels like an RPG in Rayman’s world though with a completely different graphical style. Your character itself is very well detailed and any change in armour or equipment is very visible on the character which is great given how hard you have to work to get something that’s of a higher tier. Overall, everything is beautifully animated and incredibly sharp with lots of nice little embellishments that give additional character to each new area you discover.

 

Lots of hacking and slashing and attention to detail found here.

The environments of Maple Story are quite varied and the game world is actually rather large. There are dark creepy woodland areas and bright, grassy regions too. The game consists of different islands, some bigger than others, and you can visit them as you progress through the game which is nice as exploring new worlds is a great part of RPG games. The regions of the game are all very distinct and interesting and there are plenty of towns and cities with their own unique background and style.

Pay to win capacity

Unfortunately there are many aspects of the game that revolve around the purchasing of ‘NX points’ such as character customization which, if paying for clothing isn’t bad enough, all expires after 90 days of use. A lot of new features that are brought into the game usually come with the little ‘if you pay for it’ clause that is very off-putting in an online game. Obviously, all companies need to make their money but no player likes to feel like they’re getting a raw deal with weak content but plenty of overcharging. The cash shop also features items that are not just cosmetic but that provide users with an in-game advantage over other players. By purchasing benefits that prevent experience loss upon death, double exp or full on exp buffs it seems as though ‘pay to win’ may be a big problem for those looking to play this game, for free, on an equal playing field. Most of the things in the cash shop are cosmetic such as pets and clothing though the ability to get married in game will cost you somewhere between $10 to $30, depending on how much your love is worth. Thankfully there are no subscription costs and NX points are not a necessary purchase so you can quite happily enjoy this game without spending a penny.

Overall

I find Maple Story to be lacking in any worthwhile content due to the strong focus on killing monsters. The quests are repetitive and fairly boring but the dialogue between yourself and NPCs is quite ample. It’s quite hard to get on servers and I frequently experienced crashing and disconnections with no real help from the support team. The community isn’t particularly good either. Whilst I usually wouldn’t a blame a game for what kind of people play it I believe there should be a means of not making new or lower levelled players an inconvenience on the rest of the community. The fact that those with greater real world wealth can purchase stuff to give them an in-game advantage is a pet peeve for me and whilst I don’t mind cosmetic items I don’t agree with double or buffed experience purchases. Maple story looks and sounds wonderful but its surface charm quickly dissipates with actual in game experience.

Score: 5/10

Runescape 3 - MMORPG Review (Online game)

Runescape is one of those games that has been around for quite a long time now and has been given a new face several times over. Our current release of Runescape is Runescape 3 with updated graphics, combat system and quests that are gradually all being given top quality voice acting and music. Generally I’ll be looking at this game from a F2P point of view but bare in mind that the members side of things gives a lot of additional content including mini-games, higher tiered equipment, additional resources and means of levelling up at higher levels and things like player owned houses and a huge map area. 
 
Graphics and environment

To begin with, the free player map is actually quite large and includes several different areas such as cities, desert regions, swamps, forests, mountains and the wilderness. There are mines and underground dungeons to also explore and train in. The graphics are good, considering it’s all in a browser based Java system and what’s better is that the Jagex team are constantly upgrading parts of the game to make it look even better. There is currently the intention to move the game to HTML5 so the game will run smoother and with additional capacity for graphical improvements. The primary means of travel in the game is running about but as your magic level increases you’ll be able to teleport using runes, alternatively, if you visit and unlock them you can get access to ‘lodestones’ that allow you free travel to major areas. Canoes have also become available for free players where you can travel up one large river to various points, though you have to make the canoe yourself. The free player map does not have too many high levelled creatures out to kill you so everything’s quite safe; you need to travel to specific places to find the assortment of high levelled monsters but, especially at lower levelled, several creatures will still attack you. 

Music and sound

Music in Runescape is unlocked as you enter new areas and can be controlled via an in-game music player. A lot of the music is now considered out-dated compared to the new style of music that is being released into the game. Despite this it’s still extremely popular in the community as it’s reminiscent of retro RPG classic games. More than 100 of the old music tracks have been recently re-recorded for the release of Runescape 3 with a live symphony orchestra, making Runescape music some of the best and most atmospheric music in online RPG games. Some quests now have voice acting and where voice acting is implemented it is truly of a fantastic quality. The dialogue is varied, humorous and emotive with no two voices the same. Where implemented, the voice actor’s style truly does match that of the NPC character.

Content

There’s always plenty to do in Runescape and the free play side of it is a great way to introduce you to the game and, whilst many go on to be members, there are plenty who prefer the non-pressurized approach of FTP and the challenge of getting a skill up to 99 without the added additions of member items/areas. Alongside training skills, trading, questing and money making there are several other activities available to free players. A mini-game called ‘fist of guthix’ is a great way to train your magic and the duel arena in the desert means you can fight players in a safe environment. 

It's pretty easy to make money in the game and there's no way to buy in-game coins with real life money. All players have access to player trading and a stock market where you can buy and sell your items with ease. A lot of people use this as a way of making money so if you’re into number crunching then go right ahead and try ‘flipping’ for cash. You earn money in Runescape in quite an organic fashion, through training your skills and selling the materials. If you don’t know what to do with your time in Runescape there are things called ‘daily challenges’ where free players get up to 2 at a time. These challenges will tell you to do something like craft x amount of x or kill x amount of x and then reward you once the task is completed with experience in the relevant skill and trading items if it involved collecting and handing over materials. Daily challenges are a great way to trying out new areas of the game that you may have not yet experienced as it encourages trying out new activities. There is also a task system available in one of the cities where, by completing a set of tasks you’ll get an item with special abilities at the end of it along with a bit of money for each task completed. 

Storyline and quests

The history, lore and religion of Runescape is very in depth and told mostly through quest lines but all of it can be found on the website. A lot of players tend to choose a deity and can show their support through clothing, items, ‘titles’ which show up after your name or, these days, by supporting them in the current war. There are a lot of quests available in the game, almost 200 for members but a comparatively paltry 24 for free players, but generally they’re all pretty good quality. Runescape comes with a great deal of sardonic British humour that makes reading the dialogue very worthwhile. The free player quests are all graphically updated and are of a generally higher quality than the members quests as a lot of the members’ ones are getting on years now. Quest series tends to stretch across a variety of different storylines; from a penguin ‘cold-war’ type takeover, to vampire quest series to elven quest series but these are generally felt by the members more than the free players. Free player quests are generally an introduction to different skills and serve as the opening quest to several long and complicated quest lines that are realized later on in your Runescape career.

Training/grinding

As an RPG game a large portion of the game is naturally dedicated to training your skills and with that comes grinding. Grinding used to be a large part of Runescape and, to a certain degree, still is today so plenty of people pride themselves on their skills due to the amount of hard work and time put into it. Nowadays, a lot of the grinding aspect of levelling up in Runescape has been removed with the addition of bonus experience opportunities, mini-games, alternate and more varied training methods and social training. For free players the grind is still very apparent as many of the updated methods are aimed at paying members. Despite this, little additions like the ability to “make all” rather than individually clicking items is universal and common for all activities so free players are able to reduce the amount of repetitive strain injury endured. 

Player killing is available in this game however it needs to be conducted in a special area; the wilderness. The wilderness is a very area at the top of the map that is home to dragons, a lava maze and several monsters like ghosts, bandits and skeletons. The wilderness was the site of a great war but, these days, is just a burnt out span of landscape. Player killing can also be combated duel arena that has recently made available to free players. Here, players can combat one another in safe circumstances without the risk of losing any items unless you stake gold or items on your own victory using a safe, scam-free system.

Whereas members have 26 skills available to them with training methods all the way up to level 99 (or 120 for dungeoneering) the free playing community have access to only 16 of them, though with the ability to train members skills up to level 5. All free player skills can be levelled up to 99 though this is much harder in free to play worlds due to the lack of high level training methods, it is not however, impossible.

The skills included are: Dungeoneering, Woodcutting, Firemaking, Smithing, Mining, Fishing, Cooking, Crafting, Runecrafting, Magic, Ranged, Prayer, Defence, Strength, Attack and Constitution. The additional member skills include: Agility, Thieving, Hunter, Slayer, Summoning, Herblore, Farming, Divination, Fletching and Construction.

Community

Free players and members are divided off into different worlds so whichever one you pick you’ll find a supportive, lively community of good natured players. This game is generally orientated at teenagers and young adults and the community tends to consist of mature, polite and helpful people who genuinely care about the game and its players. If you’re the type of gamer who isn’t really into group activities and much prefers to play solo then this game supports that 100%. There is practically nothing which requires lots of other people and, in the rare case that it does, the forums are constantly thriving with people who are probably in a similar situation to you. Whereas some online multiplayer games can be critical of new players you’re more likely to find players who are willing to help out somebody who is new as there’s no detriment to them or their skills. Competition for resources is limited to certain skills like combat training and mining and many activities are social and non-competitive like firemaking, where you get bonus experience for sharing a bonfire, or fishing; where resources are not dependent on the number of people fishing. Dungeoneering is a skill that involves descending down levels of a mysterious fortress in the wilderness and is more advantageous to players if done in groups of 2 or more, though it can be done solo, so teamwork is encouraged but generally at your own pace.

In terms of updates, Runescape gets weekly updates and every month you’ll get a ‘behind the scenes’ post showing what’s coming to the game in the upcoming month. The constant updates and tweaks to the game really show how much farther it has yet to come and how alive and supported everything is. Of course, plenty of players will voice their criticism of updates and due to this Jagex have now released player polls so that players get to choose which content is released into the game.

Conclusion

Runescape is a game that is friendly, content filled and constantly evolving into something better. There are very few micro transactions in the game and it’s not one of those ‘pay to win’ games that you often see. As a free to play game it of course has less content than the members version but there is still a lot to do and with no time limit or trial period it means you can play it for as long as you like with no downsides. The tutorial is interactive, simple to follow and thorough in how much it teaches you about the game and it’s a pretty easy game to get into without feeling too daunted. The ability to customize your character with a range of equipment means that no two players often look the same and overall the entire world feels alive and kicking, just what you want out of a multiplayer game. Overall, I rate this game highly as it is addictive, challenging and time consuming but in all the best ways possible. 

MMORPG Score: 9/10

For more information, check out these links:

• Runescape homepage
• Runescape Wikipedia
• Beginner's guide