What Makes a Good MMORPG?

MMORPGs are up and around for much longer than any of the other gaming genres and they still seem to be scooping up more and more players each day. Led by games like World of Warcraft and Old School Runescape, MMORPGs seem to never go out of trend.

Some could even argue that MMORPGs are probably the most addictive gaming genre of all. Players seem to be playing these games for years and they still love it! There surely have been a ton of new MMOs released recently but players still seem to go back to games that were released decades earlier. But what exactly makes a good MMORPG game? How can we tell apart a good MMO from a bad one?

Well, there are a ton of factors that actually make up a good MMO title and according to what I think, here are some of the most important aspects of a good MMO game.

Good MMO Makes you a Part of it

Now the reason why many players hate the modern MMO titles is the fact that they fail to make you feel like you have some say in your story, that you have the power to choose your own path, set your own destiny which is different from other players in the game.

A good MMO gives you the freedom of a sandbox game with some restrictions to keep your head aligned. It doesn't make you feel like you are being dragged through a linear story that apparently thousands of other players like yourself are also going through. A pretty good example of this type of MMOs are World of Warcraft Classic and Old School Runescape, they let you choose your own journeys, your own quests. You can decide where you want to live and based on that you can find different quests than other players leveling in a different part of the world.

It makes you feel like you are creating your own story which is different from other players around you. It's not like there is a big singular storyline that everyone has to follow, but it's more like you are just another explorer or adventurer going through his own adventure at his own pace.

Immersion

Now if it's MOBA or any other gaming genre, the one thing that makes a game worth playing and eventually addicting is the level of immersion. Many of the modern MMOs fail to provide players with immersive gameplay and that level of immersion is mostly achieved through difficulty.

If you have played any of the modern MMOs, you'd find that you don't actually have to pay much attention to the quest that you are trying to complete or the boss that you are trying to beat. And that is mostly because, modern MMOs are more focused on attracting new players who haven't really been in touch with a MMO title before.

A good MMO for me and for most of the other fanboys out there is that there needs to be some sort of consequences to players' actions. I mean games like OSRS demands you to come up with strategies if you are fighting against bosses in the game, you can't show up with half health and messed up build to fight against a boss, you'd most definitely die and you death will have some major consequence, like starting the quest from the very beginning which makes you put more effort into it, thus creating a level of immersion. There has to be some sort of balance so that both the old and new players can enjoy the game at the same time, but if you are a new player struggling with any of the quests you can use OSRS boosting to help you out.

Paywall

One of the worst things that many gamers hate are the paywalls in the free to play games. It just kills the whole sense of competition in games by enabling players to unlock certain things that give them an advantage over other players. It gets worse in MMOs specially because they are supposed to be fair-to-play where all the players can feel like they stand an equal chance.

Many of the successful MMO titles actually use some kind of subscription method that keeps the quality and integrity of the game above anything else. It makes sure that players get to have the best MMO experience and everyone stands an equal chance. However, the cosmetics items are still fun to have in these games and many players actually love them. OSRS is one of the best examples when it comes to cool OSRS items, but that's more of a personal opinion than a fact.

Verdict

These are just a few of the things that I think make up a good MMORPG title. But different players have different opinions as to what actually makes an MMO good. Most of the players that are into this genre for a while would actually agree with this as compared to players who are new to this MMO world.