Most of popular PC MMORPGs have existed for decades, but they still attract huge amounts of players and continue to successfully fight for gamer’s attention against other online games like shooters, MOBAs, mobile games and whatnot. Let’s try to figure out why.
Communication
MMORPGs stay essentially the only type of games that allow for such extensive social interaction and over prolonged periods of time. Сommunication in other online genres is mostly focused on gameplay. Matchmaking makes you play with random people which doesn’t incentivize getting to know your allies and enemies if you’re not settled with only playing private lobbies.
In MMORPGs all the action takes place in a unitary world and social cooperation makes this world alive. Various group activities and player-driven economy require players to develop and maintain strong relationships to handle difficult tasks and achieve more through participating in raids and other mass events. That leads to organized groups of players like const parties, clans and alliances, emerging.
Being socially interconnected is an integral part of MMORPGs, hence why many close online relationships end up becoming friendships and even romantic affairs. You don’t see any other online games focused that much on the social aspect, so if you want to maintain lasting and diverse social relationships there’s no better option than MMORPG.
Roleplay
Being a part of MMORPGs’ virtual societies opens up unlimited opportunities for the roleplay. The genre is known for the exhaustively detailed character development. Every MMORPG has its own lore and backstory which can be used as a starting point for molding the mindset behind your avatar.
Extensive character creation settings, varied armor and weapon design and cosmetic outfits cover up the visual appearance side. Then you pick your role, profession, class by yourself and act accordingly. All the identity tourism here happens in front of actual people component in your immediate environment, not just the NPCs that can’t provide any relevant feedback.
Roleplaying options provided by online RPGs come close to that of the tabletop games but do not request the personal presence therefore broadening the circle of like-minded people you can reach out to. MMORPGs form strong communities of hardcore roleplayers which assemble clans, write guides for newbies and organize international gatherings offline. If you ever wanted to be someone else but didn’t choose the path of a Hollywood actor, role playing is just what you need in your free time.
Game that never ends
As long as the game exists, you can always return there and find things to do. The content is not limited to a specific narrative, allowing for quite much freedom. In a MMORPG, you and other players can entertain each other by launching a big war, spreading rumors and intrigues, taking part in daily events and farming dungeons.
These games are created to ensure a never-ending experience as they evolve with new content, serial expansions and balance updates and the only consistent thing there is your character. It’s only recently that other online genres started to try out the similar approach to various levels of success, whereas MMORPGs have mastered the formula already. MMORPGs make you bond with your character and people around you, and if you truly care it grows with you.
Clan wars
One of the unique features of MMORPGs is its clan system. Being a part of something bigger and contributing your efforts to see it accomplish on the entire world scale isn’t something you observe in other online games, where this aspect is basically reduced to a clan tag in front of your name. Relationships inside clans and clan wars shape a meta game over and above the normal gameplay, providing context for narrative worthy of a decent fiction.
This expands your roleplay by composing the sophisticated social structure of clans with hierarchy and obligations. And, of course, clans usually participate in server wide events, both pve and pvp, allowing you to experience hundreds of players are in total sync, engaging in spectacular battles for the resources and influence.
The political side of the power struggle is almost exclusive to MMORPGs and propagates way outside the in game chats. Stories of shattering betrayals from which dominant alliances fall into ashes or underdogs taking over the server with their endless devotion can even surface in videogames related media sometimes.
Indeed there are other merits to MMORPGs. It is worth noting, that almost all of the older titles aren’t very needy on your hardware and you can play on pretty much any hardware. They can teach you some useful soft skills as you can grind your leadership, speech and planning abilities. MMORPG will always have something special to offer to players, extending its even so massive target audience even further. So why are you (not) playing MMORPGs in 2019?
