View Single Post - Do You Play MMOs?

Kilamon · Rated XXX

It really depends on the MMO. Hellfire is right in that EQ2 has higher requirements because the world environment has more realism and aims for a beautiful location with all the bonus features that something of that nature would entail. What you wind up with is something like a fantasy MMO that has an immersive visual quality. Other MMOs like EQ1 retain their lower requirements for hardware and that means lower polygon counts. Still others aim higher and from what I can tell, the Stargate MMO will have the highest requirements to date. WOW's requirements are indeed low and they create a similar immersion by avoiding a realistic look and obtaining a look that is more like playing in a cartoon, which I feel is almost a parody of the genre; the gnomes are more gnome-like, the elves have 3 foot long ears, troll tusks are extra pronounced, etc.

As far as reviews go, you'll likely never see the same results for any 2 reviewers, even on the same hardware. This is due to some MMOs being processor bound, like EQ1 and 2, which requires them to use shedloads of CPU to handle the work of placing players in their places, the logic for weapons, monsters, spells, etc, and of course the networking and other requirements. Other MMOs are not as processor bound and allow the centralized servers at the farm to handle that work, both reducing the load for the client stations and increasing network requirements. This is especially true for Blizzard's implementation as they attempt to stop players from cheating and scanning their systems for running applications, a tactic attempted by Sony several years ago with EQ1 and subsequently abandoned after the community found out and lashed back with various applications designed to thwart this. Blizzard is now seeing this same thing occur.

Finally, the reason you'll always see FPS games used as a benchmark is because they never change. You will always see the same enemy creature walk that same path until you do something to force the AI to change it. This is true for an MMO as well, though your FPS won't have competition for that spawn point, multiple people fighting in the area, etc. You can record and play back a fight in a FPS and all the same calls can be made to the AI and environment without anything changing. You'll never get that in an MMO.

BTW, I play EQ1. I've played EQ2, WoW, LoTR and Arch Lord. I was never impressed with any as much as EQ1. Although it's graphics are dated and not as pretty as the newer ones, it has an amount of content that cannot be beat, especially since there's over 450 zones. My only real complaint is the current lack of players, though I can't determine how many are on a server any more as SOE removed that feature.