Massively Forgotten Features: More Socially Aware MMORPGs?

After dropping Fallen Earth for it’s boneheaded move to subscription + non-cosmetic item shop and Global Agenda for it’s balance problems I was in a slight gaming rut.  TF2 was filling my shooter needs, LotRO was beckoning me back and APB is right around the corner.  But like any good MMO Junkie I wanted to try something new, NOW!

Enter Atlantica.  It is an interesting MMO of Korean origin with several non-standard MMO features.  The most easily recognized and talked about being its combat.  Atlantica’s combat is of the turn-based, strategy variety so popular on JRPGs for the past few decades.  However what caught my attention wasn’t its combat but the other thing it does in a non-standard way.  Address the social aspect of MMOs.  Here are few examples.

Dropping Global Agenda

I might poke at it every now and again in the future but tonight I had the match that broke the camels back. There are severe imbalance issues in GA which have gone unresolved since launch. Tonight one of those came to a head. 4 medics on defense on a Payload map.

Probably Dropping GA/BC2

A few months ago I splurged and bought both Global Agenda (GA) and Battlefield: Bad Comapny 2 (BC2).  The reasons were simple.  I was jonesing for a MMOFPS fix and sorely missing Battlefield: 2142 respectively (BF2142).

GA looked promising.  Granted the matches being limited to 10v10 certainly didn’t fit the traditional MMOFPS model but Hi-Rez promised that up to six separate 10v10 matches could have an effect on one another.  Simply put, this never materialized.  On top of that, as a shooter, GA is mediocre, at best.  Generally speaking when one plays a multi-player shooter one expects to be able to drop an enemy within a reasonable amount of time.  In GA this is largely impossible to do except for one or two very specific specs.  I find that in the past few weeks I have played GA less and less.  Not only that but when playing GA I find myself wishing I was playing Team Fortress 2 (TF2).  So unless there is something spectacular in v1.3 I am most likely going to remove this from my regular gaming line-up.

BF2142 took a population hit recently because of a rather horrible lag problem. On top of that BC2 was released which lured quite a few regulars away from BF2142.  So I hopped on the BC2 bandwagon just to get some gaming in with my regular community.  While it is a decent game, and a far better shooter than GA, it is no BF2142.  The lack of built-in tools for command and control makes it a closer kin to TF2.  Unfortunately I already have a game for the general teamwork-with-objective shooter…  TF2.  When I play with this community, especially on the Battlefield games, I am not looking for what TF2 can give me.  I am looking for what TF2 can’t give me.  Tight teamwork, a command structure and the tactical game play those elements foster.  Since BC2 lacks those elements it, too, will probably be dropped from my regular roster of games.  Esp. if v1.51 of BF2142 brings the players back.

According to my XFire profile I have put in 86 hours on BC2 and 76 hours on GA.  I certainly got my money’s worth out of the two games so I don’t regret either purchase.  However I am still left with the desired for MMOFPS action and tactical game play.  Hopefully All Points Bulletin will give me my MMOFPS fix and v1.51 of BF2142 will see my regular server hoppin’ once again.