RPGs are – and by design, most stories as a whole – a series of escalating events. Final Fantasy VII started off as the eco-terrorist group blowing up a nuclear reactor as a means to preserve the planet’s rapidly-dwindling lifeblood. Then the character Sephiroth comes in, and suddenly the player is navigating the world trying to find this ultra-badass warrior and exact revenge. And when you do find him, the game becomes a race against the clock to keep Sephiroth from destroying the planet in his rite to become a god. Millions of players around the world engage such grand schemes on a regular basis.
Now imagine if all those players could talk to each other. Imagine if these players could join forces and grow stronger from the experience. That is the power of the Internet. That is the basis for a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (otherwise known as a MMORPG).
MMORPGs set themselves apart from other games by the innovative concepts they embody: firstly, the character creation process. Players design their “avatars” – the physical representation of their game characters – from a slew of options. You could be male, female, human, alien, warrior, thief, wizard, dwarf, or some strange combination of them all: the possibilities are endless. You can literally be anything you want to be in a MMORPG.
But the customization doesn’t stop there. Each avatar has an occupation or “class” that governs the way the character stats (strength, speed, etc) grows and how they function in combat. But since MMORPGs are all about character evolution, most MMORPGs have the option of class advancement: once a certain number of stats are reached, the player has the option to “upgrade” their character by choosing one of many “advanced” classes, each one focusing on a particular ability the main class possesses but on a higher scale.
Take for example the Thief from the Seiken Densetsu 3 RPG: an agile character whose specialty is dual-wielding (one weapon in each hand). The Thief emphasizes spells that temporarily weaken the enemy, allowing other players to come in and finish them off. Once the Thief reaches a certain level of stat progression, the player has the option of upgrading the Thief into the Ranger and Ninja classes, each with their own unique techniques and battle skills.
Rangers’ specialty is enemy “traps.” Traps usually involve hitting the enemy with a negative status (poisoning continually drains enemy health during combat). Another trap changes the enemy into a weaker form of itself, allowing for easier extermination.
The Ninja, on the other hand, possess elemental spells that strike all enemies at once. This makes the Ninja ideal for enemies who possess an elemental weakness (an ice giant is vulnerable to flame, etc). While that kind of battle mechanic is often found in Wizards, the Ninja boasts a higher physical defense and a set of stronger armor, giving the player to switch between physical and magical combat.
But the fun doesn’t stop there. Later on the aforementioned classes can be further upgraded into the Wanderer, Rogue, Ninja Master and Nightblade. These classes take their predecessors’ skills and augment them further, making them a powerhouse in combat (if their skills are used correctly).
This is only the merest fraction of the MMORPG world. Join me next time as we go deeper into the rabbit hole. Until then, have fun.
Worldwalker 