Virtual Role Playing

by PRAJESH SJB RANA

FROM ISSUE # 151 (July 2008) | IN THIS ISSUE
	REFER TO FRIEND		PRINT THIS ARTICLE

Do you spend hours on the internet and still find nothing to do? Do you have a good internet connection and don't have any good use for it? Well, let WAVE introduce you to the world of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPGs). A MMORPG is a game that transports you to a distant land, where you can take up the role of almost anyone, from a knight to a simple merchant. The games do not have any AI scripts and are all controlled by human players from across the globe, except for some Non-Playable Characters (NPCs). MMORPGs have been gaining a wide range of popularity and some games have more than a million players. So strap on your medieval chainmail, grab your sword and get ready for some serious dragon slaying.

World of Warcraft (WoW)
Fourth in Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft series, WoW has over 10 million users and hogs about 62% of the online game market, making it the biggest online game to date. WoW provides users with nine classes, Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rouge, Shaman, Warlock and the Warrior. WoW is based on an open environment where players can do as they please and if you get bored doing your own thing, there are the optional side quests to help you advance further into the game. Unfortunately, all of this does not come for free, you have to buy the game, and after you have the game installed , you pay $0.50 per day. Overall, WoW beats all other MMORPGs with its superb game play and open environment.

Final Fantasy XI

The eleventh installment in the world famous Final Fantasy series, FFXI is to Japan what the WoW is to the rest of the world. With more that 3,00,000 logging in per day, FFXI remains as dominant as WoW. The story takes place in the magical world of Vana'diel, where the player has to perform certain tasks and quests to improve the character's powers. Acquiring various rewards and fighting other players on the way to glory, gives it the experience and feel of older RPG games. The game costs as much as WoW and is a bit heavy on the monthly payment, amounting to about $12.95 a month.

Guild Wars

Guild Wars is NCSoft's epic MMORPG, where players can follow two streams of game play, one being cooperative role playing and the other one being competitive player verses player. Guild Wars has won many editor's choice awards, best MMORPG and best game since its release. Guild Wars does not require monthly payments and only requires that you pay for their application.

Runescape
Don't have a very good connection? Then, Runescape is for you. Based on a simple JAVA Platform, Jagex introduces Runescape. It has about five million active free accounts and one million paid accounts. Runescape takes place in the fantasy realm of Gielinor that has been divided into various other kingdoms and towns, each place providing different monsters, quests and rewards.