New to MMO Without a Clue

I was new to online gaming once. I played Counter-Strike and Team Fortress, a little Unreal Tournament and the like. However I got scared off when people decided to begin charging for the pleasure. “I’ve already paid for this!” I cried - “Why should I pay on a monthly basis?”

So I didn’t. Game servers cost money but I didn’t care. Constant updates - big whoop. The only way I was paying to click the mouse was if I got something extra out of it. I wasn’t going to waste time grinding - and paying to grind - when I could spend those same 12 hours doing anything else for free on, say, Newgrounds. I played PS2 games online - again free - but that ended around 2005.

So it was some time until I tried online gaming again. It was Free-To-Play that caught my interest - an online game that was free so long as I didn't want any premium items. Flyff was the first title I tried with the F2P model, back when it was in beta - so about 2007. It involved a lot of grinding and levelling, which was difficult to devote a lot of time to being a new father to two kids and working over an hour away by train and bus. So I stopped playing it - and thus again all online games.

I ignored Team Fortress 2 and new versions of Counter-Strike - I’d played the originals and wasn’t that into FPS titles at the time. Therefore it was the PlayStation 3 and the Transformers Fall of Cybertron demo that became my first serious return to online gaming. I’d given Little Big Planet 2 a try when I first bought my PS3, but that was a year previous and I didn’t spend long on it. It was fun and I gained a few levels by somehow managing to kill some enemy bots in between my many deaths.

However, I still hadn’t returned to an MMORPG since Flyff. And I wouldn’t until I had to review Marvel Heroes 2015. I loaded it up and took some time getting used to the controls - by running through the prologue and mashing the keyboard. I killed (I controlled The Punisher) many thugs and henchmen before being unable to work out how to properly tackle the boss, Black Cat. Her health went down slowly, mine not so slowly and I kept running out of spirit - because apparently guns and rolling use magic, not bullets or stamina. I eventually managed to finish her off and play many hours for the review, actually enjoying myself as I did so. Easy levelling up, not having to travel the land for one person then return to them the long way around… Had I been wrong about MMO being all grinding, little fun?

I continued to play Marvel Heroes for a few days until I got an email inviting me into the closed beta of Transformers Universe. Of course I had entered my name into the draw - it’s The Transformers, so it could have been a sports game and I’d have gone for it. I loaded it up and chose one of the three starters, going into the open country to learn the tutorial. Transformers Universe is third-person whereas Marvel Heroes has an isometric camera, so already it was very different.

I drove about, shot which NPCs it told me to shoot and entered the hangar - this is where it greatly differs from Marvel Heroes. While you’re left to your own devices to follow the storylines in Marvel, in Transformers you can go around the open map outside the hangar and blast Terrorcons, but the main game is PvP. You are put on a match waiting list while you’re busy doing not much, with a randomly chosen map and objective; kill the other team, secure the Energon and such. It was jarring to be blasting Terrorcons and suddenly thrown into a loading screen as it matched you up without warning, but the matches themselves were great fun. The maps aren’t too big and working as a team is a definite advantage. No spirit bar, but an overheat stops you from firing for a few seconds, allowing you to be ganged up on if you’re going Rambo.

Next in the seeming rush of F2P games suddenly thrust upon me, I got an invite to the Hazard Ops closed beta. Again, very different from the two I had tried before, though again it is third-person. With human avatars kitted with human weapons, it plays very much like a normal third-person shooter - which I’m obviously not used to MMOs being. In a change up to the other two, you can choose to play PvP or PvE (Player vs Environment). In PvP you do the usual - kill everyone. PvE has you team up against zombies, monsters and giant monsters, which is always a good thing. Unlike Marvel Heroes, you can’t go into a game all by yourself, which makes sense as each area is a specific mission. Then the closed beta - well - closed as it awaits the open beta.

So I figured I’d go try Infinite Crisis, an MMO based on the DC Comics multiverse. It’s similar to Marvel Heroes in style and UI, but the storyline isn’t as straightforward. A huge strike against it is the inability to play unless the area you want to play in has enough players. This set back my first game for several days after playing the tutorial, as you join a queue for a level. Once it invites you to join the match - it might be Earth Prime, it might be the Earth where Batman is Lord of Vampires or several others - you have to accept within 30 seconds. However, even locking in well within the time limit, you still have to wait for the other spaces to fill. If they don’t - you’re back to waiting. As it is still in beta, the waiting periods are large - 11am GMT I had an estimated waiting time of seven minutes, after the five minute wait that kicked me back to the lobby. I tried a 5PvAI match, which consisted of a near-invincible AI decimating my teammates and destroying our base camp, murdering me eighteen times in the process. It didn’t even help when I was accompanied by a teammate as they targeted one of us specifically, then the other. I wasn’t a fan of being rolled over - which is specifically why I had avoided PvP F2P games - so I uninstalled. A challenge is fine, but going up against an AI playing the exact same characters - yet being able to shrug off a concentrated attack by two players and some AI drones… That’s not the type of “challenge” I enjoy.

While I had waited to play a single level in Infinite Crisis I installed SMITE, given that it’s one of the most important MOBAs to us here at GameGrin and because I wanted to play as a god while I couldn’t be a god-like super human. I’ll start by saying - it is not an ideal first entry into massively multiplayer online gaming. It is, however, an ideal first multiplayer online battle arena experience, much more so than Infinite Crisis. You start with the extensive tutorial, which is bolstered by very comprehensive video tutorials, accessible via the game client or on the SMITE YouTube channel. After the tutorial, I went into one of the three co-op matches: Arena. It was me and three other player-controlled gods against four AI gods - and we got caned. I died seventeen times, though I don’t quite understand how given all gods begin all matches at level 1 and no matter how high a level I got, all four enemy gods could kill me within 4 seconds of beginning to attack me.

I tried Assault next, which was 3v3 - 3 AI vs 3 players. Again, a caning took place, though it was a lot fairer of a caning. I took out seven enemy gods, the highest of my team. However, I died twelve times and the respawn timer isn’t very easy to grasp. Dying twice in a short time could get you a ten second respawn - or a minute. Same with dying twice minutes apart. It seemed quite random, though it appeared to get longer when the enemy was closer to my base.

What’s my conclusion out of all of this? Are MMOs any good for casual gamers, or should only the hardcore even attempt them? Well, it depends. Putting it in football terms, given the World Cup has just ended, if you’re looking for a kickabout, then go for a game like Marvel Heroes 2015 or Transformers Universe - easily accessible games you can play for a few hours or half of one. If you’re after a 5-a-side league, then try something that needs a bit more effort put in like SMITE which requires you to keep practicing to get better.