By the second day of E3, the newbie has recovered from the sensatory shock of the first day and is now fit to handle the rigors of the show. Day 1, generally speaking, is nothing more than running around the convention center taking in as much as your eyes and ears can handle, and having a tough time digesting the available stimuli. Day 2 is more sedate and crowds casually walk from booth to booth and spend more time with the games that were rushed by on the first day. Armed with a much better understanding of the lay of the land and the ebb and flow of the convention, the rookie has been upgraded to the "novice" standing and much more apt at isolating specific game targets and drawing as much information from them as possible.
Of all the big name MMORPGs (or Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) coming out this year, the first ones that will jump in your mind will likely be Star Wars: Galaxies and World of Warcraft, but Korean publisher NCsoft would probably take offense to that. It's hard to miss NCsoft at the convention, as the company has the perfect location, situated right in between Blizzard and Ubi Soft, two of the top-echelon game developers.
The NCsoft booth isn't as obnoxious as Midway's, blasting punk music and rotating spotlights, nor is it excessively understated, like the collectable card game manufacturer Wizards of the Coast, which resembles to a small office cubicle. With simple kiosks providing a dozen or so PC's demoing all their games, NCsoft has made a subtle but clear statement that they want their name synonymous with MMORPG. You see, five out of the six games that NCsoft presented to E3 participants are MMORPGs, with each trying to appeal to a distinct audience.
Probably the most well known would be City of Heroes, which lets gamers build their own superhero (a la Freedom Force) and take on missions handed out by NPCs. The more successful you (and your team) are with the smaller missions, the more likely you are to be entrusted with the higher priority (and more difficult) missions. City of Heroes is looking pretty sharp, though it's not in the extreme comic book style of Freedom Force, a game that had the luxury of not needing to present too much on-screen information at once. Since City of Heroes having to display player statistics, abilities and special powers, not to mention being able to communicate with other players, City of Heroes has to settle for a visual style that was one notch down, but is none the less entertaining to look at. No release date is yet announced, but with City of Heroes already looking and playing better than some commercially released products, the announcement can't be too far off.
Switching gears from the colorful domain of superheroes to a dark, post-apocalyptic world, we enter the realm of Exarch, which blends elements of fantasy combined with the gadgetry of science fiction. Exarch takes the trail blazed by Diablo and focuses on a more action-oriented RPG experience. Players move throughout the world, encountering enemies and engaging them in battle takes using the standard point and click interface. This game doesn't pretend to take any huge strides in terms of innovation, but does come with a sharp sense of style, fuelled comic book god Joe Madureira's character concepts, and immediately accessible gameplay. Exarch isn't reinventing the action-RPG wheel, but the overall package can certainly go a long way in the eyes of the players.
The last game that we'll focus on is Guild Wars, the MMORPG brought to you by a team of ex-Blizzard developers. Guild Wars leans towards a more tactical-oriented MMORPG, where players receive their mission briefing and can then customize their party abilities and decide on the best plan of attack. One of the key points the developers wanted to stress is that Guild Wars isn't going to be a game where the amount of hours invested in a character directly relates to their effectiveness in battle. Since Guild Wars is a tactical game, skills come into play as well, and even a lower level player is capable of holding value to a party. Due to their experience on other projects, the development team of Guild Wars is able to anticipate and avoid some of the annoyances that plague many MMORPGs, and bring some new features to the table as well.
That's just the icing on the NCsoft cake, and we haven't even taken a look at Lineage 2: The Chaotic Chronicle, a follow-up to NCsoft's hugely successful MMORPG, Lineage. And there's even something out there for the kids with Shining Lore, another MMORPG that trades swords and guns for cute, cuddly animals. With so new and interesting products on the horizon, get used to hearing the name NCsoft a lot.
