23 September 2011

Web-based MMORPGs

I have been playing a web-based MMORPG: Realm of the Mad God produced by Wild Shadow Studios.  This game is even more retro than Clan Lord (if you can believe that) as the graphics are a blocky, pixelated throw-back to the old Legend of Zelda game.

This game does a number of things very well:
  • It allows many people to play online using just a web browser (and the Flash plugin).
  • It is free to play.
  • It relies on microtransactions for revenue.
Long have I dreamed of seeing Clan Lord move from an application-based game to a web-based game, and RotMG is an example that such a transition is possible.  One of the major downsides is that there is rampant cheating within this game – apparently it is quite a simple matter of writing an add-on which enables one to boost the character's stats, granting unlimited health/speed/defense and such.  It may be possible to move from an application-based format to a web-based format but, based on the current security technologies, it does not appear that such a transition would be beneficial for Clan Lord.

Cheating aside, RotMG is still a fun game to play.  I have found myself repeatedly spending a couple of dollars for a few vanity items.  I have thought about microtransactions in Clan Lord, but in its current format, CL doesn't really need microtransactions.  If CL were ever to become a free-to-play web game, then perhaps such a business model could be reevaluated.

Maybe I should learn how to write Flash games for the web!

4 comments:

  1. There's nothing intrinsic in a Flash/Silverlight/HTML5 game that makes it prone to cheating. CL is pretty tough to cheat because the client is very thin and all the game logic and data is server-side; there's no reason a websocket/HTML5 CL couldn't work the same way.

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  2. my reply is too long to fit here. Please see http://noivad.wordpress.com/2011/09/23/yappy/
    to read about my opinion on Flash vs. HTML 5

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  3. If you like RotMG you might like http://www.chippeddagger.com. Unfortunately the playerbase is very small though check it out if you get a chance! :)

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