Games that just look good though sometimes suffer from the Lineage 2 effect.

That is basically they look great but they play like crap.

I haven't heard of this AION though.

Ah! The staple of Korean MMOs! Well, most of the ones I've seen anyways. Grindfest.

There's a cultural difference involved too. Western gamers tend to be lazier then eastern ones.

The evidence is in all the 'grindfest' MMOs.

I don't consider the grinding in JP MMOs to be that bad. I've played FFXI and Phantasy Star.

I think grinding isn't tough at all. It's just a way to add as little content as possible.

Isn't WOW pretty popular in Asia?

"World of Warcraft was the best-selling PC game of 2005 and 2006. As of January 22, 2008, World of Warcraft has surpassed 10 million subscribers worldwide, with more than 2 million subscribers in Europe, more than 2.5 million in North America, and about 5.5 million in Asia."

I don't think Western gamers tend to be lazier, they just don't like horrible gameplay.

Quoted for truth .... killing 40000 mutant rabbits to level is not "gaming", its developer laziness.

That said, all MMOs suffer from that in certain ways though some disguise it better.
I've been reasonably entertained with Perfect World, DOMO, ASDA, ROSE online recently ... currently the only for-pay MMO I'm in is Warhammer but mostly because friends and family play it. The list of MMOs I've spent enough time in to still remember my way around goes back to the year 2000 (unless you count MUDS and then it goes back much much farther).

Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine Online anyone? Its unique thing is you can tame monsters to be your pets. Taming monsters will be helpful and necessary in some case to defeat other monsters. You might tame a fire monster so you cna defeat a frost monster, for example. You can get another pet and combine them to create another monster, or get 2 other persons with their monsters to combine all 3.

Stopped playing it because it is like other MMOs. There is a linear progression by grinding. But go ahead try it if you like.

I hope you are speaking after playing the original asian version and not the translation version. Western licensers of these games (in particular US companies) have been known, besides abysmal update cycles, to alter the games. Things like making requirement for this that soo much higher or other crap like transitioning useful items to cash-only or some times even "buy this and you may be lucky and win..." are very common place and its usually pointed out with screenshots etc if you check 3rd party fansites.

That 5.5 million is probably mostly in the following countries with higher personal incomes and where credit card usage is commonplace: Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, China, South Korea, Hong Kong.

The rest are stuck with Korean MMOs.

Here in the Philippines, WoW is known only to many, but only a few thousand with an international credit card actually have the privilege to play it.

The game's awesome and I would want to play it, but what puts off most to buy the game and foot the monthly bill to enjoy life within Azeroth is the local tendency to look for freebies... and because of that, the firm which is supposed to act as the authorized WoW distributor for the Philippine market decided not to market the game here.

So the rest of the online game-playing population in the Philippines consists of those patronizing the usual Korean grinds, but because the installers are always free, there's free-to-play (and thus free-to-grief and free-to-be-rude-to-the-GMs), not to mention the freeloaders looking for some private server to crowd into.

At least in my case, I'm speaking of *ANY* MMO .. asian, american, european, etc. Many of them at some point in the leveling process or in end-game fall back on "Kill 40000 of these" banality.

Yeah, I've played both the asian and american versions of DOMO and the Kooh-is-a-goddess Pangya --- I don't mind the cash shop ideas and such since it fits my idea of 'patronage vs peanut-gallery' model but sometimes the alterations hurt certain levels. Perfect World, for example, was great fun til the mid levels (grind grind grind). I understand it gets better at the higher levels but I was diverted into Warhammer Online by my family (who sometimes resemble ferrets in their bounce from game to game).

Sometimes, having experienced how hard it is to play at the higher levels, I found myself wanting to rewrite the Korean MMOG I'm playing so that it doesn't have to be too boring. But then, it's wishful thinking. *sighs*

Dragon ball online is being made I hear there's other mmo games based on mangas coming out as well

Hi all,

Don't know if this is up anyone's street, however, in case it is - I've been developing a game called Absolute Terror for the last year and a half. It's based on the hit Anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion.
The MMORPG's 3Dish (kind of isometricish) and is a RTS of sorts. It's quite different from the usual lot and is reasonably graphical (my graphical abilities are ok...freelance artists always welcomed).

Anyway, for what it's worth, here it is: www.absoluteterror.net

Here's the promo vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSosWXxeSxw

Hope some of you enjoy what we've done so far.

Later,

Liam.

it would really be good if they have a Tower of Druaga MMO.. :P

They do. It came out at the same time as the first anime. Of course, it's in Japanese.

http://druaga-mmo.com/index.jsp?mid=project

i know it's not really anime but god it looks so awesome...(yayyy KOTOR MMO)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jylNo5tTiSg

... also i recommend Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine Online and Sword of the New World/Granado Espada which is pretty anime-ish and has a pretty fast-paced cool combat system

ohhh and also there's an anime like 3rd person hack and slash mmo on 360 or pc called Phantasy Star Universe. I tried it its really fun! if you have a 360 there's a free demo thats online, except the demo is nothing compared to the full version. you can go do dungeons and bosses and stuff or you can hang out, customize your room, upgrade weps. only bad thing is it costs $10 a month for the full version+another $10 for the expansion which is a must have if you plan on playing online. so if you enjoy the demo and can afford the monthly fee its definatley a good choice!

http://en.dragonica.gpotato.eu/ (Open beta)

Not based on a anime, but anime style.

this looks pretty cool :D. definatley tryin it out. after lookin at the trailers first thing that comes to mind is a 3d maple story... -ish

Yeah Dragonica look cool . My brothers play this game . Me , i stop for a moment the mmo .
I played too much . I focus on fps / action / adventure now .

that dragonica game is very cool! its like platformer hack n slash. very addicting!

Heres a game thats kinda anime styled...
It came out in like December and is on its Third expansion tomorrow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia48VnVesrM
Theres a video of it.
Ive seen some doujins (non-ecchi) of it as well x3

its called tales runner if your interested...