Of Wizards And Handguns - Are MMORPGs And FPSs The Same?

When comparing genres of video games it’s a pretty safe bet to say that MMORPG games such as World of Warcraft and Everquest are thought of as incredibly different to FPS titles like Call of Duty and the Battlefield series. These games dominate our markets and the nuances of each genre are known well in near every self-proclaimed gamer with Call of Duty releasing its 11^th instalment, Advanced Warfare, in 2014 and Blizzard releasing World of Warcraft’s 5^th expansion, Warlords of Draenor, mere days later. These being only 2 of the MMORPG and FPS series currently dominating the video gaming market just go to show the ever present popularity and success of the genres.

However is it truly honest to say the designs and player goals for these wholly different genres are really as different as some may think? Everquest, created in 1999 and celebrating the game’s 21^st expansion release in October, is one of the oldest MMORPGs still running and featured the gameplay basis most of its genre follows. Players chose a class and levelled through defeating enemies and achieving given goals in the fantasy world. But how can a fantasy world of levelling and questing relate in any way to modern first-person shooters?

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was the first Call of Duty to implement it’s not ever present levelling system into the multiplayer section of the game. Players achieve levels and increased ‘rank’ as a result of defeating other players, achieving game objectives and completing challenges and being rewarded experience points for doing so. With these levels a player can upgrade their equipment and skills. This is starting to sound familiar…

Borderlands, released by Gearbox Software in 2009, embraced the rpg design in their FPS with zany skills, talent trees, and varying equipment stats that alter the style of gameplay for your chosen and developed character. This in turn follows very similarly to Call of Duty’s various weapons and the altering ranges, fire rate and damage of those weapons and how players must also alter their play style to revolve around how they equip their characters.

So finally we ask, why do we love these various games and what seems to be the similar theme of design in them that gamers enjoy? Do players enjoy the rewarding aspect of increased level, the freedom of personal design of a player’s own playstyle? As well as this if the game genres really do hold such similarities then why is it some players do not like one but will play the other? It is a question that is so far unanswered but the similarities in what started as entirely opposite genres are nonetheless showing parallels in how their designers are building these new games. Is this a trend that will continue? With the popularity of the Call of Duty and Borderlands FPS series it wouldn’t at all be a farfetched claim to say, most likely.

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