Quite frankly, I’m tired of it. It doesn’t matter how different the combat is (unless it were akin to a game like Oblivion) I’m tired of running through forests, caves, or blackened lands with hot lava coming out killing stock fantasy creatures. Now you might be thinking that I may be neglecting about Sci-Fi MMORPG’s as well like Anarchy Online and Tabula Rasa. The thing with sci-fi is, although instead of swords, you have guns, it’s the enviorments to me that still seen to lean towards regualr fantasy RPG’s, albiet maybe a bit more strange looking.

Now I’m not too familiar with the background of Anarchy Online (at the time I first tried it it was already pretty old) but it seems to me that you join the ranks of some military unit, so it’s your job to go out and do missions outside the city. Yeah, outside the boundaries of the city, you know, that place with the grass, trees, mountains and caves? (And on a side comparison, that place that you ventured out to that encomppased 90% of the entire game of FF7 when you finally left the aweseome city of Midgar after rescuing Aeris from Shinra? I mean in Midgar you were FIGHTING in the city. After Midgar if you wanted to fight, you had to take it outside. ALL the way outside.)

Then came Auto Assault. Yeah, it’s sci-fi again, but this time it was cars. Cars that you could customize to your heart’s content. Complete with gatling guns, missle launchers, flame throwers, and even a pine air freshner that comes with a pair of fuzzy dice. Oh yeah and it was also post-acolayptic. Earth has been destroyed, and now there is nothing left but long plains and cliffs of brown (grass?) and the occasional green sludge. (lava?) The only time you saw a city was either if you were shopping in town, or driving in one out in the field but in that case it was usually blown to smitherens, like a grown-up taking candy away from a baby and then taunting it by saying “You can’t have it!”

The most recent in sci fi MMO’s is Tabula Rasa. Futuristic guns, robots, aliens, but wait, what’s this? A waterfall? Mountains? Gigantic flowers? And is that a tent? So what your saying is that technology and the way of the future has finally brought us housing made of cloth? Either that or someone’s idea of the future is a world where instead of spending money on ways for a better living enviorment, a few select individuals spend it on war technology so the world can wrestle in their own values onto other people’s territories.Of course they could also be giving us extra tents in preperation for a world to come. In that case, thank god for these kind of people. They actually care about us, just like a hero. Everyone needs a hero, kinda like this hero…

In short, while whle SCI-FI MMORPG’s do break away from the usual swords and ogres deal, I still feel like I’m playing in a fantasy world, just with more flasy weapons. Every single time Earth is either blown up, humans colonized to other planets, (which seem to always lack certain qualtlies of Earth, like buildings for example) or Earth is blown up and humans have decided to colonize to other planets. When the player does see a futuristic city, it’s only during down time, or with no conflict. But it seems that every person who decides to make a SCI-FI MMORPG wants to have some excuse for the players to still run through fantasy themed environments instead of running through flashy neon cities with gigantic ads that movies such as The Fith Element potray. Complete with questionable hairdo’s and high pitched screaming that would make Mariah Carey cry.

So until a game like that comes, my MMO days are sadly over. Now pardon me, I have a Gemini Croquet Contest to go to.