Post by Sofly on Oct 9, 2023 20:59:41 GMT
Oh hey hi
Today i was scrolling through a group chat i'm part of with a bunch of friends, and i remember that one of them posted a screencap of them playing Runescape, a game i always wanted to dip my toes into but never got around to do so on account of it being a monthly subscription
But i was reminded of another "M"MORPG that a played for a while, a game that's weird, badly designed, ugly, but somehow it's difficult for me to stop thinking about and coming back from time to time
I want to tell you about The Mana World
The Mana World is an MMORPG that started developing in 2004, and it was aimed to create a free and open source MMO experience with an ever-evolving world that included the player as an important part; and to their credit they succeeded in that regard, the game is entirely free with no way of putting money into it (aside from directly donating to the developers), however the game part...really doesn't feel like it's been in development for 19 years
Let me walk you through as someone who, despite being enthusiastic, it's still pretty new to the game: You spawn in, complete some quests, get your equipment, and then head for the boat; now, when you head to a boat in an RPG, what usually happens is that a menu pops up saying "Where do you wanna go?" and a list of places, but not in here!, instead the boat loops between 3 different locations every ~5 seconds, and you get down whenever the correct place is highlighted
This is...weird, it's not a long enough time for it to be annoying, but it doesn't add that much that the game would feel incomplete without it, it's just a weird and harmless little mechanic
So, after that, you arrive at your destination, you see that the area is populated by butterfly NPCs, you try to hit one and then it kills you in one hit
This is the main draw with The Mana World, every different world has 2 types of enemies, one which are normal to beat for a low-level character, and another one made to help people who are more experienced with the game. In a normal MMO these two enemies would be in two different areas, with areas in between scaling the enemies accordingly, however, in a game with only 4 areas (one of which is the tutorial area) i can see why they felt the need to do so, and i don't feel comfortable saying "add more areas" to a game that started developing almost 20 years ago and just got more complex and complex over time
However, if there's something that can be a truly hellish experience for both knowledgeable and new players alike, it's getting to play the damn game
You see, there isn't really a "The Mana World.exe" file out there, instead there's the Mana+ launcher, a launcher that helps you play TMW, a version of TMW for steam that hasn't released yet, a game that appears to be tangentially related to TMW, a fork of TMW, and probably some that i'm already forgetting; all of this information is presented to you in a wiki that jumps from game to game whenever it has the chance
Fortunately, there is an effort made to help make the process of opening the game more palatable, The Mana Launcher, a launcher that focuses all those projects in a clear and concise manner, it even comes with a tidbit of lore to explain why it is the way it is; it's still in early beta and it's an absolute pain to work with still sadly, but i hope some day it gets improved
Even after writing all of this, i still can't help but somewhat love this game, the dedication of putting almost 20 years on effort on a project that has ~25 players in peak hours, that's janky and weirdly designed and strange, the fact that a tiny yet really helpful community formed around it that still uses IRC as their main mode of communication, it's undeniable how bad the game is, but at the same time neither is it's charm
I'm not trying to get you to play this game, by any means, i just wanted to talk a bit about something that i found interesting, and that not many people may've heard about
Maybe i'm not the only one who really really likes a game that they know is objectively bad and not that many people know about, who knows
Today i was scrolling through a group chat i'm part of with a bunch of friends, and i remember that one of them posted a screencap of them playing Runescape, a game i always wanted to dip my toes into but never got around to do so on account of it being a monthly subscription
But i was reminded of another "M"MORPG that a played for a while, a game that's weird, badly designed, ugly, but somehow it's difficult for me to stop thinking about and coming back from time to time
I want to tell you about The Mana World
The Mana World is an MMORPG that started developing in 2004, and it was aimed to create a free and open source MMO experience with an ever-evolving world that included the player as an important part; and to their credit they succeeded in that regard, the game is entirely free with no way of putting money into it (aside from directly donating to the developers), however the game part...really doesn't feel like it's been in development for 19 years
Let me walk you through as someone who, despite being enthusiastic, it's still pretty new to the game: You spawn in, complete some quests, get your equipment, and then head for the boat; now, when you head to a boat in an RPG, what usually happens is that a menu pops up saying "Where do you wanna go?" and a list of places, but not in here!, instead the boat loops between 3 different locations every ~5 seconds, and you get down whenever the correct place is highlighted
This is...weird, it's not a long enough time for it to be annoying, but it doesn't add that much that the game would feel incomplete without it, it's just a weird and harmless little mechanic
So, after that, you arrive at your destination, you see that the area is populated by butterfly NPCs, you try to hit one and then it kills you in one hit
This is the main draw with The Mana World, every different world has 2 types of enemies, one which are normal to beat for a low-level character, and another one made to help people who are more experienced with the game. In a normal MMO these two enemies would be in two different areas, with areas in between scaling the enemies accordingly, however, in a game with only 4 areas (one of which is the tutorial area) i can see why they felt the need to do so, and i don't feel comfortable saying "add more areas" to a game that started developing almost 20 years ago and just got more complex and complex over time
However, if there's something that can be a truly hellish experience for both knowledgeable and new players alike, it's getting to play the damn game
You see, there isn't really a "The Mana World.exe" file out there, instead there's the Mana+ launcher, a launcher that helps you play TMW, a version of TMW for steam that hasn't released yet, a game that appears to be tangentially related to TMW, a fork of TMW, and probably some that i'm already forgetting; all of this information is presented to you in a wiki that jumps from game to game whenever it has the chance
Fortunately, there is an effort made to help make the process of opening the game more palatable, The Mana Launcher, a launcher that focuses all those projects in a clear and concise manner, it even comes with a tidbit of lore to explain why it is the way it is; it's still in early beta and it's an absolute pain to work with still sadly, but i hope some day it gets improved
Even after writing all of this, i still can't help but somewhat love this game, the dedication of putting almost 20 years on effort on a project that has ~25 players in peak hours, that's janky and weirdly designed and strange, the fact that a tiny yet really helpful community formed around it that still uses IRC as their main mode of communication, it's undeniable how bad the game is, but at the same time neither is it's charm
I'm not trying to get you to play this game, by any means, i just wanted to talk a bit about something that i found interesting, and that not many people may've heard about
Maybe i'm not the only one who really really likes a game that they know is objectively bad and not that many people know about, who knows
