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Asian MMOs/F2P Games That You Used To Love

B

blummer102

Member
This is a thread about those Asian MMOs or F2P online games that might not have actually been that great, but for some reason kept a lot of people really occupied in the old days, especially folks who couldn't afford actual real subscriptions to World of Warcraft (which was me in high school).

I'm sure a lot of people will mention Maple Story or Ragnarok Online here but I'm actually more interested in learning about the ones that were a little less famous. Where I lived, for instance, a ton of kids got really into Gunbound for some reason. I'm sure a lot of people here played it too, but if you didn't it was basically a Korean version of Worms. With customization.

gunbound-31.jpg

screenshot_03_b.jpg


I never got into Gunbound as much as a few others like Survival Project, which was this weird kinda overhead 2D arena brawler.

survival_project_w22.jpg

survival-projects-battle.jpg


Then there was Fairyland, a Taiwanese (?) MMO that had turn-based combat, which was kinda cool. It also seemed to rip music from Legend of Mana.

1098.jpg

fairyland_s300717Ehf478.jpg


And finally Project Powder, a snowboarding game that my roommates and I got obsessed with.

project-powder-screenshot.png

project-powder-15.jpg


Of these, Project Powder was probably the best, but I don't think it's still up and running. That's the sad thing with a lot of these old online games, unfortunately.

Anyway, what were your faves? And are they even still playable?
 
A

AzureSkies

Member
I used to love Maple Story, Gunbound, Battle Position, Knight Online and Rose Online.

Those games were basically the intro to online gaming for me. I played a large portion of them on e-games.com.my too.
 
K

Karuto

Member
I spent soooo much time in Gunbound! My favorite is the character whose attack burrowed underground. So many fun tricks!
 
M

massoluk

Banned
Ragnarok Online was pretty fun with a damn great customization option to make your own unique char... Also doesn't age well and tough to solo, requiring huge time commitment
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
20161215230928a0el9y7zob9r2g5v.jpg


Still the best MMO combat to date.
 
C

Cow Mengde

Banned
Vindictus ;______;

Actually, the reason I don't play is due to region blocking. I'm living in another country, and Vindictus is very lag sensitive. I could play my local version, but I can't read Chinese too well.

regina-gearbboa8.jpg

vindictus-2a6q63.jpg
 
M

mStudios

Member
I played all of those you mentioned. Except for the taiwanese one.

There was a Ragnarok Online clone which i cant remember the name. I think it started with mirage or miracle.

Gunz was pretty popular too.
 
G

Galang

Banned
Sad at the probably thousands of hours I spent in Ragnarok Online. I also played Gunbound and Survival Project for quite a bit. Can't believe I put up with the grind of RO back in the day. Items having a 0.01% drop rate shouldn't even be legal and I'd never put up with that mess today -_-
 
S

syncyes

Member
Maple Story is definitely a cliche for my age group but god, I basically poured my entire being into that game during late elementary school/middle school/early high school.

To my social detriment, yeah, but I can't deny how important that game was to me. I played it on off from 2005 to...2013, I believe? Switched worlds a bunch of times, switched regions a couple of times (there was a point when I would play MapleSEA while GMS was patching and eventually moved to MSEA for a couple of years lol). Made so many memories, so many friends, some of which I still occasionally reach out to. It's definitely the game I've sunk the most time into in my life.
 
L

Lord Azrael

Member
I remember MU Online and Kal Online were both popular when I was in elementary school. They had some pretty cool monster designs.

20120321WZE2P8Z4STAZV2NV.jpg


header.jpg
 
E

Elija2

Member
I used to play a game called Street Gears which was basically an MMO where you raced against people while on skates. As a huge Jet Set Radio nerd I thought it was pretty cool, even though it seemed to crib more from Air Gear than from JSR. There was also never an English version which meant that I had to navigate my way around the French version with what little understanding of the language that I had. I'm pretty sure the story was garbage so no real loss there.

street-gears-20090305042801158-2775240.jpg
Click to expand...
 
C

Crayolan

Member
Spent years playing maplestory on and off during middle school/high school. Sometimes still check up on the game just to see what the current state of the game is.
 
J

Jeffrey

Member
wasted so many summer breaks on maplestory.


gacha mobile games scratch this itch now I guess. something i can do at work.
 
K

Kanann

Member
Laghaim, fantasy MMO using gun was rare on those days.

Played for 2-3 months and jump back to Ragnarok.
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
blummer102 said:
I ALWAYS thought this looked cool but never got around to it and was kinda afraid to begin yet another MMO when it started getting big. How was it aside from combat?
Click to expand...

Boring grindfest zzzzzzzzzzzzz.
 
DarkStream

DarkStream

Member
I used to play Lineage 2 (if I remember the name correctly). Extremely grindy but it looked very nice for the time it came out.
 
T

texhnolyze

Banned
Gunbound is fantastic, and apparently there's a mobile version you can play right now.

I've played pretty much 99% of MMORPGs out there, I don't think I could list them all lol.

But if I have to take a pick my favorite 3, I'd go with:
Shy5s7OUMW2ViBqBArbt.jpg


banner-ragnarok.jpg


1468794482462.jpg
Click to expand...
I've spent thousands of hours across those three mmos.
 
V

Valkerionseven

Member
My favorite and first real foray into online gaming was Priston Tale. I got into it at high school and it was great top down online rpg. The grind was unreal but I loved the areas and simple gameplay. Game went under a big revision and update, then into a paid version which I passed on. Really enjoyed it. First game I got into with a real community and players who talked to each other and met people from all over the world for the first time.

Tried private servers a few times over the years and they were fun to get to the higher levels then stop. Still get nostalgic for it. Game did a sequel but it seems like it was short lived in english, but still played in korea.

These asian MMOs had a lot of difficult paid options which sucked since for my age group we all could not pay for it.

Loved the wallpapers for it too.
 
K

Kangi

Member
Ah, man. My brother would always try to get me into all sorts of Asian f2p MMOs. Played all sorts of them, usually for about a week or two. Can't recall the names of half of them, and couldn't tell you much about the ones I can. Dragon Nest, Aion, Tera... if it was on MMOHut, he pointed it out to me. We even tried Allods despite two active WoW subscriptions, which wound up being dreadful.

Only ones that stuck were ARGO Online, which I have fond memories of; Blade & Soul, the most recent one and by far the prettiest; and Vindictus, which is the only one I successfully went back to. Repeatedly. For 3,000 hours.
 
C

Cryxok

Member
Where I live, for reasons I still don't comprehend, Tibia Online became huge. There was not a single cybercafe without Tibia installed in every machine and at least 1 guy playing at all times.
Tibia_t.jpg

I played it as well for some time but never to the amount some people did. Raids were usually organized overseas at 4 o 5AM in our timezone and there would be people that grouped together and rented a cybercafe WHOLE just so they could participate in said raid. It was nuts.

I liked the game and still think is has some interesting features that I'd love other MMOs to pick up, but how popular it became over here is still crazy to me.
 
K

K.Sabot

Member
Dragon Nest is just about god damn near perfect combat for an MMO.

The best pvp duels even if the class balance was whack.

but my heart belongs to RYL

ryl_w3.jpg


The monster faction was so cool, the fact that each faction had different classes was quite amazing. The gunner in the picture was my main class. The director for this game currently heads the development of Black Desert apparently, which shares a lot of the DNA imo.
 
K

K.Sabot

Member
blummer102 said:
I ALWAYS thought this looked cool but never got around to it and was kinda afraid to begin yet another MMO when it started getting big. How was it aside from combat?
Click to expand...

The localization is actually quite good. The story itself is merely okay, but the dialogue and character writing was top notch. I'd recommend trying it for sure, most of it is soloable.
 
T

texhnolyze

Banned
Falk said:
this is not mathematically possible
Click to expand...

I played everything.

Back then, I've had mmo sites like mmorpg, mmosite, mmohuts, massively, mmoculture, massively (RIP), etc. on my browser bookmark tab, so when there's any new mmorpg coming out I'll know it. I even played some non-English ones, like Dragon Ball, Dragon Nest, Vindictus, Monster Hunter before they had English server or launched globally. I've had a huge local community who jump around from one mmorpg to the next regularly. It was fun while it lasted.
 
K

K.Sabot

Member
I spent my old days of a high speed DSL line downloading every single MMO I could get my hands on. My first forum I truly spent a ton of time on was onrpg. Avoided text based games of course.

Let's talk about A Tale in the Desert ya'll.
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Oh I played the SEA version of this back in the day:
rf-online.jpg


One of the races eventually got Mechs. I wish more games had mechs.
 
B

blummer102

Member
Cryxok said:
Where I live, for reasons I still don't comprehend, Tibia Online became huge. There was not a single cybercafe without Tibia installed in every machine and at least 1 guy playing at all times.
Tibia_t.jpg

I played it as well for some time but never to the amount some people did. Raids were usually organized overseas at 4 o 5AM in our timezone and there would be people that grouped together and rented a cybercafe WHOLE just so they could participate in said raid. It was nuts.

I liked the game and still think is has some interesting features that I'd love other MMOs to pick up, but how popular it became over here is still crazy to me.
Click to expand...

That renting a whole PC cafe out thing is bonkers, lol. I never heard of this game before! I love how certain things just take off in a certain region and we never really know why.

I'm glad that a few other people here are mentioning Talesweaver. I loved the way that game looked so much that I downloaded the Korean client and tried my best to play it just using FAQs and stuff. Had no idea what I was doing and kept praying for an English version to come out but never got one. Fun memories though. I later ended up dating a Korean girl and told her I'd played this game and she was amazed and said her brother had played it in middle/high school, lol.

1.jpg


I remember I really liked this guy's design.

sof35578_1.jpg
 
T

texhnolyze

Banned
K.Sabot said:
Dragon Nest is just about god damn near perfect combat for an MMO.

The best pvp duels even if the class balance was whack.

but my heart belongs to RYL

ryl_w3.jpg


The monster faction was so cool, the fact that each faction had different classes was quite amazing. The gunner in the picture was my main class. The director for this game currently heads the development of Black Desert apparently, which shares a lot of the DNA imo.
Click to expand...

RYL was such a gem. I think the game actually revolutionized action mmo.

Haly said:
Oh I played the SEA version of this back in the day:
rf-online.jpg


One of the races eventually got Mechs. I wish more games had mechs.
Click to expand...

Bellato got owned in the chip war in most, the mechs could do nothing.

Aion got mechs too, but I haven't tried the class yet.
 
K

kiuo

Member
I used to play an MMO called s4 league, it's one of those team battle type of games kinda of like overwatch. I had a ton of fun with it with the amount of depths, skills/hidden combos, and tricks in it. Unfortunately it went the pay to win route with a ton of loot boxes with certain chances for rare gears with extra stat boosts etc, as well as having time limits on your gears before they disappear.

Here's a clip on the gameplay, which has an interesting gameplay mechanics on one of the modes called touchdown. Basically you have to get this ball in the center of the map to the enemies goal (which can be defended)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvqThKL1Fts
 
MightyKAC

MightyKAC

Member
I must have lost a lifetimes worth of hours in Ragnarok Online back in the early 2000's. For some odd reason I could just grind away at it for days on end.

Was surprised to see that it's still very much a thing in the Philippines.

The Ragnarok Festival 2017 cosplay competition shows that folks are still hype about this 15+ year old game.
 
P

PrinnyBomb

Member
I wanted to write about Maplestory but it sounds like everyone already knows about it.

Which is cool? I think? Almost makes me feel like those 7 years weren't a TOTAL waste
 
Laieon

Laieon

Member
Maple Story was the first MMO I got into. Played it for a good 2 years or so before jumping into WoW.

I've tried playing it a few times since then, but it seems like it's a completely different game from what it once was.
 
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