As I have said time and time again, MMOs only really started to come about towards the end of the 20th century when internet speeds and technology advanced so more information could travel at a quicker pace. But even then, the best of the best MMOs had sub Play Station 1 graphics. In fact, they were really more like NES graphics to be accurate in that comparison. Characters were blocky, moved awkwardly and the scenery was often just a green strip in the distance. Just take one look at a screenshot from the first version of RuneScpae and you'll know what I'm talking about. But we didn't care, did we? As far as we were concerned we were playing a game with thousands of other people and that was cool.

By Dean Sherwin

But then, along came high speed broadband and the worlds in which we find ourselves immersed, have never been the same. Nowadays, developers of games, no matter how small are expected to create games with thousands of gaming features as well as great graphics into the bag too. Look at and MMO out there today bar the few. World of Warcraft, 4Story, Atlantica Online, they all have had great attention to detail and no expense spared when it came to the graphics. It has become unacceptable for bad graphics to be part of a new MMO. This would insult the user who has been convinced to play the game by misleading artwork.

Although this is creating challenges for new independent companies to break into the genre, it is doing something great for the genre too; upping the quality. After all, we grade any video game on their quality, and why should MMOs be any different? This is a step forward in the industry, and I'm willing to bet that as soon as worldwide internet speeds increase, the quality of MMO's content and graphics will have to make the leap along with it.