Sharks vs. MMOs

In honor of today being the first day of Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, I wanted to present you with MMO's good, bad and ugly underwater lands. Trust me, all of it is bad...really bad.

The first time that I encountered an MMO with an underwater area was EverQuest in the Kedge Keep dungeon. It was new, it was exciting and it was a complete flippin' headache. Kedge Keep wasn't a linear job, quite often you had to back track to the same area you were in a while back to persue the end. Though, like I siad it was the first time I ever had to fight or perform underwater and although it was a headache, it was still fun.

Champions Online took a stab at the underwater scene and although the bright colors and creative takes of sea life were fun, you'd think that it may be a little easier with Superheroes. Of course, it was a fail. An end-game area for the elite of the elite to enter a submarine to submerge down to the depth of Lemuria to fight foes from all sides with quite an end-game, right? Well, it was, until you got down there and found that besides a floating 'weightless' feeling to your character and the sea life, you didn't feel as if you were underwater at all.

Two of the most known waterworld blunders are WoW and GW2, so let's talk about them together because they had the same issues. WoW was the first to create a compelling underwater world creating a clunky combat experience that was stressful to maneuver and they thought they could bypass this by offering special items to walk on the ocean floor. This did not have the affect that was intended. Then you had GW2 that wanted to compete with WoW trying to recreate a watery experience that was more refined, besides the graphics all of the same issues occured.

Trion Worlds with RIFT's expansion of Nightmare Tides was the latest that I know of and although with my failed past I didn't dive (bad pun, I know...but it is the first and I have held back a lot) right into it with high expectations. Call it a predetermined notion, but I felt as if the waterlogged journey floundered (bad pun 2 and in the same paragraph!).

So the question beg's to be answered; Can we have an MMORPG that is water-based or has lands that are under the sea in today's MMO's that don't leave you feeling beached? (last one, I swear!)