If you don’t know what a competitive online role-playing game (CORPG) is, you probably aren’t alone. This is a relatively new type of massive multi-player game that puts players in situations where they either compete with one another or have to cooperate with one another against other players in order to succeed. A CORPG can be either a Player Vs Environment (PVE) model, a Player vs Player (PVP) model, or a combination of both types of game play.

Common Features of A CORPG
While the genre is still early in its evolution both Guild Wars and Fury (mentioned later) seem to be offering some standard features that make the CORPG experience different than the massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) experience.

Game Play
CORPGs combine some of the best aspects of action-based role-playing games, massive multiplayer online games, certain elements from first person shooters (FPS), and competitive multi-player games into a single gaming framework. A player can participate in a CORPG’s story-driven adventure campaign, or in a team-based competitive PVE or PVP gaming format. CORPGs can be thought of in the same way as collectible card games like Magic the Gathering because of the way skills are used during gaming sessions.

CORPGs are less about a player’s level, and more about exploration and achievement in PVE or PVP… By focusing more on achievement titles and rewards, CORPGs provide a wide ranging end game that keeps players engaged.

A player must choose a limited number of skills from the pool of available skills prior to entering PVE or PVP battles, which is similar to assembling decks of Magic the Gathering cards. Players must consider a specific strategy for the area they are entering, or attempt to use a general skill-set up to create synergies between groups of skills. When a team is formed, the strengths and weaknesses of player classes are also usually taken into account, so that players can have the option to create more complex skill combinations.

Co-operative Gameplay
CORPGs generally offer some type of co-operative game play options for PVE and PVP players. Players can explore a game world, kill monsters or players, perform PVE or PVP quests, and complete missions to earn rewards to advance the story or their character. Rewards can include experience points, skills, gold, or items for the player character.

Competitive Gameplay
Player versus Player (PVP) combat in a CORPG, to date, has been offered to players using a consensual and team-based approach. PVP is restricted to special PVP areas of the game world, and there can be a variety of different types of PVP combat. Guild Wars offers their PVP in the Battle Isles, and offers PVP gaming formats that range from one player fighting against one player to competitive guild versus guild type play. Fury is currently on record as providing several types of tournament maps where there will be PVP formats for single players, head to head, and multiple team combat. PVP character progression and rewards have been gaining momentum so that players who don’t want to play PVE content can grow their characters solely through PVP.

Skills
Players in CORPGs can usually select several skills from their primary or secondary character archetypes (commonly known as professions or classes). The skills are displayed in a skill-bar, from where they may be activated by using the keyboard, mouse, or number pad. Skill selection may be freely altered in game outposts or non combat zones, but are fixed once the character enters a PVE adventure zone or competitive PVP arena. There are several types of skills that are available to players. There are attack skills that are used to cause damage, healing skills, and then various defensive or buff type skills to help with survival. Most skills that players can use have a number of counter skills to negate their effects, and this requires the player to select a set of skills based on the type of encounter in which they are likely to find themselves.

The pool of skills available to the player and his characters is initially limited, and access to additional skills is unlocked through progression in the game. In Guild Wars, skills can be captured from slain mobs, PVP combat, or by purchasing skill unlock upgrades from Arena Net. In Fury skills are unlocked through PVP combat trials, and players are awarded points that can be used to buy certain skills.

Builds
In CORPGs, a particular combination of skills, attributes armor and weapons is commonly known as a “build”. Some builds are more effective at particular tasks than others, and so players tend to develop several builds based on their PVE or PVP roles. A build may be at an individual player level, or include all of the roles in a team to utilize skill interactions across multiple players. As the newness of a CORPG wears off, some builds get more popular. Sometimes it is hard or even impossible to get into certain parties without a certain type of build that is optimal for the situation.

A Semi-Persistent World
MMORPG’s provide the gamer with a persistent world type setting. In a true persistent world setting the world keeps on ticking with the player logs out for the day, all the PVP and PVE adventure zones remain open to everyone, player shops keep selling items, etc. Also when players adventure in a persistent world, they are all sharing the same PVE and/or PVP resources. So if someone needs to kill a boss mob for some skill or item, then they pretty much have to stand in line and wait their turn.

In a semi-persistent world, players share several common areas where they can interact with one another, and the rest of the world is played by using game "instances". Instances are temporary game zones that spawn for a player or their group, and do not include any other players who have not been invited into the adventure group. By using instances this helps to reduce the problems associated with spawn camping, mob stealing, item stealing, or other types of annoying player behaviors that are commonly found in persistent worlds.

Travel Around The Game World
One feature that seems to be catching on with CORPGs is the concept of downtime reduction while traveling. Anyone who’s ever played an MMORPG knows that getting to certain adventure zones or battle areas usually entails having to deal with a boring horse ride, griffon ride, or some other horrid combination. The result is that the gamer loses valuable time traveling, and CORPGs have adapted by allowing the player to travel via a world map.

Using map travel, a player simply pulls up their map display, clicks on where they want to go, and then they are instantly teleported to that location. Some games like Guild Wars make you unlock areas of the map by questing before you can gain regular access to the zone, but once you do you never have to wait around to travel again. To a casual gamer the increase in travel efficiency certainly helps them to maximize their game time.

Enter Guild Wars

Guild Wars by NCSoft was the first game designed and marketed as a CORPG. Below is the exact text from one of the public releases about the game.

"Guild Wars is a competitive online role-playing game. Players can engage in cooperative group combat, in single player adventures, or in large head-to-head guild battles. Guild Wars is a mission-based game set in a stunning 3D fantasy world that offers full, integrated support for guilds. Because the team that is developing Guild Wars has had experience creating successful online game series such as Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo, the members are familiar with the complex issues surrounding online games, and are creating a game that’s both easy to learn and compelling to play long term, and yet doesn’t require players to spend hundreds of hours slogging through the preparation just to get to the fun bits."

Guild Wars went on to sell over two million copies, and helped put games based on a CORPG concept on the market. Since the start Guild Wars supported competitive PVP, and has had several tournaments with a grand prize of $100,000 for the global winner. GW supports both PVP and PVE ranked ladders, has a reward system for those that participate, and is planning a sequel to be released in the future. Guild Wars doesn’t require a monthly subscription, and that has helped it to gain popularity from younger gamers.

Enter Fury

Fury is currently in development by Auran Studios and will be the second game to be developed as a CORPG. Unlike Guild Wars, Fury will be based entirely on a game design geared towards those who prefer PVP combat. While the exact marketing hype has yet to be determined, here is what CEO Tony Hillman said recently about the game over on the Gamespot.

"Because we’re not a traditional MMOG. We’re a very new take on the MMOG genre. I’ve just come back from our publishers in the US, and we’ve coined the term PVPMMO.By being really tightly focused on our feature set, and not spreading ourselves too thinly and not trying to be all things to all people, we can find a niche and dominate it. We’ve totally focused on the player versus player experience. So we haven’t had to make any compromises to try and squeeze in any [player-versus-environment] content at all. Everything is balanced for PVP. Every feature that we discuss, we’re not going "hmm, now the PVE guys would like it, but the PVP guys wouldn’t," or vice versa. So by focusing on a simple subset of features, we’re going to really appeal to that audience extremely well."

In Fury, there are a few main types of PVP combat in development:

Team elimination: The winners are the ones that win two out of three rounds. These are pretty fun head to head matches, and could become a great place to arrange matches between guilds.

Vortex: This map is basically a resource race. Your team has to capture crystals, and bring them to your base. The twist is the other team can raid your base and steal all the crystals you have massed. This makes for some interesting offense/defense type action, and the sloppy team can quickly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory if they are not on top of things.

Fortress War: This is a large scale battle of 32vs32 in a conquest to capture nodes and ultimately the fortress. Again this creates a lot of different types of situations for teamwork, and you have to be on top of your game to win.

Bloodbath: This is a big Free For All (FFA) type match where everyone can kill everyone. It is a very fast paced, chaotic, and fun type of PVP. Its also where a lot of new players will learn to PVP in Fury, but it will provide some fun competition on a permament basis.

Fury is currently in a "Pre-Beta" test phase, and scheduled for release in late 07 or early 08.

Concluding Remarks
Few MMORPG’s cater to the casual gamer, and various reports show that casual gamers are the largest segment of online game players. While they may sacrifice some sense of a persistent world, CORPGs provide both the casual and hardcore gamers with a lot of the same fun but without the shackles that make so many MMORPG’s feel like a second full time job.

Due to Guild War’s success, you can expect more CORPG offerings in the years to come. Fury is currently the second known CORPG in development, and Richard Garriot from NCSoft has gone on record as citing that they will publish more games using the model from Guild Wars.

So if a semi-persistent world with competitive or cooperative type game play appeals to you and you don’t have the kind of time to devote to a hardcore MMORPG, then keep an eye on the CORPG gaming genre in the years ahead.