An MMORPG that plays itself: Progress Quest

One of the downsides to playing Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing games (MMORPG for short) is the time it takes to level your characters. A lot of really fun quests with more powerful items become available at higher levels. But what if you could play an MMORPG without playing at all?

And that is the premise behind Progress Quest (PQ). A sense of humor is definitely required. If you’d like ‘play’ (Windows only, but some have reported it works on on Linux running Wine) then just download the small client and run to reach the following screen:

Choose New game Multiplayer mode.

On the screen above you have a choice of realms where your PQ character will adventure. You’ll see I chose the Pemptus, but Spoltog was also available as of this writing.

Like many other RPG you need to decide on your character’s name (pictured above #1, I’m Radwhot, nice to meet you), choose race (#2, Enchanted Motorcycle, what else?), choose class (#3, I chose to be a ‘Bastard Lunatic’ because it sounded interesting) and roll your stats (#4). When satisfied with your character click “Sold!” (#5) and it’s onto the, er, gameplay.

Now go back to work and let your adventurer fight, loot corpses and take on quests. While writing this review, I’m still level 1, but my sharp stick has completed the following quests:

Deliver this credenza, Placate the Hydras, Fetch me a newspaper, Exterminate the Ostriches, Seek the Unearthly Diadem, Exterminate the Lizard Men, Exterminate the Pirates, Seek The Golden Hood and is working on Seek the Puissant Candelabra.

Every 15 minutes stats are updated on the Progress Quest site so you can compare against your friends and fellow adventurers.

Here’s where you can view Radwhot’s stats. I know at least some of my fellow VTOR authors have a good sense of humor. Do you? How high is your Progress Quest character?

Update 11/5/07 7:56am PST: Progress Quest has been running since publishing this post and Radwhot is now level 22 and rising: