Anti-Social Gamer - Spec me a MMO

[MidnightLamp]

ffxi and ffxiv's communities are a lot maturer on the scale of things, and generally more respectful as its international. however i'd steer clear of xiv for a few months until its fixed!

 

[ro55o]

So far Rift has been pretty friendly. You will get some utter queers at times, but ignoring them usually works. Unfortunately they are in every mmo. The rifts and invasions keep the game quite fresh and interesting, definitely a good mmo to get into. Like others have said, go DPS and you can sit back dealing damage, while tanks and healers take the flak from the rest when something goes wrong Just enjoy the game, join in with groups and raids and learn what to do, how to make the most of your skills etc.

LOTRO would be another option, it's free and from what I can remember has a pretty decent community.

EVE should definitely not be your first MMO, not the way to pop your cherry

 

[AHarvey]

my first mmo was Ultima online, and its still going. Amazingly in depth, since then only SWG and EVE have really achieved something similar.

I'd suggest Eve if you want to jump in at the deep end, which imho is the best way, other wise, LOTRO.

 

[Rroff]

Meh eve doesn't have that much depth really - aside from macro gaming and trading. Mostly it just seems like it due to the way CCP have made everything needlessly over complicated and sheer number of copy and paste systems, characters, missions, etc.

 

[Raumarik]

If I were starting out I'd pick Lotro. None of the other MMOs offer the same richness for a new player without the usual older-player snobbery or monthly fees.

Rift is OK and quite interesting but it's a soul-less WoW clone with clever addons, there's almost no community to it though. If you fancy Rift, just go straight to WoW instead.

My opinion folks - you might not approve but the OP asked for opinions.

 

[AHarvey]

Meh eve doesn't have that much depth really - aside from macro gaming and trading. Mostly it just seems like it due to the way CCP have made everything needlessly over complicated and sheer number of copy and paste systems, characters, missions, etc.

Suppose it depends on who you play with and what you do.

At the end of the day, its the people you know in game that really make a mmorpg what it is.

No matter what game you go with op, try and get in with a good bunch and you'll love it

 

[Anim]

Meh eve doesn't have that much depth really

 

[Red_knight]

City of Heroes is solo friendly, and you just turn off broadcast chat if you don't want to speak to other people.

 

[AHarvey]

its also a little boring, and last time I checked was dying.

mmorpg's aren't about solo, its about corps or guilds, its about making friends and having a laugh

 

[Huddy]

Guild Wars is very solo friendly now with the 7 companions update. You can pretty much play through the whole game + expansions solo.

User base is that is still fairly active and pretty mature if you want to guild up.

Major bonus, no subscription charges.

 

[AHarvey]

*awaits the people that say GW isn't a proper mmo

 

[Kagemusha]

Almost all MMO's have either a free trial of some description or at one time were subscription and are now F2P.

So if you fancy a bit of trial and error and don't mind downloading huge files and then going through the tedius process of patching - the world, the virtual one at least, is your oyster.

SWG
If you are into Star Wars then give SWG a go, its never ever going to be the game it once was or have the subscriber numbers it did have, but it tends to be full of mature players who are still lurking around from the 'good old days' or Pre-CU.

Fallen Earth
Is different, again has a mature subscriber base and has a first person shooter feel about it. kinda like a MMO Fallout i guess.

Darkfall
First person shooter feel again, mostly mature subscriber base. BUT, it might be a tad too hard-core for the first time MMO player and takes some getting to grips with as it has a full loot system - Another player kills you they can and most probably will take all your stuff - friendly fire is disabled.

Rift
IMO good, better than WoW. Less people moaning and generally chat channels tend to be a bit quieter, not played since the last couple of patches though.

EVE
Cracking game, although very steep learning curve.

I'm sure you can google reviews and such for yourself - these are the games I've played recently (last 12 months or so). I'd try a few or at least a newer MMO then an older one, see which you prefer.

Also have a look on http://gamelist.mmosite.com/game/more/highestranked.shtml to see whats on offer, although a lot of those listed are NA and Asian MMOs and can't be played from the EU.

 

[Rroff]

Guild Wars would be a good start.

City of Heros is very very dull solo - the real magic of that game was when you got a good team together and sadly these days theres very few active players I have some great memories from that game - its one of the few games I've played where you had a high chance of getting a good team together, everyone just playing for fun no griefing, scamming, emo rage, childish bs or whatever and people actually having half and idea of how to play and working together to complete the objectives.

 

[zack1uk]

If you just want a taste before playing star wars then I'd recommended WoW or Rift. You will find some elitism in any MMO. WoW is worse for it but only really kicks in at the high levels. However, the chances are that as WoW is such a good game that once you start playing it you probably won't bother with Star Wars for a while. I started a WoW account just for something to do when I got bored of Guild Wars (after 2 months) - 4 years later (and a nearly destroyed relationship) I got bored and have recently started playing Rift, and am really enjoying it.

Its often all about how honest you are. Its actually more about ego than elitism, so if you join a group and say up front that you are new to the game (or the dungeon instance) and would appreciate any advice or tips, then you will often find that those elitist idiots suddenly become very helpful and protective, if they don't then the rest of the group will often turn on them not you. If you give it large and then don't perform to expectation then thats where things get unpleasant.

WoW does have an awful lot of idiots but it also has a tremendous amount of very helpful very decent people. I rarely got involved in drama, if I found it I walked away as there for every idiot there were loads of great people.

 

[Archy]

Would definately recomment Rift, I'm reasonably new to the game (though not to MMO's) and the community and general population seems to be vastly more mature and more pleasant than WoW ever was. Give the 7 day free trial a whirl and see what you think!

If you do, roll on the 'shivermere' server and choose Defiant as your side, OcUK have a guild on there. Send me a trust message with your character name (as on a trial you cant contact anyone that hasnt added you as a friend first) and I'll be happy to help you out with any questions or play along with you for a bit.

 

[Red_knight]

its also a little boring, and last time I checked was dying.

Boring is a matter of perspective, but it's quite healthy. They've also removed region locking on the servers so that Euro players can join the US servers without needing a US copy of the game.

mmorpg's aren't about solo, its about corps or guilds, its about making friends and having a laugh

He descibed himself as an anti-social gamer - in those cases, you want a MMO where you can ignore the community and do almost everything yourself.

 

[Red_knight]

Guild Wars would be a good start.

City of Heros is very very dull solo - the real magic of that game was when you got a good team together and sadly these days theres very few active players

They've consolidated the server lists (not merged servers, just removed region lockign on them) so that Euro players can join the US servers. Freedom and Virtue are basically packed most evenings.

 

[Tefal]

Have you played WoW?

You need a grown up, challenging MMO to find a good and grown up playerbase, only one I have played like this in the last few years is EVE. Its far from your typical MMO and whilst you get some flaming/whining and the rest in general its much better community wise.

EvE... SPREAD SHEETS IN SPACE!!!

 

[lunarwolf]

Don't go WoW everyone slags everyone off. RIFT on the other hand... unlike WoW trade chat is silent as (on my shard anyway) and other chats their all friendly. Also as long as you play a DPS you can't really go wrong. Tanks and healers get the most **** for messing up.

+1. although healer is a good class to be if you want to play with others, as lots of people like to have extra healers so it's easy to tag along.

anyway i suggest you try each class since it is a good way to learn how to be effective in a group, many just play one type and really have no idea about other classes; which is a shame since to be a good group you really need to understand each class and adapt your playstyle so the group is well balanced. for instance tanks always get the blame even when a noob dps start off full dps and steals the aggro. if the noob had played tank before he would know that a tank need to build and maintain aggro. but a tank doesn't do much dps and must resort to hatred etc... which can be slower to build up than full dps at the start.

i think Age of Conan has a free trial offer up to level 40 so give that a try to see how you like MMO and learn some basics, terminology etc... it's also the best looking MMO, the combat system is cool and it has a lot more content now. too bad many didn't stick with it at first because for the first 6 months it was a bit lacking content wise past lvl 40.

start on PVE servers and dont do PVP, since you will learn the hard way what ganking means and that can be a terminal put off.

unfortunately, as in life, you will always get idiots who are rude so can't really do anything about that other than to ignore. when you meet some people you like, get along with, just play with them and do the group quests together. even if you aren't the best group out there doesn't matter as long as you all have fun, lots of people take the fun out of MMO, looting being the biggest cause of nerd rage .

plenty of clans always recruit, but that is hit and miss. try out a small clan at first where you know the people and have fun with them. if you become hardcore than you can always join a hardcore clan later on. be warned those usually have requirements from members, and take game very seriously so not really fun, not to mention politics . but i think it's the only way to do the end game raids since those need well coordinated plans, which are very hard to do in PUGs

good luck and remember to have fun

 

[Rroff]

They've consolidated the server lists (not merged servers, just removed region lockign on them) so that Euro players can join the US servers. Freedom and Virtue are basically packed most evenings.

Was aware of this, if its busy I might re-sub my account for a bit... if I can get support to sort my account out - new security measure needs the answer to a security question...... that I never set in the first place but won't let me log in without :S