Wanting to play an MMO
- Thread starter Wepohn
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Ive tried a few but Wow was the only one that ever truly hooked me. Spent a lot of time on Lotro and GW2 but nothing near the same level as wow. Wow is very well put together. It just hooks you in and it flows far better than others.
OK as someone who only ever really plays MMOs, I will throw in my opinion, for what it's worth.
As with any game, it will always come down to personal preference. However if you have never played an MMO before then I would recommend WoW. It's the true entry level vanilla MMO and it's very easy and friendly for newcomers. I would play that to lvl 20 (it's free upto then) and that will at least give you an idea of how these games work.
If you like it then you have a choice to pay up and continue playing or try another.
The big guns really are Star Wars The Old Republic, Rift, Elder Scrolls Online, Guild Wars 2, EVE and Wildstar. Then you have some more like DC Universe Online, Neverwinter, Marvel Heroes, Everquest 2. If you like the fantasy setting then Rift and Elder Scrolls are both good solid games. ESO does require a monthly subscription and it's very poorly received with just about every man and his dog ****ging it off, which I think is unfair. It's a decent game that just has some shortfalls.
EQ2 is more for the veteran MMO player who likes things old school. I enjoyed it for quite a while when it first came out, but now it's hard to really recommend it.
Guild Wars 2 is great value for the cost. One off payment for the game and no monthly subscription. Really cool game but it did get boring after a few weeks for me, but I do often go back to it and play it for a bit.
Rift is good for FTP but as with EQ2 it does already show it's age, but hey it's free, so why not try it.
Wildstar is not my cup of tea. Not a huge fan of the look and style but it seems really popular so I am in the minority on this. It also currently has a monthly sub and unless you have a trial key, there is no way of giving it a go without buying it.
EVE Online... Oh boy. This is a game that I just wish I liked. I love the fact it has a hardcore following and I just wish I could be one of them. I try over and over to like this but it's just so hard to get into as a new player. Overwhelming doesn't begin to cover it. I would never **** it off though as clearly it is a decent game if it's your thing. I just wish it was mine.
My current favourite is Archeage. It seems to have everything that every single one of those games mentioned has in it. It's currently in Alpha stage though and it costs £110 to buy premium status which allows you to play right now. It's worth every penny in my opinion, but that is a lot of money.
MMOs take a lot of investment to get the most out of them. Nearly all of them have some form of quests, levelling and crafting to contend with and they can easily eat away months of your life. They are also the most rewarding games you will ever play.
I envy that you have never played WoW. I would love to go into that game fresh with no knowledge of it. If you like it, just say goodbye to about 18 months of your life
As with any game, it will always come down to personal preference. However if you have never played an MMO before then I would recommend WoW. It's the true entry level vanilla MMO and it's very easy and friendly for newcomers. I would play that to lvl 20 (it's free upto then) and that will at least give you an idea of how these games work.
If you like it then you have a choice to pay up and continue playing or try another.
The big guns really are Star Wars The Old Republic, Rift, Elder Scrolls Online, Guild Wars 2, EVE and Wildstar. Then you have some more like DC Universe Online, Neverwinter, Marvel Heroes, Everquest 2. If you like the fantasy setting then Rift and Elder Scrolls are both good solid games. ESO does require a monthly subscription and it's very poorly received with just about every man and his dog ****ging it off, which I think is unfair. It's a decent game that just has some shortfalls.
EQ2 is more for the veteran MMO player who likes things old school. I enjoyed it for quite a while when it first came out, but now it's hard to really recommend it.
Guild Wars 2 is great value for the cost. One off payment for the game and no monthly subscription. Really cool game but it did get boring after a few weeks for me, but I do often go back to it and play it for a bit.
Rift is good for FTP but as with EQ2 it does already show it's age, but hey it's free, so why not try it.
Wildstar is not my cup of tea. Not a huge fan of the look and style but it seems really popular so I am in the minority on this. It also currently has a monthly sub and unless you have a trial key, there is no way of giving it a go without buying it.
EVE Online... Oh boy. This is a game that I just wish I liked. I love the fact it has a hardcore following and I just wish I could be one of them. I try over and over to like this but it's just so hard to get into as a new player. Overwhelming doesn't begin to cover it. I would never **** it off though as clearly it is a decent game if it's your thing. I just wish it was mine.
My current favourite is Archeage. It seems to have everything that every single one of those games mentioned has in it. It's currently in Alpha stage though and it costs £110 to buy premium status which allows you to play right now. It's worth every penny in my opinion, but that is a lot of money.
MMOs take a lot of investment to get the most out of them. Nearly all of them have some form of quests, levelling and crafting to contend with and they can easily eat away months of your life. They are also the most rewarding games you will ever play.
I envy that you have never played WoW. I would love to go into that game fresh with no knowledge of it. If you like it, just say goodbye to about 18 months of your life
Soldato
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well theres always the Free to play star trek online. Its good despite being free
funny how elder scrolls online wasnt mentioned once
What happened to that, what is the subscription base like ?
It's was an MMO that I had no interest in, I did initially but after seeing it that changed quickly.
Soldato
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it flopped so hard that it fell out from ever having existed
Can't believe so many of you like wildstar. It's a flash in the pan game
Dead wrong, its a hard enough game with plenty to do, and bloody good fun to boot, with the best wPvP I have seen since AoC. (or DC Universe).
What I find funny is the people who have zero idea but write a game off just because they don't like it, or not played it enough to know.
Almost every MMO I haver ditched I have played one character to max level so I actually do know what the game is like.
Having played every Elder scrolls game since Morrowind near to death I was really excited about ESO. I figured, finally here is a developer that knows how to do an open world, they can take everything they've learned from Morrowind, Oblivion and skyrim and populate it with not just one player but hundreds, maybe even thousands and do it in a way that feels genuine, exciting and fun!
Then I read the reviews.
Sorry to hijack the thread but when are developers going to learn that repeatedly copying the standard model and trying to imitate WoW's success is never going to work? They make changes to the fluff but the game runs the same as all the rest, go here and do this, go there and kill that.
I never played WoW I was to bitter after what it inspired to happen in my beloved Star Wars Galaxies... But I appreciated what it did, it brought MMO gaming to the masses and made it accessible. But its like any ground breaking new product, after the impact it makes on the public it just becomes the norm, Just like when mobile phones became accessible, everyone went out and got one, it was exciting. Now it's just a part of life.
So these game developers just keep churning out the same basic product, yeah its packaged different, has a few different features etc but is no more different than a Nokia is to Samsung.
To keep going with the current analogy, what would get people truly excited again with communications? Lets say some clever boffin creates telepathic communications, you don't call, you think and the person of the understand hears it in their minds and its publicly available. Well everyone would ditch mobiles and move to the new system cause mobiles would be old hat.
It's the same with MMO's, if you're going to capture your audience you have to dare to be different and do something groundbreaking, game changing. It's not as if they can't see its needed. They only have to look at Bioware and the old republic who are noted as saying the only thing they are proud of is the in game cut scenes (they are awesome) to see that no matter how much money you throw at it, if you keep doing the same old same old you're going to flop!
Now look at the MMO's that are different, EVE is the best example I can think of... It has a very basic background story, enough to set the scene and then encourages you to make your own stories by not limiting what you can do, by not making it all cuddly and cute and safe. And so 11/12 years later its still going strong, even growing adding 100,000 new subscribers to its regular player base last year alone (Okay there is a lot of people paying for multiple accounts but still)
Now put this game model into a loved world like Lord of the rings, Star Wars, Elder scrolls or Fall out or something similar and just watch it fly! Where that cave populated by bandits isn't filled with NPC's but a violent band of players who love nothing more than to steal, kill and pillage and you and another group of skilled warriors are hired by the locals to go in and kill them off or you become such a powerful necromancer that you become feared and hated by everyone in the game world and are at the top of bounty list where if someone actually killed your character they'd become exuberantly rich and famous in the community.
Now that's a game I'd play to death!
Then I read the reviews.
Sorry to hijack the thread but when are developers going to learn that repeatedly copying the standard model and trying to imitate WoW's success is never going to work? They make changes to the fluff but the game runs the same as all the rest, go here and do this, go there and kill that.
I never played WoW I was to bitter after what it inspired to happen in my beloved Star Wars Galaxies... But I appreciated what it did, it brought MMO gaming to the masses and made it accessible. But its like any ground breaking new product, after the impact it makes on the public it just becomes the norm, Just like when mobile phones became accessible, everyone went out and got one, it was exciting. Now it's just a part of life.
So these game developers just keep churning out the same basic product, yeah its packaged different, has a few different features etc but is no more different than a Nokia is to Samsung.
To keep going with the current analogy, what would get people truly excited again with communications? Lets say some clever boffin creates telepathic communications, you don't call, you think and the person of the understand hears it in their minds and its publicly available. Well everyone would ditch mobiles and move to the new system cause mobiles would be old hat.
It's the same with MMO's, if you're going to capture your audience you have to dare to be different and do something groundbreaking, game changing. It's not as if they can't see its needed. They only have to look at Bioware and the old republic who are noted as saying the only thing they are proud of is the in game cut scenes (they are awesome) to see that no matter how much money you throw at it, if you keep doing the same old same old you're going to flop!
Now look at the MMO's that are different, EVE is the best example I can think of... It has a very basic background story, enough to set the scene and then encourages you to make your own stories by not limiting what you can do, by not making it all cuddly and cute and safe. And so 11/12 years later its still going strong, even growing adding 100,000 new subscribers to its regular player base last year alone (Okay there is a lot of people paying for multiple accounts but still)
Now put this game model into a loved world like Lord of the rings, Star Wars, Elder scrolls or Fall out or something similar and just watch it fly! Where that cave populated by bandits isn't filled with NPC's but a violent band of players who love nothing more than to steal, kill and pillage and you and another group of skilled warriors are hired by the locals to go in and kill them off or you become such a powerful necromancer that you become feared and hated by everyone in the game world and are at the top of bounty list where if someone actually killed your character they'd become exuberantly rich and famous in the community.
Now that's a game I'd play to death!
Soldato
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+1 for Tera, not too taxing, noob freindly (I had never played a MMO before) and it's fun which is what games are supposed to be, it doesn't take itself too seriously, the combat is really good and looks beautiful.
nice post Vidar
to echo what you said, they just keep rinsing out the same things with different paint slapped on it.... and expect everyone to be dazzled.... It may do... for a short while.... but then it peels and then you see you have another wow clone trying to be different but failing
That's why I enjoyed eve in the shortish time I played it, it was what you make of it, you could run missions, do ratting, mining, purely planetary resources, market trader... what ever really
if you wanted to stay in safe space... that's cool... or you can head out into zerosec and battle with the big boys xD it's just a steep learning curve and once you are skilled enough to do something you always just start progressing to the next... now this is cool but as said.... some skills can take days, weeks and even months.
Think I had EvEMon before. this software takes the specs you want , e.g. fly a certain ship with a particular load out, then tells you all the skills you need to get to that stage. It takes the skills you have, any bonuses and then optimises the skill order to minimise the time. think one I was looking at took a total of 150+days haha!!! xD but that's not to say I couldn't do anything in the mean time. I was ratting, mining, helping a corp in lowsec battles with a smaller ship...just helping jam and stop enemyships warping away.
for the reason you stated this is why I loved/still love Ultima Online. this is a great sandbox MMORPG imho. and quite possibly the oldest/first. the only things it suffers from now is a not so massive player base
and graphics that are considered dated by most (not me... I love it all the nostalgia )
you can choose to mix and match any skills out of a huge selection to build your character how you like. you can go out and do anything with no fixed path. guilds and players would become infamous for their kindness, community efforts, thievery and player killing
you could have player houses that you could customise, have your guild mates put houses close and you can essentially have your own little village
EA made some pretty pants decisions over the years and saw many players leave after these changes ( a bit like with SWG ). I've returned and to be fair, I'm enjoying it. just needs a few more players out and about
Archage has supposedly taken UO and brought it up to date I really hope this is true and so far it looks promising.... but to get access currently it's quite the buy in. so I'll be waiting till there are cheaper options before I jump on that
to echo what you said, they just keep rinsing out the same things with different paint slapped on it.... and expect everyone to be dazzled.... It may do... for a short while.... but then it peels and then you see you have another wow clone trying to be different but failing
That's why I enjoyed eve in the shortish time I played it, it was what you make of it, you could run missions, do ratting, mining, purely planetary resources, market trader... what ever really
if you wanted to stay in safe space... that's cool... or you can head out into zerosec and battle with the big boys xD it's just a steep learning curve and once you are skilled enough to do something you always just start progressing to the next... now this is cool but as said.... some skills can take days, weeks and even months.Think I had EvEMon before. this software takes the specs you want , e.g. fly a certain ship with a particular load out, then tells you all the skills you need to get to that stage. It takes the skills you have, any bonuses and then optimises the skill order to minimise the time. think one I was looking at took a total of 150+days haha!!! xD but that's not to say I couldn't do anything in the mean time. I was ratting, mining, helping a corp in lowsec battles with a smaller ship...just helping jam and stop enemyships warping away.
for the reason you stated this is why I loved/still love Ultima Online. this is a great sandbox MMORPG imho. and quite possibly the oldest/first. the only things it suffers from now is a not so massive player base
and graphics that are considered dated by most (not me... I love it all the nostalgia )you can choose to mix and match any skills out of a huge selection to build your character how you like. you can go out and do anything with no fixed path. guilds and players would become infamous for their kindness, community efforts, thievery and player killing
you could have player houses that you could customise, have your guild mates put houses close and you can essentially have your own little village
EA made some pretty pants decisions over the years and saw many players leave after these changes ( a bit like with SWG
). I've returned and to be fair, I'm enjoying it. just needs a few more players out and about Archage has supposedly taken UO and brought it up to date
I really hope this is true and so far it looks promising.... but to get access currently it's quite the buy in. so I'll be waiting till there are cheaper options before I jump on that It's the whole top down thing that puts me off games like ultima online... I dunno I just think an MMO should be 3rd person or 1st. No doubt though it was an excellent game in its day from what I've heard of it.
Honestly if I had the money to burn I'd go back to EVE in a heart beat, yeah okay the real time training could be a pain in the backside and painstakingly slow but it sure beat the crap out of the usual boring grind of kill 500,000,000,000,000,000,000 chickens to get that skill box that lets you use a sword or lets go through that theme park again YAY????...NAY!
And as you said you could go off an enjoy the game in whatever you had to hand...
Mining and trading was my thing, I managed to build up quite a few million isk and a nice little collection of ships... For some self destructive reason I had even more fun, liquidating everything I had and peeing it away on the bink (EVE lottery/raffle type thing) and had some massive success only its true what they say if you play long enough the house always wins ha ha
I was leaving anyway so it didn't matter I was now destitute.
The EVE model answers so many questions in designing an MMO too, having the players do all the work you don't need complex AI to be developed or complex over arching story lines and to keep coming up with new exciting things. You need some creatures and critters, in game security (think high sec in eve) for certain area's like the main towns or cities and some npc bad guys of different abilities depending on the overall security of the zone the player is in that can be used where there is a lack of "bad players" (ratting) and bingo you've got a working game!
Honestly if I had the money to burn I'd go back to EVE in a heart beat, yeah okay the real time training could be a pain in the backside and painstakingly slow but it sure beat the crap out of the usual boring grind of kill 500,000,000,000,000,000,000 chickens to get that skill box that lets you use a sword or lets go through that theme park again YAY????...NAY!
And as you said you could go off an enjoy the game in whatever you had to hand...
Mining and trading was my thing, I managed to build up quite a few million isk and a nice little collection of ships... For some self destructive reason I had even more fun, liquidating everything I had and peeing it away on the bink (EVE lottery/raffle type thing) and had some massive success only its true what they say if you play long enough the house always wins ha ha
I was leaving anyway so it didn't matter I was now destitute.
The EVE model answers so many questions in designing an MMO too, having the players do all the work you don't need complex AI to be developed or complex over arching story lines and to keep coming up with new exciting things. You need some creatures and critters, in game security (think high sec in eve) for certain area's like the main towns or cities and some npc bad guys of different abilities depending on the overall security of the zone the player is in that can be used where there is a lack of "bad players" (ratting) and bingo you've got a working game!
I asked a similar question a few months back.
I ended up spending most time on Rift. I think it has a good balance - it's totally free to play (no quests restricted, etc.), the graphics are pretty good, and it's easy enough to get started, but complicated enough to let you tweak your skills endlessly. It seems to be growing well too, there's a massive update coming up soon (Rift 3.0). I found it the most sociable too if you're new and starting solo.
Lotro feels a bit too dated to me. It seems *really* quiet too, though I guess I might be using a fairly dead server (Evernight). The client doesn't tell you which are the busy servers. It'd be difficult to play it long term without subscribing, as well as buying expansion packs.
Tera is all right, but it seems more like a console shooter RPG. Very simple, not much to learn. It's very cartoony in style. It seems you can get by fine without subscribing.
There's also Defiance, it's just gone free to play. It's more of a shooter.
I ended up spending most time on Rift. I think it has a good balance - it's totally free to play (no quests restricted, etc.), the graphics are pretty good, and it's easy enough to get started, but complicated enough to let you tweak your skills endlessly. It seems to be growing well too, there's a massive update coming up soon (Rift 3.0). I found it the most sociable too if you're new and starting solo.
Lotro feels a bit too dated to me. It seems *really* quiet too, though I guess I might be using a fairly dead server (Evernight). The client doesn't tell you which are the busy servers. It'd be difficult to play it long term without subscribing, as well as buying expansion packs.
Tera is all right, but it seems more like a console shooter RPG. Very simple, not much to learn. It's very cartoony in style. It seems you can get by fine without subscribing.
There's also Defiance, it's just gone free to play. It's more of a shooter.
Unfortunately the reverse is also true from what I've witnessed, there are games that have tried to be different & have bombed because of it - To quote the most common complaints these games have seen:
It doesnt have x feature like my favourite mmo has had for years (insert feature of your choice - flying mounts, Auction house, macros, arena pvp, etc)
Those with really good graphics get hammered for not running well on old systems, those with really bad graphics get hammered for not having good graphics.
As the old saying goes you cant please everyone, back when wow started out it wasnt even original itself, just copied & improved ideas from other games, but it brought the masses to mmo's which were more niche before that.
There are quite a few choices out there at the moment.
I wouldn't be put off by WoWs age it's actually still fun, I still play it. My one reservation for new players is that I feel it has lost the journey of levelling up, it's a lot quicker than in the past as the game focus' almost everything on the end level... This isn't all bad though, they game is being made to be a lot easier to play for only short periods in stead of having to invest a lot of time to get anywhere.
It may also be a good time to try it, there is a big expansion due soon featuring an overhaul of abilities (reducing the amount) which should make it easier and overhauls of all the character models so it should look nicer!
I wouldn't be put off by WoWs age it's actually still fun, I still play it. My one reservation for new players is that I feel it has lost the journey of levelling up, it's a lot quicker than in the past as the game focus' almost everything on the end level... This isn't all bad though, they game is being made to be a lot easier to play for only short periods in stead of having to invest a lot of time to get anywhere.
It may also be a good time to try it, there is a big expansion due soon featuring an overhaul of abilities (reducing the amount) which should make it easier and overhauls of all the character models so it should look nicer!
I recently really enjoyed EVE, but I just didn't have any guidance/goal after doing all the starter careers so gave up. Was a bit lost to be honest.
If I had a goal, I would have loved it, sunk a fair few hours into the tutorial stage lol.
Loved the idea of warping around space, exploring locations.
Other than that, I played Archeage (Korean server) for a bit, which was a challenge as all the UI is in Korean.
But, the EU beta is coming soon, it's brilliant, truly can't wait!
Previous MMO's that I've sunk 2+ years into are WoW and before than, Lineage II.
L2 has passed it's day now, but still great fun on private servers from time to time.
WoW... Well it's awful now, you don't even leave the main cities anymore once you're max level. Which can be achieved fairly quickly. Or even bought now... I would NOT recommend WoW. They made it so easy to play now. All you do is sit in a city, find a group using a inbuilt group finder tool. When you find one, you all teleport to a dungeon. Complete it, leave then you rinse and repeat.
If I had a goal, I would have loved it, sunk a fair few hours into the tutorial stage lol.
Loved the idea of warping around space, exploring locations.
Other than that, I played Archeage (Korean server) for a bit, which was a challenge as all the UI is in Korean.
But, the EU beta is coming soon, it's brilliant, truly can't wait!
Previous MMO's that I've sunk 2+ years into are WoW and before than, Lineage II.
L2 has passed it's day now, but still great fun on private servers from time to time.
WoW... Well it's awful now, you don't even leave the main cities anymore once you're max level. Which can be achieved fairly quickly. Or even bought now... I would NOT recommend WoW. They made it so easy to play now. All you do is sit in a city, find a group using a inbuilt group finder tool. When you find one, you all teleport to a dungeon. Complete it, leave then you rinse and repeat.
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