Ask Slashdot: MMORPG Recommendations?

An anonymous reader writes "Lord of the Rings: Online's latest expansion, Helm's Deep, involved cutting many skills for all classes, with a only a handful reclaimable through the new, 1-dimensional trait trees. If you're not an end-game raider, you're out of luck. And if you are, you can now play your character perfectly with only one or two buttons. Like many who preordered the expansion, I feel robbed and I'm joining the mass exodus. What do you folks suggest? How do Guild Wars 2, RIFT, World of Warcraft and all the other MMORPGs stack up these days? What else would you recommend looking at?"

Comments

I recommend non - MMO

[aepervius]

really, nowadays I play a bit MMO around until mid level, then give up. They become repetitive and raiding is only a slightly less rewarding skinner box.

Re:I recommend non - MMO

[twocows]

I dunno, MMOs are still fun to me. I like getting together with a dozen two dozen people and organizing and planning, and then trying to execute those often pretty complex plans. That's where the joy of raiding has always been for me. If they could just distill this and make it into the main portion of a game, I'd probably be down for that.

Re:I recommend non - MMO

[MightyYar]

Repetition is good. My favorite repetitive MMOs are Candy Crush, or anything by Zinga. :p

Re:I recommend non - MMO

[interkin3tic]

OP obviously enjoys MMORPGs, and is asking for suggestions, and your suggestion is that he shouldn't actually enjoy MMORPGs?

Did you see that no one else had posted yet and absolutely needed to fill the void?

Re:I recommend non - MMO

[mwvdlee]

Those are more like Small Single-player Online, or SSO, games; all of the grinding with none of the content and none of the other players.

Re:I recommend non - MMO

[MightyYar]

But... but... I invite my friends and get more lives! ;p

Re:I recommend non - MMO

[Anonymous Coward]

This. The entire MMO genre was created for one purpose and one purpose only: To generate lots of money for the least amount of effort to date (at the time that it was created).

Re:I recommend non - MMO

[Anonymous Coward]

What if all the other MMOs are worse? This actually seems likely for many players in LotRO who are not traditional gamers and certainly not habitual MMO nomads.

Re:I recommend non - MMO

[Anonymous Coward]

Progress Quest - no more grinding.

Re:I recommend non - MMO

[lgw]

By far the least repetitive MMO I've played, with the best low-level content, is D&D Online. There's so much low level content that you never need to repeat a quest on your way to max level.

I'm not a fan of the new endgame, the latest expansion plays too much like NWNO, but there's tons of fun game content before you get to the endgame, with many complex and interesting build choices (being very D&D based, there's remarkable depth to the "skill system" - it's like nothing else I've seen). I had years of fun just making new builds, sometimes to optimize and sometimes to just make something crazy work, before getting bored.

It also has the Underdark / Drow city Demonweb quest line (the original "dark elves in gaming", and thus the only take on that concept I've ever found interesting) which is just a darn cool area to explore and get lost it, even if the devs were losing their way by that expansion and the quests weren't the best, just wandering around was a blast for an old-school D&D player like me!

Re:I recommend non - MMO

[Ost99]

Try EVE. No two days are ever the same.

Re:I recommend non - MMO

[Anonymous Coward]

I am the OP. And by the way, what I wrote as not "cutting many". It's more like 2/3rds of the skills were cut for every class, with a tiny handful recoverable through what laughably passes as a trait tree. (Linear tree, 3 choices all straight lines 7 deep. Either go to the bottom, or go broad.)

For the record, I'm a stay at home parent. Three kids. Oldest is now in elementary school. One is in preschool. My day consists of dishes, cooking, laundry, bathroom trips, and constantly driving kids somewhere. It's unbelievably isolating and tedious, with near constant interruptions. MMORPGs may be little more than skinner boxes, but it keeps me sane and provides a chance to socialize.

I'm open to non-MMO suggestions. Preferably with a pause button. But keep it simple! If I could concentrate for more than a few seconds at a time, I'd be coding...

Re:I recommend non - MMO

[Hemos]

Man, here I was hoping helm's deep would reinvigorate LOTRO. And yes, I had even pre-ordered it.

Re:I recommend non - MMO

[rochrist]

Meh. I feared the class changes for my hunter, but now after a couple of days of playing, not so much. It's been simplified a bit, but not that badly, and the trait trees have their own qualities to recommend them.

Re:I recommend non - MMO

[Anonymous Coward]

EVE is a space simulation for griefers.

Re: I recommend non - MMO

[Anonymous Coward]

Non-MMO suggestion: Minecraft. Online (optinally with mods) play has many of the same charms as MMOs, and it's something you can actually play with your kids.

Re:I recommend non - MMO

[Anonymous Coward]

Invest in your brain! Multi user dungeons is where it is at! telnet discworld.atuin.net for a taste of the real original mmorpg!

Re: I recommend non - MMO

[Anonymous Coward]

I know several parents, even grandparents, that love Runescape. It does have a pause button. It also has very strong social features, which is probably why my wife plays it. She mostly likes chatting with members of her clan, that are all over the world geographically.

Re:I recommend non - MMO

[luvirini]

Very true. Most of the new high level content is kind of "bleh" and there is no end game in DDO currently.

But most of the earlier, lower level adventures are a blast of fun. Also there is some hope, as the newest update had a high level quest "Study in Sable" that is definitely a classic D&D adventure.

The character customization options in terms of the different builds are amazing. (13 classes, where you can mix and match up to 3 of them, 8+4 races with racial abilities, 21 skills, 2-4 enchantment trees/class+1/race, dozens and dozens of feats to chose from..)

To add to the fun they have a Reincarnation system where you can after running through the fun parts of the game (reaching level 20), you can "Recycle" your character and start again at level 1, with (slightly) more power. And for those of us who are addicted, that process can be repeated again and again, each time gaining bit more power.

Re:I recommend non - MMO

[Bengie]

Submarine simulator, get it right!

Re:I recommend non - MMO

[lgw]

It's also the only MMO that explicitly gives you a way to win the game. You might be an MMO addict if ...

Re:I recommend non - MMO

[DuckDodgers]

My favorite PC games are turn-based strategy. If you enjoy those, like King's Bounty or Heroes of Might and Magic, I think it would fit your schedule just fine. Since it's turn-based, you don't lose anything from interruptions.

Of course, the down side is that they don't give you human-to-human interaction. I spent a very short period as a stay-at-home parent, and while it's wonderful to spend more time with your kids it's also difficult to go without adult conversation and social interaction. I imagine many MMOs give you at least something along those lines, and turn-based strategy does not.

Re:I recommend non - MMO

[Keith111]

Top 3 favorite MMO in the last 6 years: EVE, DDO, Path of Exile

Re:I recommend non - MMO

[drsquare]

Perhaps the fact that he needs to ask for recommendations for MMOs suggests that he's actually bored of the genre but wants people to convince him to keep playing them.

WoW

[Anonymous Coward]

From the submission:
I'll echo that partially. It's worth trying it, at least. The game's free to play until level 20 with some limitations and you can get a week free if someone recruits you (or if you wait til the expansion you can apply for a free week, and yes if you get both at the same time they stack). You could probably turn off leveling at 19 and participate in twink battlegrounds if you feel the urge to get pummeled by people who have spent countless hours perfecting their gear with stuff you can't get. That said, a lot of stuff is pretty lame. Raid Finder is a good idea but it kind of stinks in reality. And the world doesn't feel nearly as... harsh as it used to. You don't feel like an adventurer anymore, you feel like your own personal little god that can kill everything around you unless it's another player. That's not nearly as fun.

This was in response to this.

Re:WoW

[Anonymous Coward]

The Secret World is so good it's literally destroyed any enjoyment I could get from my old, favorite MMOs. Warhammer Online was my last, hardcore MMO (with a ton of WOW before that). After that I played DDO quite a bit and a bunch of other stuff on and off.

I paid 15 bucks for The Secret World, played it for 2 months, don't really play much anymore, but felt like I got more than my money's worth. They have actual writers, interesting quests, and a living world in a way that WOW and the other, frequently lauded, MMOs can't functionally do nearly as well.

TSW is NOT kid friendly, be aware of that. If you play MMOs with your kids I'd have to recommend DDO or similar (maybe Wizard 101 or Pirate 101 if they're younger).

Recommendation

[grub]

Read a book. Go out with some friends. Meet your neighbours.

Re:Recommendation

[Anonymous Coward]

Read a book. Go out with some friends. Meet your neighbours.

-1 Offtopic

A typical Ask Slashdot response. Moderately hostile, and completely useless.

Re:Recommendation

[Anonymous Coward]

I've done all those things and they're overrated.

Re:Recommendation

[s.petry]

Useless and hostile? Seems like very sound advice. Sporting events, concerts, comedy clubs, a neighborhood game of hearts or spades. Those things may not make a video game company lots of money but still entertainment that many can be involved in.

Re:Recommendation

[dyingtolive]

I don't know. When I get burned out on games and they're not fulfilling anymore (like what's started to happen to me at the present), this is exactly what I do. I go read some books, catch up with old friends, paint some 40k stuff, program something, whatever. About a month later, I'm feeling much better, and getting back into something sounds good.

If the exodus is that great as of Helm's Deep, maybe by that time they'll have kneejerked their changes back into something more enjoyable, and then you don't even have to jump ship to a different game.

Re:Recommendation

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that, the world is the most challenging game ever!

Re:Recommendation

[yurtinus]

Definitely offtopic though... The question is what MMORPG do you recommend - not what social activities do you prefer.

Contrary to popular belief, you *can* play an MMO or other video games and still enjoy many weeknights of hanging out with other people or working on your hobbies.

Let's put it another way. If I'm good friends with my neighbors, spent last night playing trivia at the bar with a bunch of friends, have weekend plans to snowshoe if the weather permits it, and don't feel like wrenching on my project car, what MMO would you guys recommend for a relaxing evening at home?

Re:Recommendation

[Anonymous Coward]

-1, Faggot.

Re:Recommendation

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, but the cost to entertainment ratio is nowhere near an mmo. for the game price plus $15/month, it's pretty cheap.

Re:Recommendation

[s.petry]

I never claimed that their post was not off topic, I claimed that it was not "hostile" and "useless". I do understand that reading comprehension can be difficult, but these are not large complex paragraphs to read and comprehend.

Re:Recommendation

[s.petry]

I agree with that point absolutely. If you lack funding or are trying to save money, you get a months worth of entertainment for the cost of a movie. It's a hard deal to pass up. Playing D&D with a bunch of friends is just as inexpensive assuming someone already owns the guides, and cards, are pretty cheap too. I personally still prefer those two things to playing an MMO because I get to interact with people in a different way.

Re:Recommendation

[Anonymous Coward]

I am the OP. And by the way, what I wrote as not "cutting many". It's more like 2/3rds of the skills were cut for every class, with a tiny handful recoverable through what laughably passes as a trait tree. (Linear tree, 3 choices all straight lines 7 deep. Either go to the bottom, or go broad.)

For the record, I'm a stay at home parent. Three kids. Oldest is now in elementary school. One is in preschool. My day consists of dishes, cooking, cleaning, laundry, bathroom trips, and constantly driving kids somewhere. It's unbelievably isolating and tedious, with near constant interruptions. MMORPGs may be little more than skinner boxes, but it keeps me sane and provides a chance to socialize.

I'm open to non-MMO suggestions. Preferably with a pause button. But keep it simple! If I could concentrate for more than a few seconds at a time, I'd be coding...

Re:Recommendation

[Dragonslicer]

Not only that, the world is the most challenging game ever!

The graphics are incredibly realistic, but the gameplay is frustrating and the plot just sucks.

Re:Recommendation

[Anonymous Coward]

-1 Offtopic

A typical Ask Slashdot response. Moderately hostile, and completely useless.

Re:Recommendation

[dlingman]

Go out. Bah. RealWorld (tm) sucks. Game is locked in hardcore mode, NPC AI is abysmal. Graphics are good though - most realistic skyboxes ever.

Re:Recommendation

[crdotson]

It was useless, because it was offtopic. It was hostile, because the clear implication is that you're an idiot for spending time on MMORPGs.

Your reply is likewise hostile, because it's patronizing and implies that the parent has lousy reading comprehension. It's probably useless too.

My post is both annoying and useless, but hopefully not hostile.

Re: Recommendation

[Anonymous Coward]

Gah

Re:Recommendation

[oji-sama]

The graphics are incredibly realistic, but the gameplay is frustrating and the plot just sucks.

The starting areas are not well balanced either. And there are too many pay to win elements.

Re: Recommendation

[Anonymous Coward]

That's rich coming from a power user on Slashdot. How many years have you been hypocritically spouting nonsense here again?

Re:Recommendation

[Cederic]

Damn you, now I want some faggots.
http://groceries.asda.com/asda-webstore/landing/home.shtml?cmpid=ahc-_-ghs-sna1-_-asdacom-dsk-_-hp#/product/910001174639

Re:Recommendation

[Hognoxious]

Plus it's full of griefers.

Re: Recommendation

[grub]

I'd wager I spend less time reading /. than virtually any MMORPG player spends in their game...

Re:Recommendation

[s.petry]

The first post in question simply states "Read a book. Go out with some friends. Meet your neighbours." If you some how believe that there is an implied claim of someone being an idiot for playing a MMO, you are inventing words that do not exist. I have seen comments in the past that claimed people are X for playing MMOs, but this person stated no such X (X = anti-social, geek, needs to get laid, etc...).

If you invent words that don't exist, there is a severe problem with reading and comprehension.

If someone tells you that you are wrong, that is not hostility. That is someone pointing out that you are wrong. Was I perhaps blunt in doing so? Sure, but I'm not going to coddle people that invent statements, ignore facts, and attack people based on faulty logic. I have patience for children, not people old enough to post on a forum.

Re:Recommendation

[Outtascope]

If you some how believe that there is an implied claim of someone being an idiot for playing a MMO, you are inventing words that do not exist.

The parent's choice of the word idiot is perhaps not accurate (I take you to mean that the OP is uneducated), but it clearly was an indictment of the OP's intelligence in your passive aggressive response. There is no invention of any "words that do not exist" in the parent's interpretation of your smarmy post. It is a common sense interpretation from the words you plainly wrote.

If you invent words that don't exist, there is a severe problem with reading and comprehension.

Your condition is false making your declaration vacuous. Here, I can do that too: If the color green weighs 5 pounds then you are a millionaire. Fun, but pointless.

If someone tells you that you are wrong, that is not hostility.

And there's the weeny. See, the OP wasn't making a declaration of fact that invited your measured judgement of their rightness or wrongness. The OP was asking for suggestions of something within a certain set of parameters. You took it upon yourself not to tell them that there is nothing within that set of parameters that fit (or that there is), you instead chose to imply that they don't know what they are asking. You shouldn't be asking for that. You should be doing this. I know, because I am ZEUSS!

The hostility comes in because of the way you stated your response. You could have said "I used to play MMO's, but now I find that reading a book is a much more enjoyable endeavor." That would still have been an off topic response, but at least it has the pretense of attempting to be helpful.

You declared "Read a book." First, instead of offering a response that was helpful you barked an order. A schizophrenically non-germane order I might add. Question: Hey, what are the best brand of running shoes? Response: Buy some reading glasses. Do you see how silly that looks?

Additionally, the expression "Read a book" is loaded, as you are well aware. I would give you a pass believing that you didn't know that the expression carries the implication that the receiver is illiterate, except that you have now educated us on "reading and comprehension", and are thus clearly in-the-know.
Bottom line, get over yourself. You responded like an ass. You can apologize (either for what you said or for having put it in a manner that was so easily misconstrued as you seem to be arguing), or you can own it, but you can't deny it.

Re:Recommendation

[Outtascope]

My apologies s.petry for implying that the original sarcastic post was yours, you were just arguing in support of the post. I stand by my statements as to why that post was offensive/unconstructive, but apologize for having attributed the statement to you in my response.

Re: Recommendation

[Anonymous Coward]

If you take a deep breath and an honest look at the new skill trees you will see it's not all doom and gloom as you describe. Some of the new skills we got are pretty cool in fact.

Re:Recommendation

[crdotson]

I wouldn't worry about it. s.petry's subsequent post was offensive and unconstructive, so you didn't miss by much. :)

Re:Recommendation

[s.petry]

I wouldn't worry about it. s.petry's subsequent post was offensive and unconstructive, so you didn't miss by much. :)

I'm just as offended by people imagining what other people claim, then insulting anyone that does not agree with their imagination. We are even.

Re:Recommendation

[s.petry]

I think we have all seen the posts like I mentioned, where someone name calls or makes an offensive post in addition to claiming MMOs are bad. This post was not such a post.

Perhaps you are (or they are) conditioned to react as being offended by every post regarding MMO that contains certain key words? I am not conditioned the same way, and if you are conditioned then the offense is not due to words but the conditioning.

Re:Recommendation

[s.petry]

Another couple quick points. If the person had followed your suggestion of "I used to play MMO's, but" The actual content of the post "go read a book" would not change. A person offended by such a simple suggestion would still be offended. It would probably extend the perceived hostility because the person claiming "I used to play" appears to make them an elitist.

Take offense when offensive words are used, there are plenty of those to go around. Spending 5 paragraphs defending hostility regarding two 3 word sentences, and a 5 word sentence is a waste of effort.

This is true from English classes, but you could also use Symbolic Logic to show I am correct. "Read a book" lacks any ability to be offensive. "Read an *exclamation* book" has the potential to be offensive. "Meet your neighbors" lacks the ability to be offensive. "Meet your *exclamation* neighbors has the potential to be offensive.

All 3 of those statements given were absolutely neutral. The only way a person could be offended is to insert words that do not exist. If the person had given more information, it would be fair to assume that other words were implied. It's impossible given the 11 words used to make such an assumption.

Re:Recommendation

[s.petry]

I accept the apology, and thank you for the offer. I am actually not really defending the post, as much as I was arguing that the post is not hostile anonymous coward claimed after they rated the post.

Re:Recommendation

[Jmc23]

Didn't you know? You are the author of the plot, so if your's sucks...

TES Online...

[Anonymous Coward]

comes out *relatively* (FY2014 projected release) soon.
Wide spread Beta invites this weekend. Wait for that. IMO

Re:TES Online...

[Endo13]

Got it. Tried it. Thought it sucked, HARD. Combat in particular feels like early alpha.

Not sure how it stacks up.

[Korielus]

I have just started Tera Rising, so far it seems fine and I like the combat system but it does seem tailored towards grinding although it does have the advantage that its free to play.

As a LOTRO player

[east coast]

I have solo'd up to level 57 and only used 4 buttons. It seems that a lot of the skills they gave my toon are so limited in scope that they're not worth fussing over. Would I move up the ladder a bit faster if I worked the math and got serious? Probably but so far I don't feel too bad about it all.

Re:As a LOTRO player

[Anonymous Coward]

As another LotRO player, I don't have a suggestion of where to go, but I'll just thank whoever wrote in the Ask Slashdot that he's leaving. While I like the benefits that have come with Turbine making their MMOs free to play (mostly), I am getting really, really sick of all the whining about everything.

"There are too many useless skills!!!"
"Where did all my skills go???!!!"
"Crafting is underpowered!!!"
"Crafting is overpowered!!!"
"How I mine for fish?!"

I was in since the pre-order beta. The expansions came with new mechanics just to set them apart from the content before. In all honesty, 2/3rd of those mechanics were worthless skill-cruft that only mattered in those specific dungeons as yet another level-lock or useless gear-cruft for the same reason.
The old class-trait system was clumsy and awkward, almost as bad as the old legendary-traits. I'm guessing that question-poster wasn't around back when legendary trait books required very specific enemies. It was a royal pain to learn one of the Loremaster legendaries because the pages rarely (and only) dropped from elite-or-bigger spiders in the forested corner of nowhere.

Re:As a LOTRO player

[bob_super]

Amateur!
I solo'd up to the last level with just one button. Picked up some sweet 'shroom upgrades on the way, that Bowser guy didn't even stand a chance!

Re:As a LOTRO player

[Darinbob]

I think the skill revamp is a big change, but it's not the disaster people claim. Many other MMOs have even simpler play styles. People are really using the skill revamps as the excuse they were looking for to justify their pre-planned departure.

The real problem is that the game has gotten simple anyway and the developers are making leveling up be faster and combat simpler. The sooner you get to end game the sooner you feel compelled to spend money on an expansion. It is true we used to have a large variety of skills, even before the first expansion you could argue that some classes were overloaded, but there was more grouping involved from just getting together to defeat a tough opponent on the landscape up to doing a full raid. Later it was simplified so that casual grouping was never needed, as that would slow people down on their accelerated leveling schedule. If you only solo then you really don't need many skills, but this applies to all MMOs.

Part of the problem is with players too. They really don't want to do quests on the landscape as much, they don't want to explore, they're not doing any of the single player RPG style of play at all. Instead they want to get to end game fast. They'll feel powerful if they kill things with one shot while leveling but then at high levels that same play style makes them wonder why it's easy. Most new players focus intently on making a high damage build, choosing high damage classes as main preference, others will discourage new players from trying harder or more nuanced classes, etc. So don't blame just the devs, also blame players who want to turn the game into yet another generic MMO.

And for those players who left last year for the glorious offerings of new games, I've seen quite a chunk of them returning later saying how another game was even worse or that they couldn't stand the other players and so on. There's good stuff in this expansion: the epic quests are very good again compared to the last few updates, the landscape looks great, etc. Sure not as many raids but this was never a raid heavy game.

As for the original poster: you were NOT robbed. Every game out there changes mechanics along the way, this was just a bit larger than some. But it is in no ways similar to the massive change of NGE that some compare it too. And pre-ordering is always a bad idea for any game or product. It's just dumb. Always know what it is before you buy. And since there's not sub required, you can still keep playing. The game is not the pay-to-win so many claim when you compare it to other games; you can get everything for a much smaller cost than a traditional subscription game (being forced to subscribe to play is the very definition of pay-to-win).

Finally. Please, if you're going to leave a game then just leave. Don't stick around bad mouthing it. Don't go onto all the forums to bad mouth it. Don't go onto slashdot to whine about it. JUST LEAVE! This is not a popularity contest where you're required to drag others away with you when you leave. Getting bored and leaving because of that is natural; it's an old game so it is normal for people to leave. Just don't try to drag it down when you do go.

Re:As a LOTRO player

[east coast]

Most new players focus intently on making a high damage build, choosing high damage classes as main preference, others will discourage new players from trying harder or more nuanced classes, etc.

Well, something I've found on the server that I'm on is that grouping is almost non-existent beyond The Barrow-Downs. At least that's the way it feels. As a solo it doesn't bother me but there isn't a lot of interaction between players in places like Bree. I've had a few group quests that I was going to try to get a group together to complete but it just doesn't seem like anyone works together outside of a kinship maybe.

So in this way being a DPS tank really seems to be the way to go. I guess a n00b wouldn't know that but all the same...

I might be interested in running a support toon if I felt that I could find groups well enough without being attached to an agressive kinship. I just don't play often enough to justify all the nonsense that comes with most "serious" kinships.

Finally. Please, if you're going to leave a game then just leave. Don't stick around bad mouthing it. Don't go onto all the forums to bad mouth it. Don't go onto slashdot to whine about it. JUST LEAVE! This is not a popularity contest where you're required to drag others away with you when you leave. Getting bored and leaving because of that is natural; it's an old game so it is normal for people to leave. Just don't try to drag it down when you do go.

I agree. And to act like there was going to be a clear answer is foolish. It's about as productive as asking which Linux distro people recommend to someone who's sick of Ubuntu.

Re:As a LOTRO player

[nschubach]

Most new players focus intently on making a high damage build, choosing high damage classes as main preference

I have to blame part of this on the design of games coming out. It seems like any meaningful crowd control, healing, and utility classes are being sidelined for DPS. Even with Guildwars, the mobs all die so fast that DoTs, heals and other utility are pointless.

Re:As a LOTRO player

[Darinbob]

There are about three things I do in LotRO and other MMOS: do the new quests that come out and explore new regions, do some light group content if it's not some tier 2 challenge raid led by a drill sergeant, and then repeat on other characters. I'm middle of the road here; not a pure soloer, not a hardcore raider, which was LotRO's strengths early on.

LotRO Helm's Deep is very very good with the first part, the quests are nice and entertaining so far, lots of good tie in with the books, exploring is fun. Sure the combat is a bit simpler now (they really didn't balance much after the skill revamps, so everyone is overpowered) but that's ok since it doesn't ruin the questing and exploring. As for the end game group content it remains to be seen, but the new stuff looks interesting even though it isn't a traditional instance, but we still have older scalable instances and I'm sure plenty of people will be running those. The really serious raiding types aren't happy but I was never in their cliques and tended to do the group content after those guys got tired of it.

Re:As a LOTRO player

[Phrogman]

And these are all problems that have come up in previous games, been resolved, and then ignored in modern games.

I think the problem is mostly the players mind you, people do not want to group, do not want to PvE and learn the skills, they want to PvP and be Uber right away. Developers are catering to this because of course they want the number of players to increase and they think simplifying a game and making it soloable will do so, but I think thats a mistake in the long run.

The MMORPGs I have stuck with the longest have been those in which it was fun to group up to face a challenge, in which there were enjoyable PvE experiences and PvP (if any) was an add on as the end game. The best example of this, bar none, was Dark Age of Camelot. Best PvP game ever, despite its flaws, and a decent PvE experience at least early on. As it aged though, they made leveling up 100x easier, ignored the PvE side for the most part, and made changes to the game that were in many ways damaging to it, based on feedback from players who after all, are *not* game designers.

Re:As a LOTRO player

[Areyoukiddingme]

The game is not the pay-to-win so many claim when you compare it to other games; you can get everything for a much smaller cost than a traditional subscription game (being forced to subscribe to play is the very definition of pay-to-win).

Uh, no it's not. Subscription is pay-to-play, and in a normal subscription game, everybody pays the same flat fee for access. It's the exact opposite of pay-to-win. Pay-to-win can only happen when spending more money gives you access to stuff that players not paying can't otherwise get. Traditional subscription games give all players access to everything, because they're all paying, by definition. It's unusual for a subscription game to then try to demand more money for extra stuff, on top of a subscription fee.

Free-to-play is usually the only design that falls into the pay-to-win trap because the designers, having abrogated the normal revenue model, are required to find some other way to acquire revenue, and that usually means differentiating what a paying vs non-paying player can do and that differentiation very often results in the payer winning over the non-payer as an added incentive to become a payer.

And you should know all that.

Re:As a LOTRO player

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Multiplayer implies grouping -- we are still waiting for the game that makes this easy. I don't mean raids or dungeons, I mean your fellow band of travellers moving from area to area doing quests during normal level up. It is actually fun.

And almost impossible to do past low level areas. People thin out, and your group disperses over days and weeks as some people outlevel others.

One of the best times I ever had was Tera Online going almost to max level with the same group of people.

That is the exception, so we await easy quest sharing and grouping. Tera is abysmal in this as almost every quest is part of a chain which cannot be shared out of order. These are not special quests, but bread-and-butter leveling chains. Who cares if someone didn't do the previous quest? Apparently guys with ! over their heads do.

Re:As a LOTRO player

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm seeing a lot of folks pushing how great LOTRO is now with these changes. As a long-term player (lifer) it's really weird. It doesn't jive at all with my first-hand perspective.

For example, folks are posting about how great the Mini bubble spell is now. Yet according to lotro-wiki and the release notes, the bubble spell now has half its former duration with twice the cooldown. WTF is going on here? Is this astroturfing?

As a mini, it seems like everything was lost except DPS and healing, and even that was gimped. There's nothing fun here. No challenges on the rare elite mob. If he shows up, you die. There's no fun areas to solo anymore. It's all just plain vanilla easiest mobs grinding. Or end-game RAID groups. You'd have more choices and interaction with a slot machine.

If you like playing a one-button healbot, knock yourself out. Me, I looked at my other characters and other classes. EVERYTHING is crippled. Unless your an end-game raider with single role the game IS OVER!

As for being robbed, consider how you might feel if you just spent $60 on an expansion only to lose EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING that made the game fun.! All the money you had previously sunk into LOTRO! All your ingame friends! EVERYTHING!

If the folks behind LOTRO want to rip me off and hide behind legalese, well perhaps they can do that. BUT DON'T EXPECT ME TO KEEP QUIET SO THEY CAN RIP OFF THE NEXT SUCKER TOO!

We didn't even know what was changing until the release notes came out. Everyone complained during the beta, and everyone was summarily ignored.

Now I'm watching not only my own kinship migrate to other games, but all the kinships we're friends with.

I really feel sorry for those folks who bought into the humble bundle last week and are just starting with LOTRO.

The real problem is that the game has gotten simple anyway and the developers are making leveling up be faster and combat simpler. The sooner you get to end game the sooner you feel compelled to spend money on an expansion.

Which would by why there are all these XP-accelerator items so readily available in the game.

It's not an excuse to pull an MBA and remove everything other than Heals & DPS. What happened to Fear spells? What happened to Stuns? What happened to splitting groups by preventing agroing?

What's going to happen with no new players, no solo players, no one farming the mats higher level RAIDERs buy on the AH? This is a crater. A disaster. And you will feel it before long!

Re:As a LOTRO player

[Darinbob]

Except that in a hybrid game like LotRO, the subscribers get everyone plus an allowance, so they can purchase so much more than F2P players. There is nothing a subscriber can not do that a premium store using player can do. The goal is to convert the totally free grind-all-my-points players into a subscriber or payer. Which is perfectly fine with me and better than requiring everyone to spend a fixed amount each month.

And then it's a coop game so there is no "win" except for the tiny PvP side game where experience and skill still count.

Re:As a LOTRO player

[Anonymous Coward]

So you even jumped the gap on 8-2 without running? Ahh, those good ol' Game Genie moonjump codes. =]

Re:As a LOTRO player

[qwak23]

My observation of several MMO's has been this:

When it launches, it's fun, the content is new, EVERYONE is around the same level (sure, some jump ahead quickly), so there are plenty of people to group up with. If you don't want to group up, there are at least a ton of people around who may help you out if you get in a bind. As it ages, everyone levels up and high level or end game content is the only thing that matters. Sure you get the occasional new player, but they generally don't get the same experience the early players got. There are very few people in the low level areas, the people that are there tend to be alts being power leveled. There isn't really anyone to group with. You might find a good guild that is willing to help you out, but this tends towards helping you coast through some of your quests so you can join their raids sooner. This can be a deterrent to new players, since everyone who is anyone is doing high level raids and they just want to be there. So there is pressure to make the early levels faster and easier. The already established players just want alts to fill job gaps in their raiding parties, but they don't want to spend 3 months doing it. This increases that pressure.

I think the only MMO that hasn't tended down this road (out of the ones I've played) has been EVE, but I think that's just because EVE hates noobs and veterans alike. Or maybe it's the real time skill progression, permanent loss of equipment on death, and laissez faire attitude when it comes to anything short of actual hacking and abuse.

Re: As a LOTRO player

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me remind you that you're on fucking Slashdot. Of course it's astroturfing. This place needs to pull a digg v4 and completely fuck over the power-users and trolls (hi grub), toss out the veiled ads masking as "articles."

It's pretty easy to see why Malda retired from his own blog when this bullshit is what passes for good reading.

Re: As a LOTRO player

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree completely.

Re: As a LOTRO player

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, someone's really pissed. If you dont enjoy the game anymore it is fine, but why does it bother you that there are people out there who still enjoy it? SO MUCH THAT YOU YELL.
PS. YOU DO NOT GET TO JUDGE THE QUALITY OF OTHERS. YOU ONLY GET TO JUDGE YOURSELF IN LIFE. Same goes with games. If you can't adjuset to a new system it does not mean that every other who does is an idiot. It means that the system may not be for you.

Re:As a LOTRO player

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally. Please, if you're going to leave a game then just leave. Don't stick around bad mouthing it.

Why? Some of us appreciate being notified if things are crap if that saves us wasting our time & money.

Re:As a LOTRO player

[Anonymous Coward]

You could not be further from the truth my friend,

It is a disaster, Turbine gave ruined the game any a large number of long term players are or already have left, and whats funnier is that the game will NEVER attract new players.

The only thing lotro has left going for it is its lore, and the pool of people who like LOTR and play online games has been completely exhausted.

It is way down the ladder in terms of F2P, its is completely dead in terms of raiding, the pvp is pathetic, the gameplay that once was unique is now rooted firmly at the bottom of a very full pile, the trait trees are just an embaressment to gaming the people who made the trees at rift must still be laughing at lotro now, the development company behind the game have a reputation only slightly better than a middle eastern dictator, and on top of all that they hae managed to make the "epic battles" around helms deep the most dull, boring and linear experience of any time I have ever spent on my pc ever, even when revising maths I had more fun.
There is no challenge left anywhere in the game, everything dies with 1 shot, LMs can go afk while their pets kill anything that moves, it is just beyond belief how lowly that game has plummeted.

Sadly this once iconic game is in its final death throws, and its sad to see how its being treated, its like a dying dog that needs shooting but instead of doing the humane thing, the devs are prodding and poking it, trying to get it to limp on in the hope it will get better without having to put any time/energy or care into helping it get there.

Re:As a LOTRO player

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG, welcome to slashdot Lil Ricky.

Re:As a LOTRO player

[Anonymous Coward]

I played LotRO heavily back in the Moria days and the Captain and Lore-master (the two classes I played) were both wonderful, nuanced, deep classes. I'll bet several of the others were, as well. I miss that kind of class in modern MMOs. Even something as simple as mezzing a single target is more-or-less completely absent from new titles. Nowadays there is exactly one healer class, exactly one tank class, and a large smattering of DPS classes. It's a little distressing. More CC and support classes, please!

Re:As a LOTRO player

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoa.

I'm a LOTRO player since before Moria. Lifetime account, and all that jazz.

Too many useless skills: I never found a useless skill. Just annoying ones, like being able to cure Wounds/Poison/etc on other players but not on myself. If it's really useless to you, just don't put it on the action-bar.

Crafting is underpowered: As in, why does it take 6 weeks to make crafted armor when you outlevel the gear in 2 days? Crafted gear is/was decently powered, but took forever to make. WB/Turbine wouldn't even let folks spend TP/mithril to speed up the process.

Crafting is overpowered: Well, if you have a high-level Alt, then yeah you can make things without leveling up to the point where you can hunt for the mats. Hardly a showstopper when you outlevel the gear in hours.

How to fish: Really? This is your problem? Push the fishing skill button. Push it again when you've caught something. Pretty much just like Warcraft and every other game out there. (Though perhaps Turbine should have put the fishing skill on the Skills panel and not buried it off on its own Hobby panel.)

I've been around through it all. I've farmed pages. I hunted elites solo. I've gone to the corners of nowhere for the world-renown deed. I've seen some horrid stuff with RKs and Traits that needed N uses per day on nearly-grey mobs for weeks on end.

But this new Helms Deep LOTRO is just beyond awful. Words fail me. I mean I go from a character that could use terrain aspects (water, cliffs, hills), stuns, fears, bubbles (tmp xp), heals, direct damage, AoE damage, buffs, and debuffs to solo elite mobs that hit for half my hitpoints at a shot to someone who has a button for damage or healing based on which task tree I've chosen. Seriously, you get more interaction with an old-fashion slot machine. It's beyond hopeless. I can't conceive of the mind that would find this anything other than tediously boring.

Folks complain about World of Warcraft being dumbed down. I was one of them. I fled Warcraft to LOTRO because of the dumbing down. But now, Warcraft is a slice of heaven compared to what LOTRO has become overnight.

If you enjoy it, more power to you. I hope you have deep pockets because no one else is going to pay for this crap.

I left them all behind for Minecraft

[Anonymous Coward]

Being able to put my own stamp on the world ranks so highly in importance for me that I'm staying out of the fray until EQNext comes out.

Re:I left them all behind for Minecraft

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to say that I too have done this. I get more fun out of Minecraft than I have from any other MMO I've played ( Ragnarok Online, FF XI, EVE, WoW, Guild Wars 1 & 2, LOTRO, RIFT & a few others ).

I have a few friends that play on a small server and we regularly do full world resets ( about every 3-4 months ) to keep things fresh.

Re:I left them all behind for Minecraft

[Anonymous Coward]

While I thoroughly enjoyed Minecraft, I have to say that the lack of established goals makes it boring to me. There are achievements, which are easy to, uh, achieve, but after that that isn't really any reason to play. It's too unstructured for my tastes. To each their own.

Re:I left them all behind for Minecraft

[SallyBowls]

No judgement, just curious why are you not going to play Everquest Landmark?

Re:I left them all behind for Minecraft

[BobSwi]

Try CubeWorld or Trion's new Trove perhaps?

Re:I left them all behind for Minecraft

[Quince alPillan]

I'll agree with the AC. Minecraft with friends has been a lot more fun than the stress of end-game raid night and there are enough creepers, endermen, and lava to keep that thrill of danger going. You can even add mods to make the game more to your flavor of game.

If you're looking only to MMOs, though, my suggestion is to wait a bit. The Elder Scrolls Online is coming out in 2014, as well as Everquest Next and Everquest Next Landmark.

Both games seem promising, with ESO bringing back PVP themes from Dark Age of Camelot in addition to a promised solo focus and EQN/EQNL promising more of a sandbox game with raiding rather than a themepark game like WoW.

Re:I left them all behind for Minecraft

[Anonymous Coward]

Coming up with my own goals is what I truly love about it, they can be as short-term or long-term as I wish. I found, when left to my own designs, my long-term goals will get more and more intricate. My first big project was a fully-functional, multi-line subway system spanning lord only knows how many square miles. Ever since the ceiling cap was raised I've been able to continue work on my 1:1 scale Great Pyramid of Giza, chambers and all.

But you're right, to each their own. Sometimes it feels Minecraft is geared towards the gluttons for punishment.

Re:I left them all behind for Minecraft

[nschubach]

Given how little we know about Landmark's details, I'm a little leery of dedicating too much time to it. The building part of Minecraft is the least of the enjoyment I get out of it. What I have fun doing is funnelling mobs into death chambers, creating automated farms, complex piston contraptions, hopper and redstone circuits. If Minecraft was just a game of building large static structures... I definitely wouldn't put as much time into it.

With the size of the voxels, it would make it hard to do rails I imagine and I'm having a hard time imagining how they would implement pistons (or something of the like to move voxels around without players in "edit mode"). With the confined "building plots", I think it's going to be hard to do large scale mining operations or get into machinery like some of the mods add.

They also said they want to allow people to build Sci-Fi environments, but without some way to program the voxels or some kind of complex mechanisms... it's only going to be people making non-functioning ship husks and getting bored.

Re:I left them all behind for Minecraft

[JaredOfEuropa]

This. This is what I loved about Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies: the ability to stake your claim, build a home, run a shop or whatever, and become famous for something other than being at the top of the PvP ladder. I played SWG a little with a friend of mine, who did little else but craft, design outfits, and run a (well known) shop. By the way, the NGE wiped out her complete skill tree since all crafting stuff was classed as secondary, and she left the game the day it went live. Shame to see something similar happening in Lotro, which I enjoyed for a good while.

EQNext looks interesting, but my next game will probably be The Elder Scrolls Online. Besides looking for a sandboxy game, I do want something that is conducive to role playing. Up till recently, Age of Conan fit that bill nicely and it is still a very good game. For someone who wants to get stuck in with a good free(ish) to play MMO until the right game comes along, I can recommend AoC as a nice game. Easy to get started with, looks great, and has one of the more interesting combat systems.

Re:I left them all behind for Minecraft

[Musc]

I'm glad you enjoy thinking up complex projects and implementing them through lots of work, even though there is no point other than entertainment.
Personally I don't understand the mindset.
If I want to do something challenging and complicated and creative, I'll go write code. I find this entertaining AND the end result could be useful, and I learn skills along the way.

When I'm tired of programming, I want to do something that doesn't feel remotely like work, so I'll fire up a first person shooter and turn on god mode, and blow things away. Or I'll watch a movie or read scifi.

When creating something like a subway system in minecraft, what keeps you motivated through the boring/difficult times?

I feel that effort merely for entertainment is waste of time. If you have the energy to do something creative, then create something useful.
Keep on creating until you are too tired, then go do something passive for fun.

Re:I left them all behind for Minecraft

[Phrogman]

Check out http://www.swgemu.com/ if you hadn't noticed it exists. You need your old install disks, but its free, and its SWG as of Patch 14.1 - or will be once they are done rewriting it. Currently much of it exists and is functioning, and its receiving regular improvements.

Re:I left them all behind for Minecraft

[mlts]

Landmark sounds interesting to me... enough that I just put a C-note for a preorder, possibly against my better judgement, but if I divide that up in hours of useful crime, it isn't that much overall.

MMO-wise, SOE has been a wildcard, but they haven't gone too overboard with F2P mechanics. Unlike other F2P games, I don't have to buy keys to unlock chests, and one can level to endgame without paying a cent, or have to buy armor in order to survive in any endgame raid.

I'm not a fan of the Landmark graphics, but I'm guessing they have to be fairly lightweight in order to support the voxel code and the randomly generated terrain (unlike other MMOs where the terrain is rendered and touched up by hand.)

Worth a shot, as it is definitely something new.

Re:I left them all behind for Minecraft

[mlts]

grr, make that hours of useful time (bad autocorrect... bad.)

MMOs have stagnated over the past few years. I'm glad to be seeing something relatively different pop up in a game which should have some staying power.

Re:I left them all behind for Minecraft

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Being able to put my own stamp on the world ranks so highly in importance for me that I'm staying out of the fray until EQNext comes out.

In City of Heroes, you could place decorations in your superbase (which could get positively gigantic via upgrades). They removed the bounding box collisions on placement, so you could overlap things and thus, using them as pieces, create entirely new objects.

I created a giant study room with mahogany supergroup meeting table (overlapped dozens of coffee tables just a whisker above some decroative meeting table), created an entire mountain with caves in it to house things, worship areas for strange gods, and an entire suspended wooden platform with work areas with these vanity award fliers hanging under it, ready for deployment.

My favorite was the jail, though. It had 9 cells and 57 beds in it, most suspended and 3 stories tall. The bars were these tall floor lamps.

I placed well over 4000 pieces by the time the assholes at Perfect World shut it down.

Imagine whoever owns Minecraft shutting it down, and poof! All your worlds and buildings and so on you worked on for months and years -- gone!

Why they couldn't sell it to someone else I don't know.

Re:I left them all behind for Minecraft

[Endo13]

EQ Next is also the only one I'm actually looking forward to right now. All the rest that recently released disappointed me for many reasons.

Re:I left them all behind for Minecraft

[Anonymous Coward]

SWG is a great sandbox. Better graphics, tradeskills, and game mechanics than UO imho. SWGEMU does a good job; they have made more progress in the last 6 months than the last 6 years. Even if you don't have your original disks, just hop on ebay or amazon. It's cheap. You won't regret that feeling once you pop up in cnet or theed...

Re:I left them all behind for Minecraft

[Anonymous Coward]

ESO is not really very good. Repetitive and simplistic gameplay, it's a formulaic themepark modeled on WoW but disturbingly lacking any of the "charm" that old school WoW had. Which is saying something because I don't consider WoW to have ever had any charm. ESO is essentially the Neverwinter MMO but all tarted up with Elder Scrolls "lore".

Landmark at least is taking a bold stride in a different direction, even if I can't stand their art style and the combat promises to be roughly as simplistic as ESO's. They're saying that they want the combat to be like a MOBA: high mobility, very interactive, very few different abilities. I've heard hints that their intent is to modify how your abilities work, what they do, through items, rather than scaling. The buzz word they float often is "horizontal progression". Well, just by virtue of being a sandbox it'll be better than ESO by leagues: my "1" key has lost the numeral paint, and quite frankly, I rather resent that.

Why do designers suddenly want to give us less to do while claiming that it's more? I understand the aphorism "less is more sometimes", but that isn't what is happening these days. We're just seeing extremely boring gameplay emerge for MMOs. Whatever happened to having a gigantic spellbook full of meaningful ablities that you picked and chose from? Even the Pathfinder MMO is parring down the player's menu of powers.

Hint for all the devs that may be reading: I really don't want you to just stick me with four or five powers while smiling and saying "it's all you'll ever need!" I enjoy being able to do more kinds of things than "press button, deal damage", fuck you very much.

Re: I left them all behind for Minecraft

[Anonymous Coward]

This. Ended up learning asp.net vc# and mssql and creating a reddit clone (lots of features left to implement like subreddits, comment on comment, private messages and markup/formatting) but damn it was rewarding. Google forbidme to take a look if interested. Took me less than 2 weeks to get to where site is today.

Re:I left them all behind for Minecraft

[BlackHawk-666]

EQ Next looks promising to me as well. I've dropped some cash into SOE's hands in order to get alpha access and a head start on learning the game and building some cool features. If they come good on their long term promises then I can foresee myself and friends (new and old) having some very enjoyable moments in there.

Re: I left them all behind for Minecraft

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine whoever owns Minecraft shutting it down, and poof! All your worlds and buildings and so on you worked on for months and years -- gone!

That's the great thing about Minecraft's multiplayer: it's all in the hands of the community. Even if Mojang shut everything down, the servers would keep going.

Re:I left them all behind for Minecraft

[Malizar]

There are Minecraft servers with challenges in place to give you goals. The benefit to Minecraft is that the one game can support a variety of playstyles and gametypes.

Re:I left them all behind for Minecraft

[ciotog]

What exactly is the point of creating something "useful"? How do you define that? Something that makes someone's life a bit easier, so they have more time for entertainment pursuits? Seems to me in the end it's the same thing. Minecraft creations can also be shared for others enjoyment. You obviously appreciate movies and books, which are created with effort for the goal of entertainment. But ultimately, what's the point in _anything_?

Re:I left them all behind for Minecraft

[cwsumner]

...If I want to do something challenging and complicated and creative, I'll go write code. I find this entertaining AND the end result could be useful, and I learn skills along the way. ...

Yes, I know what you mean.
But... not everyone has a job where they can build things that are useful. At least not visibly so, to them. And learning about building useful stuff is a Good Thing.

Besides, even I want to build something different once in a while...

Runescape

[Anonymous Coward]

Runescape is where it's at man!

Re:Runescape

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know...
I always read that as

Run! Escape!
Get away! AAH!

Go Tabletop

[Anonymous Coward]

Pathfinder.

Re:Go Tabletop

[Barny]

Yup, between roll20 and Google Hangouts for the actual game and many awesome groups and collectives online you can be playing nearly every night a week if you want.

The Secret World

[TyFoN]

Personally I find The Secret World very nice for my wife and me as we play casually. There is new content on a steady basis and lots of outfits that my wife loves.
It's set in a dark contemporary world where the secret societies are comming into the open due to paranormal events.
It's quite a horror style dark mmo :)

We also play minecraft multiplayer on a whitelist server, and my 2.5 year old daugher is starting to take very much interest in watching us feed cows or ride the minecarts :)

Re:The Secret World

[Anonymous Coward]

I second The Secret World. The freedom involved in creating your character is great. Favorite MMO, no question.

Re:The Secret World

[asmkm22]

I found the combat in TSW to be incredibly boring, with most fights taking too long. It got to the point where it was taking 30-45 seconds to kill a mob, which wasn't fun at all. Especially since I was more or less just using one skill 5 times in a row, followed by two finishers (one for each weapon); rinse and repeat about 8 times. If you can get past the generally slow pacing of combat, though, the game is worth it for the story and atmosphere alone.

Re:The Secret World

[TyFoN]

Not to mention that the world is very beautiful :)
The whole package is just well crafted and entertaining, and the fact that you can get all the skills and abilities but have to build your own "deck" from over 500 makes it very free indeed.

Re:The Secret World

[Anonymous Coward]

I was gonna post Secret World too.
It doesn't have a skill tree, it has a skill forest! AND, you can theoretically max out everything!
It's a step beyond most MMORPGs in that area, so might be a good fit for the article author.

Re:The Secret World

[Crashmarik]

TSW is very problematical.

While the writing is very good, the coding is not. It could reasonably be renamed the The secret world of bugs.

Re:The Secret World

[vux984]

I found the combat in TSW to be incredibly boring, with most fights taking too long. It got to the point where it was taking 30-45 seconds to kill a mob,

Fascinating. I blame modern MMORPG flaws on you then. lol. Just kidding of course, but I find the pace of modern MMO battles to be ABSURDLY fast paced.

I remember spending 30+ seconds solo killing level 5 rats in Everquest 1 back in the day, and the sometimes spending multiple minutes taking down a routine deep dungeon pull. And I'm not talking a tank or healer soloing, I'm for that I'm talking a group -- with the tank tanking, healers keeping everyone alive -- pacing their output not just for aggro but to ensure they have mana to make it through the fight, and not be OOM for the add that wanders up post fight. Fights with the enchanter and bard working over time to drop slows and roots and mezes to reduce the incoming dps so that the healers could pace themselves.

Where mob positioning really mattered, and the fights lasted long enough that people could actually position and get into position.

The entire thing was a group balancing act with all kinds of feedback, and it took place at a pace where you could make adjustments, see the results, and then adjust it again.

Nowadays in modern MMOs regular fights over in less than 5 seconds, mana and health regenerate like crazy between fights so there is no consideration or need to consider things like resources, or position, or anything. And 50 fights like that is THAT is FAR more boring than 5 fights that take 10x a long time but are each a balancing act.

These days even the boss fights are frequently over in less than 10 or 20 seconds rarely 30. I have to take a 3 man group up against raid mobs from old expansions in EQ2 for example to see a fight last over a minute. The pacing is all wrong in my opinion.

I want a game with 5 to 10 minute group boss fights, and 1 minute trash mob fights. I want to *think* about what I'm doing, and why I'm doing it. I want there to be cases where I sprint through a fight to maximize my DPS to end it quickly because this particular mobs DPS is especially high, and other cases where its far more sensible to hold back and pace the fight -- because if I go all out, I'll finish the fight depleted while the healers are still full and that will cause downtime, but if I pace my output to what the healers can sustain, there isn't any. I want tactics, and positioning, and people thinking, and communicating during fights.

Especially since I was more or less just using one skill 5 times in a row, followed by two finishers (one for each weapon)

Clearly more mob variety is needed. And this is where slower fights can be an advantage. In EQ1, spells took long enough to cast that you could see them casting, identify what kind of spell it was and react to it, cooldowns likewise we often quite long, so you'd save up for the mob doing a complete heal etc and then that's when you'd go for the stun; and there was time that if you missed it someone else in the group could still try instead of you both burning your cooldown to stop the same case. Things were a lot more interactive. Some mobs would enrage (riposte all attacks) so you needed to pay attention and stop attacking when they did that, others would run at low health so you needed to pay attention for that, others would run at low health if they were the last mob in the fight otherwise they'd fight to the death... so you'd pay attention and kill them in a particular order to minimize runners etc.

Of course, some people would gravitate towards the easiest simplest least complicated mobs, that had no special tricks or traits and then grind on those, and then complain it was boring and slow...

I hate those people... :p

Re:The Secret World

[no1nose]

Is The Secret World class based (like WoW) or skill based (like Ryzom, EVE and Entropia Universe). Can one avatar aquire all of the skills in the game if desired?

Re:The Secret World

[Anonymous Coward]

It is only slow if you have the wrong build for the wrong mob.

Re:The Secret World

[ShakaUVM]

Yep. The Secret World is awesome.

No monthly fees, just a daily fee (more or less) to pay for double XP when you're actually playing.

But I love the classless design of it. Build your own class, via a point-based system. Make your own combos! It's great.

Re:The Secret World

[Endo13]

Almost 100% skill-based. There's "classes", but they only determine where you start on the skill-wheel.

Re:The Secret World

[Endo13]

This was my experience as well. I think part of it was because I was hoping the skill system would be more like the original Guild Wars, and as a result too many of the skills just seemed like copies of each other with very little variety.

Re:The Secret World

[Anonymous Coward]

This video looks cool, especially the boss battle on the street at the end:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOcrKoou8jc

I want to give it a try, hopefully the long fight or slow killing is not too bad..

Re:The Secret World

[no1nose]

Thank you for the info. I have been watching videos and it looks good. When you say "classes" are they literally only what skills you start out with and you can learn them all? Or are you still somewhat limited?

Re:The Secret World

[Endo13]

I believe you can eventually get every single skill on any one character, so no limitations.

Re:The Secret World

[Mirar]

You don't really need the double XP. It goes reasonably fast to complete the skill wheel anyway... :p

Re:The Secret World

[Mirar]

So far I haven't seen a single MMO that isn't on the same level of bugs. :/

Any recommendations? ;)

One of Them

[Saethan]

... seriously. There are so many MMOs now you really expect a single answer from /. that will make up your mind? Go do free trials, read some reviews. Sign up for some betas. I've played probably 20 or so MMOs since I first played Everquest in 1999 and they've all had upsides and downsides.

Re:One of Them

[C18H27NO3]

I started playing EverQuest in 2000 and still play to this day regularly raiding in one of the top guilds. Why? Because I enjoy it and that's the important part. Granted it's the only game I play (MMO or otherwise) but I just can't get into others, especially since I've become so accustomed to my EQ char over the last 13 years.

Re:One of Them

[MrDoh!]

That's it, and my guildees, /hug.

EVE Online

[Anonymous Coward]

Did this need an article?

Re:Eve Online

[TWiTfan]

The best review I ever heard of EvE Online was from a guy who said that he wasn't going to pay $15 a month to be chased down and killed by some teenager with daddy issues in the Battlestar Galactica. Pretty much summed it up for me.

When I tried it out, it seemed like their were basically two modes to the game: either incredible boredom in safe space or getting constantly jumped and butt-raped in unsafe space. I guess there was some appeal in trading (kind of a much less satisfying version of the old trading routes in Elite), but it seemed like all the good routes were owned by the corporations and all that was left for the little guys were the scraps. In the end, it's even less rewarding than mining.

In short, EvE Online reminds me way too much of real life. And that's what I play videogames to avoid.

Re:Eve Online

[roc97007]

> In short, EvE Online reminds me way too much of real life. And that's what I play videogames to avoid.

I hear you. Same with movies. Wife's choices are inevitably downers. I tell her, if I wanted to be depressed, I'd stay at work.

Re:EVE Online

[DarthVain]

EVE is the only one I am considering joining. Did WOW thing for years.

Currently I can't stop playing DOTA2... which isn't an MMO, but it sort of is with the competitive and community part of it.

Likely when I tire of that, I will give EVE a serious go. I had a trial membership, however with the learning curve and busy life, hard to get into it in 14 days.

I only have so many available hours for gaming :(

Re:Eve Online

[cbhacking]

You're doing it wrong. It's an MMO. If you aren't making it on your own, *JOIN* one of those corporations (or get a bunch of people together and create your own).

Or go solo. It's entirely possible. It's risky and requires a lot of skill, and you'll get blown up a lot at first... but if you're actually good (and combat is Eve is much more skill-based than a casual observer might think) you can easily find, and win, small fights all day long. Yeah, you'll need a good ship (which means money and training time), but the risks are also lower when you're starting out. Be a pirate. Be a mercenary. Take over a wormhole.

You make the rules, man. That's the essence of the game. It's like libertarian paradise. Would I want to live there for real? Hell no! But it's a fun thing, to go out and fight, solo or with a small gang or with a massive battle fleet.

Re:Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried EVE Online for a month or so. I think it should be titled Lord Of The Flies Online. If you always wanted to be a Mafioso but are too much of a pussy to actually do it, that game is for you.

Re:EVE Online

[cbhacking]

The best way to get into Eve is to join a friend who already plays, who can show you the ropes and maybe give you an influx of starting cash (5M is nothing to a player who has been in the game for a year - a single gun on one whip may cost more than that - but it'll outfit a newbie for basically their whole trial without needing to grind). Ideally, that friend would also have a corp which is welcoming of newbies, so once you're past the basics of the game and have, for example, basic tackler skills (this takes maybe three days of training), you can join in the roaming gangs (or mining fleets, or whatever you want to do).

Another advantage of that friend who knows the game already is they'll be able to help you figure out just what it is that you want to do. There are a lot of ways to play the game, and it helps to have a goal already when you're going in. There's no classes - any character *can* learn to do anything - but it takes time; the game is over ten years old and as far as I know, it's still impossible for one character to have learned all the skill paths to maximum. There's just too many of them.

Re:Eve Online

[ThunderBird89]

I second EVE Online. I've been playing it for better part of 10 months, and now I've gotten to the point where I no longer need to pay. in fact, I've bought the last four or so subscriptions out of in-game money I made working for the in-game empires. If you focus training, you can easily be self-sufficient in two months or so.

Re:Eve Online

[Darinbob]

EVE is one of those old school "you must group up you evil scum sucking soloer, don't you know what the M stands for!" games. Thus it appeals heavily to some players while disgusting others.

Re:Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

Translated:

>dumbass noob
>goes to low sec or 0.0
>dies.
>rage quit
>hurr durr eve players have daddy issues

what a retard

Re:Eve Online

[Bill_the_Engineer]

I hear you. Same with movies. Wife's choices are inevitably downers.

AMEN! I'll never forget my wife suggesting I watch "City of Angels" before she returned the DVD.

Re:EVE Online

[mlts]

I've been thinking of trying EVE, but was warned off when watching other people play and the antics done in various areas of space. It sort of reminded me of UO:

"thou hast left the protection of the guards"
"OoOoOoOoO"

Are you forced to join a corp or face constant podding in EVE, or is that hype?

Re:EVE Online

[SenorPez]

EVE definitely rewards goal-setting. Once upon a time, I think they had 30 day trials, which, IMO, was a much better program. Most people that I know in EVE didn't buy it on their first 14 day trial. They bought it after their second 14 day trial. The first 14 days is spent figuring out what the hell everyuthing is and how the game works, as it's so alien when compared to your typical, "Look, I'm a warrior, and I'm going to save your village, just like everyone else has done before," MMO. The skill system, the fitting system, the actual market, and the meta are all things that need to be understood before you can really scratch that itch. Hopefully you come back. Set a goal for yourself: What do you want to accomplish? Do you want to be space-rich? Blow up other people's ships? Explore the new sites that are everywhere now (I expect them to scale back the spawn rate sometime soon...)? If nothing else, EVE also has a great community of dedicated, helpful people. Even some of the biggest jerks in game are people I'd gladly share a pint with in real life; and in many cases, have.

Re:Eve Online

[zhuang]

Eve Online is the only MMO that has been able to keep me interested in playing for more than a few months at a time. It doesn't have any elves or dragons. It's not built around a film franchise or a beloved series of books. It is unique in that the content created by the game developers plays second fiddle to the content created by the players themselves. It has vibrant player corporations (guilds) based around third-party websites like Something Awful and Reddit (see also: Fweddit and Brave Newbies); which leads to in-game drama aka content creation. It offers high-stakes PvP, in that when you die; your ship explodes and the winning player loots your wreck (corpse) taking whatever valuables survived the explosions. It also allows you to scam your fellow players; which is fairly unique among games. It regularly makes mainstream news for it's large fleet fights and huge losses. And, you're allowed to use your money to buy in-game currency if you are so inclined. I should note that your characters do not level and you don't earn XP or experience points for killing stuff in-game. Instead, your characters earn points that apply to in-game skills in real-time whether you are logged in or not. Eve Online, because spaceships.

Re:Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

You are thinking far too conservatively. EvE is not really a game, it is more of a simulation. You gave three example activities that are present in many games. In EvE you must make your own way. It is a big black box that people are thrown into and it is up to you to figure out what to do. Want to be a market mogul (as in stock/commodity markets, not NPC to NPC trade routes)? You can do that. Want to do espionage? You can do that. Want to be a tycoon and build ships or modules or ammunition? You can do that. You can start your own empire or explore or pvp raid or pve missions or even pvp missions. You can research or be a diplomat or a courier or even an information broker.

In EvE it really is up to you. You can do whatever you want. The catch is that you actually have to have some ambition to go and do it. That is why, despite your ad hominem, the majority of players are older gamers that have successful professional careers. Eve is wonderful for the ambitious, creative, or thoughtful. It is terribly hard or boring for everyone else.

Re:Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, you just have to have more of the smarts if you want to go solo.

I'm doing solo... As an investor, basically I've gotten to a point in my EVE career where I'm doing speculation in the future market shifts based on ****** etc...

Re:Eve Online

[WinstonWolfIT]

I've been subscribed for about nine years, and in that time I've been involved in some of the most famous and massive wars, advanced to become an accomplished solo pilot, and during that time started a business that pays my subscription and ship costs with minimal time investment. If you want to hang out in civilised space, it's going to be about as boring as a 9-5, but if you go out into the frontiers, then it picks up the fantasy aspects and player interactions that make it rewarding. What tuned the corner for me was naively venturing into dangerous space and the adrenaline rush of being shot at. One goes into many fights not knowing the outcome, and its that uncertainty and the element of handing my fate over to the haze of the battlefield that still gets my hands shaking and heart pounding at times.

Re:Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

Working in an MMO to pay a subscription fee is a terrible investment of your time. Even two hours at minimum wage job would pay for the sub fee.

Re:Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for basing your self-esteem on the outcome of a video game. It makes me feel less empathy for you when I ask for fries with that Whopper.

Re:Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

I played for a year or so and enjoyed my time there. Basically if you go solo without knowing what you are doing you'll have a bad time. Remember the maxim "don't fly what you can't afford to lose". Conversely if you are part of a group of people you can have a lot of fun in 3 man fleets. I still remember my first kill and some of my more spectacular deaths. Even as a complete noob you can be useful bait to lure people in, just remember to fly cheap ships.

There are some great communities of people on Eve. An interesting one is the role-play community, a fairly tight knit community that is generally easy to get into. That community also includes "the enemy", where some of the best relationships are with people that are shooting at you every night.

The reason why I left was more how much time I was willing to spend. It's not a game where you pop on at a random time and have fun for 20 minutes, it's much better to always be on at a consistent time and see the same people.

Re:Eve Online

[Greyfox]

The friend who got me into WoW had an account on a PvP server, so I started out on that server. He was rarely around so I left and found a PvE server I could level on without getting jumped by some jackhole 40 levels higher than me.

At the time I compared the PVP server there (Along with the model in Eve and even Ultima Online) to a mall in which a gang would hang out and anally rape anyone who went to that mall. And they'd tell people, "If you don't want to be anally raped, go to a different mall!" And then they'd act confused when no one came to their mall.

Eve people say "Oh, well just join a corporation!" but there really aren't that many successful corporations out there. The stoner corp I was in forgot to refuel their wormhole POS and got it, the carrier they'd had defending the place, and a hundred million or so isk worth of battleships I'd parked out there in case anyone needed to do station defense blown up. And even though they were apparently stoners, they were STILL more successful than a lot of the corps in Eve.

Re:EVE Online

[Greyfox]

If you stay in the noob corp and hang out in hisec space, you'll basically never get ganked by another player. Unless you do something stupid like mine into a jetcan and then shoot the guy who steals your ore. Noobcorp players can't kill each other in hisec space (Other corps can.) Other corps can't declare war on noobcorp either.

Occasionally one of the noobcorp guys in my noobcorp would get all the people in their game-issued first noobships and make a big incursion into low-sec space. 50 newbies in noobships are not to be taken lightly in that game. They took out a billion isk battleship one night. The guy's corp mate invited the leader to their vent server, where the guy they'd just blown up was actually crying over the ship he'd just lost. That's what you get for thinking you can take on a fleet of newbies solo...

Re:Eve Online

[DrVomact]

The best review I ever heard of EvE Online was from a guy who said that he wasn't going to pay $15 a month to be chased down and killed by some teenager with daddy issues in the Battlestar Galactica. Pretty much summed it up for me.

When I tried it out, it seemed like their were basically two modes to the game: either incredible boredom in safe space or getting constantly jumped and butt-raped in unsafe space. I guess there was some appeal in trading (kind of a much less satisfying version of the old trading routes in Elite), but it seemed like all the good routes were owned by the corporations and all that was left for the little guys were the scraps. In the end, it's even less rewarding than mining.

In short, EvE Online reminds me way too much of real life. And that's what I play videogames to avoid.

I may have been the guy who wrote that review—I certainly have passed up no opportunities to damn the game whenever the subject was brought up. Yet now I'm playing the thing again. Why?

Well, the number one reason is probably lack of something better to do. Also, I'm retired and now have a surplus of hostility that I can no longer vent on my boss. I had been playing the original Everquest from the day it started until about 9 months ago, except for the 3 or 4 year break I took to play Eve, World of Warcraft, and Aion. None of them held my interest, so I went back to EQ. Then one day, I just had my fill of EQ again. There's no attempt to keep the game improving or growing; Sony just wants to keep hold of the same few thousand players they have who stick around for the sake of nostalgia. I doubt whether Sony has more than one developer assigned to EQ, and his job is to create cut-and-paste "expansions" where the only differences are armor with higher stats that you have to do the same crap missions to get as every other expansions. Oh, and new spell levels that do basically the same thing as the old spells. Nostalgia is a powerful force, but it can only take you so far. Maybe some day I will feel nostalgic for EQ again.

So I popped back into EVE again just to remember how awful it was. And indeed, the awfulness is still there. To judge by the language people use, by the stuff they put in their character bios, etc. the players are still a bunch of 12 year old sociopaths with a fixation on anal rape. About half of them pretend to be girls, but you know they're not. Girls are too smart to play a game like this. (Besides, most females I've met have had a fairly limited interest in anal rape.) But I've been playing the game since early this year. Why in the world would I do that?

There are some very good things that have to be said about the game design of EVE and about the way it's run. First of all, the game is continually being improved, and the expansions are free. To get a new expansion, you just have to pay your monthly fee to pay, and that's it. There's no "free to play" BS where you get nickle and dimed to death for better sword models or whatever; you just pay your fee and you get the service you pay for. Some of the improvements have made the game more playable for me than it was before.

Eve has got a complex and fairly realistic economic simulation going (if you ignore the fact that the economy is propped up by the nightly re-seeding of minerals and NPC drops), so if you are one of those obsessive people with no other life who draw up complicated spreadsheets and calculate how to make money off manufacturing, and spend many, many hours buying and selling at the best prices, then you can be an EVE tycoon. I'm not one of those: I never did spreadsheets for work, and I'm certainly not doing them for a game. Still, it's a role some people like to play. The spaceship tech is well-thought out and complex enough to keep you working at coming up with a perfect "fit" for that cruiser or battleship you're flying. There's a lot of different kinds of things you can do in EVE, and the game doesn't force you to play one

Re:Eve Online

[Wintermute__]

That depends. If what you are doing in the game is boring or not fun, then you are absolutely correct.

If, however, playing the game as you like provides you enjoyment and also gains you the virtual currency to pay for your subscription, well then you are ahead.

Re:Eve Online

[DrVomact]

You're doing it wrong. It's an MMO. If you aren't making it on your own, *JOIN* one of those corporations (or get a bunch of people together and create your own).

Or go solo. It's entirely possible. It's risky and requires a lot of skill, and you'll get blown up a lot at first... but if you're actually good (and combat is Eve is much more skill-based than a casual observer might think) you can easily find, and win, small fights all day long. Yeah, you'll need a good ship (which means money and training time), but the risks are also lower when you're starting out. Be a pirate. Be a mercenary. Take over a wormhole.

You make the rules, man. That's the essence of the game. It's like libertarian paradise. Would I want to live there for real? Hell no! But it's a fun thing, to go out and fight, solo or with a small gang or with a massive battle fleet.

The problem with any kind of grouping or joining a corp in EVE is that it would require you to trust another EVE player, and that is just plain dumb. The first time around, I had people ask me to join them in a mission, then ambush me with their friends to kill my ship and take my stuff. I've heard lots of stories about corporate execs running off with the member's money (how much more real life can you get?). No, these days I play strictly alone, I talk to no one, and I trust no one. It stands for "Everyone Versus Everyone, you know!

Libertarian paradise? I don't think there's anything in the libertarian credo that says you should rip off everyone who's weaker than you are, but that's the rule in EVE. The EVE universe is one of untrammeled barbarism; it's a sort of anti-society because there is no basis for trust or lasting cooperation.

Re:Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

See, that's the thing. If it's done right, that can be a big plus (even though I'm a big solo kinda guy). But what killed WoW for me was I found myself being forced to take orders from greedy douche bags if I wanted any of the dopest loot. So I quit and went back to being accused of hacking every day in counter-strike because I have the audacity to wear a headset and learn map layouts.

Re:EVE Online

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends on what you do in EVE Online if you will get podded a lot.

If you just start out, or even a veteran that has been doing pvp for years, you will get podded a lot when you try to do solo combat in busy lowsec.

If you want to do pve in highsec, or do business in highsec there is a much smaller chance that you will be attacked. In fact joining a corp in highsec will actually increase the chance of podding, because corporations can wage war against each other.

There are even solo players that play in lowsec and nullsec on their own, you will need to know a lot about game mechanics to safely move around. But it is based on the player's skill, not the skill of your character.

Personally I like playing in highsec a lot more than in lowsec and nullsec because it is more busy in highsec and you can easily buy and sell equipment there.

One of the best experience I had in eve online was joining factional warfare, where you join a special NPC faction-corporation who are perpetual war with other faction-corporations. Then joining the fleets that are build up and roam together and have 40 v 40 battles and chases, lot of strategic movements. On my second day there was a Titan on the field (a very big ship). Within a week I was leading those 40 ships into battle, and then was recruited by a player run faction warfare corporation.

Other good experience as a solo player was doing incursions, which are EVE Online's raiding content. which are for 10, 20, 40 to 60 players. You can join a player made chat channel and get invited into a fleet doing these raids, running them back to back for hours. Good fleet managers are actively managing when players leave and join the fleet so that the raids can continue without pause. I've helped guild mates get into these incursions within a month of starting their account, and they were able to pay their account with in-game earnings before the trial ran out.

Re:EVE Online

[Oligonicella]

Don't fool yourself, so's Eve.

Re:EVE Online

[thatkid_2002]

You don't have to join a corp at all - but without a corp space is a *really* empty place. Also, most of the gameplay is driven by groups of players, so unless you purely want to do NPC oriented stuff (and even then, only small enough to do solo) you're gonna have a bad time. The value really comes from other players.

You die when you are stupid. There's nothing more and nothing less to it.

Re:Eve Online

[myowntrueself]

EVE is one of those old school "you must group up you evil scum sucking soloer, don't you know what the M stands for!" games. Thus it appeals heavily to some players while disgusting others.

And the way the game works, and is designed, you can't trust any of the people you group with, your corp mates or pretty much anyone.

The only people in EVE who you can trust are ones who you can hunt down and beat the shit out of in REAL LIFE. If I were ever to get back into EVE I'd have to do it with a bunch of real life friends. And I'd have to have some good blackmail material on them as well.

Re:Eve Online

[myowntrueself]

Libertarian paradise? I don't think there's anything in the libertarian credo that says you should rip off everyone who's weaker than you are, but that's the rule in EVE. The EVE universe is one of untrammeled barbarism; it's a sort of anti-society because there is no basis for trust or lasting cooperation.

I played EVE and then moved to a place that is actually like this in real life (without the gunmen walking the street and there aren't very many explosions, but other than that pretty much untrammeled barbarism).

After a while of playing EVE I thought "You know what? I have to watch my back every day just walking down the street here. I don't need to simulate this in a game."

Re:Eve Online

[myowntrueself]

But minerals I mine are free!

Re:EVE Online

[myowntrueself]

The best way to get into Eve is to join a friend who already plays

Preferably someone you know in real life and who you can punch in the face in real life if they fuck you up in the game.

Re:Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

Fascinating. Thank you for sharing this.

Re:Eve Online

[Vapula]

There is another reason why majority of players is older gamers : in EVE, your character skill is directly linked to real-life time.

To equip the best ships, to be able to make the best items, to get the most from what you mine, ... you need skills... And skills are trained in real-time with ridiculous long training times...

x1 means 4 days for level 5... and it go up to x14 or such which means something like 2 month for the level 5 (and you need to train lower level too... and prerequisite skills...) So, before your character has some decent skill, you need several months (5-6 month at least) and before having serious skills, you need 1 or 2 years of game...

Your activity in game has very little influence on your character development... well, you have to raise your standings by doing some missions, that'll lower taxes and allow you to create jumpclones (unless one of your corp members has a clone vat in his capital ship)... You'll be able to make money... But CCP has formalized the "gold farming" by selling PLEX which can then be traded for 1/2 billion ISK in game...

So, unless you're playing with real life friends, EVE is a very frustrating game...

Re:Eve Online

[Endo13]

I did the math once, and in a best-case scenario, it would have taken about three years to completely max out the skills for any one specific frigate. (If you're not familiar, frigates are the easiest combat ships to train for.)

Re:EVE Online

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been thinking of trying EVE, but was warned off when watching other people play and the antics done in various areas of space. It sort of reminded me of UO:

"thou hast left the protection of the guards"
"OoOoOoOoO"

Are you forced to join a corp or face constant podding in EVE, or is that hype?

If you are playing in Null-Sec (where there is no protection whatsoever), you will face constant podding eve if you join a corp. The most important thing is playing it smart.

Re:Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have to trust people in order to work together with them (at least not when you understand "trust" as some sort of absolute).

Yes, my corpmates could blow up the ship I am in. If so I would lose less than 1% of my total assets.

Yes, my alliance could lose all their space. If so I would lose access to ~30% of my assets.

Never put all your eggs into one basket, only take informed risks and manage your exposure to them and you will be just fine.

Re:EVE Online

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really forced. I went a couple of months without joining any clans, but I remained mostly in high sec with a few dips into low sec. I liked the idea of going independent, but without the backing of a large clan, you are a target in low sec. Then again, you're always a target somewhere in low sec. I didn't like the clan experience. I played late at night, so my gaming sessions always concluded with EVE's nightly server reboot, and I was always alone. If you're starting out and you want to get some help building up, finding a friendly clan really helps, but I just didn't want the big social part of it.

Re:Eve Online

[BlackHawk-666]

You should cheer yourself up by watching a lovely cartoon called Grave of the Fireflies!

Re:Eve Online

[Ledgem]

Seconded, I found it to be an interesting read. I don't play the game, but what you tried to accomplish, subsequently accomplished, and the direction that you're going, are rather interesting.

Re:EVE Online

[Anonymous Coward]

Within the territory policed by NPC empires (maybe 25% of the total game territory?), anyone who attacks your ship unlawfully will in turn be destroyed by the NPC "police". But it's more punishment than prevention. It's basically like real-life, in the sense that in high-security space, as long as you don't give extreme incentive, you'll be safe. For example, transporting a billion ISK of goods in a flimsy shuttle that can be destroyed quickly by a single cheap frigate, is like leaving your laptop visible and unattended in your car with the windows down. Common sense is all that's required.
Joining a corp is still much more enjoyable. Often they'll own their own territory, and operate their own border security, keeping out criminal elements, and the profits from most activities are significantly greater within player-owned territory. In return, they'll want you to assist with territorial defense in event of a border skirmish with any other player corporations that may arise. A corp doesn't have to own territory either; they can be granted permission to reside in space owned and secured by another corp, paying rent as a real corp might pay property tax within a country they have a presence.
There are of course areas that a bit more wild, either un-policed systems owned by the NPC empires, or the unclaimable systems only accessible via the occasional wormhole discovery. And someday you'll have to decide if you want to risk a shortcut through a lawless system, perhaps. Or you'll have to decide if you want to transport something of value by courier contract, or risk it yourself. And that's sorta what keeps it exciting.

Re:Eve Online

[cbhacking]

I've played Eve for over seven years, and aside from one scam when I was just starting out (and which cost me a pretty trivial amount of my total wallet, as I was pretty suspicious of it) and one unfortunate incident where a moderately valuable ship of mine got stolen by a (very rapidly former) corpmate, I've had no trouble of the sort you describe. I've lived in everything from highsec to wormholes. I've run missions, belts, complexes, roaming gangs, and fleet combats, operated as scout, FC, bait, and logistics (unarmed repair ship). I've lost ships supporting allies in combat, but never because those allies turned on me. I've been in several corps and even more alliances. I've flown with real-life friends and with people who live halfway around the world from me. I've given loans and had them paid back, and taken loans out myself. I've lived in a communist system where all our loot went to the corp in exchange for free ships and modules at need.

I've been doing this since 2006, and I'm in no way a good judge of character. I just try to fly smart, and look for situations where self-interest keeps people together. It works.

Re:Eve Online

[runningwithscissors]

The best review I ever heard of EvE Online was from a guy who said that he wasn't going to pay $15 a month to be chased down and killed by some teenager with daddy issues in the Battlestar Galactica.

I simply had to come out of Slashdot retirement, recover my password, and run with scissors in disagreement of your assessment of Eve Online.

Let me preface that I am a 39 year old working professional who has had at least one active Eve account since January of 2007. I am neither a teenager with daddy issues (nor was I) nor am I a "newb" and I feel that I am qualified to make an honest and pretty unbiased assessment of Eve Online.

My first real MMO was DAOC and after that I was hooked on them. As I got older though and my interests changed, I found that my time was more meaningfully spent on other, less repetitive and predictable games. However, during my Six years of playing DAOC, I discovered the "glow". That feeling you get while playing an MMO where you make it over the hump, enjoy what it has to offer, and have it figured out enough to be a crazy fun, exhilarating time. And I'm not just talking about the "glow" you get from many games or MMO's in the first month or so that quickly passes, I'm referring to the "glow" that settles in after playing a game with depth and substance for Six months, after which time it transcends from the "exciting new rush" that everyone likes into the warm "glow" that I'm referring to where you know your going to enjoy that game for years to come. And after finally leaving that game, having experienced that contented "glow" for several years, you can look back and reflect on it and always reminisce on it in appreciative reflection.

Eve Online is that game

I'm afraid Eve Online has broke me. Eve Online dragged me, sometimes kicking and screaming, through all of those emotions I felt growing up, those very emotions that forged me into becoming the person I am today. Excitement, anger, anxiety, and the rush of adrenaline that sets your heart racing. The sense of great success that can only be enjoyed with a heavy sigh, a crisp grin and that feeling of comfort that can only be fully attained by leaning heavily back in your chair and the comfort it provides. That devastating loss which forces your teeth to clench, your vision to blur, and renders all unfastened objects in arms reach as potential projectiles

Eve Online is that game

As with life though, Eve Online requires immersion. Unlike other, shallow MMO's, Eve Online will reward your immersion. It's often been said that Eve Online is the most fun game you've never played. Do you think the people that those very stories are about said that? Certainly not, they wanted to be that story, they wanted to write the story and they wanted to be that person. At the end of the day, I realized that those stories were not about the game. . . those stories were about the people, and those people made a difference.

I met some of the most upstanding, honest, mature, and responsible people in Eve Online that I still keep in touch with today. And you know what, when we did fly together, sometimes we just wanted to go out and shoot pixels in space. And we killed that guy, the one who quit the game and wrote about the teenager with daddy issues. That was us. And you know what? We won, he quit. But don't let him fool you, he was never a victim. Eve provided him with all of the tools he needed to turn the tables on us, to thwart our pixel hunting fervor. He simply asked to have himself written out of the story with little fanfare, to give up.

So go ahead and write or relay your stories about being chased down and killed by some teenager with daddy issues. You have shown your mettle, you have allowed yourself to be written into the story as the red shirt ensign, doomed to failure, and written out just as quickly. You could have been great, you could have been the hero, you could have written your own story. You could have been the leader of men. You could have toppled empires. You could have earned the respect of the greatest pilots in Eve.

You could have been any of those things. . . . . . because Eve Online is ALL of those things

Re:Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

I like that story. Perhaps you could continue to buck the system by taking the newbies under your wing, instead of scaring them off. You might even strike gold amongst the newbs!

Reminds of the one time I played Travian (an MMO browser game). The veteran players farmed the newbies, and there was an especially strong alliance bullying the players around me. I decided to buck the system by defending newbies, and that was a blast. Veteran players lost armies, and if they ever figured out who was ghosting their raiding parties, they never attacked me. :)

I also found good players among the newbies, and they stayed loyal to the tradition of defending newbies. Our little alliance ended the game with one of the highest defensive scores, and we had a blast getting it. :)

Re:Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to ask myself: have I gone bad? Have I allowed Eve to seduce me; am I becoming a barbarian?

Yes. Yes you have.

The only question left is how much ISK is your virtual soul worth?

Eve Online

[ficuscr]

Only MMORPG I play these days is EVE Online. I enjoy the game and the community behind it and think it stands out from other MMOs.

Eternal lands

[Anonymous Coward]

Eternal lands has a vibrant community, an excellent leveling system, and most of all a free client available for GNU/Linux as well as other platforms.
http://www.eternal-lands.com/

Re:Eternal lands

[cbhacking]

Is it actually going anywhere? Last time I tried EL (some years ago), it had no meaningful story or gameplay hooks. Just another cookie-cutter fantasy MMO, without even the polish or breadth of other such games. The graphics were awful too, which didn't bug me much but certainly weren't a reason to play.

Everquest Next

[kauaidiver]

It's not out yet but looks promising. What is missing from WoW, and I'm a long term player, is an element of danger.

I remember playing EQ1 when it first came out, it was sometimes frustrating but kept your heart pounding.

Remember the feeling of being in Lower Guk and thinking I'll never get out of here alive?

Re:Everquest Next

[Saethan]

LGuk was a scary place until the joys of PBAoE. We'd claim everything from Lord to Frenzy with one group(and manage to hold it all)... pissed off a fair number of folks. :D

How about breaking in to PoFear only to have your whole raid wipe... and begging another guild to rescue you before your corpses rotted?

Re:Everquest Next

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're looking to relive that see here : http://www.project1999.org

Re:Everquest Next

[east coast]

You know, I was an EQ1 and EQ2 player. Just like LotRO they both had a great feel and look to them. I loved EQ1 but so many people left after EQ2 that it just became depressing to even go on anymore. Even as a solo it was just too barren.

EQ2 started off with a strong game but as soon as the exodus happened when WoW went online so much stuff got dumbed down. It was a shame because it was a great looking game, the zone were big and the play was fun. Today when I see it in a MMORPG I just expect that that's the way everyone went.

Maybe I'll check out EQNext but I still like LotRO to keep playing. I do Free2Play and I have so many Turbine points built up right now that I'll probably never have to pay another nickel again unless they rigged the end game. I'm casual enough about it that I'll probably never reach end game so that might never matter anyhow.

Re:Everquest Next

[mlts]

I keep my EQ1 subscription up, but the old UI just bugs me after being used to modern MMOs, so that gets in the way. However, for PvE content, bar none, EQ1 is king and emperor. There is a lot to do, although some of the more older content may not be worth the time (epic 1.0 quests for the most part.)

WoW is good with friends, but I just get bored there, especially when the mindless dailies have changed to goofing around on Timeless Isle where it feels like a playground... kick over this turtle, get a purple. Kick open a random chest, another purple. Jump in, toss some spells at one of the spirits, etc.

The next expansion announcement didn't help much, especially with flight (which previously was something you got once you hit top level) becoming apparently a months long grindfest similar to the artifact cloak [1]. WoW has a lot of cool single player intro quests (such as the Thunder King Isle quest arc), but once done, things can be really random. One night may be OK, another night can be a complete waste of time with pickup raids. Of course, chat in towns is banal at best.

For being able to tune stats and your exact DPS/heal/tank play style, Rift was great. However, since they put raid level gear for sale in their RMT store, I just lost all interest in the game whatsoever, even though I have bought a multi-year subscription. The fact that they are going to have an entire expansion that is like one big Kedge Keep doesn't help either.

These days, I've ended up on EQ2. Its population isn't huge, but people know what they are doing in groups/raids, and even the trolls in General chat are intelligent. The devs know how to make combat and such work in zones with flight, so each expansion doesn't take flight away from the players in order to have decent content progression. EQ2 also has a nice tradeskill faculty so one can actually wind up in endgame areas at a low adventure level, which can help later on.

The game that had so much promise, IMHO, was Vanguard. I wish that it could have been kept under development for at least a year, perhaps 18 months. That would have been a solid MMO, and a decent challenge for PvE. However, these days, even though EQ2 doesn't have the cool quests like rolling down the Great Wall, it has very good content all around from solo to group to raid. Plus, one can start at level 85, so one can hit endgame raiding fairly quickly, although there is a lot of interesting content to be seen at lower levels (Sol eye especially.)

I have some hopes for Everquest: Next, but the graphics are off-putting (it looks like a 1950s cartoon and a WoW character model had offspring.) However, gameplay is what matters, so I'm going to wait and see on that.

IMHO, I dislike F2P, because it implies P2W. EQ2 is probably the best balance -- other than starting at level 85, there are no raid level items (other than appearance stuff) that one can just buy. Gear still has to be earned to hit ToV or other endgame places. No chest and keys system either. What you loot is what you get.

Of course, there are other MMOs, but when you get PK-ed when you create your first character before you ever load completely into the newbie zone makes the games an instant turn-off, or even better, you keep getting killed repeatedly at the respawn point until you just kill the game client.

[1]: I'd hate to deal with the next expansion on a PvP server. Flight means being able to get somewhere versus becoming someone's HKs, so it just makes playing less worth it if one is on those realms.

Re:Everquest Next

[kauaidiver]

Maybe I saw different screenshots and vid caps but the character models in Everquest Next look great.

EQ1 had something other MMORPG's lack: element of danger and fear. And it was challenging!

You could be proud that you had a high level character.

Re:Everquest Next

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a bit of a shame about WoW. Having played a lot of other mmos, I often get the desire to go back and check it out, but it's just become a bit of a silly game, as you describe. There are parts of it which have a nice, serious tone, but most of it has become just a trivial silly gimmick.

Re:Everquest Next

[Anonymous Coward]

In regards to Rift. The raid gear that was added to the Rift Store is shit-tier gear not P2W by any means. It's pricedhigh as well they have no raid level gear beyond the lowest level crap.

The next expansion is Plane of Water it's not all kedge keep style and it all isn't under water all be it a lot of it will be I for one look forward to some of the raid mechanics that it may birth with having to have situational awareness from 360.

The Repopulation

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not out yet but promises to be a refreshing departure from the standard wow-clone stream of MMOs we get these days,

Wildstar

[Xocet_00]

Check out the Devspeak videos. Seems like a nice change of pace: http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/media/videos/devspeak/

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

[Anonymous Coward]

Final Fantasy XIV is currently my MMO of choice. As you have the freewill to spec as any class on the same character, it gives you a great deal of flexibility on how you want to play.

Re:Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

[Anonymous Coward]

I second that. After the relaunch, the game has matured a LOT into a very good game.

Re:Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

[Anonymous Coward]

This got modded up? Do people not remember that this is the game that's so terrible that they literally fired the guy who designed it, and then remade it into a complete WoW clone? (Complete with a cataclysm, caused by a formerly sleeping dragon!) You might as well just play WoW, unless you really have a thing for catgirls. But that's not what I really want to address.

As you have the freewill to spec as any class on the same character, it gives you a great deal of flexibility on how you want to play.

You can change to any class on the same character. There's no flexibility on how you want to play, every class has strictly defined roles and that's all they do. The only flexibility you have is in whether you play poorly or play well.

The only difference between this and every other MMO in existence is that instead of creating an alt to play a different class, you use the same character. Meaning you can't play through different story lines or redo quest lines to earn XP on the second class. (Each class has its own levels and has to be leveled up separately.)

It's no better than having alts. In fact, it's worse. Congrats, you made it to level 30! Now drop the class you want to play and level up some random class to level 15 so you can unlock your "job." (Basically, improved class-specific skills.) Now you can go to the level cap! Haha, just kidding, you have to level up a couple of other classes to around 36 to unlock required abilities for your "main" class!

Because clearly, I want to level up a boring as hell healbot so I can play a tank. But if you want to play well, you will!

Sure, you have the flexibility not to - like I said, you can play poorly, or you can level up crap you don't enjoy playing to be able to effectively play the classes you do. It's a crap system, it was crap in 1.0, and they should never have kept it. There's a very good reason no other MMO does "multiple classes on the same character." It's a bad feature.

Re:Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

[Anonymous Coward]

I third that. I just started playing this a week ago and I'm already looking forward to not have to start over from scratch just to try a new character class.

Re:Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

[elrusoloco]

Another vote for FFXIVARR - thoroughly enjoying it right now. Traditional trinity combat, interesting dungeon boss mechanics, lots of incentives for open world grouping, beautiful graphics.

Re:Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

[Anonymous Coward]

expanding on this, your main weapon determines your class. you level each individually, with a degree of catch up between your lowest and highest level. plus, there are chocobos :)

Re:Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

[sandytaru]

Agreed. Even the non battle classes are all addictive. I've got a level 50 fisher in the other monitor in Costa del Sol, making money to fund my trip to 50 on Weaver... while I let my battle class (conjurer/white mage) languish at level 41 because I'm in no hurry to get to endgame.

Re:Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

[sandytaru]

You can borrow abilities from other classes you've already leveled up. So leveling them on the same character allows you to stack up extra abilities you wouldn't have if you did a single class per character.

You're also incorrect about no other MMO doing that. Final Fantasy XI did it as well, and with 22 classes on a single character combined with their version of the class/support class system, you had 462 different ways to play a character (although in reality only about 100 of those combinations were actually worthwhile.)

Re:Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

[sandytaru]

Battle chocobos, no less! Need a healer for a quest or some extra damage? Summon your chocobo. It's a brilliant take on the "pet" system.

Re:Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

[Anonymous Coward]

You're also incorrect about no other MMO doing that. Final Fantasy XI did it as well

I meant "no other MMO other than the Final Fantasy ones" but thank you, Mister Pedantic.

You can borrow abilities from other classes you've already leveled up. So leveling them on the same character allows you to stack up extra abilities you wouldn't have if you did a single class per character.

No kidding. And that's why the system sucks. It means you HAVE to level up classes you hate playing so that you can effectively play the one you enjoy. Of course, you can just be ineffective and watch as people refuse to group with you. That is an option.

Plus the idea that there's "flexibility" is completely false. You have an incredibly limited number of abilities you even CAN use from other classes, and even then, there is a small set of ones you MUST use for people to be willing to group with you. Which means by end-game, everyone is a complete clone of everyone else.

They should have ditched the stupid "multi-class" system because it simply doesn't work. Unless your goal is to needlessly pad out gameplay to bilk weeaboos of their money. I suppose in that way it's a great success.

Re:Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

[Anonymous Coward]

I played it in beta and NOPE'd the fuck outta there. I got the emails and thought they were from an abusive ex-boyfriend begging me to come back and stay because they'd "changed".

How changed is FFXIV -- really?

Re:Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

[Anonymous Coward]

They realized two things:

1. World of Warcraft is popular, so we should copy its UI and add jumping
2. We can bilk weeaboos of money with cat girls and Final Fantasy references

Other than that, if you didn't like 1.0, and you shouldn't have, everything you didn't like in 1.0 is back in 2.0. The same stupid world, the same stupid races, the same dumbass "class" system, the horrible "crafting" game, the stupid "leve" system - all returns. Anyone recommending this game is an idiot, anyone modding up a recommendation should never be given mod points again.

Re:Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

[Anonymous Coward]

FF XIV is currently the best MMO on the market.

Re:Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

[Anonymous Coward]

And combat boils down to using the same two skills over and over and over and over and over and over and over on one of your many classes. Also the global cooldown is ridiculously long.

(Also, I lied, I use like three skills on my Lancer.)

Re:Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

[sandytaru]

Sounds like someone was butthurt about having to level up ninja for Utsusemi: Ni.

MMO lack luster

[Anonymous Coward]

Most MMOs these days are getting to the point of a few button rotations and you end up in the repetitive grind. I am enjoying FFXIV right now but who knows for how long? FFXI had the most amount of play time for me followed by WoW but the new WoW expansions/patches are bland and the talent trees are almost forced to one dimension depending on what you are doing.

EVE

[Doc Hopper]

I just started playing EVE Online in February of this year after a long hiatus from all online gaming. It has a great community, and due to the way skill trees work and the variety of places to play in (hisec, lowsec, nullsec, wormhole) it can be as casual or as hard-core as you want it to be. I enjoy the heck out of wormholes at present!

Re:EVE

[Anonymous Coward]

Just want to second EVE. EVE is treacherous. To the uninitiated, EVE is set in space between multiple star systems controlled by four empires, and within those empires are factions. There's high security space and low-security space. In high security, you can have game-driven NPC adventurers and build a modest career as a space pilot. Maybe you're military, maybe you are a transporter, maybe you mine ore from asteroids. In low-sec, maybe you're a pirate and you raid other players who make the mistake of wandering into low-sec. Maybe you focus on manufacturing goods from the ore that other players mine. Maybe you're a smuggler. Maybe you get into massive 4,000+ real PvP ship combat. Or, maybe you're going to get a lucky guy who manages to knick $1,000 real money's worth of in-game currency from a transporter. EVE is evil and unforgiving, but the freedom to play without rules in a sandbox is really alluring.

I've played WoW, and though that was enjoyable, it wasn't as rewarding.

Re:EVE

[Anonymous Coward]

This. EVE is something every gamer should try. I didn't get it at first b/c I was comparing it too much to other MMORPG's the first time. It seemed complicated. I came back to it 6 months later when I was tired of grinding some other game, and just wanted to explore. And that's what it is. It's just a thriving universe with as many goals to try to achieve as real life might provide, with every player running on the same single server instance (including the mercs of DUST514 on their PS3's). And the player base has grown year after year for 10 years now, but despite playing with folks who have had a decade of character experience, every fleet needs frigate pilots in various roles which a new player can slip into and do just as good a job as anyone else. There are plenty of other things that have a low barrier to entry, and plenty of things to look forward to.
Also, it appears that there are some significant plans for the next year or more which I'm thinking will be even better the more new players we can get. And yes, as Doc claims, it is just the best damn gaming community ever created, and supported by the most dedicated dev team I've ever heard of. They've got a youtube channel with trailers and such, that give a general impression of the game setting I suppose, but don't effectively cover the moment-to-moment game play. There's a free trial available for that of course.

Not Rift

[Anonymous Coward]

Rift went free to play/pay to win and it was very obvious that their design goal went from "How can we make this awesome enough for a subscription" to "How can a make this just annoying enough that people will be willing to pay to skip half of it".

WoW, ESO

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say WoW, even after all of these years. The Pandaria expansion, despite the corny Pandarian race, is still well done and fun to play, and there is no shortage of people to group with. I let my subscription expire recently though. I played Rift for a while, it is pretty fun, but the game engine performance really sucks which drove me away. SWTOR got boring pretty quickly and also suffers from performance problems. Both of the latter games come across as more somber/serious, which skews the players more male than WoW. I think it is more fun when there are some females around, seems to temper some of the raging.

I'm waiting for Elder Scrolls Online at this point. Can't wait until it comes out.

Re:WoW, ESO

[i kan reed]

The less corny Blizzard games got, the less interesting I found them(even without never-going-to-buy-it DRM questions)

Re:WoW, ESO

[Darinbob]

ESO will be subscription only which I am very wary of. I'm also wary of it for other reasons (it is not built by Bethesda, the lore is screwy, and it has too much pvp in it).

Re:WoW, ESO

[Thantik]

I not only agree, but this is what has kept me away from so many other MMOs. They focus so heavily on graphics, and making things "look real" that they hit uncanny valley with their animation. The fact that WoW has the "cartoon" look, and a wide range of body heights keeps things very interesting without making your brain shout at you that something isn't quite right.

The thing that has killed WoW for me, however, has been the lack of danger. The shoving everyone into battlegrounds. Virtually no world PVP anymore. Auto-matchups for group runs have killed much social behavior that existed prior. Yes, waiting around town spamming trade for hours at a time wasn't very fun. But in a way, it forced socialization, it forced people to remember "ok, this guy is a pretty damn good tank, I'm going to put him on my friends list and we'll blast through shit together"...now, it's just click a button, and wait. Once you're done, likelihood of you ever talking to anyone from that group ever again is practically nil.

I played MMOs not for the grind. Not for the waste of time. I _DID_ do end-game. I did spend time at the hardest possible points in the game, because I wanted a challenge. I wanted friends who wanted a challenge. But now, no way. VERY few people want that challenge anymore, because the game is catered to people who want a grind. They want a game that's on a set of rails, that slowly has everything around you nerfed until you can defeat it with a set of monkies pounding at the keyboard.

Take away flying. Take away the simplicity of just BYPASSING EVERYTHING. Make it so if you travel the wrong direction, you risk getting caught in a pack of something. If someone is higher level than you, and you run into them...don't make it so you can just fly away or hover mid air completely untouchable. It gets rid of any sense of danger. Some of the most memorable moments in WoW were when I was scared shitless of some massively overgeared character finding me, but still being able to _defend_ myself by casting snares, running away, or getting to safety at a town. Constantly having to watch out for a same-level character who wanted a fight when I was in the middle of an existing fight was also very fun. Frustrating at times, but massively fun.

It's not an MMO if you don't have to deal with other players. If you can successfully gear up, without ever having to chat, the MMO has failed. Right now, in WoW, you can successfully gear up without having any real interaction with players at all, and that sucks.

Re:WoW, ESO

[painandgreed]

I'd say WoW, even after all of these years.

I'm still playing after all these years, but I'd have to ask what the player wants. WoW these days is pretty much level up as fast as possible and raid for most people. The auction houses are dead for anything except mats (which is probably good as the prices would be outrageous for new players). The lower levels are void of other players. There is plenty of good content still there if the player is wanting solo PvE and doesn't care about playing below their level, but anything except the last expansion seems to be lacking any sort of MM part to the ORPG these days.

Re:WoW, ESO

[Zenin]

Good god no...not WoW.

The Pandarian expansion saw the last tiny relevance left of the skill trees erased for good. Any nuance or creativity in builds or play style gone. Blizzard had been working to years to stomp out any actual variety, inventiveness, or frankly skill from the game for years. With Pandarian they finally saw their dreams realized: A utopia for ultra-casual players to button-smash their way to phat lootz.

The actual game of WoW is now so bad even the game designers realized it wasn't worth playing...and added in an entire pokemon-style meta game to play instead. It's no different then when idiots would log into Ultima Online just so they could play chess inside someone's virtual backpack.

WoW is dead.

Re:WoW, ESO

[Endo13]

Auto-matchups for group runs have killed much social behavior that existed prior. Yes, waiting around town spamming trade for hours at a time wasn't very fun. But in a way, it forced socialization, it forced people to remember "ok, this guy is a pretty damn good tank, I'm going to put him on my friends list and we'll blast through shit together"...now, it's just click a button, and wait. Once you're done, likelihood of you ever talking to anyone from that group ever again is practically nil.

That was what completely killed it for me. I play MMOs for the virtual world experience; I couldn't care less about instances other than running them a couple times for the experience of doing it.

The battlegrounds were bad enough, but arenas were one of the worst PvP ideas they implemented during the time I played (I quit early during Cata).

MMO's...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say pick one that is to your interests right now. For me that's Star Trek Online cause I'm such a big Trekkie that I can overlook a lot of the games flaws just to go out and blast Klingons, Romulans, Borg, and even Federation ships for fun.

World of Warcraft

[TWiTfan]

It's a lesser known title, but with a very dedicated core of players.

Re:World of Warcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

dafaq are you smoking? WoW a little known title?

Re:World of Warcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

Seconded. For all the whining about this or that, it is the king of MMORPGs for a reason, and contrary to what people tell you, it is generally improving.

Re:World of Warcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but WoW is not improving. They've ruined a great MMO.

Re:World of Warcraft

[charlesbakerharris]

WHOooooOOOooooOOOOSH

Re:World of Warcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

By improving he meant getting more children to play.

Re:World of Warcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

They ruined a passable mmo, and several other great ones in the process.

Re:World of Warcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

Person you replied to here.
Look, there are some colossal mistakes they made - Cross-Realm Zones being the worst offender. If they introduce micro transactions, that will be another.

On the whole though, you'll have a hard case to make that TBC or vanilla was any fun though. The questing there really really sucked, leveling sucked (e.g. Nagrand), PVP and PVE classes were hopelessly unbalanced, and 1% of players every even saw the end game despite mechanics being ridiculously simple. The run backs were endless and mind numbing, the servers had wait times to get on, the fights had all sorts of BS (immunities, fall deaths, mind controls, silences, stuns, etc). There were lots of ways to customize your talents, but only one right way to do so making all "choice" pointless. I honestly don't see what the fuss is about.
Granted, in Lich King, the story was quite epic, but Pandaria is not far behind there. All these other problems are largely fixed.

As far as I can tell, the only reason anyone ever whines about WoW being destroyed are people who fell in love with the old WoW, and it changed. It changed for the better on the whole, but it's not the WoW they came to know and love and hence it's bad. There is no fixing that besides maybe making time capsule servers or something.

Re:World of Warcraft

[Servaas]

I am one of those people! Shout out to me?

Re:World of Warcraft

[runeghost]

On the whole though, you'll have a hard case to make that TBC or vanilla was any fun though. The questing there really really sucked, leveling sucked (e.g. Nagrand), PVP and PVE classes were hopelessly unbalanced, and 1% of players every even saw the end game despite mechanics being ridiculously simple. The run backs were endless and mind numbing, the servers had wait times to get on, the fights had all sorts of BS (immunities, fall deaths, mind controls, silences, stuns, etc). There were lots of ways to customize your talents, but only one right way to do so making all "choice" pointless. I honestly don't see what the fuss is about.

Right... WoW reached 13 million subscribers when the game wasn't any fun, and since then has slowly dropped down to under 8 million subscribers because it has been fixed....

Re:World of Warcraft

[mlts]

The WoW improvements just mean that you read EJ, follow their instructions for the class you are playing, select the talents they point out, play the rot they instruct, and gear up exactly as stated, or else you will lose your raid spot to someone who does do that.

What would be great would be Everquest 2's loot system (and augments, similar to having all items be socketed), Rift's soul trees, Everquest 1's AAs, and maybe a fairly short class selection like WoW's that is more than "Rift's "fighter/mage/cleric/thief" archetypes. Add in abilities/talents for every class to heal/melee DPS/range DPS/tank (which Rift purports to add in come 3.0), and it would allow for an interesting group dynamic.

Re:World of Warcraft

[Thantik]

Basically all the single-button-click group matchmaking, and cross realms created an atmosphere where there was no sense of community anymore. There were no reputations to be worried about. There's way less of the "Multiplayer" in WoW as an MMO now. Yes...there are loads of other players. But they've taken away soooo much of the incentive to actually interact with those other players, that you might as well be playing a single player game with bots now.

Re:World of Warcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

The run back adds a punishment for failure; death meant something. That "bullshit" was called game mechanics. There wasn't as strong of a "right way" as there was in latter expansions after bc, stats latter removed like magic element type added utility to different specs, you'd have really weird shit popping up in top end guilds. By the end of cata every class was under 3 buttons, with one obviouse always stack this stat, I didn't even bother with pandaria. You rose tinted glasses theory guys didn't show up till years after, and you base it off going back to those old dungeons/raids with heavily buffed miscaled toons, and heavily nerfed versions of those dungeons/raids. We're talking orders of magnitude difference with a level matching toon, even in proper expansion level greens.

Cross realm pugs, aren't a bad thing, you don't remember how much going on trade chat advertising for a 5 man for 3-4 hours on a small realm sucked ass, I remember having to do that with 1600dps(the shiznit back in bc) you lose the personal touch of knowing more people on the realm, but trade offs.

Re:World of Warcraft

[Endo13]

On the whole though, you'll have a hard case to make that TBC or vanilla was any fun though.

Vanilla and TBC were both lots of fun. Best years of the game. For me, TBC was the high point.

Not everyone plays MMOs just to run instances over and over as fast as possible for epics. Everything after TBC was downhill.

Re:World of Warcraft

[DedTV]

How many other major MMORPG have retained 60% of their peak subs after 9 years?
If not for them evolving their gameplay they'd likely be facing the same dilemma of choosing between trying free to play, implementing microtransactions or just shutting down entirely like so many other MMORPGs have.

As far as the question goes, asking the internet for MMO recommendations is like trying to get relationship advice at a whore house.
The truly massive MMORPGs are WoW, Runescape and EVE. And despite what the internet hipsters say, they're the biggest because they deliver what most people want from a MMORPG better than other games. If none of their gameplay works for you though, you have to delve into the niche games. Many of them are free to play so the best way to see if they fit your niche is to try them. Tera, Aion, DC Universe, D&D:O, Neverwinter, Rift, FF XIV & GW2 tend to be the most talked about but there's countless other small games (many with better than 50k players that feel no less massive than WoW) out there that you'll likely be able to find something you like.

If it's possible for you to find something you like. It seems many people are burnt out on the genre but refuse to admit it to themselves. Most "the last expansion/patch ruined the game" complaints are really "I'm tired of games that require more dedication than my job to obtain virtual items that will become worthless with the next patch" rants. Then there's the the dreamy eyed "TBC was the best" type of player looking for a game to deliver a sense of being special. That feeling that the devs care about you more than everyone else. Back in TBC and Vanilla, if you had epics you were special and part of each patch was just for you as anyone who hadn't found 25 people to run Gruul, Mag, SSC and TK steadily week after week and gain loot from those runs wasn't going to see Illidan during TBC. But now, anyone can ding 90, run around Timeless Isle for an hour or two and gear up enough kill Garrosh in LFR. The game play is the same for the more elite players, but the potential to gain a sense of 'accomplishing something special that no lesser player will be able to' is gone because the only thing an elite player gets that lesser players can't is a few achievements and a temporarily higher iLevel.

Re:World of Warcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt that being able to run around for a few hours and then win the game is what draws people to MMOs. They can get that experience, with better graphics, on their console.

Re:World of Warcraft

[jwhitener]

Basically all the single-button-click group matchmaking, and cross realms created an atmosphere where there was no sense of community anymore. There were no reputations to be worried about. There's way less of the "Multiplayer" in WoW as an MMO now. Yes...there are loads of other players. But they've taken away soooo much of the incentive to actually interact with those other players, that you might as well be playing a single player game with bots now.

That is what most older Everquest 1 players said about WoW when they first tried it. MMO on easy mode. No sacrifice. No shared sense of accomplishment. Grouping was too easy. Fast transit destroyed a sense of a real world. etc etc etc

It is all relative to the starting point. All MMO's gradually gain ways for players to get a quicker and quicker sense of accomplishment. That is the only way they continue to recruit new players. If you join a 5 year old MMO and the only way to get to the top level is to spend 5 years playing it... well you won't even start. That is why all MMO's get easier the older they get.

What I hope, is that a brand new MMO comes out and takes all the training wheels off and starts everyone back at the Everquest level. I'm not sure it would survive in today's world of MMO's, but one can hope. I just learned they are re-doing EQ, so maybe. https://www.everquestnext.com

Turbine

[AlienSexist]

Something is up with Turbine MMOs in general. LotR Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online in particular have been really seen a severe deterioration in game quality update after update. AFAIK there is a major exodus underway from both titles. DDO servers are becoming more and more like ghost towns all the time and it is increasingly difficult to find parties. DDO players, in particular, are really tired of the blatant Pay2Win moneygrab ploys and some I know have ventured over to Path of Exile which, so far, appears to not stink of it. I have no recommendations for the OP, just support of their initial condition.

Re:Turbine

[Anonymous Coward]

Something is up with Turbine MMOs in general. LotR Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online in particular have been really seen a severe deterioration in game quality update after update.

Since they were purchased by Warner Brothers perhaps?

Re:Turbine

[Darinbob]

LotRO doesn't really have pay-to-win by many definitions. There is literally nothing you need in the store to play the game at all levels, all the items are optional. If you subscribe then you get enough point allowance to even purchase an expansion with the points every year as long as you don't waste points on extras. But subscribing is pay-to-win (also pay-to-play). You can drop that down and budget only $5 a month and get everything ala-carte and do quite well, you won't even need to grind out points. I don't understand why people are so intent on going back to the old days where you were required to pay $15/month just to log in. If paying $5 a month is too much then you can play completely free: there are players at max level who have played for free the entire time, including earning points to get quest packs. Sure it's a lot of work, but it is possible.

If this were a pay-to-win game then they'd be having stuff in the store you were required to get. Ie, it would be so difficult to play the game without buying powerful consumables in the store. Some people predicted this would happen but it never did. If it was pay-to-win then they'd be treating the free players as undesirables. The ala-carte players have the best of it all, paying for only what they want.

But instead players complain about optional items that they don't need and claim they're being nickle-and-dimed to death. Are those players incapable of keeping their wallets locked tight? Do they not know how to budget their 500 points a month allowance? I am utterly baffled why some players call Turbine a greedy money grabber when the other games cost much more to play and give non-subscribers so much less. People are excited about Elder Scrolls Online but they will charge $15 a month with no opportunity to play for free or ala-carte, which is a much bigger money grab than Turbine is doing.

None

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no "MMO" worth your time, unless you enjoy grinding for a boring and generic quest.

Tera has a great combat system, but everything else is just generic.
GuildWars 2 has a nice story, but everything else isn't even worth mentioning.
And the list goes on...
Each MMO have 1 thing they do well and everything else is awful. There's no MMO that has all those good things in a single package, which is very sad.

Re:None

[Sowelu]

Yes, well, some people do enjoy grinding for boring and generic quests. Think of it like zoning out in front of a TV, except more interactive and social. If I didn't have good ways to numb my brain once in a while, I'd probably drink a lot more.

Not every player is an addict, it can be nice to just relax without going over the deep end.

Re:None

[mlts]

Clichequest would be nice if it ever gets released. The Plane of Cheese previews are mind-blowing.

Re:None

[Darinbob]

And that is what is nice about LotRO's payment models. You can do it for free, or just pay a little bit of money now and then. If you're playing a couple hours only on Saturdays then it is ridiculous to be asked to fork over $10-$15 a month for that. But if you pay $5 and get access to content that lasts you a couple months, then pay another $5 for another month of new content, then it fits very well with an occasional player. I do recommend subscribing at least one month to unlock things, then purchasing an XP disabler token since everything gets too easy otherwise.

EVE Online

[SenorPez]

EVE Online. You've got the freedom to play whatever type of game you want, within the bounds of the setting and sandbox. You can play alone when you want to be alone, and play with others when you want to play with others. They just released their latest free expansion, too, so there's a whole host of new toys to play with and blow up.

If you want to keep your setting try this.

[stewsters]

http://www.tomenet.net/

World of Tanks/Warplanes

[Binestar]

I've had a lot of luck recently with World of Tanks and World of Warplanes. They're not RPG's, but they are MMO. Not much investment needed for a playing either.

I recently played Neverwinter. I can't recommend it though. The leveling up is very fast (Which isn't necessarily bad on it's own) and when you hit end game there is almost nothing to do. The free to play formula is extremely expensive addons ($20 for a bag) that frankly make it not worth your time.

Other than that, there are literally dozens of free to play MMO's out there right now. Costs nothing to try them, but the time to check them out. I enjoyed RIFT when I played, but stopped before the first expansion, so I have no clue what it is like now.

Re:World of Tanks/Warplanes

[Anonymous Coward]

I second World of Tanks. I started playing it with some friends, and once you get the hang of the controls, it's quite fun. Most of the environmental details are things you can blow up/roll over/crush too. You can even shoot down birds if your aim is good enough.

I played Neverwinter during the beta, and while there were some aspects I liked, I didn't care for the interface. Crafting was especially annoying.

I've also been playing World of Warcraft since the beginning of the Lich King expansion, but haven't played lately since my guild stopped raiding (and LFR just isn't the same).

Re:World of Tanks/Warplanes

[Endo13]

but they are MMO

No they're not. Thirty players in a match isn't massive at all. Hell, the original UT had that, and no one even considered calling it an MMO.

Re:World of Tanks/Warplanes

[Tukz]

Well, apparently any game with a "persistent" level system is a MMO these days.

Re:World of Tanks/Warplanes

[gl4ss]

Well, apparently any game with a "persistent" level system is a MMO these days.

I think you mean "a game with grinding".

WoW and GW2

[Anonymous Coward]

I find this is the biggest problem facing the genre nowadays. There seems to be a push by game designers to make things simpler and easier. Many times this comes across as a reduction in the number of abilities or stats involved in the game mechanics. One of the greatest parts about when I used to play WoW was the theory crafting. Trying to figure out how to increase my performance as a player and my characters performance with what gear I could get or already had. Sometimes different (and very complex) cycles of abilities and combat routines were needed, storing up combo points and keeping debuffs up and rolling. Critical hits and needing to move around during a fight also added some randomness or variety to fighting.

I stopped playing WoW before Cataclysm as I felt it was a good time to quit since I couldn't keep up the time commitment. I also felt it was a stage where they were introducing lots of changes to "simplify" things like combat stats that really rubbed me the wrong way a little bit, though to be fair, I haven't actually experienced the changes so I can't concretely say if they were as bad as I thought they'd be.

I played Guild Wars 2 briefly and I found they had some nice ideas about how to remove some of that "grind" feeling from leveling and questing, as ANYTHING in that game gives you experience. I spent an hour running around a city exploring and my character unexpectedly leveled up because I hadn't realized but I was gaining XP from discovering different sub areas. Also, crafting is kinda fun and addicting, but gives decent experience (at least from what I played in the lower levels). I think the weak point was again not a lot of skills involved in combat, and I felt (personally) that some of the group content was hard to get into, though I didn't have any friends playing with me. The guild system is interesting and kind of cool, with some neat mechanics like contributing for guild wide buffs and things.

Essentially I think that some of the funnest games are also the most complicated. I especially dislike when there is ONE very clear "best" way of doing things (building a character or skill combinations in a fight, etc). I like it best when there are multiple choices with different strengths and weaknesses, and sometimes it will require careful analysis which is better or more suitable for me.

TLDR: I find the games that offer the most complexity tend to be what keep me entertained the most

Re:WoW and GW2

[Lotana]

If you enjoy complexity and not completely burnt out on MMOs yet, take a look at EVE Online. Extremely complex and brutal.

It is not for everyone though: People either love it or severely hate it. Biggest factor is that everything you do is PvP in nature.

Re:WoW and GW2

[Stormy Dragon]

One of the greatest parts about when I used to play WoW was the theory crafting. Trying to figure out how to increase my performance as a player and my characters performance with what gear I could get or already had. Sometimes different (and very complex) cycles of abilities and combat routines were needed, storing up combo points and keeping debuffs up and rolling.

Except there wasn't really alternate equally working set of abilities. There was pretty much one obviously best set for each trait tree.

Essentially I think that some of the funnest games are also the most complicated. I especially dislike when there is ONE very clear "best" way of doing things (building a character or skill combinations in a fight, etc).

These two statements are actually opposed to each other. In a truly complex system, it's near impossible to balance everything to create multiple equally valid options. Pretty much the only time you see actual MEANINGFUL choices in gaming is in relatively simple systems.

Re:WoW and GW2

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the greatest parts about when I used to play WoW was the theory crafting.

By which you mean, plugging values into somebody else's spreadsheet (or AskMrRobot, or similar) to determine if it's a theoretical upgrade for you? Or did you mean reading the forums to find the best opener and rotation that somebody else arrived at by testing, and then joining the chorus of "I'm better than you because i read this guy's forum posts and you didnt, baddie" cargo cultists?

Because that's what "theorycrafting" is to all except maybe 300 people in the WoW community.

Since you're talking about combo points, you probably played a rogue, and used the same goddamned spreadsheet that every other once-rogue-now-DK would tab out to and hold up loot rolls for. "Who wants the leather shoulders of the apocalyptic butt rape? Rogues? Rogues?" "One sec, checking the spreadsheet... *three minutes of keys clacking over vent*... oh that's not really a big deal for me, it's like 50pp better only so really more of a sidegrade, pass."

Complexity for the sake of complexity is boring. If you like boring games, then great, you're welcome to it - i'm sure there's a lot of really boring games out there. But don't expect the world to cater to your love for boring games.

Re:WoW and GW2

[Thantik]

Except there wasn't really alternate equally working set of abilities. There was pretty much one obviously best set for each trait tree.

There actually were in the early days. Before the simplification. I played a mage and there were a lot of different builds you could play, and none of them were "the best". There were 3 talent trees, arcane, fire, and ice. Couldn't play fire in some raids, because bosses were fire immune...but not all of them. Some people played an "elemental" build where they went half way down fire and ice trees and had amazing control and still some good firepower. Some went full ice and got major control in pvp. Some went a mix of arcane and fire...some more fire, some more arcane. Mages back in TBC had _so many_ good builds and strange tricks that it was amazing. But the developers said that it was "too hard to keep up with" and they couldn't "anticipate all the builds" and there were times where things got quirky and a strange build popped up that was absolutely killer. His statements aren't opposed to each other at all. There were complex systems in place, and no -- it wasn't balanced. It was a rock-paper-scissors type game at the time. Mage destroyed warrior. Rogue destroyed mage. Warrior destroyed Rogue. You relied on having friends around you to keep you safe.

Re:WoW and GW2

[myowntrueself]

If you enjoy complexity and not completely burnt out on MMOs yet, take a look at EVE Online. Extremely complex and brutal.

It is not for everyone though: People either love it or severely hate it. Biggest factor is that everything you do is PvP in nature.

With EVE, the people who hate it are typically neither sadists nor masochists.

Re:WoW and GW2

[Endo13]

Completely agree about complexity. I can't stand the trends of over-simplifying things. I got in the ESO closed beta this weekend and barely made it a couple hours before getting bored. Barely lasted longer in NWO a couple months ago.

Even GW2 is disappointing. Half your skills are determined by your weapon, and often the different skills on the weapon don't even make sense together. It also didn't take long for players to narrow down one or two optimal builds for each class so you really can't even experiment there unless you really like to solo. After the original GW, it's such a regression. And getting rid of a dedicated healing class did them no favors. It devolves the gameplay into little more than DPS races. Everyone has a dodge ability to avoid damage, because they have to, because there's no one to heal them if they get hit. The personal heals only help with the odd splash damage here and there. So it's all just DPS and dodging. That's what you get when you make a pointed effort at removing the "trinity".

Final Fantasy XIV

[raculot]

I'd suggest checking out FF14, actually! I just picked it up a few weeks ago and have been having a blast. Since they redesigned and relaunched it in August, it's actually probably the most fun MMO on the market (at least for me, YMMV)

Re:Final Fantasy XIV

[Anonymous Coward]

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is a lot of fun, to be sure, but I've previously had a hard time recommending it to friends because of the relatively steep up-front cost of the game. It appears that it may have been price reduced on most platforms to $30 for the client, but the PS4 version is still $60, before any monthly subscription fees. If you can find it for $30 with a 30-day trial, please consider it.

FFXIV:ARR is a PvE-focused MMO set in a fantasy world. Some classic Final Fantasy "magitek" concepts exist, but are largely reserved for the story's main antagonists. The main storyline and side quests will last you to the endgame and provides about 40-60 hours of content. The 8 combat classes each cater to a distinct style of play, and the ability to level each of them with the same character and choose crossover abilities give you a great deal of freedom until you reach the tier-2 "jobs". There are also 3 gathering classes and 8 crafting classes, though the differences in play do not vary as much between the gatherers or the crafters.

There are 9 end-game jobs, which could be thought of as "tier-2" classes and stem directly from the "tier-1" classes. The existence of two pet jobs stemming from one pet class suggests plans that more jobs will be added, branching from the existing classes, in addition to speculation that more tier-1 classes will be added in the future, as well.

The endgame is challenging, and it's my understanding that the current "last boss" has not been defeated yet (except by cheating).

An upcoming patch is expected to add new content, including new boss raids, new dungeons, and new pets for the pet class.

Criticisms of the game largely stem from its relative new-ness. The client and servers are stable, for the most part, but certain features such as player housing have not been released yet, and certain very rare open-world events draw enough players to strain zones to their breaking point. Some players are complaining about new content being late, specifically the Crystal Tower series of dungeons. Lead Producer Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida says that content delays have been because of launch issues: stopping to address critical problems at launch caused the content to be delayed by 4 weeks.

Some players have also criticized select pieces of content as fan service, and are concerned that new content will be too oriented towards players' nostalgia from previous Final Fantasy games instead of being original creations in the FFXIV world.

Another criticism that I have for the game is that its distribution of combat roles has made it very difficult for DPS classes to get through lower-level dungeons. Dungeon queue times for DPS classes can exceed 90 minutes, while tank and healer classes have much shorter waits. This makes it harder for DPS classes to complete the main story, which is a requirement for unlocking end-game content. It would be advantageous to find a leveling guild to make it through these dungeons and get through the main story.

The game's shaky launch was due to Square-Enix greatly underestimating the popularity of the game. The publisher's previous MMO, Final Fantasy XI, is believed to have peaked at 650,000 subscribers, and the ARR team celebrated reaching 218,000 peak concurrent users during open beta. ARR, however, quickly reached more than 1 million subscribers, and an estimated 350,000 peak concurrent users, which was far more than the server infrastructure was able to handle. S-E has responded by introducing many more front-end servers and by partitioning back-end services such as the cross-realm dungeon queue by both server group and dungeon. Character creation is still frequently restricted to select servers. In particular, "Legacy" servers for characters from "1.0" are still almost always restricted.

I hope this has been informative. Cheers.

Re:Final Fantasy XIV

[sandytaru]

Right now it's the game include with any Intel Core i5 or i7 on NewEgg, so if someone is considering getting a new processor, they'll get XIV ARR along for the ride for free.

Find something new

[Anonymous Coward]

Find something new and get in at the beginning. For example, Elder Scrolls Online is just entering Beta. It happens to have a free beta this weekend that's starting in less than 2 hours (6 PM EST).

Good question, they are all crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't get me wrong, I've spent the better part of my MMO experience playing WoW, SWToR, Rift.... unfortunately, none of them seem to sate my appetite.

MMO developers are dumbing everything down. When Everquest was big, the game was complicated and challenging. I actually miss that. When Warcraft came out, it seemed like a fine balance between playability, and challenge. Just my two cents, but companies need to stop dumbing the games down, and making them a more advanced playing experience.

I quit WoW before they did the tree updates that just ruined the game, and no... I won't give it a chance because honestly it isn't worth my time. Give us a complicated game. Give me a tree as big as path of exile, a crafting system like Fallen Earth, and the spell system of Everquest. Make crafting more complicated, and allow the rewards to serve the character's level.... not always being behind the curve (you craft an item that's considered "HARD" for your crafting level, and it's for someone 3-5 levels behind you).

Stop making everything Bind on Pickup. This will allow guilds to gear geared for endgame a bit more quicker. Stupidest system ever.

Oh, and stop letting whiny 15 year olds decide the direction of the game and class balancing. Seperate what the classes do, and what they contribute to the group. There needs to be more specific roles other than DPS, Tank, Heal.

Sorry, I'm bitter :P

Re:Good question, they are all crap

[mlts]

Even Everquest has been made easier, and it is generally better, as the challenge is still there. If I could get over the relative antiquated UI and start back, it is a pretty decent game now. The days of losing all your gear are long gone (a trip to the Guild Lobby, a mash of a veteran's AA, or if gone for a while, a visit to Shadowrest would get one's stuff back.) With a merc, all classes can solo fairly easily.

Even though one can solo, the game is still a group game... there isn't much endgame that isn't involving groups/raids.

I wouldn't mind a PvE game with all the complexity of EQ1 (where classes didn't just get a few spells, but a lot of them that sometimes were next to useless, but that one situation they came in handy, it would help immensely.) Would I want to risk losing all gear on a failed Fear break. Not really. Would I want to try to raid Kael while another guild is training mobs constantly in hopes of wiping? No. However, just the amount of content in the game is astounding.

Re:Good question, they are all crap

[Ottawakismet]

I strongly agree. I left WoW over the dumbing down. I expect this will change eventually, and I wait for a big MMORPG title to be actually fun. I think its an underdeveloped genre, and I think in 5 years time, we will think WoW is garbage. Some people already do. I like to play Paradox computer games, at the other end of the spectrum of repetitiveness and thoughtfulness. For me playing DOTA 2 is a "simple" game, in that it does not have elaborate mechanics and a steep learning curve to start. I prefer complex and engaging, and I think MMORPGs havent yet gotten up to that. I like games that reward skill, thinking, strategy, and WoW had nothing to offer beyond the grind.

Re:Good question, they are all crap

[Anonymous Coward]

12-15 years ago, the average person on the internet was much smarter than they are today. It was a much smaller pool that was looked on as a fringe group. WoW was the first "mainstream" MMO and ever since then more and more "casuals" have been added to the mix. And so the games have slowly moved in a more and more "casual" direction, away from the harder mode that was enjoyed by the early adopters.

Re:Good question, they are all crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Give us a complicated game. Give me a tree as big as path of exile, a crafting system like Fallen Earth, and the spell system of Everquest. Make crafting more complicated, and allow the rewards to serve the character's level.... not always being behind the curve

I couldn't agree more. I really don't know why it's so difficult for game devs to take what works and leave what doesn't, considering the trendy focus on "data" these days. You'd think all these years later they'd have enough data from user feedback to just write a simple script that would mix and match game mechanics into a calculable perfection. I mean, as if mere experience weren't enough?

Re:Good question, they are all crap

[Anonymous Coward]

First you say MMO developers are dumbing everything down, in other words "make it harder". Followed by: Stop making everything Bind on Pickup. This will allow guilds to gear geared for endgame a bit more quicker., in other words "make it easier".

No wonder you're bitter, you're unpleasable.

I'd like to introduce the first law of MMO-whiners (which your post reeks of): "Buff my playstyle, nerf all others".

Stay away from World of Warcraft

[runeghost]

It appears as though you're leaving LotR because it's being dumbed down. Reduction to the lowest common denominator is exactly what's been happening with World of Warcraft for some time, and the newly announced expansion appears to keep the same trend going.

Neverwinter

[boundary]

NW is fun. Give it a spin!

Re:Neverwinter

[Binestar]

Neverwinter has no end game worth playing.

Re:Neverwinter

[Endo13]

Neverwinter has nothing worth playing.

FTFY.

Have you tried Everquest 2?

[Anonymous Coward]

While Everquest 2 is a older MMORPG it's one that has a huge depth and complexity.

There's good low level content and a reasonable player base (size wise). I have to admit it needs more people, but it's a really solid game and worth a look.

Re:Have you tried Everquest 2?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or check out the info on Everquest Landmark and Everquest Next, both are in development.

Everquest Landmark is out end of yearish.

Re:Have you tried Everquest 2?

[Anonymous Coward]

EQN Landmark hits Alpha 2014-02-28 and Beta 2014-03-31. No actual release date yet.

https://www.eqnlandmark.com/founders-pack

Re:Have you tried Everquest 2?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a massive hunk of shit when it came out, it's a massive hunk of shit now. That's why it's free to play, because only idiots throw money at that game.

Re:Have you tried Everquest 2?

[raptorjb007]

Unfortunately EQ2 was great prior to the "WoW" Patch a year or so after its release which remove the majority of group play incentives are areas. Maybe its better now, it was good when released...

Re:Have you tried Everquest 2?

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be awesome, I think, if they overhauled / refreshed the graphics. It's just too dated to enjoy now, I think, unless you're looking through some seriously nostalgia coated glasses :)

Re:Have you tried Everquest 2?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to agree, EQ2 really did mature very well after a rocky start. The UI is, bar none, the best in the industry, abilities are deep and satisfying, crafting is a world unto its own, and player housing in that game gets nuts real fast.

Here's hoping Landmark has a smooth launch so we don't have to wait years for it to grow up to EQ2 levels of goodness.

Expansion

[h4x0t]

"... expansion.... cutting many skills for all classes...."

I purchased a lifetime subscription to this game in 2005/6 when it came out.

I left when the great BALROG slayer (not to mention Watcher slayer, Undead Dragon slayer, etc.) was asked to pick up sticks in the first zone of the second expansion.

I'm glad I left when I did.

Elder Scrolls Online

[Anonymous Coward]

ESO is coming out soon--it's already at the public beta stage (or just about to be) I believe. If you enjoyed any of the Elder Scrolls games like Skyrim and Oblivion, Morrowind, etc, then you may just want to wait a little longer and try this one before investing a lot of time elsewhere. Which isn't to say you shouldn't try others, of course, but if you're anything like me, you may want to just try the free-to-play MMO's first in the meantime and then wait until after trying ESO to commit more time (and money) to anything.

Re:Elder Scrolls Online

[sandytaru]

Closed beta is this weekend, I know that. I think they're doing a stress test.

Re:Elder Scrolls Online

[netsentry]

Closed beta is this weekend, I know that. I think they're doing a stress test.

This is the only choice. Play now if you're in, play later if you aren't, but either way play it. It's groundbreaking.

Star Citizen

[ducomputergeek]

Which is about to reach $30M in crowd funding...although hurry as the ability to get life time insurance for your ships will be ending next week. Then LTI will only be on the grey market...

Re:Star Citizen

[The_Dougster]

The LTI is over. Only those who already have LTI can buy more LTI ships until next week.

I ponied up a few bucks for a digitial package. Looking forward to this one!

Re:Star Citizen

[gl4ss]

lti isn't going to matter as much as to make it worth playing or not. they're not that stupid.

anyhow - at this point you can't play sc sooo.......

Re:Star Citizen

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is about to reach $30M in crowd funding...

Makes one wonder why they need to bother delivering a game (and yes I kicked in).

Sounds familiar

[Anonymous Coward]

This all sounds familiar. An expansion comes out that removes complexity and overhauls the game in a way the playerbase didn't ask for. This is reminiscent of what SOE did with Star Wars Galaxies and the NGE (New Game Enhancements) that launched about a week after a major expansion.

Re: Sounds familiar

[Anonymous Coward]

I love my SWGEmu.

Yes, Path of Exile

[Sowelu]

Sure, it's basically Diablo 2, but with more multiplayer integration and a more fun IMO economy. Free, no pay-to-win, you can solo fine if you really want, and it's HARD if you play as intended instead of hanging back and farming (without being totally unforgiving; no item loss on death, no exp loss until your second playthrough). Which as an ex-WoW player is a super huge god damn plus. I am so sick of constant easymode MMOs.

Mod parent underrated

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure why this is at -1. It's a perfectly reasonable response. It should at least be 0.

I am not sure the mains will be better.

[SallyBowls]

People and especially MMO players hate change so your reaction to traits is your personal preference. I still like LotRO. However, the new lotro system is just joining mainstream MMOs. The latest WoW talent tree is very sparse - choose 1 of 3 talents for every 15 levels (six max). Most interesting talent tree by far is Rift. Try another game but I would not expect any of the AAA title except rift to have a talent tree much different than HD. If you are an endgame raider with considerable time to devote each week, preferably with a fixed schedule then WoW is great. If not, it's not. Of the MMOs I have played for more than 100 hours it is SWTOR > LotRO > Rift >> WoW >>>>> EVE. There are so many good features of EVE but the whole / community is way too toxic for my tastes. There are many big games ramping up the hype machine but none are shipping and it is TBD what they will do. Wildstar, Elder Scrolls Online, Everquest next, Star Citizen. The interesting, very different option is Everquest landmark the game that is the creation part of the upcoming Everquest Next.

Progress Quest

[Anonymous Coward]

MMORPG are all about griding and getting you hooked with an unending stream of minor rewards.
Go cold turkey on MMORPGs and find something different that's actually fun.

EVE Online

[Anonymous Coward]

EVE Online may seem like a spaceship game, but it's really a RPG, you just happen to be flying a spaceship (most of the time). Unlike other games where you can only play with friends if you are on the same server, EVE Online always has the same connections. You can meet anybody else that plays the game, at any time.

The account is $15 per month, but you can easily make enough money in game to pay for the account with in game money.

WARNING: EVE Online does not have a learning curve, it has a learning cliff. That is because the game has a lot to it. Be patient, and give it at least two weeks on the trial account.

There are plenty of Youtube videos to help you out, and there is plenty of help in game.

Current State of MMOs

[Anonymous Coward]

So, just as a background I have an extensive record with this subject matter ranging from UO to current gen. I currently dabble in 4-6 games right now and the reasong being is that each one has and aspect that I greatly enjoy but they don't fully deliver as a package. As of recent I have returned to EQ2 and am enjoyiong that for the time being while waiting for EQN. I am also partaking in EVE online, but as always I feel like I am logging into work. I really really tried to force myself to focus on FFXIV:ARR but right now im at the point where I am just burned out from the poor netcoding and character polling (which EQ2 is spot on in this aspect)...not to mention having to deal with console players. As for GW2, one of my best friends is very active in the game and I so have some 80s, I have also tried to force myself to really play the game, but any progression (be it in ascended items or guild missions) don't really give any clear or desireable advantage for someone who is about min/maxing with margins higher than .5% an item. As for Rift I logged back into it recently because I forgot to cancel my yearly subscription ( which was well over $100) and it just doesn't fully do it for me, as the characters feel disconnected from the combat but I really enjoy the class customization. For right now overall I would have to rate EQ2 as being the most playable and enjoyable due to all the possibilities, the only problem is that it might be a little overwhelming for a newer player, but you can pay to create a heroic character which is a cool new feature and you can start at recent content.

Ogame

[DogDude]

Ogame is old (but updated) and brutal. NO grinding, but you have to be available to play 24/7.

Vanguard

[Anonymous Coward]

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes at https://www.vanguardthegame.com/

It is free to play with an optional cash store or subscription. It's got a small, but awesome community after the launch was incredibly mismanaged. It's been showing some signs of increased interest and more are playing every week. It has a large game world with four starting areas (one for each of three continents, then a global starting area).

Vanguard is more along old school design, ala Everquest, and still has some bugs but it is has great game play and non-adventuring options. VG has one of the best crafting systems ever made and has a non-adventuring / non-crafting system called diplomacy that lets you uncover more of the world's story. Diplomacy is implemented as a card game between you and a NPC. Diplomacy is also used for generating city-wide buffs. While it's run by SOE (I consider this a strike), you can pay by game card purchased at retailers if you don't trust Sony with your credit card (I don't).

Re:I recommend non - RPG

[rwa2]

Well, I'm kinda addicted to http://worldoftanks.com/ at the moment.

Sure, it gets repetitive after "figuring it out", but it actually has pretty varied gameplay, and each battle lasts 15-minutes max.

I like it because it's not much of a stats or twitch game.... yes stats and twitch helps, but a lot of your success often hinges on finding a good rock (or teammate) to hide behind and playing the camouflage system. Still, it's a pretty detailed physics engine, so you can still score the occasional blind shot if you know what you're doing (and you're lucky with the RNG, but mostly by knowing where to aim).

I hate RPG-type battles like in EVE where you're basically playing rock-paper-scissors with dice... Vendetta Online is much more interesting where you can use physics and cover and stuff rather than just banging out options into the interface like you're playing DDR.

WoT is free-to-play, but there's not really anything worth paying money for that you couldn't get by grinding (via successful gameplay, not "menial repetitive tasks"). I only spend a small amount of gold to carry over expensive modules when upgrading tanks, and you can score enough gold for free by doing tutorials and various other things.

Bonus for actually learning things about physics, WWII-era tanks (which all looked the same to me before), various historical artifacts, etc. so I'd even call it mildly more educational than your typical fantasy clickfest.

Guess what? Millions are already there.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

"Helm's Deep, involved cutting many skills for all classes, with a only a handful reclaimable through the new, 1-dimensional trait trees."

Welcome to Hell, buddy!

Sounds like this is a change towards "Action MMO" design, with reduced powers and complexity, oriented for console implementation.

You're supposed to beat the keyboard furiously with a handful of powers, rather than some deep strategy of executing carefully-crafted characters in deep ways. This asininity is the new gameplay shoved down our throats.

It keeps growing even as flop after flop is released.

It makes WoW look beyond epic.

Why oh why couldn't the Perfect World/NCSoft axis of evil sell City of Heroes instead of kill it? These things are hobbies. It's like some model train company closed, so they came into your basement, took all your engines and railroad cars, and tore out your plaster mountains and smashed your model buildings you spent years crafting.

Re:Guess what? Millions are already there.

[CronoCloud]

Sounds like this is a change towards "Action MMO" design, with reduced powers and complexity, oriented for console implementation.

How can you blame this on consoles...when LOTRO or WoW or any of the other games that people say are "less complex than they were at launch" don't have console versions. And there are console MMO's like FFXI that give you multiple ways of handling multiple skills at once. The FFXI hot bar set has 20 skills in it, and you can have more than one hot bar set and flick between them. Even EQOA on the PS2 had 10 skill slots.

Ultima Online

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing will ever come as close to the detail/live world MMORPG that this game has to offer.. Graphics are outdated, but what are we really seeking here?

Re:Ultima Online

[Spazmania]

Yep. And several great free shards to play on these days too.

Re:Ultima Online

[ShaunC]

I'm with you. I still have UO and Razor installed on this laptop, I wonder if Hybrid is still around. I stopped paying and playing on the OSI shards around my ~10 year mark.

FYI, Richard Garriott is involved in a new project called Shroud of the Avatar which he's gone on record as saying that if he could have bought the naming rights from EA, he literally would have named it "Ultima Online 2." (Ignoring of course the previous attempt/failure at a UO 2 from the EA sie of things.) It's being crowdfunded and there's progress being made, there's a nice demo reel at the official site. Actually now that I just looked, there's a new six-month progress demo that wasn't there a couple of weeks ago.

I'm not a huge fan of the 3D aspect - the 2D/isometric client is a big part of what hooked me into UO before they cranked out their 3D client. But I'm still very much looking forward to Shroud.

MUD and Neverwinter Nights

[Anonymous Coward]

I have become disenchanted with most MMOs, as most non-raiders do.

Lately I have a rekindled interest in an old MUD for the social aspect.

For my fantasy fix, I just reloaded Neverwinter Nights. If you want to build out a character, this type of game is great.

No school like the old school. Now get off my lawn so I can get back to my old games.

Best free rpg: Path of Exile

[apraetor]

It's free to play, but features an amazingly complex and interconnected skill tree. Any class can use any combination of skills; it's just where on the 2D skill matrix you start that changes.

Re:Best free rpg: Path of Exile

[Fjandr]

I've been looking at trying Path o Exile. The skill tree is fucking amazing, and the in-game store is almost completely cosmetic. You only have to pay for extra character slots and guild member slots.

Non-comprehensive list

[war4peace]

EVE Online:
Pros: player-driven game, space!, huge selection of ships, skills, development paths.
Cons: subscription-driven, scammers galore, some RMT, mandating long gaming sessions, a destroyed ship is a lost ship, steep learning curve.

World of Tanks:
Pros: Free-to-Play, one of the cheapest premium costs around, tanks!, PvP-only.
Cons: filled to the brim with retard players.

World of Warplanes:
Pros: Free-to-Play, airplanes!, PvP-only.
Cons: fledgling game, retard players galore, gay game mechanics (literally: get behind the enemy player so you can fuck him up)

War Thunder: World of Tanks and World of Warplanes combined, same pros and cons apply.

Mech Warrior Online:
Pros: mechs!
Cons: pretty much everything else...

LOTRO: screw it, it's discussed.

Path of Exile:
Pros: Free-to-Play, no P2W whatsoever, huge skill tree.
Cons: confusing trading system, too much crap loot, if you mess up your build you have to start over.

Firefall:
Pros: Future-based, apocalyptic setting, jumpjets!, battleframes! (and a nice selection too), PvE, nice graphics, original mining method.
Cons: forever beta, filled with bugs, weird mix of fluff and gloom, confused development path, durability hit on death, gets boring and repetitive very fast.

Warframe:
Pros: Nice space-based lore, battleframes, interesting idea behind the game.
Cons: confusing level design, in-your-face P2W, gets boring after a while.

Neverwinter:
Pros: great lore, nice graphics, good game mechanics, good skill tree, consistent development, web gateway with crafting.
Cons: one of the most P2W games ever!, end-game means you either do 5-man quests or nothing.

Planetside 2:
Pros: huge maps, has tanks, has motorcycles of sorts, has flying vehicles, pew-pew PvP, massive PvP.
Cons: P2W galore, rubberbanding massive fights, vast areas feel devoid of... well, everything.

Hawken:
Pros: F2P, mechs!, PvP
Cons: too complex to handle for a twitch-based game. I think game speed should have been 1/2x of what's now to warrant tactical thinking rather than just "the younger player wins by reflex skill".

====================
Some of the games I have only played very little:

Rift: horrible game mechanics. Enough said.
Vindictus: too manga. Could have been great but...
Tera: played the stress test limited open beta, didn't quite understand what was happening, I just didn't click with it.
Ryzom: played it a bit years ago, I heard it no longer requires subscription. IIRC it was good enough for a F2P MMO, but not good enough for subscription-based.

Disclaimer: this is my personal, subjective opinion on all these games. I played them all. YMMV.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[xmousex]

please add SWGEMU to your list. the spirit of that project is especially on topic and it deserves more support for how far it has come.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[Anonymous Coward]

World of Warplanes

gay game mechanics (literally: get behind the enemy player so you can fuck him up)

Sound like you just don't like aerial combat.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[Chris Mattern]

EVE Online:
Pros: player-driven game, space!, huge selection of ships, skills, development paths.
Cons: subscription-driven, scammers galore, some RMT, mandating long gaming sessions, a destroyed ship is a lost ship, steep learning curve.

Some of us don't regard those last two as "Cons".

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[bug1]

Its subscription driven, but you can pay for your subscription with ingame currency.
Best crafting system and market in any MMORPG ever (probably).

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[asmkm22]

Most of those aren't actually MMORPG's. They're just multiplayer games.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[odie5533]

I think it's unfair to say Neverwinter is "one of the most P2W games ever". Yes, you can buy the best armor which might even give you a 1-5% edge over the next guy, but at high levels player skill is far more important to a team than individual items. And for pve it's not at all pay2win. When you hit level cap you can either a) grind through dungeons to get items or b) buy your items and grind through dungeons. In either case your individual skill is still important and you're going to be grinding dungeons anyways. Additionally, much of the game's content is designed to reward you with items for playing. If you just buy those items, you're ruining the fun of the game for yourself. In that sense it's anti-pay2win, because paying means you miss out on content.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[Anonymous Coward]

Planetside 2 does not have a severe P2W problem, but the game needs a lot of improvement to make casual and solo play more fun. It's often either roll with the zerg and hardly do anything or get rolled by the zerg because you don't have the population. The lattice system is the biggest piece of bullshit about the game. There's no such thing as a front to send out flankers on so even if one side doesn't roll over the other then the battles are just a complete standstill with nothing really happening until one side gets bored and leaves. They have done a lot of cool things with the concept but they really need to overhaul the territorial mechanics so this game can really soar.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of us don't view idiots being scammed as a 'con'.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[war4peace]

Actually I dislike its implementation in those two games mentioned. I played a few simulators and I liked them.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[war4peace]

Well, yeah. But I simply hate all the retarded spam in the trade hubs. It's idiotic.

Re: Non-comprehensive list

[Anonymous Coward]

Pay2win isn't literally pay and you win. It's if you take two equal skilled players and have one pay and one not, does the paying player have in game advantages. There are very few non-pay2win free to play games. The pay2win marketing departments have twisted it so that people feel better paying for their victories because it's well hidden . . . As long as you completely ignore all the paying to win stuff.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[war4peace]

OK, Pay2own, whatever.
"Here, take this locked coffer. open only with cash for shit rewards and an infinitesimal chance to get an exclusive mount".
"You wanna upgrade your sidekick? Cash only please!"
"You wanna upgrade your profession assets? Sash only please!"

Please...

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[war4peace]

Fair enough. I was trying to cover as many games as possible and didn't really get into detail.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[war4peace]

From a new player's perspective, they are deterrents, so-to-speak. I too like those, but most don't :)

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[Greyfox]

True. If you're pissed off that your game is getting dumbed down, Eve might be what you're looking for. One thing you can say for CCP, they've never shown an interest in dumbing the game down. Or adjusting the learning curve. They also actively encourage scamming and will more-or-less laugh at you if you shot someone who was flagged and he proceeded to eviscerate you.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[Shinobi]

Actually, EVE HAS been dumbed down, ever since late 2006. Ship fitting has been made more cookie-cutter so that there is less flexibility for any given ship, and that's just one of the areas that has been dumbed down.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[Anonymous Coward]

OP here. Thank you!

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[DrVomact]

EVE Online: Pros: player-driven game, space!, huge selection of ships, skills, development paths. Cons: subscription-driven, scammers galore, some RMT, mandating long gaming sessions, a destroyed ship is a lost ship, steep learning curve.

Some of us don't regard those last two as "Cons".

I don't regard the first one as a "con". What's wrong with paying for goods or services, with giving value for value in an honest transaction? If you want free stuff, you will either get something that is worth what you paid for it, or you will pay in some other way you weren't expecting, and probably won't like.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[iCEBaLM]

Planetside 2:
Pros: huge maps, has tanks, has motorcycles of sorts, has flying vehicles, pew-pew PvP, massive PvP.
Cons: P2W galore, rubberbanding massive fights, vast areas feel devoid of... well, everything.

As a semi-competitive Planetside 2 player, if that P2W stands for pay-to-win then I'm pretty sure you're not playing the same Planetside 2 that I am.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[Anonymous Coward]

Of those, I have played eve online for years and planetside 1 and later ps2 for over 10 years.

Eve is really the best game ever. No other game has ever given me the consistent feeling of a "street fight" in pvp. Where you actually have physical apprehension (sweating, goosebumps, hair standing up), during certain activities. The pvp just makes your stomach drop sometimes. I don't know if it is because everything has a RL cost in some way. You can lose a ship worth 10 dollars or 1 dollar, or in rare cases 10,000. But its a real loss of money or time or both. The people on there as well, to chat with and fly with are generally pretty hardcore, friendly, and I have had some memorable experiences on vent that stay with me till this day.

That said, when i stopped being single, I quit eve online. To participate in the bulk of the game, you must join or form a corporation. That corporation generally has to be in some sort of alliance, so there are a lot of commitments and time sinks. Camping systems, guard duty, etc. Its all fun, but takes a buttload of time. And my now wife would not stand for it at all. If you are able to play in most likely 4 hour+ chunks, than you can handle eve. The eve universe is the most open ended and large of any game I have ever been in. It would take a real life 2+ hours to jump across the whole galaxy in one of a fractal number of directions. And thats if you survived.

On the other hand, planetside and planetside 2 are much better for the casual gamer. If you just want to jump on and play for 30 minutes, ps2 is for you. The world consists of three continents which 3 empires fight over control for.. So you are on a big ass team, with regularly hundreds upon hundreds in battles. There is a real money component, a free to play option, and a subscription model. PS2, you can play with a dedicated squad, or go solo, with roughly equal enjoyment potential. It's currently my FPS and MMO game of choice, because its easy to jump in and out (in some sense, the battle never changes), and rewards you well with XP which in turn leads to gun purchases and upgrades. So you need not spend any more than the subscription rate. Another great thing about PS2 is that you can become very specialized. You can allocate all of your skills, abilities, and weapons. Weapons are configurable in multiple ways. There are pilotable vehicles for multiple people and with various roles in battle or support.

You get a good sense of being on a team and achieving something, even if the base will most likely be taken back 12 houts from now :)
It still beats just the map reseting in a normal FPS. And the sheer amount of people in battles and specializing of classes makes it easy to switch things up. Get tired of killing? spawn as a medic and gain mad xp with heals. Or get on your heavy with a surface to air missile capabilities and secure the skies above your front. Has free to play as well, you just get less XP for things.

So in the end, TLDR, if you are single or don;t have a job, pick eve online, if you need the ability to jump in and out of the world, and have a real life, pick PS2.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[war4peace]

Have you read the disclaimer?

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[Anonymous Coward]

...if you mess up your build you have to start over.

That's a feature, not a bug.

Choices with actual consequences is one of the main things that make Diablo 2 better than Diablo 3.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[iCEBaLM]

So you post a bunch of stuff about each game, then a disclaimer that it could all be inaccurate and you think that's OK?

Planetside 2 is not pay to win. A pay to win game allows you to get some kind of superiority over other players by paying real money. You cannot do this in Planetside 2. The only things you can buy that you cannot get from playing the game are cosmetics, and XP/Resource boosts, and these do not make you better than other players, they do not grant you extra abilities or allow you to do anything any other player cannot do.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[Anonymous Coward]

One additional one that's not ready for prime time (if you don't mind waiting for signing a nasty NDA for beta) is Elder Scrolls online. Sounds interesting so far, and has a large amount of lore that they can take advantage of. It remains to be seen if they can successfully adjust the combat system of Skyrim to the lag-centric world of an MMO.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd agree with a lot of what you list above, but your comment on Rift is pretty strange. Rift is a great game with excellent, tight mechanics in my opinion. I think though, if you were burned out on WoW, it's probably not different enough from that game to give you something completely fresh. It's otherwise fantastic, as it has a huge world, dynamic player base and great endgame.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[Endo13]

I did play Eve for a while, and it has the complexity I want. The thing that I just never could learn to like was the personal disconnect of always being in a spaceship (yes, I did see CQ, didn't mean much) and the actual gameplay of flying a ship just felt a little too simplistic and repetitive to me. Also, being the only player in anything larger than a frigate just felt wrong. Always wished they'd implemented ship stations something like what Artemis offers. http://www.artemis.eochu.com/

If there's anything I really miss from MMOs, it's doing world PvP with my Druid in WoW TBC.

Re: Non-comprehensive list

[Endo13]

Yeah, everyone always wants to argue that this or that game they really like isn't pay to win because pay to win is so bad.

If you can buy something with real money that gives you an actual competitive advantage that you can't get from normal online play, it's pay2win. Simple as that.

Not all F2P games are pay2win. I don't recall ever seeing any pay2win mechanics in STO, though I could be wrong. GW2 as a buy-to-play MMO is also good in that regard at least.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[Fjandr]

You can upgrade companions with astral diamonds. No need to pay anything.

Same with assets. I don't know anyone who pays the outrageous amount required for the profession asset boxes.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot many. Just two:

Aces high (hitechcreations.com)
Vendetta-Online (vendetta-online.com)

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[war4peace]

Can you please let me know what's the free path to a Leadership "Hero" asset?

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[war4peace]

So you post a bunch of stuff about each game, then a disclaimer that it could all be inaccurate and you think that's OK?

Yes, because my personal opinion is personal, subjective and might not be the same as yours.
I respect your opinion, now you go ahead and respect mine.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[war4peace]

Yeah, if you know what you're doing. A newcomer tries stuff out and WILL mess up. At least, give them the option to reset their FIRST character, and even in a limited way, e.g "only if below level 30" or something.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[iCEBaLM]

You can have your own opinions, you cannot have your own facts. There is nothing pay to win about Planetside 2.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[Anonymous Coward]

Well then there's some good news for you.

All the trade hub spambots got nuked last week.

http://themittani.com/news/moment-silence-jita-local

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[Luckyo]

In other words, you miss being completely brokenly overpowered.

(Full disclosure: I was very active in arenas with a SL/SL lock and arms warrior back then, mostly playing with both dreamstate and resto druids).

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[Desirsar]

Agreed with Icebalm. It's not an opinion, it's a flat out lie at this point. If you bother to reply to someone, and don't edit or post a correction, your disclaimer doesn't mean dick, and you really don't have room to claim that anyone "respect" anything about you. As much as I like someone putting together a list like you did, claiming to "have played them all" should not count uninstalling it after 30 minutes.

Planetside 2 is "pay to have sooner." Anything you can buy other than visual fluff is available for free through play, and you can't even buy the upgrades to the weapons in the shop - you have to earn those just like you can earn any of the weapons.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[Endo13]

Nope. I played feral and boomkin during TBC.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[Luckyo]

Then you were a major masochist :D

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[Endo13]

Not really. Keep in mind, TBC was the first you could get proper gear for feral or boomkin. Also, I didn't do arena because I hated it.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[Luckyo]

While true, both classes were pretty gimp outside PvE back then. In PvP, I just remember them as "those free kills".

Considering the classes I played back then, I think you know why.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[war4peace]

"Pay to have sooner" equals "pay to win" if it involves items which have an advantage. Period.
Getting a "premium" item which is similar to a basic item, but generates more credits, for example, is not "pay-to-win". However, getting a "premium" item with cash and which gets a +20% accuracy boost is pay-to-win. It does not matter whether you could also get it in a month for free.

I propose an exercise: Players A and B start the game at the same time. player A pays no cash, player B buys such-and-such items with cash. none play the game at all, but go straight for an 1-v-1 duel. Assuming player skills are equal, does player B gear (bought with cash) give him an advantage over player A?
If yes, pay-to-win. If no, my deepest apologies.

In terms of "pay-to-win" or lack of it thereof, World of tanks got it right. Maybe you have cash but don't want the endless credits grind, so you buy a premium tank which is slightly worse than any "regular" tank of the same tier and type, but prints credits. That's fine. Also getting extra XP by means of a "premium" account is fine too, because the game is built in such a way that faster progression doesn't confer an advantage.

lastly: I played PS2 for two weeks. I didn't leave because pay-to-win, but other reasons: rubberbanding, solo play was awfully boring, you could roam for ages with nothing to do.

Re: Non-comprehensive list

[odie5533]

I liked NWO, but I stopped playing it after a month or so since it has so little end game content. I hit max level, max gear, and was in the top "raiding" guild on my server for a while (I think the guild is gone now). Regarding pvp, buying the best items gives you maybe a 5% advantage over a player that has only farmed his items; however, player skill is important in NWO, more than in other MMOs where you just sit back and faceroll your spells.

For pve, again, perhaps a 5% advantage over other players. But for pve player skill is even more important than pvp. Too often I would see people that bought all their gear but were terrible at the game. No one wants these people on their team. There was a large stigma around buying stuff in the game as you'd be seen as attempting to pay2win.

I see lots of people that haven't played the game much calling it pay2win. The most blatant pay2win game I've played was Scions of Fate. In it, if you paid money you could buy potions with 0 refresh that would refill your HP to full. These could only be obtained through the cash store and, as you can imagine, are basically mandatory for pvp. And yes, you can use them during pvp. For NWO, I don't see something as small as up to a 5% advantage (and that's after spending some serious cash on the game) when the game is much more heavily based on player skill than min-maxing anything as pay2win. For instance, let's say you're a healer and you do 5% more healing than the other healer. It really doesn't matter because what matters is that he gets the heals on the right person at the right time and in the right place. If you miss your healing circle or don't heal the right person, then it doesn't matter that your heals were 5% more effective.

Also, everything that can be obtained with cash can be obtained without cash by grinding. This is somewhat relevant because when considering the advantage, I'm assuming that the person with cash is spending a lot to buy really high level enchantments while the other isn't.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[odie5533]

You can buy them on the auction house from other players. The low level ones are quite cheap; I bought a few of them. But crafting in NWO is beyond useless. If I could recommend one thing to new players it would be don't waste time or money on crafting.

Regarding the mounts, I played the entire game with only the regular horse mount. Twice. I will admit the pvp is pay2win with regards to mounts, and I think this was a major mistake by the developers to allow users to use any mount in pvp. For a new player, you can't get a high speed mount for the pvp except by paying money. At level 60, for me at least, I got more than enough money to buy multiple mounts from grinding high level dungeons. But I never bought a high level mount on principle: they shouldn't be so expensive, and they shouldn't be allowed in pvp unless everyone gets one for free.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[war4peace]

You can buy them on the auction house from other players.

...Who bought them for cash.
That's the idea. The game forces "the player" (you or someone else, doesn't matter) to spend cash on cash-only stuff.
Shortly put: there are items which can NOT be bought without spending cash. there is no way to produce them in the game without paying real money.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[PCTRS80]

I think your definition of Pay-To-Win is really exaggerated, in fact i would go as far as to say you really do not know what Pay-To-Win really is. But why am i not surprised most players don't know what Pay-to-Win is. Pay-To-Win (P2W) : Is when a game is designed in such a way that you must spent real money on a game to be competitive. Now some games claim that they are not P2W by offering an in game way to collect the same items but the curve to get such items take an excessive amount of time/effort to obtain that really spending money is the only logical option. Offering weapons in your store doesn't make it automatically P2W like a lot of player will claim. It is only when that power is in-excessable to the majority of the player base or it is literally the best items in the game. PlanetSide 2 (PS2) for example has a micro transaction market but for the most part best weapons are the default starting weapons. Yes you can spend money on the weapons but reality is that you earn the in game currency (Certifications) so fast that spending money is a waste of time. Most of the weapons offered in the in-game store are side/down grades from the one you started with, with the exception of a few weapons your paying for weapon skins or customization options that may or may not help you. But really spending money in PS2 will not make you better or help you kill any foe you would not have been able to kill otherwise. Warframe isn't really an MMO but thats another argument all together. Warframe starts out slow, and has an in your face micro transaction system but reality is that most everything in the market can be crafted in-game and the best warframes (armor) and weapons in game are crafted from really rare drops. But you can pay to make you life hell of a lot easer at the start but the reality is that wont help you at all of your going to be part of the end-game community. Neverwiner does have a minor component of Pay-to-win only because at the end game most companions are worthless and the best companion is only available for real money or buy it from another player off the auction house.

Re:Non-comprehensive list

[war4peace]

Yeah, well, maybe YOU don't know what pay-to-win is. or maybe we both know... on own terms. Or maybe neither of us really properly define it.
I didn't claim I was the holder of the truth, I merely stated my impressions. You, on the other hand, somehow have the impression YOU know it all.
Well, so be it. I don't care :)

Re: Non-comprehensive list

[PCTRS80]

I like you I have an opinion. But unlike you I took the time to back up my opinion with supporting information. When it comes to the micro transaction market style many players feel that offering anything that boosts a players power in any way is taboo. They arbitrarily write this off as Pay-2-Win, my argument is that it is not so "black and white" that you need to look at the implementation of the market and how it effects the players and game. Does it give players an edge? Does it hold back players? Are the same items available to everyone for reasonable effort/time? Some games have done a great job at balance of monetization and game play, PlanetSide2 being one of the best examples were 8 of the 12 empire class starting weapons are in the top 3 weapons for that class and upgrading really offers little to no benefit. Warframe has a low level pay-2-win component but really who cares about lower levels when games like Call of Duty or Battlefield offer weapons for BestBuy/Games top pre-orders people don't cry it's pay-2-win. Sorry but If your going to accuse me of not knowing what pay-2-win is, your going to have to share your vast gaming knowledge and insight.

Re: Non-comprehensive list

[war4peace]

Sorry but If your going to accuse me of not knowing what pay-2-win is, your going to have to share your vast gaming knowledge and insight.

I'll just leave you hanging then :)

Look, I gave short information about many different games, and furthermore I tried to pile them all into a comparative approach. If you expect me to write a novel in a post so that you feel better about it, sorry mate, you're out of luck. But hey, here's your opportunity: go play all the games I mentioned and write comprehensive reviews on them all, I'm sure the OP will thank you for that.

Avoid them.

[Anonymous Coward]

World of Snorecraft is the same old, same old.

EQ2 is old and dead. If you want to shoot pixie dust out of your arse and/or build a house, it's viable, but other than that... Man, it's just dated and everything awesome still requires giving up your primary method of income to take a job as a raider.

GW2 is old and dead despite being young. You'll find nothing but empty maps as you explore the world, a failed abortion of "e-sports" in PvP, and an increasingly stale WvW where the balance is made up and the points don't matter because your server's success depends solely on how many guilds you have in other timezones.

EVE is great if you like spreadsheets. Alternatively, you could just buy an Office 365 subscription. You won't be able to be a braindead miner, but you will be able to whip up a mean Powerpoint.

Everything else is even in a worse state or doesn't even exist. (Seriously, just looking at titles, half the shit idiots are posting here is, "ABLOOBLOO I R FANBOY GAME X (LOLOL CROWDFUNDSOURCING) IZ GUNNA BE K-RAD 2 COOL 4 ULOLOLOL")

You're pretty much not going to be playing a game that hasn't been released, so I feel confident in not recommending them.

tl;dr: Go find some single player games until the MMO industry sorts its shit. Hopefully it'll sort its shit. Because it's close on time to stick a fork in it.

Re:Avoid them.

[stackOVFL]

GW2 is old and dead despite being young. You'll find nothing but empty maps as you explore the world, a failed abortion of "e-sports" in PvP, and an increasingly stale WvW where the balance is made up and the points don't matter because your server's success depends solely on how many guilds you have in other timezones.

I just moved from WoW to GW2. GW2 is anything other than dead. Most of the servers are high or very high population. Lots of players when I'm on so I'm not sure why your saying that it's dead and no one is playing.

Path of Exile

[Anonymous Coward]

It took me ten years to find the next game after Diablo 2 which I thought was going to be Diablo 3. I was wrong POE is what D2 should have been, it's awesome and with new expansions coming soon and constant updates.

Pros
-Free
-Constant Updates
-No pay to win model
-They actively hunt abusers trying to sell POE currency by banning those who buy it and sell as well
-The only shop items are purely cosmetic effects
-Awesome end game content
-Extremely diverse skill tree and builds
-New expansion coming
-New char added not too long ago
-A ever expanding population, they just keep adding more and more channels I love it :) The sleepless 80 hour gaming session I had I was 15 playing D2 but I recently topped that on POE.
-Hardcore mode chars return to standard if they die. "Fucking A wish D2 had that when I lost my 98 Barb after a freaking DC, damn you dial up :("
-Potions auto fill
-No limits on bow making you have to use a full inv of arrows.

Neutral
-The builds can be complex and very tricky to learn.
-The difficulty skyrockets in merc mode.
-Exp slows down a lot around 85
-Gem linking on builds can be confusing at times
-6 Linked items are a pain in the ass to find I only have 5 and I've been playing hardcore
-Evil cramp worst end game map ever and it was my first map dropped, in fact it's so bad people have tried to buy it from me just to have.

Cons
-Looting system timers are fast but you still have a chance to loot your shit if you keep your eyes open.
-Ninjas Stop Bruce LEEing my drops :(
-Need a good card to run it and even then some of the skills can be extremely taxing. Luckily people made a program with Auto It to disable the extra skill effects to increase quality and POE does not care about that.
-Ruining my sleep, it's like crack.

quick summaries

[bugnuts]

How do Guild Wars 2, RIFT, World of Warcraft and all the other MMORPGs stack up these days?

Plain and simply, wow has the best boss and quest mechanics, and is essentially required to be fairly balanced. Few bugs. No mmo has come close to the wealth of mechanics they have, from riding vehicles, reverse gravity, several stages of fights, dual-phases where people teleport around, special abilities gained to help defeat a boss, etc. And they have some clever people who balance things out to make sure the challenge is appropriate.

GW2 has attempted to get away from the holy trinity of tank/healer/dps, and introduced working area quests. Yes, they're not the first, but it works. It also has many exploration quests, which I find awesome. Even unmarked platform jumping challenge "quests" of sorts.

Sad to hear about lotro. But as I've always said, "The best, and the worst, thing about MMOs is the people."

Your enjoyment might hinge on having a good social construct in-game. If you're moving with your guild, move to whatever game they go to. If you're off to solo, find a game that's soloable. If you have limited playtime, find a game that you can dabble in and still be successful. But just saying "I need a game that requires more than 2 buttons" doesn't give much insight on how you actually prefer to play. There are tons of different games out there, from things like group-oriented Puzzle Pirates to soloable Asheron's Call to Star Wars to Neverwinter. But it's not possible to make a good recommendation without better info.

You might even be happy playing a single-player game, depending what you want.

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Although I do miss the ability to change from offense to defense on the fly (champion) Its not quite the face roll you imply. Be that as it may check out mmorpg.com for a comprehensive list of mmo titles and ratings. You can likely find something there. GW2 has the tree and handful of buttons you are complaining about, but since you get that from the start it might work for you. GL and don't forget to send your stuff to Hakki if you are on Brandywine. Cheers!

MMORPG plus Bitcoin

[Ken Broadfoot]

Lets do both.... an MMORPG combined with Bitcoins...

http://dragons.tl/

Firefall is nice

[SpaceGhost]

Ive been enjoying Firefall recently. It's an MMO FPS with a complicated craft system. You run around in specialized battleframes and gain resources and xp through a variety of tasks, from mining to random encounters to special missions to outright invasions. It's in beta right now, free to play, and so far paying just gets you a few bennies for those in a hurry. I did pay $25 so I could get a motorcycle and a gliderpad, based on how much I enjoyed playing the first few days, but I could have worked to get the resources and build the bike.

Re:Firefall is nice

[Endo13]

You just convinced me to try this game. Is there some kind of referral system that gets you something cool?

Re:Firefall is nice

[Luckyo]

I've been messing around in firefall as well. It's surprisingly fun, basically a MMORPG that's a first/third person shooter (you can do both, and they both have pros and cons).

Crafting is pretty fun in it as well. So is resource gathering, which is basically a "king of the hill" minigame in itself - you drill the ground, which pisses off the local wildlife, and the bigger the drill, the nastier stuff comes after it. It was utterly awesome when it was competitive in melding pockets a couple of patches back - not only were you fighting the mobs rushing you and your drill but you were also trying to find veins to tag them on time, and clear the solo guys by kiting your mobs onto their drills. Very cutthroat, and quite fun.

But the best part is still that it's a shooter with all the RPG elements. You can build the best battleframe in the world but if you don't know how to move and shoot in FPS, you're going to get boned fast and hard. On the other hand a really good FPS player with a basic battleframe can be quite decent, as levelling up only makes you about twice-thrice as powerful in comparison to typical MMO where you become tens, in some cases hundreds of times more powerful as you level up.

Personally I didn't need to pay a dime so far, because cosmetics just don't appeal to me and I got the bike after just a few days of purple thumping and selling. That said I always had a knack for finding good groups for running harder content in MMOs, so YMMV.

Meh...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you didn't play Star wars TOR, you might give it a try. Its free to play, but you can also sub to it. I hear they have made a lot of nice changes recently, may go back and try it again myself.

Re:Meh...

[Anonymous Coward]

I played early on, and then picked it up recently after the expansion, and I've really enjoyed it. I like the combination of a cool story with well done scenes and development with the more traditional get your friends together and beat up the big guys. It preserved the Knights of the Old Republic attitude while layering itself on top of WoW.

One thing about it is it is very much directed at lower level characters. There isn't a lot of raiding to be done (about 8 harder 4-mans, 3-5 8-mans, and 3 new 16-mans) but all of the worlds have a unique story for your class, a world storyline, and a flashpoint associated with that level. And once you max out your level and get bored of doing the same thing repeatedly, you can swap over to a different character and a different class!

Elder Scrolls Online

[Anonymous Coward]

Read up on Elder Scrolls Online - it's just starting another round of Beta this weekend, but is looking really good so far.

Also, Star Citizen... also not out yet, but WOW this game is some serious new-PC bait.

SWTOR

[Anonymous Coward]

I would actually Suggest Star Wars: The old Republic. Not only is it free to play, but put $5 into the game and you get preferred status and it comes with some great perks. Been playing for a few months and I've never needed to grind for credits or xp, you tend to get xp bonuses quite often. The story is mildly amusing the companions give you something to focus on once your past the good stuff. This game also doesn't allow any Macros which means you don't have people spamming the crap out of some preset.

All in all a decent game that you can't really complain about too much since it's FtP.

Re:SWTOR

[Opportunist]

SWTOR would be my recommendation, too, but I cannot recommend the F2P option at all. Either accept that it's a pay-2-play system or you're in for a very frustrating and very unrewarding ride. The F2P portion of SWTOR feels a bit like a demo version of a game, where you get teased by seeing what you could have ... if you only bought it ... but you must not touch. It's in theory possible to buy the various bit that you cannot access as a F2P player piece by piece but I'd be very surprised if that wasn't way more expensive than the 13 or so bucks they charge per month.

As a subscriber you get a pretty good MMO, which is basically "WoW, back when it was good, in a Star Wars outfit". Frankly, if WoW was more like SWTOR (i.e. if it still had sensible skill trees that offer a bit of variety, if it offered a bit of a way to customize your character outfit and not make everyone look essentially like a virtual clone army if they have comparable gear and if it didn't contain "I-win-button"esque scripting ability) I'd probably move over to WoW instead. But mostly 'cause it is simply quite a bit more polished. Which it bloody well should be, considering they had about a decade longer to get it right...

Guild Wars 2...if it fits your niche

[techprophet]

GW2 is not a raider's game (or at least, all of the raiders I know disliked it). However, if you enjoy fast paced mid-scale PvP the 5v5 sPvP is amazing. Exploration is really the core of the game, though, so if that appeals to you then you may, like me, love it to death. I'm a PvPer and exploration guy. In wow I enjoyed leveling characters simply to explore the world on-level.

Re:Guild Wars 2...if it fits your niche

[asmkm22]

If he left LotRO because the simplified the skills system, then GW2 is probably the last thing he wants.

Re:Guild Wars 2...if it fits your niche

[nmnilsson]

I second that.
For exploring / achieving GW2 is probably the best game I've played.
At least as good as WoW, which I played for many years (and will probably play it again some, come next expansion).
WvW (large scale PvP against other servers) is also fun, even though I'm not much of a PvPer.

Only thing that concerns me is how they're able to make money, considering there's no subscription once you've bought the game, and the real money store is mainly fluff.
But I guess enough people like funny hats to keep it going.

Re:Guild Wars 2...if it fits your niche

[Stormy Dragon]

But I guess enough people like funny hats to keep it going.

Hey, if it worked for TF2...

Re:Guild Wars 2...if it fits your niche

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if he wants Complicated Skill systems he could look at Guild Wars 1.It had a Skill system that was so comples they never managed to get it ballanced and some skill were Murdered as a result. http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Smiter%27s_Boon_%28PvP%29

Re:Guild Wars 2...if it fits your niche

[Anonymous Coward]

LOTRO cut like 2/3rds of the skills for every class. As a healer-class, it's now literally sit in the back of the RAID and push your heal button until it's done. Oh, and due to class DPS imbalances (bugs), the Tanks can't hold agro.

I miss things like splitting mob groups by reducing agro-radius, Fear, Stuns, Slows, that sort of thing.

I do love exploration. So I wonder: How does GW2 stack up here?

Thanks in advance!

Re:Guild Wars 2...if it fits your niche

[Endo13]

The exploration in GW2 actually really disappointed me, because it's all planned out for you.

Although as you point out, it's better than exploration was in WoW if you exclude areas you weren't supposed to be able to get to at all.

Of course, for me that's where the real exploration was in WoW. Old Ironforge, CoT during vanilla, finding an exploit that let us get all the way to the edge of the world, Mount Hyjal during vanilla.. it's been years, and I still distinctly remember doing all those things, how I did them, and who I did them with. Nothing memorable about exploring in GW2 for me.

Re:Guild Wars 2...if it fits your niche

[Endo13]

If you like having all the areas already explored with roadmaps and videos online to help you find them, GW2 exploration is great. There's literally nothing "off the grid" to explore though. It's all pre-planned jumping puzzles and vistas. Don't expect to find anything there isn't already a screenshot of somewhere online.

Re:Guild Wars 2...if it fits your niche

[techprophet]

If you like having all the areas already explored with roadmaps and videos online to help you find them, GW2 exploration is great. There's literally nothing "off the grid" to explore though. It's all pre-planned jumping puzzles and vistas. Don't expect to find anything there isn't already a screenshot of somewhere online.

What MMO has off the grid stuff to explore? The only online games that do have randomly generated terrain (ie Minecraft).

Re:Guild Wars 2...if it fits your niche

[Endo13]

"Off the grid" meaning remote areas the devs haven't carefully planned for you to visit. Places most players aren't expected to explore and never do.

SWG certainly had that. I'm guessing EQ and UO did as well, though I never played those. WoW did as well, though those were mostly areas accessible only by exploit. You could, however, visit the unfinished area under Stormwind without using an exploit.

Exploring areas I'm expected to just makes it almost meaningless for me. I at least want the illusion that my presence there was not really expected by anyone.

Re:Guild Wars 2...if it fits your niche

[Luckyo]

It doesn't. It effectively removed all those aspect from the game except for slows. The game has no proper aggro system (mobs swap target randomly) nor tanking or healing system (you're expected to survive by kiting, self healing and twitch reflex dodging).

And it really just doesn't work. Combat is utterly bland and chaotic and for many classes it's a 2-3 button combo affair. I leveled an elementalist at launch and it was pretty hard - had to kite a lot even in world combat, and felt exceptionally weak in instances. Then I took a warrior and understood just how flawed the system actually was. I could literally 2-3 button through places where my elementalist didn't stand a chance - charge in, and hit hundred blades. Bam, everything in front of you just melted to massive frontal cone AoE.

Instances are even worse, because to compensate for terrible combat mechanics mob and boss health is massively overinflated. They're not hard to kill at all - they're generally metered not to cause significant damage to players that can't be twitch dodged with dodge ability, so it's a matter of just bashing and bashing and bashing and bashing on their huge hp pool until they finally decide to run out of health.

If you want fun combat system, GW2 is probably the last MMO out there to look at. Games pros lie in gorgeous art, innovative (back at release, common now) questing system and interesting crafting system. That's pretty much it though, the rest is awful - terrible combat, complete P2W - buy game gold from the publisher, almost everything including legendaries can be sold and bought for it and so on.

It's probably a great game if you want to learn how to be about 95% efficient in combat in about five minutes and want a completely casual experience of maybe 30-60 minutes a day. Otherwise, look elsewhere.

Re:Guild Wars 2...if it fits your niche

[Terrasque]

Combat is utterly bland and chaotic and for many classes it's a 2-3 button combo affair

Well... No, not really. Yes, you usually have 1-2 skills as main damage dealers, but there are very very few useless skills. The others are more used to amplify your damage skills, keeping you alive, and controlling the fight. Even if they're not dealing damage directly, they're vital for playing well.

As for your Elementalist / Warrior comparison.. I have both (actually, got all but Necro at 80), and while my warrior deals more direct damage, and can handle more hits.. My elementalist can take down groups of 10+ mobs. In leveling gear. If I played well, without even taking one hit. My warrior can't handle that even with exotics and a very tanky build (enough to go face-to-face with some lowlevel champs). Same with my thief. When played perfectly, my thief deals incredible damage and is near unkillable. Can take on huge amounts of mobs, and pretty beefy ones too. But have to be played very carefully, no room for mistakes.

Sure, warriors can both deal and handle a lot of damage.. But they have much less control over the combat, which means they HAVE to rely on that. So in those situations where most other classes can control the situation and avoid damage by not giving the mobs a chance to hit, warrior mostly have to rely on being the last one going down in the brawl. That's the price warriors pay for their damage and armor.

Now, don't get me wrong, warrior is one of my favorite classes (other one is thief), and it's mostly easy cruise control to play when doing normal stuff. But it does have it's limitations compared to the other classes.

Re:Guild Wars 2...if it fits your niche

[Luckyo]

Warrior does not need to "control the fight" in most of questing. His huge burst kills whatever he's fighting. Elementalist needs to dance around and control the fight, making the same fight that warrior cheeses in a few seconds with hundred blades combo last tens of seconds as you are forced to dance around the target, kite it, control it and so on.

Effectively there is no balance. There are classes that are massively OP, and classes that have some niche but are severely dysfunctional outside it. Which is pretty strange, considering how dumbed down the combat system actually is.

Re:Guild Wars 2...if it fits your niche

[Terrasque]

Do you even have a max level character?

My first lvl 80 was a warrior. I know perfectly well what they're capable of. My second lvl 80 was in fact an elementalist. I also know perfectly well what THEY are capable of.

Both are deadly in their own way. And D/D zerk elementalist can kill just as quick as a 100derps warrior, and if the player is good, at considerably lower risk of dying.

I've played since beta. Over 1600 hours, actually.. Warriors are the easiest to play, but they're also the most limited. And they're really not overpowered. At the risk of sounding elitist, if you really think that, then I guess you're lacking experience in the game.

The combat is actually pretty complex, but relies on timing, resource usage and combinations rather than having many buttons.

An anecdote:

Around last christmas, I was experimenting a bit with classes, and at the moment levelling a thief. I was level 10 on it, and was in a level 11 area, and pretty much still learning the class.

At that time, there were many presents around on the map that you could open, which contained some stuff, and some pretty tough enemies. I was watching a warrior and a guardian open one of them, spawning 5 Plush Griffons. I watched them trying to fight the griffons, failing miserably, and tried to run away at around 10-15% health.

I decided to help. Ran in, dropped Caltrops, and managed to get four of them after me. I had double dagger as weapons, and used caltrops' slow to gather them in one group, then used Death Blossom to deal damage and bleed to all four while avoiding damage myself, and then disengaging, also using Dancing Dagger for extra damage and control.

All four griffons died before the two other players managed to kill the one last mob following them. And I had around 70% HP left after the fight.

I didn't tell that story to brag how good I am, I am telling it because it's a really good example of the difference between a player who knows the game and the combat system, and someone who don't.

Re:Guild Wars 2...if it fits your niche

[Luckyo]

Of course it is. You're absolutely right. In now way did I participate in the early release, or be among the first people in the game to get to 80. In no way did I play though most areas of the game long before most people. In no way was I among the first to get those organised zergs in WvW, or hook up with some GW1 oldies to see if we could make anything reasonable out of the dumbed down clusterfuck that is "structured PvP". And in no way to do I have any kind of understanding of depth of combat. Hell, I didn't solo that hilarious "omg raid boss" lvl15 behemoth about 2 days after release 100% to 80% (until people started showing up in the swamp) on a necro for lulz because I was getting bored. Would've probably killed him, except that back then you couldn't stick conditions to the boss himself, so condition specced necro was pretty crap to actually deal damage to the boss. Though that was probably about the hardest it got, considering that lvl80 "world raid boss" stuff like the frost dragon usually just got mindlessly zerged, and the fun was in the fact that you actually could dump those utterly boring 5+5 skills on your bar and use different skills due to location and boss specific weapons available.

Want to know what people like me did? We min maxed, which in a game as shallow as GW2 required no effort whatsoever. Run in, hundred blades, go to next mob. Dumbass that rolled sin had to dance, though if he did it right, he just had his burst. Only problem with sin was the downtime to gather resource. Or dumbass that was me and that rolled ele had to dance, kite, etc. Warrior? Nah. Hundred blades baby. PvE or "structured" clusterfuck of PvP. Doesn't matter. Immobilize, charge in, hundred blades. Lots of corpses. Especially brokenly fun when you have a team that is used to guild wars 1 style "synchronise to about 0.1 seconds" spiking.

Fun times. For about couple of hours. Completely demolished when we realized that that was it. We peaked. Combat was far too shallow to engage anyone with enough braincells to grasp that most of the stuff on your bar was just a filler you rotated though waiting for the few meaty skills to come back.

Because in the end, that PR "anecdote" of yours? That's it. There was no depth beyond that basic interaction between skills, and all you had was 2 weapons with 5 skills, one heal skill, three utilities and an ultimate on huge cooldown. It was like they went for DOTA-style skill play, only without the depth of DOTA-style games. And while this shallow stuff grabbed those "who didn't play it to 80", as in reviewers, those of us who did bear the grind to 80 (and I was stupid enough to bear it twice hoping for something better in the end, shame on me) saw it for it was - a PR stunt of a game, aimed at those who gaze lovingly as stuff at lvl11, get bored at 20 and quit at 30. For that kind of player, GW2 is awesome.

If you actually wanted something beyond that, you were SOL.

P.S. Your anecdote is an exceptionally obvious piece of PR bullshit, as it started with "warrior and paladin could not deal wit hit". Warrior and paladin together can deal with pulling half a zone that is several levels above them and then AoE slaughter the entire bunch. You don't even have to know what you're doing beyond "lol reflect" and "lol hundred blades". Four griffons? Right. Because just clearing them all in about four seconds with hundred blades while pally gives you retaliation is excessively hard.

Re:Guild Wars 2...if it fits your niche

[Terrasque]

A few pointers: You talking about soloing the behe 20% is kinda silly. That guy have never been a challenge. And then you compare that (which is probably the least threatening world event in the game) with the (at that time) hardest one.. Now most of the world events provide a small challenge, and Tequatl is kinda.. off the hook. And your 100blade spvp build is practically useless if you play against people who *can* play - which is most PvP'ers these days.

And that "PR" anecdote did happen. First of all, they were new players, second those plush griffons do hit quite hard, and have more HP than a usual mob that level. Knowing that, and the fact that they're melee, I also knew how to effectively take them down with the tools I had. They didn't.

If you want to try a real challenge, you could try logging in to your gw2 account, and go fight the Kol Skullsmasher a bit. Or visit the new Tequatl :)

As for ele damage dealing.. Got these video recommendations from my guild's ele expert :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVqU9-Rrack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUe8xg2yPXI

I also found this WvW vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsUpFnBY-_o

Re:Guild Wars 2...if it fits your niche

[Luckyo]

He was in the beta, before they decided to nerf the hell out of him. That's when I played the necro last. He used to pretty much one shot you with all of his abilities, and his bigger trash about three shot you if they connected. And that's with necro's HP pool. Things like elementalists just fell in a couple of hits tops.

In general, that is the theme of the game. GW1, with everything nerfed. Complexity? Nerfed. Difficulty? Nerfed. Economy? Nerfed (B2P almost anything up to and including legendaries).
The only thing that got "buffed" was the art, due to superior graphics engine. It was a joke for a while that if we could take WoW's complexity, stick it into GW2's presentation with TERA's fast paced but complex combat style, we'd have a perfect game.

And if I wanted a challenge, I'd play a game that allowed for complexity that would make such a challenge interesting. These games are luckily plentiful, so that I don't have to pick up the terrible turd wrapped in pretty packaging that was GW2.

And in the end, the one thing that pissed me off the most is just how deliberate this particular bait and switch was. The early content was specifically designed to woo the reviewers. Up to about lvl30 on first playthrough, it was a honeymoon, everything felt interesting and every few levels you discovered something new. Then you hit 30 and realize that you basically finished the game. There is literally nothing else except for a lot of grind with pretty vistas ahead. No depth of gameplay, no skill required. Nothing. If you ever played any MMO at decent level, you instantly noticed the complete lack of any depth after you got your skill bars filled. It was a game made for reviewers - not players. And it worked, it sold tons of copies. And now it's pretty much dead, as it deserves to be, populated mostly by botters endlessly grinding gold to combat B2W caused inflation.

As I said before, if you want a game that is aimed at casual play, you're better off with F2P options. If you want a game with depth, there are several games on the market, including F2P ones that have far more depth than GW2. If you want a pretty game and don't care about gameplay at all, then you should look at GW2, as it's still one of the most if not they most beautiful game out there.

P.S. Your friend discovered that basic of the basic, D/D, + blast finisher + autocrit bolt finisher + immunity shield + elite elemental is the best way to go to PvE... in february 2013? Those of us with more than half a clue were playing that since hitting 30. It's pretty much the only build that does enough damage to be tolerable to grind PvE with. It's also super boring to the point where I ended up macroing pretty much the entire thing into six G-buttons on my old G15 keyboard.

Re:Guild Wars 2...if it fits your niche

[Terrasque]

"He was in the beta, before they decided to nerf the hell out of him" ...
"Hell, I didn't solo that hilarious "omg raid boss" lvl15 behemoth about 2 days after release 100% to 80%"

In beta 1 and 2 he was tougher, yes. Not beta 3, and certainly not after release. Complexity and difficulcy have been rising steadily, as people have learned the system better and anet have added new stuff. There's a big community around the game, and it's only getting bigger. You are, in fact, wrong about every single point you're making.

Even the videos. Which you clearly haven't even seen. The first build use the intelligence signet with attunement swaps, damage boosting traits, crit damage gear, and the cast time delays on spells to output burst damage that makes 100 blades look like a joke, and with better survivability and low recharge. You'd have known it was not even remotely near your description if you just saw the first minute of it. Of course, it would require pushing more than 2-3 buttons. And it's a year old.

The second video uses a build focused mostly around a conjured weapon, namely lightning hammer. The third video shows pvp with a dual dagger elementalist. You can see warriors trying 100 blades there. You can see them failing. You can also see that he uses more than 2-3 buttons.

Please mate, fact check what you're saying.

Re:Guild Wars 2...if it fits your niche

[Luckyo]

I meant at release to the public. Ones that paid. Should've been more clear. I always compared to closed beta people for reasons stated at the bottom of the post.

Also, you don't have a clue what you're talking about. There is nothing. Let me repeat that. Nothing. Not a single thing. That you can do on elementalist to match warrior's damage output with greasword. It is mathematical impossibility. In fact, when we raised the question with the Izzy, if I recall correctly his answer was "that is not elementalist's niche". I seriously doubt he changed his mind on that. He's not that kind of a person.
The only thing you can do is take specific skillset with really long cooldowns and blow them all at once. That will give you about as much damage as warrior will get for using his low cooldown hundred blades without any extras.

Kinda funny considering that the single biggest spike damage in GW1 was always on elementalists, as well as biggest pressure damage bar none.

If it's one of yours "killed by four griffins" warrior though. Yeah. But that's not about classes. That's about putting a shitty player vs a decent one. I can probably beat one like that right now if I could be bothered to update the game and log into it, even though I haven't played the game since about a month or two since release other than occasional log in to see how my guild is doing.

I also remember the weapon builds. Lightning hammer was a 15 minute diversion for me, more so than other non-elite elemental weapons. It's utter shit beyond one gimmick because of cooldowns on the skills blocking effective rotation, and it's pretty much a dead weight in PvE grind as low damage in comparison to being able to employ your standard D/D rotation, but it had some comedy value. Elemental greatsword was a lot more fun, both visually and damage wise, but it has the same problem.

You see, I broke my back trying to make elementalist work around release. It was my first class in GW1, and I really liked them. It was flashy, high damage and high risk class in GW1. It was fun. In GW2 it's a low damage support class only. It's like being a GvG flag runner ele... in PvE. High amount of utility, shitty damage output.

Then I said fuck it, and leveled my warrior and let the ele rot ever since. Because useless support class is indeed useless for uses other than WvW ranged AoE spamming. I was doing the same damage with warrior around lvl10 that I was doing on elementalist at 20. It was hilarious when I went for it and had that huge "eureka" moment of realizing at just how broken class balance is when quests I blitzed with warrior and then recalling "wait, I remember killing this bunch of critters take so much longer on elementalist..."

It could be that Izzy got his head out of his ass and tried to fix elementalists after all. I don't know as I haven't played the game in a long time - and Izzy is known for hugely overshooting buffs and nerfs pretty much always. But at the time when I left, the word from him was "elementalists are fine, they have their support niche and they shouldn't be doing too much damage in PvE because they have all that utility, if you don't like it you should be playing something like a warrior or a sin".

(I was one of the top players in GvG and HoH in GW1 for about two years, and as a result know a lot of people who were in closed beta and had direct communication with Izzy, so I could pass my questions through them).

The fact is that they made a game for a reviewer/casual player who'd play for the honeymoon period of early game and quit, and then occasionally come back, hopefully put some money to buy to win elements to catch up and get quickly bored and leave again. And they succeeded. It's a game that does exactly that - make you want to quit after just a little while of playing.

In my case, the only problem was that there are so many games to choose from that there is zero desire to ever come back, much step on the same rake again by giving them any more money.

P.S. The fun part: I left around the time they were releasing the first new dungeons. The common LFG message was "Looking for more players, no elementalists". For a very good reason.

Re:Guild Wars 2...if it fits your niche

[Terrasque]

Well, on one hand you've got good players that have been playing for example elementalist since beta, and are still learning new stuff. And then we got you who says "I played it a short while, got it all figured out. That in the videos there can't be done".

There is an old chinese proverb (according to the internet) that says something like "Those that say it can't be done should get out of the way of those doing it" .

You're correct that 100 blades is the highest damage scaling single skill in the game, in a direct stand-alone comparison. But that's not what's being compared. Besides, 100 blades is not a good skill. It got ramp-up time, it roots you, and it spend a lot of time delivering those hits. And if you miss the last, well... Most of your "burst" just went down the toilet. And most of the other greatsword skills are pretty low on damage.

What the elementalist in the first video did was comboing several things together resulting in very high damage very fast. One of the attacks he showed there was first using Burning Speed to engage, set the target on fire (and hopefully give a crit, which have a 60% chance of causing vulnerability), then start throwing Fire Grab, switch to water attunement while casting, trigger the weapon swap sigil - thus guaranteeing a crit for Flame Grab - and get extra damage bonuses. If target is vulnerable, and he got his boons up (which he usually have) that can be over 50%. Plus the Fire Grab bonus for target being on fire. With 110% extra critical damage. And while that's a potent combo, it is just one he got in his arsenal. He mentions that just by switching to air attunement he drops a lightning bolt on target that can crit for 7k damage. And that always crits, because of the sigil.

And the lightning hammer video is as un-gimmicky and simple as you can get. It's based around the high damaged auto attack on the hammer. Then it's just to build around max'ing it (like using the water attunement dmg boost on vulnerable foes) and start swinging for massive damage.

And the third WvW video shows that elementalists are quite capable in pvp. In fact, D/D elementalists are considered borderline OP by many in PvP.

Re:Guild Wars 2...if it fits your niche

[Luckyo]

WvW is not so much "PvP" as "zerg with random horde against random horde that might just as well be NPCs". That's why I said that elementalists have a niche there - the only thing that matters in WvW is spammable long range AoE. Elementalists are fairly capable in that regard. The mode itself is an excellent example of what I was talking about: there is no depth in GW2. They took a potentially interesting game play mode and made it into 100% spam AoE zerg. There are some small background things, but if your zerg is bigger, you win. If enemy's zerg is bigger, they win.

If you want the zerg mode large scale gameplay, F2P game planetside 2 does it far, FAR better with great amount of depth. And yes, planetside 2 is completely free to play, unlike GW2 which requires a purchase of a full box priced copy to get into.

Not even going to bother with the rest of the points. You're clearly suffering from being very invested in a bad game, and unable to admit to yourself that it's in fact a bad game due to massive write downs you'd have to make on that time and potentially investment. I guess I should consider myself lucky, I could have ended up like you if I didn't get out when I did.

Re:Guild Wars 2...if it fits your niche

[Terrasque]

elementalists have a niche there - the only thing that matters in WvW is spammable long range AoE

And the WvW video I linked shows a D/D elementalist fighting in close combat...

Re:Guild Wars 2...if it fits your niche

[Luckyo]

Of course they do. Afks can "fight in WvW". I've seen several people from friend list do that. The entire point of WvW is zero requirement of entry, zero requirement of skill and barely rudimentary understanding of game mode.

If you want to be more useful than 95% of the horde without any semblance of skill, you're going to be wielding a staff as elementalist though. D/D in WvW requires near-melee range engagement (fairly rare and typically short) and offers little to nothing to the team whereas staff offers that massive group utility.

So yeah, if you want to gimp yourself, go D/D. You'll still be better than at least 95% of the mindless zerglings, many of whom are bots anyway. And if you want to min-max WvW, you're going with a staff. End of story.

Asheron's call

[Anonymous Coward]

Only half joking

EVE Online

[Anonymous Coward]

Adding my voice to the chorus of support for this brilliant, brilliant game. It is simply the best MMO on the market and continues to grow better and better.

Dumb decision

[K. S. Kyosuke]

And if you are, you can now play your character perfectly with only one or two buttons. Like many who preordered the expansion, I feel robbed and I'm joining the mass exodus.

You've just robbed yourself of the perfect opportunity of having Stephen Hawking in your team, mate.

Sadly...

[gigaherz]

I have tried many MMORPGs. I have enjoyed some more than others, but it saddens me to say this: World of Warcraft is still the best choice.

- I tried LOTRO back in the beta, but it was so bad back then that I didn't bother with the real thing.

- I played through the first 24 levels in Aion, but then I started running out of content (the game expected me to grind the rest of the exp without content), so it also went into the blacklist.

- I enjoyed RIFT for a while, but although it has some interesting concepts, it always felt like just an attempt at copying WoW's style.

- I loved GW2's gameplay and event system, but it was too shallow overall.

- TERA's gameplay was not too bad, but it was unremarkable, it did not hook me in.

- I liked Neverwinter, but the paywalls made it annoying.

- I hated FF14, and I dislike FF14arr nearly as much. People seem to like it, but I did not manage to see how it is any better than the original.

I probably forget some, but that simply means they are not even worth mentioning.

Re:Sadly...

[Anonymous Coward]

- I hated FF14, and I dislike FF14arr nearly as much. People seem to like it, but I did not manage to see how it is any better than the original.

That's because it isn't. Literally the only lesson they learned from their botched launch was "we're not enough like WoW." So they took the game, threw WoW mechanics into it, stole parts of the WoW story, and called it a day. Which is sad, the original had a lot of interesting but poorly implemented ideas. The re-release is just WoW with Final Fantasy references and anime cat girls.

Honestly I can't think of any MMOs currently worth playing. The only one I can add to your list is The Secret World, which has some really cool puzzle and world lore quests. Unfortunately the combat system is terrible, and that's most of the game.

Re:Sadly...

[Greyfox]

Tera's gameplay wasn't too bad but the writing was atrocious and the voice acting was almost as bad. I think I went in a dungeon once in that game. It was an interesting time in the dungeon and the healer kept going on about how he loved healing in the game, but it took us about half an hour to get the party to the door of the dungeon. It made me appreciate how much WoW's friend-and-party system had been refined to get random groups of people into a dungeon with a minimum of fuss. Sure WoW's system still had problems, but if you want people who have a limited time to play to actually see your content, you'd best have mechanisms like that in place.

Other than that, Tera didn't click with me either. Game mechanics that actually required skill to use were very interesting, but the crafting system was pretty boring and I never met anyone I really wanted to quest with. I had pretty much the same problem with SWTOR, except that even the gameplay wasn't that interesting in that game.

Re:Sadly...

[gigaherz]

Blizzard still keeps refining the group system, even. For the next expansion, they plan to give more bonuses to friends who join the finder together: and they said a group re-queueing after a successful dungeon will count as a group of friends, and get the bonuses.

Re:Sadly...

[Fjandr]

I like SWTOR, but it is disgusting how they limit core functionality for anyone who is not a subscriber. There are things you absolutely cannot get without paying monthly.

Re:Sadly...

[nhat11]

- I played through the first 24 levels in Aion, but then I started running out of content (the game expected me to grind the rest of the exp without content), so it also went into the blacklist.

Aion now has so many quests and have a fast leveling server that I got my gunner to 29 within a few days. Sometimes I have to double check what level I'm to the area I'm in to make sure I wasn't skipping areas.

Star Citizen

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't MMORPG as much as MMO-SpaceSim, and it is still pre-alpha, the alpha comes out this winter, but you can already download the hangar module (and get in your ship, etc), and they will have dogfighting

robertsspaceindustries.com will give you a a chance to early back, and get involved, it has 29.4m in crowd funding at the time of this posting, and has a huge community already built up surrounding it. If you like the idea of having your own millennium falcon and exploring the galaxy... There you go.

Ingress

[Archangel Michael]

Get out, meet people, lose weight (i did, a lot of it) and see things you normally don't see. Every new place you go, you see things you probably would have missed.

Re:Ingress

[Scared Rabbit]

I came here to say this. My wife and I enjoy ingress immensely. It's not a traditional mmo in the way people think of mmos, but it's a lot of fun.

Re:Ingress

[foma84]

A Massively Multiplayer Augmented Reality Game. Very Unique, even if sometimes it gets a little repetitive. The "grinding" isn't as boring tho.
If I had the time, this is the game I'd play.

Re:Ingress

[Anonymous Coward]

I came here to say this. My wife and I enjoy ingress immensely. It's not a traditional mmo in the way people think of mmos, but it's a lot of fun.

Ingress reminds me of live action roleplay- which is something I try to avoid

Simutronics

[Anonymous Coward]

I still play text based MMORPGs.

EVE Online

[Anonymous Coward]

EVE Online.

Everything else is cartoons.

DOTA 2

[Anonymous Coward]

No other games necessary...

To subscribe or not

[Anonymous Coward]

I have raided in WoW, but prefer Battleground PvP , versus arena/dualing PvP. YMMV

Guess the best questions would be are you looking for something to spend some spare time playing or something you pour yourself into and it dominate your free time. I don't mean that has a negative things I have freinds that are big into Civil War, SCA, and other things that dominate their time as much as WoW had mine.

What follows is my MMO list over the last 1-2 years.

WoW: Had played it for the last 5 years, on and off but solidly for the last 3 years. Just got tired chasing the proverbial carrot on a stick. Did some raiding with guild, did more open world PvP, and spent much of the game time either PvPing in Battlegrounds, or leveling characters.

SWTOR : Is an example of how to not execute a Free to Play (F2P) game, prime examples from SWTOR, quest rewards are limited if you are not subscriber, no rested XP, and other core concepts are only on the paid accounts. I am currently playing SWTOR in my spare time, I purchase some things but I am turned off by many of the features that F2P can't even purchase that only a subscription will unlock. I would contemplate getting a subscription for 1 maybe two months, and get what I need then revert back to the F2P... but then would have what I wanted and would likely move onto something else.

Rifts: I had played and was happy with, it played a lot like WoW, which is no surprise since some WoW Dev started Rifts. Has F2P , an in game store for purchase items, and has an option for subscriptions, the F2P feels fine, clearly they have benefits to the subscription but you don't feel cheated with F2P.

GuildWars2: (Currently play only on weeks when Guild is on for WvW events) Is the perfect example of a traditional Fantasy MMO that got nearly everything perfect including being F2P from the start, has an in same store (purchase with in game currency GEMS) can either trade gold for gems ?, or purchase them outright for real world money. PvP is broken into two segments, PvP Areans (which I don't care for) and WvW (which should be WvWvW as in a three sided battle with two other realms) the WvWvW what I had been looking for in an MMO PVP battleground. Best to head to GW2 site to read up , needless to say it feels like war, and not some sports version of war, as in WoW Battlegrounds.
If you just want to explore the world, you can pretty much do that and gain levels doing just that. Also like SWTOR has a narrative story for your character, while it might cross over with other characters it will still be your story.

WildStar I would suggest checking out (has yet to be released), if they keep the humor they have in their Preview/Dev Videos then it looks like it will be a fun game, will be a paid subscription, but has different paths (not classes or races those are separate) that determine how you play the game, Solider is fighting stuff (Most like WoW) , Colonist (you get XP/Level for building things and people using your camp fire) , Explorer (much like GW2 Vista/Points of interest/Jumping puzzles) , and Scientist (Researching lore, and the lifeforms of the planet). Clearly they realized that not everyone plays an MMO to get new gear to fight the next dungeon/raid, to just repeat that cycle, and that some want to know all there is about a zone/world, others want to be helpfull in a non-combat way and basically be a store/town owner.

Please note I don't work for any companies related to any of these games, WildStar just looks fun.

Fast space-based game

[Anonymous Coward]

What I'm jonesing for is a good, fast, space-based MMORPG. Something like Star Control in MMO format. Funny enough, the SC IP was recently bought - maybe the wish will come true?

Try something with staying power

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally love Runescape, which has been around since 2001. Weekly updates, and great free world, and an optional monthly fee under $10 which can also be earned in-game (bonds). Check it out for free, but before you pay money and upgrade to membership, I recommend getting all your free levels to 50+ and completing all the free quests.

Guild Wars 2 is fun

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to be a LotRO player like you. I really enjoyed the game through Moria and Lorien, and even Mirkwood. I decided to look for something else at the time of Isengard. I found it buggy and limited, and I was starting to see a repetitive pattern: bigger boss --> new tokens --> better gear --> bigger boss --> etc. The best gear needed a mostruosity of time to be earned, and it seemed the only goal of the game.

When Guild Wars 2 came out, I was impressed. The quality of visuals, musics, animations and model and world details are way way better than LotRO (basically you can expect the same quality leap from LotRO to GW2 that there was from WoW to LoTRO). The lore is not as deep as in LotRO, of course, but it's not bad. Playing the game is simpler: skills change with weapons, they are usually just a handful but they are worth using, attack effects are beautiful and fun. Combat is much more dynamic: enemies move a lot, often you have to chase them. Finally, what they call "sidekicking" makes you enjoy the game even when you take a high level character to a low level zone (there's no "ones hotting"), so helping a friend with a new character is still fun.

It also has some cons: the character story arc is quite shallow and ends quickly. A lot of the effort of the developer goes on the PvP sections of the game, which I don't like very much. The world is big but not as big as in LotRO, full exploration took about 8 months to me. We haven't seen an expansion yet, but lots of one- or two-weeks events they call "living world", which sometimes are challenging and sometimes are just boring.

But overall, GW2 is fun: it's perfect for the casual gamer, the one who wants to enjoy a few hours of the game without being involved in high gear completionism, or militaristic guilds with periodic boss raids. If you just want a game to enjoy for its beauty, for funny situations and characters and for some good fighting, GW2 is definitely for you. Surely the better 30 € I've spent on MMOs as of today.

Queen's Blade

[myth24601]

Scarlet Blade

http://scarletblade.aeriagames.com/

Gotta love running around dressed like a ho. Go big or go home!

Re:Queen's Blade

[Anonymous Coward]

I find this game to be titillating.

Re:Queen's Blade

[Luckyo]

Pfft, TERA did that far better.

Final Fantasy XIV 2.0

[Reapman]

I don't play as hard-core as most, and at most a couple hours every other day. But I find there's enough content to do something whenever I'm on, and with the dungeon finder it helps finding someone to do whatever your looking for.

But whatever game you play of this type it comes down to the community. Having a core group for friends to play with can turn any game into fun.

Oh man, what a game I have for you!

[Anonymous Coward]

Try a parent-class in Civilization. You get to summon demons (As many as you want! Though I recommend stopping after 2) and the PvP can be very intense.

I must warn you, it is most certainly NOT free to play.

Re:I recommend non - RPG

[Anonymous Coward]

DDR Online would be awesome!

Also...

[nick357]

Which is better: vi or Emacs?

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is better: vi or Emacs?

You jest, but M-x mmorpg offers a pretty solid gaming experience. Unfortunately, since the skill activations in v28.0.7 removed quadruple-buckies, you can only use 358 skills at a time.

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

I love vi, but Emacs is definitely the better MMORPG.

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously Emacs is better since it comes built in with the games 5x5, Adventure, Blackbox, Bubbles, Gomoku, Towers of Hanoi, Landmark, Life, Multiplication Puzzle, Pong, Snake, Solitaire and Tetris. :)

TIBIA

[Anonymous Coward]

tibia with the old pvp system (no rune hotkeys)
best mmo ever.

The one I keep coming back to...

[Badlight]

...even though it's from the same developer: Dungeons & Dragons Online.

Active Playerbase? Check.

Reasonable rate of new content? Check. (Actually pretty good)

Replayability? Check.

Character customization? Not only does each class get 2 or 3 separate prestige trees (basically on top of the old 3.5 D&D feat system), but you can multiclass up to 3 classes, alignment restrictions allowing, and you can pick from up to 6 class trees, as well as your racial tree.

You can solo most of the quests in the game or play them on increasing difficulty, there are raids from levels 6-25, wilderness areas, challenge quests, puzzles; you can craft your own weapons, armor, and items, or customize the very best named items in the game through the augment system.

Or you can roll a cleric, click on the party invites you will get as soon as you log in, and just follow everyone around healing, and they will carry you through the game :)

The best part, in my opinion, is that there is no safety net: The game will absolutely let you make a character that is useless; Wizards that can't cast spells, fighters with so few hit points that monsters 10 levels lower can kill them in one hit, frenzied clerics with greataxes and no healing... I've seen them all.

The only other game that I was as obsessed with was the original Everquest; EQ2 didn't float my boat, but I am keeping an eye on EQN.

Re:I recommend non - RPG

[yurtinus]

I've played some WoT and truly enjoyed it - but it isn't the same experience you get from WoW. It's more similar to a game like League of Legends. Couple of major changes from a typical "MMO"

Each game is self-contained, makes it easy to play a game or two and log off instead of facing an open-ended grind. The flip side is you don't have any storyline to progress in, just more tanks to unlock, which I found rather tedius

You can only form teams of two or three people unless you get into forming companies.

Steep learning curve. Most MMOs hold your hand for a while in single player stuff. Expect at least an evening of getting beat on before you get the hang of it. On the bright side, nobody expects folks at Tier I to have the game mechanics nailed down.

Firefall

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out Firefall. Lots of great improvements recently, positive changes at the company building it (Red 5 Studios), and feature roadmap is looking good. Very fun game!

SWTOR

[kindherb]

I recently resubbed after taking a year or so off, and I'm enjoying it again. And space PvP is launching in the next couple of weeks! The PvP aspect really appeals to me, while I can't be bothered to check out endgame PvE. To each their own.

You can play for free if you'd like to check it out.

Play Lineage 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Play Lineage 2

Elder Scrolls Online

[Daniel Hoffmann]

From what I have seen TES Online seem pretty cool. I would wait for it to come out or try to get into the beta. One of the things that caught my attention was the fact that there will be 3 factions and once you finish your own faction quests you can go and do the other factions quests at max level with the content adjusted to end game. If they can make questing fun (pretty much if they don't screw up the TES formula) it will be awesome.

Thank you

[Any Web Loco]

Thank you for this - great list, easy to digest.This jarred though:

" gay game mechanics" (my emphasis)

Using the word "gay" as a synonym for "bad" isn't nice. I know it's common, but that doesn't excuse it, and you probably wouldn't use the descriptor for another minority group in the same way. Please consider not using the word gay this way. Thanks!

Re:Thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

The OP didn't say or imply "bad game mechanics", he was using a metaphor to describe them. Then he explained said metaphor for anyone who didn't catch it. Do you mean to say that we shouldn't mention homosexuality? That it's a taboo subject, offensive to remind people of? Because I don't think that's what you intend, making your actions quite counterproductive.

If you treat a minority like they're a special group who must not be spoken ill of, even indirectly in passing, then you've basically condemned them to being hated. It's the human response to those with special privilege. A more effective solution is integration, which comes with familiarity and reminding the majority that they're not so different than the minority.

Re:Thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

Using the word "gay" as a synonym for "bad" isn't nice.

Read the GP again.
It's a buttsex reference, not a "gay=bad=lame" reference.

Re:Thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

He means in-game mechanics. You know, the gay dudes that fix the planes.

Re:Thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

Frankly I ignored his entire list when I saw. I'm not going to trust a high pitched greasy ass teenager to make informed recommendations about video games that his type tend to infest. I don't know why anyone else is, and in the off chance that GP isn't one of those. Grow some balls and stop acting like one.

Re:Thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

What a gay lecture.

Re:Thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

He says

gay game mechanics (literally: get behind the enemy player so you can fuck him up)

the adjective "gay" being used here to reference anal sex (not necessarily bad)

Re:Thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

Who gives a shit?

Your comment is a gay response. It's so gay it's black.

I'm sorry, but I can't stand the PC of people nowadays.

Re:Thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up faggot.

Re:Thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

I yell out "white game mechanics" every time I play it. I live in California so it's still a minority.

Re:Thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually he just has a very limited sex life... vanilla only. Only from the front. Everything else must mean he's geh.

Re:Thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh please, grow up. Seriously? Complaining about the use of "gay?" That's so intolerant and hate-filed. Stop shoving your beliefs down the throats of those of us who use "gay" as a pejorative/bad term.

(real post, no sarcasm...)

Re:Thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

whatever fag

Re:Thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for this - great list, easy to digest.This jarred though:

" gay game mechanics" (my emphasis)

Using the word "gay" as a synonym for "bad" isn't nice. I know it's common, but that doesn't excuse it, and you probably wouldn't use the descriptor for another minority group in the same way. Please consider not using the word gay this way. Thanks!

The nazi gassed the gays because they thought they weren't nice. It doesn't matter what you think someone can describe something with any words they want. If that hurts anyone's feelings you should all get together and start a fascist country where you can censor speech without douches like me showing you that you are as wrong as him.

Re:Thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post is a bit Born-Again.

Re:Thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

You are right! Usually we write 'ghey'!

Man did you ever get jooed..

Re:Thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you just not read the part next to it in parentheses?

Or do I smell a PC Troll (didn't know they existed, but you're not going to read this anyway...)

Re:Thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

He is not using it as a synonym for bad.

"gay game mechanics (literally: get behind the enemy player so you can fuck him up)"

Not sure this usage is better, but it's not being used as a synonym for bad.

Re:Thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

Except he meant gay as in you get behind other players and fuck them. That's how you dog fight: One plane is trying to get behind the other to fuck them in the ass with bullets. He isn't saying it is bad, just one dimensional and gay.

Re:Thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahhh, poor baby. If you're worried about this, your head will asplode when you hear about some of the other stuff that happens in the world.

Re:Thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

How about "Doggy Style" game mechanics?

Star Trek Online

[spanky_poppagasket]

Free to play. Not rated the best, but if you're a trekkie it doesn't have to be. Two styles of gameplay- space combat with starships and RPG style ground combat with toons. "End game" takes a couple of weeks to get to and then you grind for gear. Or pay $$$ to get gear quicker. Missions against AI or PvP, but PVP is neglected. Again, free to play with the client from http://sto.perfectworld.com/download

Eve Online + World Of Tanks

[JDAustin]

You play both, at the same time.

Load up Eve and other hang around with friends or form up for a fleet battle. The while your waiting for action in Eve, you load up tanks and play a few rounds.

Re:Eve Online + World Of Tanks

[Anonymous Coward]

If a game is so boring that you have to play another game to entertain yourself while waiting for the fun bits to come along, that says enough.

SWTOR

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes its glitchy, yes there's too many stuns. But its still a very enjoyable game to try out. Avoid using F2P mode except for levels 1-10 as more of a "free Trial".

RoM

[WillgasM]

Ugh. I play Runes of Magic, but I really hate to recommend it to anyone.
It's free to play (technically), but once you hit endgame you'll pretty much need to spend money to gear. I've dropped more on diamonds than I care to admit. However, once you're raiding the top dungeons, you'll probably make enough gold to buy all the diamonds you need.
The mechanics of the game are actually pretty cool. It's pretty much a WoW clone, but with a more intricate gearing system. Essentially you sacrifice gear to pull its stats and then place those stats on your own gear. It's also dual class. You level a primary and secondary class and can use some skills from each tree. Each combo also has certain elite skills tailored to it. It's lots of fun when it's working.
It's never working. It's code developed by a Taiwanese company, adapted to German by a now defunct company, later adapted to English by another branch of that same defunct company, all of which was sold to a new company that also can't seem to get their shit together. Expect memory leaks, crashes, and bugs that crop up with certain events each year. It sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare to get anything fixed. Players contact community managers who can't really do much more that give you some items for your trouble at promise they'll get in touch with the team in Germany who I assume has to contact the team in Taiwan. Nothing gets fixed fast, and sometimes things don't get fixed at all.
Again, I hate to recommend it, but here I am plugging away at it every day. I've sworn it off at least once before, and yet I keep coming back. omg, I'm in an abusive relationship, aren't I?

Re:I recommend non - RPG

[Anonymous Coward]

world of tanks is flat out 'pay to win'.
ammo you can pay for that will do BETTER than the free ammo. you can't even argue it.

but of course you will. everyone defends their drug of choice. no matter how terrible.

RL

[StikyPad]

Go to work, earn coin, purchase upgrades, find partner, create alt chars, twink them until they become new mains.

Re:RL

[Alejux]

Bah! RL is totally P2W!

Re:RL

[Anonymous Coward]

The major problem with RL is that there is no PVP, and the game gets boring after grinding for coin for a couple years. Anther problem, and maybe just because the game is still new, there is no end-game. Your character eventually gets deleted from the servers, so its hard to tell if you won or not by then.

But it is totally NOT P2W; everything you need to win you can obtain in-game. You can also improve your character's skill in any task imaginable.

EverQuest II

[_hAZE_]

When people ask what I play, and I respond with EverQuest II and PlanetSide 2, they're always shocked to hear that the EverQuest franchise is still around. Yes, I still poke around in EverQuest II, although not nearly as much as I used to. Some of the reasons are life changes; I'm not working from home nearly as much anymore, and if I am, I'm probably babysitting one or both of my kids. Other reasons include the fact that a number of my friends and guildmates moved on to other games, or had real-life changes that prevent them from playing as much or at all. I still love the game, and here's why:
  - The Antonia Bayle server specifically has a really great community!
  - The game has so many "mini-game" options that you're never bored; you can quest, group, raid, tradeskill, decorate houses, roleplay..
  - The development staff wants EQ2 to continue to be a really great game with really great content, even at 8 years old.
  - They named it "EverQuest" for a reason.. there is still content that I haven't explored yet, and I've been playing for quite a few years now.
  - The lore behind the storylines is extremely rich, and has been developed over many years, making everything you do feel like it's a part of some grand historical adventure.

The game isn't perfect; they have made the game "easier" for people to play in all sorts of ways that have really ticked off veterans. Some of the changes I feel are for the better, but others I think were pretty stupid.

All said and done, I still love EverQuest II. I'd recommend it to someone who is looking for an MMORPG. And the best part? It's free to try out.

Star Trek Online

[Anonymous Coward]

Star Trek Online may be what you're looking for. It follows the standard level progression of EQ/WoW MMOs, but doesn't take forever to reach end game. All of the quests scale to your level, so if take a break from the story line and come back (you get XP for doing other things) the content won't feel too easy.

There are lots fun instances, both Co-Op and PVP, at the end game which tie into alternate progression systems. There's always people playing so groups are pretty quick to get going (usually under a minute).

And the best part is it's Free to Play. Unlike most F2P games, pretty much all the content is available to F2P players. Even all the stuff from their cash shop (C-Store) can be earned just from the playing the game.

Everquest, the original

[MrDoh!]

14 years on, it's still there, still great. It's got the community that's mature (well, most of us are a few years (14!?) older than when we started), but it's still an amazing game. Free to play, so can dip your toes in the water, and the chat channels are full of people who'll help newbies, or returning players.

Re:Everquest, the original

[CreepingDeath]

Seconded! After pandaland drove me from WoW I re-discovered EQ and have been playing it like the good - ol - days. However a word of warning, its just as addicting and time consuming as ever. If your not good at setting play limits you might find all your free time vanishing into this black hole :)

Animal Crossing

[tepples]

all of the grinding with none of the content and none of the other players.

Wouldn't that perfectly describe Nintendo's Animal Crossing series if you happen not to have any friend codes?

Can I recommend an MMO?

[Chas]

Honestly?

No.

Since the closure of City of Heroes, there's nothing that I really want to play. I have no desire to play high fantasy games, I won't ever touch anything remotely connected to NCSoft again, I'm a casual player who can't devote massive tracts of time, and I'm utterly disgusted by P2W.

I'm hoping that the upcoming, community-driven, City of Titans fits into the hole that CoH left. But for right now, about the most I do is play Freecell.

Re:Can I recommend an MMO?

[grahamwest]

Have you played Star Trek Online? Seems pretty casual-friendly, does a nice job with the lore, and a bunch of the ex-Paragon people are working on it.

Full disclosure: I worked on CoH and know the people in question.

Re:Can I recommend an MMO?

[Chas]

Yes. I know the people working on STO as well
.
I also have a lifetime account on Champions Online.

My problems with the Cryptic/PWE setup the unending push to lockbox anything non-trivial in the game.

I'm willing, more than willing, to spend real money on costumes, temp powers, and even unlocking powersets.

I'm not willing to spend money on "keys" to open gambling boxes though.

I beta'ed STO way back when. The starship simulation is nice. The rest of the game is a fricking bore.

Guild Wars 2

[Anonymous Coward]

I have generally stayed away from MMOs. I find the endless grind and uninteresting quests exceedingly boring. I think the concept of "endgame" was invented to keep people paying monthly subscriptions by making players spend obscene amounts of time for the small promise of slightly better gear. I remember watching a friend spend 6 hours getting a group together and doing a raid in early WoW, just for a fraction of a percent chance for the boss to drop a certain piece of gear that he still had to roll against at least 5 other people to get. Why do people find this enjoyable?

That said, Guild Wars 2 really drew me in. They took a very different approach to design, rewarding exploration and teamwork while still allowing players to play most of the game solo if desired. The world is very open and dynamic, and people can join in on anything going on at any time without affecting anyone else's experience. There's an amazing amount of stuff to do and something for just about everybody, except for the people who are into the classic raid-style gameplay.

Borderlands 2

[DocSavage64109]

Forget MMOs as they are nothing but grindfests and try some of the other fun multiplayer games out there like Borderlands 2, DOTA 2, and Payday 2.

Re:Borderlands 2

[Anonymous Coward]

BL2 as an alternative to grinding? HAHAHAHAHA.

Oh, wait, you're serious. Let me laugh even harder. HAHAHAHAHAH.

Re:I recommend non - RPG

[just_a_monkey]

You're in luck then. With NSA and the constant attacks on freedom and rule of law, soon we will certainly live in DDR Online.

My MMORPG Suggestions

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait for the new WoW expansion and play that. Or if you're into learning cliff of doom, EvE Online is really good for that. They just released a new expansion this week.

Neverwinter is excellent

[slashmydots]

Neverwinter is free and doesn't pressure you to use their in game currency buying system ever. It is sort of pay to win but you can also just get the gear in like 1 week of trying. The whales carry the company easily. I gave em $50 on principle and now I have a 110% run speed pig and some sick gear :-D It's very fun and you can level up quickly. Everyone's pretty nice for the most part, though not as much so as DDO. The #1 best part is that it relies heavily on realtime reflexes and strategy instad of grinding for the best gear in the game. At an 8000 gear score, my cleric outscored people with 13,000 gear scores. It's about actual talent and you don't see that in MMORPGs anymore. I'd recommend anyone pick it up and play it.

Re:Neverwinter is excellent

[gknoy]

I'll second that: Neverwinter's gameplay is one of the best I've seen in an MMO. The capitol city was terribly laggy, but the combat felt __very__ satisfying. Unfortunately, the few people I talked to indicated that there were some class balance issues -- I took that with some grain of salt -- , and my pocket healer expressed a lot of frustration that as a cleric he couldn't really healbot. Healing mechanics requiring you to face people to see their health didn't make it any nicer, he said.

We're hopeful that Elder Scrolls Online (beta soon!) will be nice.... but honestly I'm not eager to maintain two subscriptions, so the bar for awesomeness is that much higher.

Go where your friends go, though. If my guild rolled to a different game, I'd go with them.

That's a lie they keep frequenting.

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need the disks to install, and in fact there's a full end of game client floating around online. ~5 gigs.

On the other hand the swgemu guys are a bunch of douches. They crippled the community in order to 'reimplement' their own emulation server, using a proprietary server core (reverse engineered off SOE's game code no less!) just to be able to cripple people's ability to either export their game data (most of which is actually stored in Berkely DB5 flatfiles) and limit time to around an hour and players to under 100 (originally 10 and possible lower than that in the really early days.)

While this sort of caustic anti-FOSS behavior hasn't totally ruined the fanbase, it lost a lot of potential devs over the years, and STILL hasn't resulted in a finished project... what 2 years after swg shut down, and 6 years after the emu started (Around 2007, despite there being 3+ projects out there and potentially dozens or hundreds of player's packet logs, yet no community whitepapers on the protocol/datafile formats! They claim otherwise, but go and try writing code off what is publicly available and documented.)

Re:I recommend non - RPG

[NemosomeN]

What does the NSA have to do with Dance Dance Revolution Online?

That's the great flaw in all MMOs

[Crashmarik]

The world exists at the whim of the developers, or rather the marketing people. It makes it very difficult to justify putting in the kind of effort needed to do well, when you know, it will be pulled out from under you. Esp, when developers actively seem to dislike people doing well in the games.

Darkfall - Open Sandbox, Full Loot PvP

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't believe no one mentioned Darkfall (http://www.darkfallonline.com), where you actually have to aim like in an FPS, need line of sight, can rocket-jump ("rabbit jump" there) and have a massive skill-list.

Full Loot, absolutely open PvP action, so get ready for pumping that adrenaline. If i'd have time, this would be my choice.

Awesome MMORPG called Life

[Anonymous Coward]

I highly recommend it. The "girlfriend" achievement is particularly great.

Fair warning...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ground Combat is totally twitch based combat, which is in direct contrast to the ship based combat which, while not to the level of the SFC games, is much slower paced and relying on judicious management of shields, power, and special abilities (a bit more arcadey than SFCs special abilities, but with a few exceptions most felt no more cartoony than the TV show's MacGuffins.)

Phantasy Star

[PrinceBrightstar]

I'd highly recommend Phantasy Star Online 2. It's a very different game where unlike in most MMOs where you just stand around waiting for cool downs, you instead are actively dodging incoming attacks by rolling away or through other means. There's no auto attack and you will fall quickly if you try to play like that. Some have described it as a Diablo clone in 3d, but actually the series has been around since 1987. There is no official US release however there is an english fan patch available.. If you're interested in seeing what it looks like I have a let's play going on my channel under the same username. Science fiction also plays a great deal in it.

Nethack :P

[msobkow]

Minimally Mapped Obvious RPG

PERFECT TIMING!!

[TFlan91]

Perfect timing on this post!

I'm beta testing Elder Scrolls Online as I'm typing this. So far absolutely fantastic! Love the deep customization of your character and the graphics are amazing. Rockin an HD 5770 1gb and I'm still easily hitting my cap at 60 fps, havent seen it dip below 60 fps yet.

Will keep you updated as I play this weekend.

(It's only been online for 1.5 hours)

Fantasy Online

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.fantasy-mmorpg.com/

http://www.kongregate.com/games/pixelatedgames/fantasy-online

Unfortunately, it is closing on January 1st, 2014 :-(

https://www.google.com/search?q=fantasyonline

Including it's awesome PS3K editor: (Pixel Shop 3000)
http://www.fantasy-mmorpg.com/ps3k/?location=dl

And all the Pixelized assets and outfits:
http://www.fantasy-mmorpg.com/ps3k/?

WildStar ?

[Eddy_D]

Hasn't come out yet but looks interesting... http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/#page1

Richard Garriott's Shroud of the Avatar

[grnarrow]

You might want to keep on eye on Shroud of the Avatar https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/, currently under development by Richard Garriott. It is not a continuation of the Ultima franchise (he doesn't own that intellectual property any more), but he calls it a "spiritual successor" to Ultima.

They describe the world this way: "Players will adventure in an interactive world where their choices have consequences, ethical paradoxes give them pause, and they play a vital part in weaving their own story into the immersive world and lore surrounding them." The story is being developed by Richard Garriott and Tracy Hickman (of the Dragonlance series). Hickman will be releasing a novel of the world's backstory episodically.

It's not a true MMO. They are calling it "selective multiplayer", meaning you can choose to see just your friends in the world, friends-of-friends, etc, or you can play open multiplayer (more like a traditional MMO), or even as a single-player game.

They are trying some new stuff, including a novel combat system designed to eliminate the "press this sequence of keys in every combat until your foe is defeated" syndrome that most MMOs have. It is somewhat controversial among supporters, but they have budgeted time to change it to a more traditional combat system if it fails in beta testing.

They are about 7 months into development, with another 11 months to go until release. They raised money through a kickstarter campaign (now over), but you can still pledge on their website. A $45 or higher pledge gets you access to the alpha tests (starting next month), the beta test, and a copy of the first installment of the game (there are going to be 5 installments over the next several years). Higher pledges get you other digital or physical goodies.

If you are interested in pledging, you are welcome to use my referral code (7835), which will get your character an exclusive emote! Woohoo! Actually kinda lame since they haven't decided what it will be (probably a high-five), but it is something only people who were referred will have.

As a WoW player...

[Anonymous Coward]

I still have nostiolga for Auto Assualt, one of the many canned NCsoft MMOs, of which I have also played.

Gemstone 4

[alteveer]

www.play.net/gs4 -- 30 day free trial, this is the best MMO ever created.

Cardhunter

[guises]

This is an oddball recommendation, since it's really a different sort of game than LoTR:O that the submitter mentioned, but I've really been enjoying Cardhunter ever since it came out a couple of months ago. It's turn-based card game and the player interaction is limited to PvP for right now, but Co-op should be coming eventually. A very different style of card game and it's free, so there's no reason not to check it out.

I should say that the devs are very conscientious about the play-to-win aspect that many of these games have: it really isn't a problem in this case. Paying will net you very few advantages.

TESO

[Anonymous Coward]

Teso is quickly moving towards open beta. It is very open world. Definitely worth a look.

LUVINIA WORLD is a killer MMORPG

[Anonymous Coward]

Luvinia has been resurrected as Luvinia World! Super Fun MMORPG The world of Luvinia beckons players into a realm where humans, orcs, gnomes and dwarves once co-existed in peace; however, destiny never stands still. The stars that once shone brightly over the humans now fade as the hearts of the other races turn against them. With the help of the Victoria Institute, heroes from across the land will challenge fate to take up their weapons and fight for their land against treacherous invaders. Will you answer the call and make your destiny in the stars? Play for Free http://www.luviniaworld.com/

This is a horrible question

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok so for starters:

If it's popular, don't play it. WoW, EQ, GW2, etc they're done. If you join now you'll be so far behind without paying through the nose. You will NOT have fun because nobody will play with you.

Any MMO that is "new" as in the last 30-60 days is worth joining to see how far you can get. If you get bored from it after 10 days, quit, absolutely.

If you just want to play a pretty game, FFXIV. Like the first point, you will not have fun unless you're playing with people you normally socialize with.

That's the problem with with MMO's in the last 6 years, is that if you haven't been part of a guild for literately years, you're pretty much stuck playing the MMORPG single player. So if you're going to be stuck playing single player, you may as well go with something that you like deep lore of (eg FFXIV, The Secret World, Mabinogi or Vindictus) that doesn't force you to party for every part of the game.

Everquest 2

[Nyder]

I've been playing EQ2 for 7 or so years. Of all the MMO's i've played, none seem to as in depth as EQ2 is. Classes have 20+ spells/abilities, all useable and you need to actually learn them to play your class decently. On top of that, you have other ways to refine your toons for better tanking/healing/dpsing.

Much more to the game, of course, but I'm not trying to sell it to you. But if you are looking for a fantasy MMORPG that isn't a 2 button click fest, requires a brain, and has content, then check out EQ2.

Ashen Empires (Dransik)

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots of skills, but also lots of grinding (not as much as there used to be, though): http://ashenempires.com/
There are two servers, so you can go pvp or nonpvp if you'd like.

champions of regnum

[Anonymous Coward]

previously known as regnum online, I play this because it works on windows, Linux and looks like Mac too. Free to play unless you want to expend some real money yourself. It might have some bugs and servers may crash from time to time, but for me is ok, I don't live in the game, and I like the operating system independence.

World of Warcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet Another WoW post:
Honestly after going back to WoW (free trial 10 days) it just struck me how much I at least overlooked the game, at the moment there's tons of things to do in your own pace and it feels much easier to do other things than sitting in city X jumping around (unless YOU deliberately doesn't want to do anything else but to PvP/PvE).
Although there is of course some tedious farming (Valor/Honor Points, whatnot), you can easily now see any raid instance you may have missed before and farming in general isn't as painful as it used to be.

ONLY ONE WORLD NEEDED - EVE ONLINE

[Anonymous Coward]

!!! EVE ONLINE !!! Been playing since day 1. This is the best MMORPG there was ever. Tired of brainless MMORPG playable with two button designed by and for ZOMBIES. EVE ONLINE. Get your Tylenol bottle close by to you caffeine pills. Get an implant and talk a walk in a wormhole. Control the markets or simply go HAYWIRE if you aspire to a Pirating career. EVE ONLINE is the way

Re:ONLY ONE WORLD NEEDED - EVE ONLINE

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue with EVE is in order to level up it takes time- you can't really manipulate that. So if you played from day 1 and I started today I will never be able to compete with you

This flaw is the reason I will never play eve

Darkfall

[Anonymous Coward]

You should try Darkfall, a sandbox full loot PvP-centered MMORPG. http://darkfallonline.com

Mabinogi

[Lordpidey]

There's a fairly old MMO, called Mabinogi. It was one of the first MMOs to use a reflexive combat system (as opposed to everquest's hit Q for auto attack). It also plays more like a single player jrpg that happens to be an MMO, than a traditional MMO.

However, Nexon manages it, and they are terrible as far as customer support goes. It took them over two years to respond to a support request regarding NX (the real money currency) stolen from my account.

what about

[Anonymous Coward]

Age of conan uneashedstill had mehooked. Played gw2, dndonline anda cple othets but aoc as me still. .

I recommend

[Anonymous Coward]

Going Out Side

It's a huge open environment. Literally MILLIONS of Players. Yes it can be repetitive and boring like wow, but it can also be as crazy as Second Life.

Dungeons & Dragons Online is the exact opposit

[cstec]

If LotRO is too mindless and dumbed-down MMOs are your bane, then head straight to DDO! It is easily the most complex MMO out there, free to play, and a a great deal of fun. Nothing comes close to the truly insane character customization it has.

DDO basically starts with D&D 3.5, so out of the gate you can have multiclassed characters. So unlike a typical MMO where you're a tank or a caster, in DDO you can literally play a fighter for 10 levels, play wizard for 6 more levels and then play 4 more as a cleric, and have the skills from all 3 at the same time!

From D&D you have the Feats selection, then on top of that, each class has multiple enhancement trees. Currently Wizard has 3 different trees, and you can choose enhancements from any of them. If you're multiclass, you can choose from ALL the enhancement trees for each class, and there's also a racial enhancement tree, so a single character could have as many as ten trees to choose from! And each race has it's own impact on your character as well.

But wait, there's more! Turbine's gone past level 20 ("epic levels") and characters also have epic destinies - yet another enhancement tree system. There are 8 of those, one for each class, but you can choose whichever you want, so you can be a lev 20+ fighter with the druid tree active! You can also also "twist" 3 of the skills from any tree into whatever you're doing, so your fighter can have druid enhancements, and twist in a couple rogue enhancements at the same time.

[shamwow voice]But there's STILL more![/shamwow] And, just because you don't want to be a cookie cutter build, you can also opt to kill your capped character and resurrect them, True Resurrection, which gives your character a permanent past life bonus. In fact you can 3 times .. per class! There is even a feat "completionist" for people who've played and TR'd as every character class. And there are truly insane people in the game who are trying to do that three times for every past life buff in the game.

Of course a fighter/wizard/cleric would be a pretty poor combination, and having druid active may not make sense. Nothing stops you from making a truly gimped character in DDO, and new players generally shouldn't multiclass, but a good way to see the insanity is to check out the DDOracle. It's currently out of date, but look at the what people are playing, in particular the top multiclass combos, and race/class combos. Note there's also a least common multiclass list as well, which is often amusing.

DDO does a good job of being D&D. It's quest oriented, not grind oriented, and XP is based on completion. One of my favorite features is the dungeon master - as you're crawling through a quest, there's a DM voiceover that adds a lot of D&D feel. The other thing DDO does is TRAPS! This is not WoW - dungeons have traps that can and will kill your character instantly on high difficulty. Respect the trap! Take a rogue. Or a cleric that can rez

What DDO doesn't get you is PVP. It's D&D - you versus the dungeons, monsters, pirates, demons, undead - anything but other players. There is an extremely limited brawling facility in taverns and that's it, and no griefing. Adventurers quest together, in parties (up to 6) or raids (up to 12). Evil alignment is not available - True Neutral is as evil as you can get. And everything is instanced, so only in public areas (towns, taverns) are you running past other players -- there are no WoW style 200-person fights around Tarren Mills.

DDO is free to play but there were two paid expansions. Simply playing the game earns you points that you can spend on expansion packs, and in theory you could play long enough and simply earn all the game content. In theory you might be playing when you're 80, too. There are enough points to earn that you'll get expansion packs, but in practice people generally buy at least a few as each pack gi

Old Old School

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been playing Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 for a long time. If you want fun quest-driven solo-or-group playing, I really like the original Guild Wars. With modern hardware you can max out the graphics specs and get stunning visuals. I'm doing my best to like GW2, but sometimes I need to go back.

I spend a few years playing GW with an officemate every day, running together in the same room on two PCs (so we could talk without silly headsets or typing). It's an excellent game for that.

Another recommend for GW2

[Squiggle]

Although it really depends *why* you play MMOs, for people that have less OCD collector/min-maxer and an interest in both casual exploration and challenging (PvP) gameplay, Guild Wars 2 is by far the best designed game I've seen in years. The skills and combat are well thought out (particular PvP) and are now quite finely balanced and tuned. They are also using an extremely fair monetization/content model where you get enough content for the price of the box, but they are also adding new content regularly every month for free. Plus WvW is a blast, virutal fantasy war should be a bucket list item for every gamer.

Impressions...

[seebs]

Rift: By far my favorite of the games. I don't play it, though, because they've basically abandoned even the pretense of enforcing any of their rules. Wanna tell everyone that "abbos" are basically monkeys and ought to be gassed? Talk about how you want to rape someone's kids? Spend your evenings making jokes about how much you hate gays? Go to the designated RP server just to stalk RPers around and harass them? Right now, Rift is your best choice. Particularly mystifying, because in basically every other category, Rift's devs strike me as among the most passionate and skilled in the field, and also some of the most engaged with their customer base. Except on this one thing. Unfortunately, social interaction is the biggest thing by far about MMOs for me. And yes, I'm aware that every game has some of that. What's different is that in Rift, the same person can be using the same character to do this for, quite literally, over a year without them being told to stop. One person I know once got into an argument and told another player he was going to rape them with a knife; he did get contacted by a GM, who apparently suggested that maybe he should tone it down a bit. F2P model is, thus far, surprisingly non-abusive. In particular, if you want to just play the game without ever paying a penny, that's actually viable. Performance not nearly as good as it should be, but they're actively working on it; until recently, the bulk of the game's rendering engine was not multicore-friendly.

FF14 ARR: The parts that are good are amazing. But in other respects, they have taken incompetence to a whole new level. It took them ages to solve the VERY challenging problem that their spam filter wouldn't notice that you were sending 2-3 messages a second to a channel as long as each message varied by a few characters, for instance. Rumor has it that they've had exploits which allowed malicious users to, for instance, sell a stack of 99 cheap items to a vendor, but inform the game that they had sold very expensive items. Or instantly level themselves to the level cap by handing in a single quest. Probably mostly fixed by now, but that these things were wrong in a game which is already a re-release from a company with prior experience is insane. On the other hand, very pretty, very atmospheric, good storytelling. But it is a Final Fantasy game; it is literally a few minutes from when you create your character to the first time you are able to move, and even then you simply aren't allowed turn around and walk the other way until you've talked to your quest giver. No, really. And yet, it's pretty fun. Sub-only. Performance is pretty decent, although the previous release was apparently bad. Special mention for the very deep and full-featured crafting system, which I personally find to be the most fun part of it.

D&D Online: F2P model a little harsher than, say, Rift. However, a sufficiently patient player can probably unlock all the restricted content through in-game activity. Or just sub for a while. This game is not really D&D -- if you are familiar with the 3.5 rules, it will screw you up as much as it helps you. It is, however, the minmaxer paradise. This is a game which absolutely, unconditionally, rewards people who are good at thinking out how to make their numbers stack for best results. Very unusual mechanics in a number of ways; for instance, you don't get XP from killing mobs, only from achieving objectives. No automatic healing just from not being in combat, and if you aren't playing with difficulty turned down (there's settings for that), you can run out of resources trying to do a quest. Graphics are sort of unimpressive compared to a lot of other games. On the other hand, has a native mac client, which can matter if you have a mac or have friends who prefer the mac. Runs well on older hardware. Insane depth of character creation, and after you cap out, you can restart the character as anything else, only with small permanent bonuses. Which stack.

TSW: Buy-to-play. Lots of stuff you might

Re:Impressions...

[_xeno_]

Rumor has it that they've had exploits which allowed malicious users to, for instance, sell a stack of 99 cheap items to a vendor, but inform the game that they had sold very expensive items. Or instantly level themselves to the level cap by handing in a single quest.

It's better than that. Apparently most of the client UI is written in Lua, and is allowed to run SQL queries directly against the server's database. Including update queries. It's unclear how they "fixed" that, but apparently you used to be able to directly change any stat about your character using SQL. (I'd bet they just blacklist certain queries rather than really fixing the design.) There was also a bug that allowed people to execute purchases through the market system as other players. There have to be a ton of other security flaws just waiting to be discovered. It's not a well-designed game, security or technology wise.

On that note, since they use TCP for the game communications, you can get a hilarious effect where basically the game will "freeze" briefly when a TCP packet has to be retransmitted, and then everything will suddenly happen all at once as the TCP stream catches up. This also becomes a bit of a problem for people suffering from "buffer bloat:" the game expects you to move out of the way of attacks, but some players find that their update packets are condensed into larger, less frequent updates. Which means that depending on ISP, some end-level content can be literally impossible.

I'm sure the game will be showing up in a Slashdot story sooner or later when the entire database gets hacked. It's clear Square Enix still doesn't know how to run an online game.

Re:Impressions...

[seebs]

It is truly amazing how much clue they don't have. UI in Lua is not an unheard-of choice, and some games have done quite well with that and produced robust and secure interfaces, with clear limits to their APIs. Apparently, FF14 is not one of them.

Re:Impressions...

[seebs]

Replying to my own post because a thing happened in Rift: In the last three or four days, there's been a sudden influx of GMs showing up in channels and actually doing stuff. Some of the high-profile trolls have discovered to their dismay that suddenly the GMs are willing to push buttons that were previously mostly theoretical.

So I'm suddenly a lot more interested in it.

Surprise buttsecks

[tepples]

World of Warplanes [...] gay game mechanics (literally: get behind the enemy player so you can fuck him up)

Using the word "gay" as a synonym for "bad" isn't nice.

I don't think war4peace was using "gay" as slang for bad. I think (s)he was drawing parallels between a combat maneuver in that game and entering through the exit, hence the "literally".

Re:Surprise buttsecks

[Anonymous Coward]

It's still totally privileged and inappropriate. There is no sequence of verbal backflips that you can engage in that will somehow find a loophole wherein using "gay" to describe something in a negative way doesn't make you a total asshole.

Post?

[tepples]

I'm waiting for Postgres, the sequel.

Darkfall Unholy Wars

[Anonymous Coward]

Free-for-all, Full-loot, massive sieges, consistent open world, sandbox elements, FPS combat.
Lots of nerdy hardcore pixel-huggers, but YMMV.

Re:I recommend non - RPG

[Endo13]

Well first, WoT is not an MMO, which is what the guy is looking for.

Also, it can be very frustrating and does have some pay-to-win elements.

I just quit playing it again myself. Just always gets too frustrating, between horribly implemented artillery, ridiculously grindy upgrades and crew, and overpriced premium crap.

WarThunder is coming out with their own tanks in the near future, which should be at least somewhat better if that's what you're into.

Back on topic, I don't really know what MMO to recommend right now. I'm kind of in the same place as the person who asked the question. GW2 just didn't cut it for me. Combat is too bland, exploration is all pre-scripted, and there's really nothing to it but combat and a very small side-show of crafting.

Just tried the Elder Scrolls Online beta, and was quickly disappointed. The game world is visually impressive, but that's about it. The combat is SO bad. Of course, I expected it to be a bit lackluster since it's designed around consoles, but it doesn't even meet those standards.

oh no....

[ACluk90]

Oh no.... they' re DOOMed!

Entropia Universe

[wiz_Sitram]

www.entropiauniverse.com This is an RCE or Real cash econimy type of MMORPG. You can make real money from it, but it also needs money deposited to play.

Re:I recommend non - RPG

[Cederic]

You can now buy the premium ammo with 'silver' earned through in-game play.

It's too expensive to use every match, but it means you can have it available for those rare moments that it will actually make a difference.

My reccomendation?

[GarethIwanFairclough]

I don't have one, but I advise you to stay away from anything by Perfect world entertainment or its subsidiaries (I.e. Cryptic studios). Those guys simply don't have a clue about Q&A, customer service, bug fixing or game balancing.

Realms of Despair

[Anonymous Coward]

Good Old Fashion MUD grab a free mud client and get typing away... Improve typing speed with tons of guilds and orders. and even runs on older hardware with ease :)

Realms of Despir

[Anonymous Coward]

Good ole fashion MUD! increase typing speed, learn scripting, tons of guilds and orders and best of all free with a huge community! Grab a free client and let the fun begin!!

Artemis has great potential

[Anonymous Coward]

Promising co-operative star trek like game.

The big problem

[Enry]

Almost all of the popular MMORPGs are either dungeon crawlers or require a monthly payment (or both). I and a small group of friends of varying financial levels went with Guild Wars when it first came out and sprung for GW2 when it came out last year. We only play a few hours a week and get a lot of enjoyment out of it, but we've been collecitvely playing these kinds of games for almost 10 years.

Rappelz

[ebonflame]

Rappelz is one of my favorites. I use to play Rappelz more frequently but changes in the quest lines that shoot people up to level 150 without too much work made playing it a little less challenging. The old pet system has been supplemented with a new pet system that will allow one to tame just about any monster in the game. I am neutral on that change. The biggest issue was when the new owners of Rappelz stopped allowing people to use SandboxIe to run multiple instances of the game. They can run the game on multiple computers, just not in virtual machines on the same computer (what logic is that?)

Eve online

[Anonymous Coward]

The only mmo that have been able to keep my interest for more than a year is eve. It combines well with life but the learning curve is quite steep. I love the freedom of the game and how most things are player controlled, owned or produced. It can be as repetitive as anyone would be able to stand (just go mining) or as unpredictable and varied as any game can be.

TSW

[Anonymous Coward]

The Secret World is definitely my top pick. It has some real story to it, and you generally give a damn about the background of many of the quests.

RealWorld(tm) has inferior graphics

[Anonymous Coward]

The women aren't as hot, and none of them have elf ears.

EVE Online

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to suggest EVE Online. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but honestly, the graphics are good and the gameplay is easy to learn but difficult to master. It also requires you to think, which, seeing as WoW, Rift, and apparently LOTRO (per the OP) have significantly dumbed down the choices (RIFT recently allowed you to purchase more roles/crafting profs with credits, which is bought with real money). EVE's Market is an actual market so you have to know how to play the market if you want to get rich, not just throw stuff up on some auction house. Just a few suggestions:

1> Null Sec Space (0.0 and lower) can and usually is more safe than Low Sec space (0.4-0.1), so stay in High or Null sec, preferably High when you're starting out.
2> READ THE MISSION DESCRIPTIONS! Seriously I cannot stress this enough. If you do not read the mission descriptions you may get stuck because you are missing some very small point (e.g. remember to take the ore you mined out of your ship's hold and put it in the station's hold, otherwise you cannot complete the Mission.)
3> Find a good corp or start your own.
4> Most people don't realize this, but the more missions you do for a specific NPC corp (e.g Ishukone) the lower the "We Take" is on refining, however, storyline missions for corps tied to a specific faction can and will lower your rep with other factions. Pick a faction that likes and is liked by everyone (Interbus or SoE for example) and use them to grind Standings so you can have a tax free station to refine at without getting 1-2 of the empires at a Shoot on Sight standing with you, which would limit your zones in High Sec/Low Sec.
5> If it's yellow in the overview DO NOT LOOT. Someone is probably trying to get you suspect flagged so they can blap you without getting CONCORD after them.

Overall the game is fun and does require you to think about things. There's plenty of sites out there to help with ship loadouts, and honestly not everyone is out to get you, just about 1/2 of them.

Do you really enjoy the RPG aspect?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the PVP aspect of the MMO is what you enjoyed most and you hate grinding quests to get competitive gear (me in a nutshell) I'd suggest SMITE. It's a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) so while there are lots of players online don't expect a world to explore or any questing - it's 100% PVP with several different game modes. I've played dozens of mmorpg's since Dark Sun Online before UO and EQ and can't help to feel PVE is way too similar now even though it's full of eye candy. At least in the early games there were consequences if you played stupid and incentives to being social (like need a res at zone or a corpse retrieval). These days you can pretty much solo all the way to endgame no matter the MMO. Good luck.

Re:I recommend non - RPG

[Anonymous Coward]

World of tanks is far from MMO, its just a team based competitive tank shooter

Escape the Skinner box

[AbominousSalad]

As a recovering MMO addict, my answer to this:

> What else would you recommend looking at?

The outdoors, and members of your preferred sex. And maybe that hobby you could have turned into a career if you'd spent any time on it.

Re: I recommend non - RPG

[Anonymous Coward]

DDR can also mean Deutsche Demokratische Republik- socialist eastern Germany, a totalitarian surveillance state especially known for its secret service, the Stasi (Staatssicherheit).

Why not Runescape?

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried control-f and typed in Runescape, and to my shock there were no results. Runescape was the first MMORPG I ever played, and it's proved to be the only one that can actually entertain me for more than a month. Sure, games like WoW and Regnum are great for PvP, but if you want something a little more complicated than straight combat with a bit of backstory here and there, Runescape is the game for you. I've heard it referred to as "Grindscape," but that was from people who haven't played it in a while. At present I always get double xp when I train (mostly because I quest a lot) and the fairly recent combat updates have made the combat system a lot more engaging.

Re: Everquest, the original f2p

[Yoik]

Eve was cool, but only while I had RL friends playing. It was too hard to build trust with new peeps. Honesty, reliability, and known competence are really needed if you want to do more than socialize. I was in a corp with folks I knew, at least 2nd hand, that was part of the FREEGE alliance and things were great. But the world changed, and we found ourselves broke (relatively) and without a common cause. We went different ways, the RL friends dropped out, the 2nd handers went to combat heavy corps, and I tried to meet folks with common interests until I gave up.

Then EQ went f2p! My decade old bard was still there with nice perks, and I didn't feel cheated if I didnt play every day with no monthly fee. The changes made it as easy as WOW, I found a friendly guild, and made great progress to 75 where the a5 merc ran out of steam, and progress depended on finding exp groups. I have now trained a couple minions, and am 3 boxing on a 27 in iMac. Works great, and keeps me as busy as playing a bard had in the days before "melody" made twisting easy.

Lineage II H5 @ L2Sinister.com 4x Rates Server

[Anonymous Coward]

And you are safe choice-wise from winter onwards.

http://www.l2sinister.com/

Warframe

[danknight48]

- Yes, its not a "MMORPG"
- It is a online team based PVE shooter (hellgate london 2013)
- it does require "skill/teamplay", and, not just relying on upgrades.

Give it a blast, its actually pretty good fun. If not, at least its something to pass the time until you find your next MMO.

Wish I had mod points for you!

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I had mod points for you! Well said. Disturbingly accurate. Though with Helms Deep now out, I believe you meant to say "slightly WORSE than a middle eastern dictator".

Re:I recommend non - RPG

[Anonymous Coward]

I like it too,
    Though I found an IMMEDIATE presence of experienced players replaying level 1 who endlessly complained to the new players. No forgivness, mentoring advice, or ability to shrug off a player's first-ever battle error. From their point of view, it was the new guy, in a new game, at the new level, who just ruined their experience. Yuk
    LOTRO is the reverse.

POTBS

[Russell72]

Pirates of the Burning Sea: F2P, and not P2W, with clear options to play the game in whatever style amuses you on the day. The most surprising element of PotBS is that reaching the level cap (2-4 weeks gameplay) allowing you to captain the largest ships, serves to allow full participation in Port Battles; battles lasting up to an hour with 24v24 players deciding which nation will govern a port. I didn't believe when I started playing and someone told me that '... the game really begins at 50.' however out of all the MMOs I have played, from EQ1 through GW2 and about 20 in between, PotBS remains the most engaging and rewarding once you reach the level cap. Furthermore a player driven economy where ships must be built by players ensures that there is a constant demand for economic players (if your ship sinks a few times it is lost and you will need to buy/build a new one).

Star Trek Online (4)

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried many MMORPGs, and found the lack of story or constant grinding through the same quests annoying. (kill 10 whatsits and bring me the pelts) STO quests were every bit as entertaining as watching Star Trek episodes. It built on TNG and DS9 storylines and included parts from the movies. It is free, and I leveled to the max (50) without ever thinking I needed to spend money. Dogfights were very fun, either against a single capitol ship or against multiple smaller craft.
The graphics are amazing along with the plots.

BTW, after hitting level 50, the quests they started pushing at me were boring and repetitive. Just like all the others.

Enjoy

Vindictus, Tera Online...

[nhat11]

Vindictus - Fast live action gameplay. This is the best done 3rd person online action MMO at the moment. It's instant based which is a plus or minus to some. Instant based allows you to jump into the action quick and get to the point.

Tera Online - Tera is know for lack of story and standard quest system but makes up for the gameplay and graphics, so while the story and average quest system will bore some, the gameplay is a redeeming positive that keeps people playing because there's no open world MMO that has live action gameplay. Live action gameplay is slower than Vindictus though.

Aion - It's a solid tab targetting MMO. If you don't want to pay for WoW than this is a good alternative.

Guild Wars 2 - Pretty unique, events happens everywhere so no quests. Does get repetitive too just like quest system as you get higher leveled.

FF14 - Extremely polished game. Questing, events, dungeons, repeatable levequests so different ways to level. Pretty good story for a MMO

Asheron's Call

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck, that brings me back. That was a great game at its peak. Nowadays too few people. If you're going to play at all, Darktide or Frostfell are the only worlds to try.

well, I fled already last year...

[Mirar]

I fled last year, since I hated the horse combat. (I bought the expansion, and I'm on a lifetime account.)
I did some RP and music, but since they had a chatbug and a musicbug that never went fixed, I didn't do much of that either.

If they now killed all the skills, I don't really know what's left.

But anyway, what I tried:
TSW - The Secret World - very nice, but it's not an MMO you keep around in. Too little content. I recommend buying it and playing through, though. Beautiful, and well made. Usually rather mature and nice players as well (if you manage to get through the first areas). Very interesting skill system.
SW:TOR - ok as an MMO. Feels like an MMO. Very buggy, and with "working as intended" as support if something goes wrong - even if you have a paid subscription. I played it until I ran into that wall. Not touching it now, it's not worth the frustration. Try it, maybe you'll be more lucky. Simple, slightly boring skill system.
GW2 - this is a weird one. Beautiful, but combat is fast and random and with respawn. The quests and world is buggy, and even though it's known to bug, they usually don't fix it or help you out of the situations. Similar to SWTOR, I stopped because of a bug. The random combat made it boring to me. They have "world events" or even "world changing events" but it just means events that repeat every 2 hours and nothing actually changes. Very disappointing.
Neverwinter Nights Online - not really an MMO, feels like a solo game where other people sometimes get in the way. I got bored very quickly. I can't say if it's still buggy.

So, my only hope right now is Everquest.

Until then, I'll play Bards Tale and Fallout: New Vegas.

(It feels like a shut-up-and-take-my-money situation: Lots of people are looking for The New MMORPG, but noone is delivering.)

Path of Exile is awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Try Path of Exile (http://pathofexile.com/).

Try Ryzom - established Sandbox PvE MMORPG

[Badaxe]

I can only recommend you try Ryzom (www.ryzom.com)

It has been around for nearly 10 years, so the graphics aren't the latest thing, but this is a Sandbox game that has a lot of unique/unusual features:
- Start as a mage/warrior/whatever but then you can train all other disciplines if you want to
- Weather and seasons that affect gameplay
- Herbivores that form herds and migrate with the seasons
- Predators that hunt singly and in packs and follow the herds
- PvP is limited to certain areas and entirely consensual
- incredibly flexible crafting system for armour+weapons
- open ended lore which evolves depending on players' achievements

It is free to download and free to play up to half way up the levels (minor restrictions apply to non-subscribers) so you have nothing to lose by trying it.

WoW is Survivable

[aykonsilvers]

I have tried many of the other MMOs mentioned in this post but I keep going back to World of Warcraft. When I first started playing it, the class and gear system was still very critical to survival and I found the game very hard to enjoy with my limited time to devote to gaming. My friends were all part of massive deadly guilds and wanted me to join but it was just too much hassle. However, about two years ago I went back to WoW after taking a few years to break and found it to be much more fun for my style of play. I don't have hours to pour into things as I have a full time job, a family with a few kiddos and other "real life" expectations to keep. When I am tired of the drudgery, I can hop on WoW, turn on my headphones and play. I try all kinds of class/race combos, explore the world in many different ways and rarely (if ever) raid or do dungeons. As one of the other posters mentioned, I don't want a game that taxes me mentally after I am already taxed from a day full of demands. I want to come home and unplug. As a result, I think that WoW is the most survivable RPG in that it has a dedicated (though dwindling) user base, it has a strong environment that only goes down at pre-planned points and rarely otherwise. With each new expansion they create, it adds a new and unique element to the game. Granted, I am not sure what they will do now the Pandaria is out. If they expand again, it may be hard to figure out where to go next. But overall, if I want a game that has at least some challenge involved but that I can do solo if I want and don't really care if I play for endgame stuff then WoW is the best bet.

EVE Online

[Anonymous Coward]

People who have only ever played or enjoyed themepark MMOs will not, IMHO, ever "get" what makes EVE Online such a great game. They simply lack a valid source for comparison.

EVE is exactly what you (the player) makes it. Want to play mostly afk while you do other things (like work)? Mine in hisec. Hardcore spreadsheet jockey that never wants to step foot out of the comfort of their home station? Welcome to manufacturing mogulhood/playing the market. Adrenaline junkie who likes facing off against terrible odds and actually coming out on top due to personal skill and knowledge of game mechanics? Nullsec small fleet combat calls your name.

There is literally something for EVERY kind of player in EVE. But they have to know what that something is, train for it, and work into it. The game doesn't hold your hand, in fact it delights in tripping you and kicking you while you're down. That's why it's still the best MMO I've played to date, even though I've drifted in and out of subscription over the last handful of years.

Additionally, there is no skill grind in EVE. It's a remarkably helpful system for people who have to maintain a normal job, doing so via a passive skill training system that is "always learning" even when you're logged out of the game. The only "grind" in EVE is that of money - how you're going to earn enough cash to (pay your sub/buy a new ship/etc), which keeps the commitment as low as you want it to be.

I mean, how many other games have been written about multiple times in the Wall Street Journal?

Star Conflict

[Ormy]

Star Conflict is my current staple MMO. Its mulitplayer like League of legends and World of Tanks (made by same people as WoT), gameplay is semi-physically-realistic space-combat (mouse/keyboard only), VERY similar to freelancer, fast-paced, mostly twitch-based (which is a must for me). Its F2P, you can also P2W if you're not very good, but skilled players will do very well without paying at all. My first MMO was Jumpgate (EU server) and I became a well known player before the EP2 expansion, shortly after which I left with many others. After that I couldn't get into EvE Online at all, I couldn't have any fun unless I had physical control of the ship at least semi-flight-sim style. Played on a few freelancer online servers but the lack of content meant it got old very quickly. I was looking for a good multiplayer space-combat game for a while, and Star Conflict is excellent. However after a few months I'm missing the overall sense of progression and achievement you get from a real MMO. I'm looking forward to Star Citizen and (if it ever materializes) Infinity: Quest for Earth. If anyone has any suggestions along those lines I'd be grateful.

Re: I recommend non - RPG

[NemosomeN]

Ah, should have assumed it was derp.

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