MMOs

[Snowmayne]

I must admit, games are my biggest nerdy side. I've been a gamer since as long as I can remember, with enjoying MMO's at its nerdiest.

I've only played 2, Asherons Call way back in the day and WoW.

Absolutely loved AC, huge sandbox style game, more about skills and ones ability to play the game, over say items and hours spent in game. Been my favorite ever since, and possibly ruined my future possible enjoyment of other said MMO, and those to come in the future. This game felt like you were actually doing things other players haven't done. The true since of adventure was there, and you actually worried about dieing.

WoWs carebear hand-holding type gameplay was terrible imo. I played for 6 months until I quit never to look back again. Nothing ever felt different, everyone had the same armor/weapons and did the exact same thing over and over. While the game has as many subscribers as it does, I think anyone who played MMOs before WoW, hates the game and understands how bad it is and how much it ruined the genre.

So, with that being said, what you you other fellow MMO players, favorite MMOs? Looking foward to any upcoming releases, what are you playing now?

[msicidron]

yeah i played wow and actually just renewed my account for a month to check out all the new shit. honestly the only thing i find fun is the PvP (battlegrounds, arena), which i think is really fun and quite deep combat-wise.

otherwise its a gay game where everything ELSE is a not-fun hassle and which i'm ashamed to say i play from time to time.

account should be expiring soon anyways thank the almighty..

[verklingen]

uo, it's all about uo. . . in heaven i'm sure they're running a populated pre-renaissance server for me. you couldn't say you liked the game for it's pvp or aside from its pvp because pvp was an intrinsic part of the ultima online experience. every dungeon, cave, orc camp -- hell even just the roads between towns -- housed a potential ambush of red players hungry for your blood. joining a reputable guild was necessary not only for survival but also for training and hunting.

the skills system was rudimentary and training them was a definite chore, but the sense of accomplishment upon maxing a skill out and reaching grandmaster level came easy enough for the more basic, practical skills (swords/fencing, anatomy, etc) that you actually felt like you were playing instead of just working for something. although i suppose i'm romanticizing a bit. . . after your first couple chars the process turns old hat as you're just eager to make a playable character able to stand on his own in a fight (or at least get away from an ambush without leaving your corpse behind). some of the useful skills (fishing, mining, blacksmithy, etc) were an absolute bore to train requiring not only time but massive resources.

there was what i guess you'd call a character creation learning curves that many surely found frustrating and inhibiting. when you create a character you had 100 points to divide between 3 skills (or you could choose from templates that already did this for you). you could put up to 50 points in a single skill (100 is grandmaster). after your first character you learn that it's best to put 50 points in 2 skills that are a bitch to train, but nothing in the game makes that apparent. and not only that, but you might think a craft skill such as fletching would be a good pick for your archer. . . wrong. you have a max of 700 total skill points to gain so the best players maxed out 7 skills useful for actual gameplay and created separate crafting characters to supplement their other chars. anatomy increases damage from weapons and hp healed from bandages, evaluate intelligence increases magic damage, magic resistance, well, resists magic damage. these and others were better choices for a devoted warrior, mage or hybrid. but that doesn't make you any less pissed once you realize you spent 50 points in a useless skill that you'll end up chipping away at to beef up something useful.

uo had it's problems, but the main problem was that while the basic mechanics of gameplay generally remained much the same (until the later and imo ridiculous expansions [namely renaissance which created a mirror world where innocent players could not be attacked, thereby diluting the gameplay and taking away any sense of urgency/excitement when exploring or hunting]) patches often tinkered with the way skills synergize to affect damage and other things, therefor nerfing many devoted players who were forced to (if they did not simply quit, as many did) redo skillsets to make the character useful again. the game today must be utterly unrecognizable from what i loved and sadly parted with.

i don't know if i'll ever mmo again. i honestly yearn for an experience like i got with uo (as you can tell by typing all this shit) way too much to ever be satisfied with anything else. nostalgia? maybe. there are still free servers running under older patches and i used to play one a little before the time i joined yahooka. but with maybe 10 players online at any given time it's just not the same. mmo is nothing without the first m. . .

[JcP]

I've played a shitton of MMO's, and Dark Age of Camelot still holds a special place in my heart. I enjoyed WoW for a while because I've been a warcraft fan since the first PC game! But yes, it wore thin and I quit as soon as I hit the endgame in Wrath of the Lich King and realized it was just more grinding bullshit rather than new innovation.

That being said, I am EAGERLY awaiting Star Trek Online (startrekonline.com) . The ship based combat looks like it's skill/tactics based, while ground combat is still the classic mmo hack and slash. Best of both worlds. Plus, it looks great and takes place in the ST universe which, admittedly, I'm a big dork for.

The Old Republic looks cool as well, but that one seems like it's a bit further off.

[Canuck Wisdom]

I must admit, games are my biggest nerdy side. I've been a gamer since as long as I can remember, with enjoying MMO's at its nerdiest.

I've only played 2, Asherons Call way back in the day and WoW.

Absolutely loved AC, huge sandbox style game, more about skills and ones ability to play the game, over say items and hours spent in game. Been my favorite ever since, and possibly ruined my future possible enjoyment of other said MMO, and those to come in the future. This game felt like you were actually doing things other players haven't done. The true since of adventure was there, and you actually worried about dieing.

WoWs carebear hand-holding type gameplay was terrible imo. I played for 6 months until I quit never to look back again. Nothing ever felt different, everyone had the same armor/weapons and did the exact same thing over and over. While the game has as many subscribers as it does, I think anyone who played MMOs before WoW, hates the game and understands how bad it is and how much it ruined the genre.

So, with that being said, what you you other fellow MMO players, favorite MMOs? Looking foward to any upcoming releases, what are you playing now?

I very much agree with your sentiments.

I guess I've played... four MMOs, but only really played one. I started with Dark Age of Camelot (DAOC), and have similar sentiments about it as you do Asherons Call. Its a fantastic game, and through the leveling up process, up till the endgame (which is fantastic as well) it was like you said, a real sense of adventure and items seemed unique, player skill factored in and so on. But as you progress in the game, people more and more have the same 'leet' items and it becomes more about who plays the most, has the most organized guild etc. Still, a fantastic game with a solid endgame in RvR.

After that I played WoW, and it sucked... I mean, it was good... but the hand-holding, and cartoonishness, the fad-ness of it didnt do it for me. Its like the game was designed with money in mind, and attracting the most players, not enjoyability.

I also played Lineage 2 for a while, and it seemed pretty cool, only got about half way through the leveling process though and stopped playing. Kinda got bored, kinda just didnt want to pay to play anymore... needed to do school anyways.

And then finally, this past winter I tried Warhammer online. It was by Mythic, the same people who did DAOC and I had played warhammer fantasy the actual game so it appealed to me a lot to check it out. I didnt get too far into it before I ran out of time and wasnt keen on renewing, again because of school etc. I enjoyed it more than WoW, but again, it was a bit of a hand-holder, which was nice in a way, and I could get right into the PvP action, but kinda lame too... Pretty good.

Anyways, I agree with your sentiments in the OP.

I would love to play a really good fantasy MMO that I could really get into, had a serious sort of artwork (non-cartoonish or anime-ish) and is very open ended in terms of character development. I dont want to feel obliged to follow a certain path of development in order to be effective, and I don't want to be obliged to follow a path because I got myself into it early in the game. Freedom of character development/appearance is important to me.

[Canuck Wisdom]

I've played a shitton of MMO's, and Dark Age of Camelot still holds a special place in my heart. I enjoyed WoW for a while because I've been a warcraft fan since the first PC game! But yes, it wore thin and I quit as soon as I hit the endgame in Wrath of the Lich King and realized it was just more grinding bullshit rather than new innovation.

That being said, I am EAGERLY awaiting Star Trek Online (startrekonline.com) . The ship based combat looks like it's skill/tactics based, while ground combat is still the classic mmo hack and slash. Best of both worlds. Plus, it looks great and takes place in the ST universe which, admittedly, I'm a big dork for.

The Old Republic looks cool as well, but that one seems like it's a bit further off.

Nice man, I played on Merlin Midgard for the most part. My main characters were a Thane and a Hunter. Neither a super leet class, but I enjoyed them for who they were, not for being the best.

[Terry]

When MMOs stop ripping off WoW and do something fun and original I'll be there.

So far fetch quests and grinds does not make for an enjoyable gaming experience, imo.

[Terry]

What I'd like to see:

Somehow mix strategy and role-playing, like say there is an actual in-game political structure. A castle inhabited by a human king/leader with a cabinet, somehow make it so interactions with other castles can get hairy, maybe introduce a resource type system into the game?

Anyways the king can declare war on other kingdoms and the lowly players can duke it out with them if they want, or do some premade NPC quests.

Incorporate huge naval and land battles, have generals who have a core group of soldiers that follow orders while other players just duke it out.

I know this may be asking a lot but personally I think a game like that would be pretty groovy if they could pull it off. I'm just sick of games that say "oh you can be a prince or a market man or w/e" and it's just bullshit, you never do anything of import really and there's no sense of real accomplishment.

[verklingen]

questing is a concept i'm not too keen on in mmo, not when they're built into the game i mean. special events or challenges/invasions are a good way to keep things interesting and work better imo, but if you've gotta quest to develop your actual character and his abilities or whatever rather than just to expand on gameplay i'll be turned off quick.

what i would look for in a new mmo is more freedom in character development and realistic gameplay. combat skills should have whole trees devoted to different classes of weapons and how to use them. dual wielding should be an option with a devoted skill level to enhance effectiveness. weapons and armor should break; you should lose all your shit when you die unless a friend can pick it off your corpse. pvp should absolutely be the focus of any worthwhile mmo because playing with other people is the whole selling point of the genre and combat is the chief element of its gameplay. it should be fluid, sensible, and available to any player at any time should they so choose, free of penalty aside from affecting reputation and pissing off your victim's friends.

mmo was never intended for the casual gamer. it should take some serious balls to create and maintain an elite character

[Terry]

A combat system that doesn't just involve clicking on something until one of you dies would be rather nice.

[al-Mu'akhkhir]

ragnarok online is sweet.

[Snowmayne]

What I'd like to see:

Somehow mix strategy and role-playing, like say there is an actual in-game political structure. A castle inhabited by a human king/leader with a cabinet, somehow make it so interactions with other castles can get hairy, maybe introduce a resource type system into the game?

Anyways the king can declare war on other kingdoms and the lowly players can duke it out with them if they want, or do some premade NPC quests.

Incorporate huge naval and land battles, have generals who have a core group of soldiers that follow orders while other players just duke it out.

I know this may be asking a lot but personally I think a game like that would be pretty groovy if they could pull it off. I'm just sick of games that say "oh you can be a prince or a market man or w/e" and it's just bullshit, you never do anything of import really and there's no sense of real accomplishment.

Darkfall is your answer. You will either love it or hate it though. FFA PVP, very sandboxed style MMO. Huge Naval and land/castle/city type battles all the time inbetween guilds over land/resources.

[Snowmayne]

questing is a concept i'm not too keen on in mmo, not when they're built into the game i mean. special events or challenges/invasions are a good way to keep things interesting and work better imo, but if you've gotta quest to develop your actual character and his abilities or whatever rather than just to expand on gameplay i'll be turned off quick.

what i would look for in a new mmo is more freedom in character development and realistic gameplay. combat skills should have whole trees devoted to different classes of weapons and how to use them. dual wielding should be an option with a devoted skill level to enhance effectiveness. weapons and armor should break; you should lose all your shit when you die unless a friend can pick it off your corpse. pvp should absolutely be the focus of any worthwhile mmo because playing with other people is the whole selling point of the genre and combat is the chief element of its gameplay. it should be fluid, sensible, and available to any player at any time should they so choose, free of penalty aside from affecting reputation and pissing off your victim's friends.

mmo was never intended for the casual gamer. it should take some serious balls to create and maintain an elite character

and this.. really what I am looking for as well.

couple games im interested in right now.

mortal online. all skill based, many different paths u can go down as far as char development. the game is also only first person view since its all skill based. you have to actually be able to hit ur target, its not click on them and auto attack.

aion, more themepark style like WoW, but the game does look pretty amazing.

and the new final fantasy mmo.

[Waves]

daoc was the shit. probably the best designed mmo to this day.

eq is the archetype, some say uo and while they are both mmos i would say that eq is different enough from uo and definitely layed the groundwork for the games that are in existence today. that sense of adventure and epic-ness was one of a kind, and anybody who played it would probably agree.

ive played pretty much every major mmo, i consider it my favorite genre, and it saddens me to no end how the genre turned out today. catering to the lowest common demonenator, easy ass grindy ass bores. the communities mostly suck, the games are rushed out the door half finished until finally a year later the bugs are worked out enough to where the game is actually playable, and by that point 3/4 the playerbase has unsubbed.

i continue to play WoW until something better, head hung low.

aion looks cool but im not going to pay 60 bucks to get WoW with better gfx + wings.

[ionlylooklazy]

i played UO and WoW.

they are both totally different types of game as far as how i played them.

in UO, there was no specific goal. you are just a guy in a world. you acquire skills and possessions. there is no leveling system, the more you used a skill, the more proficient in it you became. you can even buy/sell/place houses/towers/castles in the world and were the ultimate status symbol (castles take up massive space so its a bit hard to find a spot, let alone amass enough gold to buy one). there were cities/forests/dungeons/places to explore, monsters to kill, items to collect, players to fight, players to steal from, you pretty much did whatever you wanted.

a lot of stuff i did in this game involved PvP. like for example, i could come across a guy in the woods with an exotic mount (like a nightmare, which is like a dragon-horse, very powerful mount). i could (if im good enough) kill him and lure his mount away. then i hold his mount for ransom, or just kill his mount (a nightmare can be tough to kill). if i needed a bit of gold quick, rather than go to a popular farming location (aka death traps) and grind, i could pop in using the handy recall/gate spell/scroll, and kill the first person i see (if im good enough) and take whatever gold they had on them.

uo also had a robust economy, there were lots of things bought/sold traded. it didnt have an auction house, but west britain bank (WBB) was the place to go to sell your wares. at WBB you could buy anything from magical weapons/armor, to necessary commodities, services (such as poisoning your weapons, opening a gate (aka a portal) to hot spots, helping you gank a PK'r, or someone to craft you items), to real estate, to antiquities that could range from semi-rare to unique (such as an item handed out by a gamemaster for an event or as a prize)

in wow, things were a lot more organized. there is the leveling system (boo leveling), which is not too hard to get through using the plentiful and available quests which are tied into the games universe. there are places to explore, bosses to kill, items to collect, players to fight, quests to complete. you have similar goals, but wow is oriented more for towards the PVE aspect. To me, what made WoW fun was to get 10-25-40 people working together in harmony to defeat a boss which would otherwise wipe the floor with you. it fun to formulate and debate strategies, how to best utilize and allocate your raid groups resources, guild management, roster management are all properties that must be balanced to be successful against the hardest bosses. pvp in wow is ok, but its the same 4-5 situations over and over, and gets routine when you do enough times.

[Waves]

questing is a concept i'm not too keen on in mmo, not when they're built into the game i mean. special events or challenges/invasions are a good way to keep things interesting and work better imo, but if you've gotta quest to develop your actual character and his abilities or whatever rather than just to expand on gameplay i'll be turned off quick.

Questing can be cool if done right. I hate the whole get 5 quests done while running in a little circle around the zone on my mount only to get 5 more quests in a slightly different looking area with slightly looking different monsters, ala WoWs current system.

I actually liked the EQ system that people bash on where you had to actually converse and type sentances to NPCs to trigger quests. it made them actually feel like quests, like you were personally talking to this NPC and he was personally giving you information for that sweet loot.

when questing becomes stale and meaningless, is when i lose interest.

what i would look for in a new mmo is more freedom in character development and realistic gameplay. combat skills should have whole trees devoted to different classes of weapons and how to use them. dual wielding should be an option with a devoted skill level to enhance effectiveness. weapons and armor should break; you should lose all your shit when you die unless a friend can pick it off your corpse. pvp should absolutely be the focus of any worthwhile mmo because playing with other people is the whole selling point of the genre and combat is the chief element of its gameplay. it should be fluid, sensible, and available to any player at any time should they so choose, free of penalty aside from affecting reputation and pissing off your victim's friends.

mmo was never intended for the casual gamer. it should take some serious balls to create and maintain an elite character

yet mmos catar to the casual gamer because the suits recognize that casuals make up about 90% of the paying customers, if not more. i remember brad mcquaid actually taking the time to hear suggestions and change everquest design decisions based on popular opinion and message board chatter. how times have changed

[Snowmayne]

yeap, the AC, EQ, DOAQ, and UO days have been gone for some time. Companies keep talking about trying to cater to that style of play, it just hasn't been done right. To many small time companies get rushed by the bigger guy and their game fails.

[owK]

What class do you play waves? Orc shaman here

[Snowmayne]

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[Waves]

What class do you play waves? Orc shaman here

currently playing an undead priest on Bleeding Hollow. leveling through northrend. yawn.

wow can be fun if you play with people you know, other than that its a grindfest for me.