meh, honest mistake On the subject of MMOs, though a bit off course: Any heard anything about Blizzard's "Project Titan"? You know, the one being released some time in the 32nd century
Two spring to mind... The original Star Wars Galaxy - it felt just right, a proper community and lots of things to do. I spent six months just being a musician, playing and chatting! I felt like I was in the Star Wars universe and I wish they had left it alone! Lord Of The Rings Online - again I think they got Tolkien's world and lore just right. I felt like I was in middle earth and I felt like I was part of a great quest. The graphics were stunning for the time and the soundtrack was perfect. Unfortunately due to a career change I had to stop playing. I lied - there were three... City of Heroes was great fun - I loved the side-kick feature which gave you a fighting chance in some of the more tricky places. The skill tree was implemented well and always kept you playing. Ultimately though, the same quest locations again and again let it down. I don't play MMORPG's anymore as I can't spare the time (too much Arma!). I also don't like the Free To Play model that seems to be the norm these days - I always feel like I am being forced to by stuff I don't want, just so I can progress. It's probably psychological and I am going to have to get over it as in the future all games will me driven by micro-transactions.
Top to bottom on my list... EvE Online - best overall MMO for it's vast options of how you want to play the game, aditionally it's the only MMO where the economy plays the major role and where wars over the ressources have an impact on the whole playerbase. It's the only real living and breathing MMO-universe. SWG pre NGE - like EvE it had one of the best economic systems in place and the possibility to make your character known etc. Space and ground in one world was epic aswell. Sadly there was this patch we don't want to talk about. DAoC - 3way faction PvP and epic sieges with hundreds of players. Nough said Neocron - one of the best ideas for an MMO to date, but bugridden as hell and poorly maintenanced by Reakktor. Still the game was more fun then most others. WoW pre WotLK - best PvE-raiding. Sunwell, Mount Hiyal and Black Temple... give me those headaches in new MMOs again please. More modern MMOs are simply too easy when it comes to raids and dungeons... just look at SWTOR STO - only problem with STO was the very little content, but it was cool to have space and ground mixed up. If they would've had twice as much content at release, especially for endgame-content then it would've been much better. I'm waiting for The Secret World, Prime and ArcheAge.
EVE Online: Granted its hard to get into (Google eve learning curve for a nice graph showing it!). However i think the new player experience has been greatly improved since i started. The sandbox- eve is one one server, you can potentially cause things that can affect 1000's of players, the economy is completly player driven freedom to do anything in the game. (No classes) You can do almost anything you like. Skill progression whilst offline (can be a pro and a con at same time tho). PVP - True very unfogiving but you can get some massive fights, this was the first game that actual gave me an adreneline rsh on my first kill. Loads of stuff lol. 4 years i have been playing it! lol
I would agree that BC raids were great, I honestly feel that the WotLK, and more so Cata, raids were designed far better. They just feel more immersive to me. Not to mention needing smaller groups - organising a 40-man is not fun!
At the moment I like SWTOR and LOTRO, mainly SWTOR as it's a new MMO but I think I'll be going back to LOTRO. I'm playing SWTOR because I'm a SW fan and this game looked like it could crack the mould for MMOs but I'm starting to get a little bored around level 40-50. Let's hope the major update in April will change that. But I love LOTRO, it's so big and they keep adding free content, there is alot to do I have been playing from launch on and off and I still haven't capped a character, with there being seven classes I keep switching between them both. The graphics and maps are awesome for an MMO, you can furnish your home, too much to state here. But did I mention it's now free.
EVE online, being like a real second life for some...tens of thousands of people making decisions that influence others.. and change their game for them. A true MMO.
Don't own Cata so can't comment on their raids, but WotLK raiding always felt a little "washed-out" if that makes any sense. I blame how easy they were, and how easy it was to get public raid groups. A lot of the excitement in BC raiding for me was getting ready for the scheduled raid date and time, hopping on Vent with all of my friends and guildmates, then struggling to progress. It all felt very important. Advertising in trade chat and ending up in a cobbled together half guild half pub run whenever you feel like it and successfully doing fairly high end content ruined it. Really spoiled what would have otherwise been very interesting raids and bosses. Ulduar in particular always caught my eye.
Hmm. Well, EQ1 I played for a loong time, so that has to be mentioned and is probably my favorite. Vanguard was actually my favorite combat mechanics wise, and it's a shame the game was so poorly managed as it had so much potential. Rift is what I currently play and it is the first game where reaching max lvl does not leave me bored and wanting to quit (bizzarely it's also the first game I played lots where the lvling experience underwhelmed me due to being too easy). For the post EQ1 era, Rift is my favorite MMO by far, it helps that I run a Guild with a bunch of crazy people with whom I am often on Skype with. LotRO was ok, it amused for a short while but on the whole I was disappointed, I just didn't feel heroic enough, in most games I was able to pull out something special to survive and win nasty situations, in LotRO I always felt more constrained with what I could do. EQ2 was a distinctly ok game, not much more I can say than that - certainly a disappointing successor to EQ1 WoW, well, lots of people love the game and I've no interest in reducing this thread into a flame war, so I won't go into detail of why I really hate this game, lets just say it doesn't make my list of favorites
Personally, ive just returned to WoW after a short break in which I tried EVE Online again and SWToR. EVE Online, I suppose it's good but honestly there's just too much choice on what to do. I found myself logging on and thinking "I wanna PvP, no wait I wanna mine, no wait! Mission running!". The main issue with the game is that it bombards you with so much choice early on and then when you start along one of them paths, it's a time consuming process to change. If only you could have a "Master reset" or something, allowing you to correct your bad skill/career choices SWToR, it was loads of fun at the start of the game! Played through each starting zone and enjoyed the whole story of it. But after a while, the stories got a bit boring, the flashpoints got a bit more dull, the pvp just wasn't exciting. For me, the "magic" of the early game just doesn't carry. This all brings me back to WoW. I never played pre WoTLK, so I started my first character, a warrior, from there I followed the DPS route all the way to level 55, had some fun in the dungeons and actually questing. Then, the role of a Death Knight just appealed to me, so I made one. 17 days of playtime later, i'm sat with an 85 Death Knight, a 30 Hunter and a 20 Rogue. And for some reason, even though it was mostly a tedious grind, I can still find a lot of fun from this game! So guys, where's the hate coming from? I just don't see it.
Guild Wars is still my favorite, though I enjoyed LoTRO until the update that destroyed my class. When they say we're not reverting the change, or applying an easy fix, we're gonna make you wait six months for any help, I don't see any point to rewarding their behavior.
I played WoW pretty hardcore from vanilla through to Wrath. That expansion killed it for me. I loved vanilla, BC was even better aside from having to reorganize to sort out 25 man raids. Wrath was just too easy, no sense of progression. EVE however still has me. I've seen a tiny amount of the game so far, even though I've played on and off for two years or so. However the complexity and depth of the game just keeps me coming back for more and more..... even when I lose a ship to stupidity. Like tonight. (co-incidentally still looking for a decent corp.... nudge nudge!)
I've played WoW on and off since vanilla and I'll admit I've never once hit the level cap on any expansion before the next one came out, I think my highest character is a lvl 72. I find the grinding boring as hell. Raids are ok but usually you wind up with a load of derps. The fact there is no risk sucks the fun out as well, the worst that can happen to you is a repair bill for armour which is no risk at all. I've played Guild Wars, got silly good at PvP and got bored so left. Myth of Soma, anyone remember that? Used to absolutely love that game. My favourite has got to be EVE online. The simple scope of it. 32 different types of ship class (not including newbie ships, shuttles and unique designs) 4 races to choose from each having individual versions of those 32 ships types, so we are already on 128 individual ship classes. There are anywhere between 1 and 6 different ships per class (basic frigates 6 for each race to Titan biggest ship ingame 1 for each race) The fact that if you get blown up in your ship, that ship, the money that bought it, the modules that form your weapons, propulsion, defence etc are either destroyed or left intact in the wreck for your opponent to steal and if your escape pod should be destroyed, you wake up in a clone body as your consciousness gets transported to it at the moment of death but the expensive cybernetic implants you had are gone, so the one that cost you 300 million that gave you a damage/armour/speed bonus is long gone. If you are prone to stupidity then EVE will ruin you and laugh in your face. Although you can never be permanently screwed. If you dock in a station without a ship you get given a free one, small, weak, but can complete level 1 missions for small rewards and slowly build yourself back up from nothing. A few videos worth watching if you have any interest in trying EVE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrrVDV_NsNo <-- latest expansion trailer (expansions are free) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkzv-3vJn4w <-- I find this video hilarious Join "special Situations Public Channel or look up "Special Situations". My corp are Wormhole dwellers. We live in a C5 and run sleeper sites with carriers and dreadnoughts. We raid our static C3 and sometimes find something to shoot in there too, failing that, we sometimes get wormholes opening up into low security or null security space and we go on raids for the lulz. If you can fly a dread, rapier, loki or guardian we will love you forever as we always wind up short on those pilots due to time zone issues.
Eve Online for me too... played it for 6 years solid! Big plus... you can pay for game time with in-game ISK! Even at times give to charity using in-game ISK! (Japanese tsunami was the last one I think) Though, due to the fact I have other stuff that needs doing (and the fact that no other games have really been played since starting to play Eve) I'm giving it a break for 6months to a year
That's all exactly how I feel too! If/when you ever get bored of Rift, you might like to check out Project 99.
