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JoeVertigo
Member UncommonPosts: 37
Howdy.
I'm currently looking for a new game. Things I'm after:
- Mature and active community.
- 101% persistent world.
- Very high level cap, no level cap or (preferably) no level at all - focus on one character.
- Extensive crafting system.
- A choice of combat/non-combat (economy? politics? crafting?) activities in a ratio remotely close to 50/50.
- Players actually affecting the in-game world.
- World PvP that actually makes you run away and die running, preferably no arenas of any sort.
- Interface that doesn't make you wanna bite the keyboard.
- No real-cash to in-game items nonsense.
- Oh yeah, and nothing with an anime design, I'm allergic to that.
- Other than that I really don't give a rat's ass about the level of graphics, sound or the theme of the game.
- Hmmm, shall I just sum it up in a term 'sandbox?
I'm just gonna give you some info on what I've played and what's my opinion (I repeat - my opinion) about these games.
- WoW - That's a decent game, but you can actually finish it. I almost did when I played before the expansion. Got bored to my very core in the middle of yet another BWL raid. It was only fun to defeat the bosses for the first time, at the point you're killing all ORBs in one go for the hundredth time it's like memorizing dictionary. Plus, it's not really THAT hard, but of course there is some urban legend in WoW saying that only the leet are able of some tasks. Well, the game is fairly easy and the only winning factor is motivation and time. Another thing is that PvP is a joke in this game, arenas are like a very poor version of CS and world PvP is non-existent (other than camping mobs or mining nodes). One thing that probably will amaze you is that I actually liked the community, the average was quite decent on the servers I played.
- GW - Ok, this is not even an MMO. Instanced areas? Wait... what? This is a solo game with built-in MSN and an option to play with other people that hardly anybody takes advantage of. The impressive array of skills and the secondary professions looked quite promising, but eventually all comes down to cookie-cutter builds and a terribly unbalanced gameplay. 3 campaigns + 1 expansion make it so inconsistent and chaotic that instead of having a huge world you are lost in a poorly designed maze. The idea behind the game is great ('skill>time'), but as long as it requires no skill it's lost. I really like lots of the concepts in GW, but most of them have been drowned in a very chaotic design of the game (which is the effect of basically having 4 games in one). And don't even start me on community in there...
- AO - I've only played that for about 4 hours and although I heard it's an awesome game (and I still believe it is) the interface made me cry. I'm not lost within all the panels of Flash, but I got lost in AO.
- EVE - I'm trying it right now. It looks very promising. No cap on anything, no forced specialization, player driven economy, factions, manufacturing, being afraid of getting shot down, full looting of the wrecks, renegades and bounty hunters, traders and scammers, miners and scientists... I could go on. And something I couldn't believe - GMs that actually are in the game. I was greeted in a private convo and asked if I need any help by a person that is employed by the very company that makes the game. In WoW you could wait 3 days to get spawned on the correct graveyard after a bug. The only thing that worries me about EVE is that at the beginning it might take 3 months of mining and learning some basic skills to actually get going anywhere else.
If you have any recommendations I'm all ears (well, eyes in this case), just please backup your opinions with something. Thanks in advance.
EDIT: Betas recommendations also welcome.
Joe Vertigo
Comments
I'd recommend giving Star Wars Galaxies a try. To make things easier, I'll copy your list and put my answers in red
- Mature and active community.
This will vary from server to server and even faction to faction, but the community I'm involved with on my server is probably one of the best I've met in a game and even better then some of the RL communities I know of
The people are friendly, helpful and have a great sense of humour that keeps me entertained.
- 101% persistent world.
Aren't all MMO's persistent by design? Yes, SWG is a persistent world: If you drop something on the landscape it'll be there until you remove it/it gets destroyed.
- Very high level cap, no level cap or (preferably) no level at all - focus on one character.
The level cap is 90. You can have two characters per server, with the usual thing being that most people make one combat character and one non-combat character (an Entertainer or Crafter).
- Extensive crafting system.
SWG has a pretty elaborate crafting system from the resource collecting to the actual crafting process. It can be quite a bit of effort to get set up as a crafter with all the needed resources for your specialisation of choice. The majority of items in the game are crafted and can't be replaced by loot or reward items so crafting plays a pretty important role in the game.
- A choice of combat/non-combat (economy? politics? crafting?) activities in a ratio remotely close to 50/50.
Combat certainly isn't your only option, even for characters with combat professions. The game allows the freedom of imagination to create your own content, which could be anything from house deco, collecting, shopping, community building, city building, building your own event for others to participate in and so on.
- Players actually affecting the in-game world.
Every server in SWG looks a little different in some way as there are very few restrictions on where you can place your house or if you're more daring, player city (outside of planet restrictions, of course). Although they're not permanent, you also have the ability to design areas of the landscape through the use of storyteller items to make your own events/quests.
- World PvP that actually makes you run away and die running, preferably no arenas of any sort.
SWG does lack a death penalty at the moment, other then a 5k fee to cure your "cloning sickeness" so there isn't an incentive to do everything you can to stay alive other then pride. Killing someone does put you at risk of having a bounty put on your head that any Bounty Hunter can collect and hunt you down for. The Bounties are placed by the people you death blow and can range from 20k to 2mil credits. For Bounty Hunters, this can be a pretty good credit make for them.
While there are PvP zones (areas you can't enter unless you're PvP enabled, or Special Forces as it's known in SWG), none of these are instanced and are open to anyone (Restuss has a minimum lvl 75 restriction though). PvP can and does happen anywhere in the game and on many servers, it's common for people to create PvP events in some of the more exotic areas of the game. You'll also find that many people stay PvP enabled no matter what they're doing in game so there's always a high chance of random PvP happening anywhere.
- Interface that doesn't make you wanna bite the keyboard.
The default keymap could do with some tweaking, but the keymap options are rather customisable and will let you change pretty much every option to any key or button combo of your choice. If you don't like the way you have to do something, it pays to check your keymap options as you'll likely find that you can change it to something that's better for you.
- No real-cash to in-game items nonsense.
Officially, this is not allowed and anyone caught participating in this gets banned. However, like any MMO, there are credit farmers and sellers.
- Oh yeah, and nothing with an anime design, I'm allergic to that.
Nope, no anime
Well, Vertigo, Eve could be the thing for you. Send me an EveMail, Convo me, or just post your ingame-name and ill give you some bucks to start.
By they way, you dont have to mine 23/7 for several months just to afford some pvp or anything else. Just join a nice corporation and they will help you with the basics and get you into something bigger to make your own cash.
Hey Obraik he's looking for a game like Precu SWG then. Not NGE from what I read! And I'm not trying to start a fight here either just giving an opposing view. As far as crafting goes OP, yes SWG is hard to get set up but once you are set up there is no item decay so once you sell a set of, oh say, armor to someone they don't need to come back because the armor never breaks the only time they will come back is if they are leveling up but once they are capped and get the best set of armor you sell no more and there are plenty of weapons that drop that are far better than anything that can be crafted. The ecomony is totally broken compared to Precu when there was item decay and the best weapons and armor were player made not drops.
From what I read OP you are looking for a game like Ryzom it has all/most of the elements you are looking for but the game went into bankruptcy like three weeks ago unfortunately. I would keep an eye on Ryzom and see if it gets sold to another company if I were you.
Thanks for extensive info, I really appreciate it.
I'm gonna check out the trial. But what's that epic disaster I keep reading about that made lots of people leave SWG after some update (expansion?)?
Guild Wars is not. The only areas you can meet other players randomly are towns and outposts. You've also got guild halls and PvP arenas, but that's not random. Other than that every team gets their own copy of the area they are in - everything is instanced.
That's the thing, I happened to play on one WoW PvE server and all the PvP flagging thing was ridiculous, how does it work in SWG?
I meant that micro-payment thing that makes people buy in-game items for hard cash from the company, I'm fully aware that farmers are in every single MMO and there's nothing really anyone could do about it.
Guild Wars is not. The only areas you can meet other players randomly are towns and outposts. You've also got guild halls and PvP arenas, but that's not random. Other than that every team gets their own copy of the area they are in - everything is instanced.
SWG has a few instances, but these are generally very specific areas for a quest. The only exception to this is on Kashyyyk where they experimented with instanced zones. However, this was a big difference to the rest of the game which is completely open with no pathing and was unpopular so they haven't done this again.
That's the thing, I happened to play on one WoW PvE server and all the PvP flagging thing was ridiculous, how does it work in SWG?
If you're prepared to PvP then you visit a recuriter and request to go Special Forces or you type /pvp to achieve the same thing out in the field. Unless you do that, you can't be attacked by another player unless you have a bounty on you. In that scenario, as long as you're not in a private house, you can be attacked by a bounty hunter with your mission at any time in any location.
I meant that micro-payment thing that makes people buy in-game items for hard cash from the company, I'm fully aware that farmers are in every single MMO and there's nothing really anyone could do about it.
Ah, I misunderstood what you meant
Other then the rewards you get for buying certain combo packs of the game, there's no items in game you have to pay RL money for.
I signed up for this site yesterday in hopes to convert some MMORPGers to Voyage Century Online and boy it seems like what everyone wants. Click here to download the game: http://www.igg.com/<Mod edit>
I play on the Magellan server and have a post in this forum about VCO. I'll answer any questions you may have if you choose to pursue this game. My name on Magellan server is "Jeb." Just add me to your friend's list.
Now...to answer your queries:
- Mature and active community.
I'm 21 years old. Most of my companions on the Magellan server are 18 or older. There are the odd kids running around, but most of them just want help from the older gamers. There's no "n00b-calling" and cheap shots in PvP areas...all un-sportsman-like behavior in game is deeply frowned upon and more often than not results in an account suspension.
- 101% persistent world.
The world you play in is the world your characters lives in. The marketplace (aside from NPC shops) is 101% player created and player managed. The living economy is crazy, and you'll find people to team up with or fight against everywhere you go. Every area (except the beginning four cities) is a PvP area. Every area is accessible to every player at any time. The only place fighting isn't allowed is within the walls of a town. However every city has a vast "suburb" area that is basically the PvP country side. Every point on the ocean is a PvP area although there is an unspoken rule that you don't PvP the oceans around beginning cities. You can if you really want to, however...but don't expect any comraderies after doing so.
- Very high level cap, no level cap or (preferably) no level at all - focus on one character.
The level cap in VCO is interesting. You can level all your skills up to level 31 (which takes a good chunk of time, mind you.) After level 31 you may pick up to 8 skills to upgrade at the Skill Tutor NPC. Those 8 skills have a new cap of 100. 100 is the higest level achievable when talking about skills. There are other things to level up such as notoriety, reputation and your ship that have no cap.
- Extensive crafting system.
Kill a sheep, get some wool, make some cloth, make some clothes, sell at market. The crafting system is basic when creating level 1 items but as you get higher in the crafting levels the materials needed and methods to obtain them become increasingly difficult. I'm not big on crafting, but the marketplace for these items are huge because it takes so much to get the good stuff at higher levels.
- A choice of combat/non-combat (economy? politics? crafting?) activities in a ratio remotely close to 50/50.
You'll never have to draw your sword. Unless you want to, that is. The economy/politics plays a huge role in this game. Maybe as much as the combat can. The merchant trade is very popular amongst the older players because it is the most profitable. Fighting tends to be more popular for the newer players but once they get the levels they desire to hold their own in higher level towns they tend to switch to the merchanting system. I havn't delved much into the politics aspect, but it's all based on reputation and the amity between you and various other cities. Your political standing will be higher if you're in good standing with two allies as opposed to being in good standing with two feuding cities. Cities are generally guild controlled.
- Players actually affecting the in-game world.
A key point at sea is the nightly shipments of pirate goods (Every 24 game-hours, or 24 minutes real time.) If you're late you'll be lucky to get a chance to battle one of these pirate smuggling ships. Late at night it's much easier to get a hold of these tricky little bastards. When animals die they respawn 2 minutes later, so I'm not sure how this ranks on your affecting the world scale. Should be noted that in the newbie cities resources are often depleted because of over-harvesting of the new fellas.
- World PvP that actually makes you run away and die running, preferably no arenas of any sort.
There is only one arena...and no need to use it. The arena is for making "official" fights in which you can bet certain against each other. As for world PvP almost the entire place is PvP. The only place where fighting isn't allowed is within city walls.
- Interface that doesn't make you wanna bite the keyboard.
Lol. Not sure what you mean by this...the interface is simple. Mouse clicks for simple action and movements...let's of menus to navigate but you can set keyboard shortcuts.
- No real-cash to in-game items nonsense.
Unfortunatly...but it's not terribly overbalancing. You can buy things like "double-xp brochures" and other things that boost your xp while using particualr skills. They last for about an hour and end up giving you about 100-150K additional experience for that hour. 100K isn't much xp at all in this game.
- Oh yeah, and nothing with an anime design, I'm allergic to that.
Nope, no anime. Historically accurate dress and design.
- Other than that I really don't give a rat's ass about the level of graphics, sound or the theme of the game.
Graphics are decent. Nothing too snazzy, but at least it won't give you "runescape eyes." The sounds are on a minimilistic level. Some BG music and littls dings when you level. Waves, chopping trees, mining sounds...stuff like that. The theme is obvious. It's based in the 1200s before the discovery of America.
- Hmmm, shall I just sum it up in a term 'sandbox?
That's pretty much what it is...except your kinda stuck in one city if you don't venture out to sea at least once.
i'm not sure when the last time you tired it was, but there's a newish tutorial that pretty much walks you through the basic mechanics and gameplay now. it's free to play, and if you don't have another game you're playing anyway, it's worth another look.
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TheCore