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Yet another "what should I play" thread.
Chamberlain
Member Posts: 103
Hi all.
I must admit, at this point, I'm stumped.
I think you all know the opening. I've played EQ for this long, DAoC for that long, and I'm sick of the WoW community after 4 long years and 2 level 80 raiders. I will always treasure the memories of playing with my friends in-game, but it's time to move on.
I'm currently playing Vanguard. At this point it's just a matter of skipping from game to game, firing up trials, seeing what will take up the next 2 weeks until I get sick of it. Vanguard is cool, but there's hardly ever anybody playing. The game is deep, but it's over the top deep, it almost comes off as pretentious with it's unnecessarily massive cities, huge continents, and you can't do a single quest without it turning into an epic quest line that you're expected to spend weeks on, for an item that could easily be replaced by spending 2 or 3 gold on the broker/auction house. I like epic, and deep, but that's a little too epic for my taste. But I also am tired of the WoW formula, with its numbers based system outweighing player skill by a huge margin, allowing people who don't even like video games to play to the top tier of content just because they're able to see the game as a number crunch instead of an immersive RPG experience.
I spend alot of time browsing forums, reading preview/review lists for MMO's. I'd like to find something pretty recent, so I don't have to start at the bottom while everybody else is at the level cap, and there's nobody to group with. I've read up on Spellborn a bit, and Darkfall, but these seem to be PvP limited, and I'm not a fan of PvP. I believe it brings a malicious feel to the game, and encourages people to be rude to other players. That may not be your opinion, and that's fine. But if I want to kill other players, I'll play TF2 or L4D. So if there's a decent MMO out there with little to no PvP, I won't complain.
So, are there any recommendations? I've tried EQ2, Vanguard, WAR, AoC, LotrO and am a veteran of WoW and EQ at this point. It just feels like there's nothing else out there to try. I don't care if there's not 10 million people like WoW, but I don't want to play a game that's on life support either, and going down in a few months.
Sorry for the wall of text, and thanks for reading. Cheers. 
Science flies people to the moon. Religion flies people into buildings.
Comments
Well you've almost covered them all. Are you into strictly fantasy or is sci fi an option? - EVE and SWG
Have you tried DDO (Dungeon and Dragons Online - Turbine) it's different and parts of it are very kewl.
Stipulating that the game has to be newer makes this much harder, especially as so much of the new stuff is PVP based.
Have you tried Final Fantasy or Lineage (I haven't tried either myself)?
Me and my hubby are having the same problem. We currently play LOTRO a couple nights a week and he's playing SWG again while I play Istaria (Horizons) again to satisfy our missing needs from LOTRO. I think we will always be hunting for the next game. You know it's bad when you hold back on levelling characters so you can save some new content for next month.
LOTRO
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
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"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
I have heard many good things about Final Fantasy. I've been mere moments from trying it in the past, but I was always worried that had just been out for way too long, and I would be all alone in the starting areas with nobody to talk to or play with. If that's not the case, I might just give it a shot. (I'm a HUGE FF Single player game fan)
I have tried LOTRO. I actually still own the game, and have it installed, I just don't have an active subscription. I really didn't play for long, maybe a month. I was kind of turned off by the odd graphics, but it did seem to have the potential to be pretty deep.
As far as EVE goes, I've heard it's all about spaceships. I more into the fantasy genre, but I have no problem with Sci Fi. Star Wars was one game I always regretted not trying, but once again... seems old, and I don't like joining on the tail end of something that's been out for 5 or so years. It doesn't have to be released like last week, but 2006 or later would be nice. Am I misinformed about EVE? I mean, I don't mind flying a spaceship sometimes, but is it just all that, and blowing up other players? I really don't care much for PvP, as mentioned. A little bit of it is fine, but I don't like trying to immerse myself in something, only to a have a giant throng of experienced players just come up and crush me because they have nothing better to do.
How has LOTRO been holding up? It seems to show up on most of the recent best MMO lists. I found it to be a little bit clunky when it came to combat and such, but that was almost immediately after release.
Science flies people to the moon. Religion flies people into buildings.
Sounds like you're in a MMO burnout ATM, just like me. I've played almost every p2p games out right now except Darkfall (which I'm not going to even try unless I can pick a physical copy of the game in a store and not pay "euros" over the web to a company of 15 people) and now i'm trying to find a new game, but honeslty I don't think it's been released yet.
I suggest try some single player or console games till something new launches. Right now there are about 10 mediocre fantasy games and 1 extremely in-depth sci-fi game (Eve)
Waiting for:
Blizzards Next MMO in 2014, lol
Previous poster's right you're probably just in burnout mode. Playing the same MMO for years does that.
Unfortunately what that probably means at the moment is that you will bounce from game to game rarely playing for more than a month or so until you inevitably get bored and return to your long-term MMO; maybe with the same character or possibly rerolling to a different faction/server. Or not, some people quit the genre entirely.
It's a pretty boring state of affairs and seems to last about 6-months to a year amongst most of the people I've known to be affected by the same sense of ennui (myself included) but it's just one of those things. There's no real answer to the question.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
EVE is the most freeform game you will ever play. Anything you want to do, there is a skill for. If you want to mine, pirate, pvp, Electronic Warfare, transport, production, sales, marketing, politics, etc...there are skills for everything. And while yes, you are locked into your ship (for now until Ambulation at the end of this year), this game is COMPLETELY open. You never have to pvp if you dont want to (unless you get that very rare occasion of being suicide ganked...but i have been playing for almost 6 months..never seen it). It might seem slow at first, and money making is a bit tougher in the beginning, it escalates quickely. Worst you can do is try the trial....if you like deep and complex games (like VG) you will love EVE.
Thanks for all of the replies folks.
I really like this Genre, and have had a subscription to something pretty much since EQ in 1999. I really don't want to not play anything right now, so I'll probably stick with Vanguard, even if I have no plans to get to the end-game. There seems to be enough to do without ever getting to the end game raids or becoming epic-geared. I've been trying to stick with L4D, but it's getting kind of boring playing the same 4 scenarios over and over again, and the upcoming add-on is just adding more stuff for VS mode, which I really don't care for anyway.
What about this spellborn game? is this out in NA? Does anybody have any advice about it?
Science flies people to the moon. Religion flies people into buildings.
If you really want player skill to matter, you should try Guild Wars. You get to the level cap with essentially perfect gear very quickly, and then it's player skill that differentiates one player from another. The game has a PvP side and a PvE side, but they're kept rigidly separate, and many (most?) players do one or the other exclusively or nearly so.
As for The Chronicles of Spellborn, supposedly the North American closed beta for starts any day now. I don't think they've given a release date for it yet.
Ugh... lol.
I've been browsing the games list all night. I closed all my subs tonight, I'm just so tired of all of them. I need something casual right now I think. I'm so used to having to conform to raid night and times, and answer to a hundred different people from 4 years of WoW.
Lots of these free ones look pretty cool. I wanted to try the free trial of DDO, but it gave me some BS error about being out of codes for my region. Sigh.
I like some of these casual looking anime MMOs. My buddy has been talking up Bloodymare too. I might give that a shot, but the client download is painfully slow, even on my fast connection.
What are some really solid free MMOs? Something just to kill a few hours here and there when I get the itch. I think 2009 is going to have alot of really cool releases, but I'm done trying games that have been out for a while.
Sigh... I've been in this racket since 1998. I hate to say maybe I'm done with the genre, but it's so alive right now. I really want to stick around and start something with a new community and learn with everybody else like I did with EQ and WoW... maybe Aion will brighten my day, I just don't wanna wait for it to come out :P
Thanks again for all the replies.
Science flies people to the moon. Religion flies people into buildings.
thats why I no longer raid in any game
- I'll save scheduling for Real Life
EQ2 fan sites
I went through the same thing and have been trying out every game possible. The ones I really have found to be great games are LoTRO and FFXI. I started FFXI about two years ago, pretty late still, and have been back every few months since; still a very steady and semi-large population especially with everything they've introduced lately.
LoTRO I'm playing now and enjoying it very much. My last active MMO being WOW, it's not a breath of fresh air in terms of gameplay, but in content, quality, and minimal grinding it's been a very enjoyable experience so far.
I'd have to admit, I really did like EQ2 the 3 months or so I played it. I took a barbarian shadowknight up to level 41, and I loved how most races could be most classes. And the graphics were just too badass.
I heard things "changed" though. Never heard really how. Some say they essentially turned it into a WoW-like easy mode. Granted alot of parts of WoW aren't terribly easy, but the EQ2 I remember took alot more paying attention than WoW did.
Science flies people to the moon. Religion flies people into buildings.
Yeah, I still have the LOTRO boxed version. It's pretty recent, only has one expansion out.... I intended to hop back in and try it again tonight, but the 2200 something file update kind of turned me off, lol. I will however be turning it on tonight to download so I can give it another go sometime this week.
But LOTRO is my last hope... sigh. I'd love to give FF a try, but it takes me to this crazy fileplanet site where I need to sign up and give my credit card just to download the free trial. IMO a company like square/enix should be enabling their own download, like the WoW/DDO/VG/EQ etc trial versions.
I'm just so depressed about this whole thing, lol. In a non serious way of course, but man I miss my WoW friends, but just the thought of logging in and grinding more Hodir rep, or doing another sleepwalk heroic makes me sick to my stomach, heh.
Science flies people to the moon. Religion flies people into buildings.
I started really disliking WOW when BC launched and went ahead and leveled and raided quite a bit and ended up getting burnt out. My brother and I put a lot (too much) hope into WOTLK and when it came out, during the leveling process, rekindled my interest to WOW, then we started farming heroics and it was the same old end-game again. I farmed heroics for about a month and decided that was it and this time I really don't plan on going back, though most of my online friends reside there.
FFXI has always been a pain in the ass in terms of the account, trial, everything. The launcher they used did nothing but cause me problems, but I had friends who never had an issue, just wish they wouldn't of used FilePlanet for their trial. The game, tho, is amazing. If you like more of the old school MMOs and the "hunting party" mentality, which I love.
I quit LOTRO after my free month at launch just because with the PC I had at the time I had to run the graphics extremely low and it just looked like garbage. Upgraded my system tho, and love the game.
The market right now just doesn't have much that appeals to me. I actually bought AOC this morning as a digital download, installed it and managed to play for about an hour before I logged and jumped back on LOTRO. The genre is bland, there's a few quality titles, but they're either old or pretty casual. I'd say just find whatever you can stomach until something better comes out; Aion, MO, Fallen Earth, etc.
Regardless of how much a pain FFXI is to get running, tho, it is worth checking out if you've never played it, it really is. Has to be one of the top MMOs, bottom line.
You don't have to conform to a raid schedule. You never had to. You chose to. If you wish to choose not to, then play a game not based around the worst sort of life-devouring raiding.
Such as Guild Wars. Nearly anything that can be done, can be done in a time block of under an hour, starting whenever is convenient for you. Log on whenever you like, grab as many or as few other players as you like, fill in the remaining spots (if any) with henchmen and heroes, and go. Guild Wars fits around your life, rather than demanding that you schedule your life around the game.
And it's a better game than WoW in a lot of other ways, too.
You are definitely sounding like me atm, in burnout mode. I have tried almost every game out there as well and still looking. Vanguard was a damn good game though now that they have fixed most of the issues. I definitely urge you to try EVE, it has a decent learning curve but if you have time on your hands I suggest it. I would play it if i had the funds but unemployed atm and going to school so don't have the time to sink into EVE. I have read some unreal stories about players in corporations picking up a contract on a player in the game and planting spies into said players corp. and moving up the ranks and then 10 months later they ambushed said player and then had a spy in the corp. in every hangar of that corp and take every item and lot form every hangar the corp had and then killed the said player (head of the corp) and "podded" them meaning actually killing the player and raping them of everything the had in the game. Now that's some crazy sandbox shit right there. They looted and estimated 10 billion ISK (eve money) and not sure if the player that was killed ever played again lol. Anyways, if you actually followed that then you understand how open that game is but I assure it's time consuming. Other than that I would just wait for SWTOR or mortal online which is supposedly another open sandbox game. Not sure if you have tried WAR or not but they have a free trial now on there website and not through fileplanet.com anymore.
Former Hardcore WoW raider here (well... i kinda gave up on the game sometime during TBC). Been hopping from game to game since then.
If you're looking for a free fantasy MMO, i guess give Runes of Magic a go. I quite like that you can dual-class in this game (im playing a priest/mage) - i can't comment on what the game is on later levels since i only play it very casually.
I've also been playing Requiem briefly but i got bored of it for now. Will leave it installed tho... it's free after all.
There does seem to be a restriction on the US trial at the moment, probably related either to the 3 year festivities or the upcoming free module. Probably worth posting on the DDO section of the forums as there is a fair chance someone can supply you with a referral trial key.
I finally fired LOTRO back up last night. Forgot how much I liked this game. I think at the time it was released, I was traveling alot for work, so I only got to play it once every few weeks and ended up quitting it.
Running around on my crazy dwarf guardian now, heh. The game autodetected everything on super high detail on my beast computer at home, getting like 70fps, and the game looks absolutely STUNNING. That really helps the immersion factor IMO. As much as I'm enjoying the guardian, what are some other cool solo classes that could potentially also bring something to a small group?
And I know how WoW-ish this sounds, but the one thing that kinda irks me about the game is that there's no kind of quest tracker, or something that directs you to the general area. I mean, there are directions in the NPC text, but this world is HUGE. It can be pretty easy to miss something and end up running aimlessly for 20 minutes.
Can the game use UI mods? And if so, is there some kind of quest tracking mod?
Science flies people to the moon. Religion flies people into buildings.
If you are really looking for something different, go with EVE, hands down it will help recover from Fantasy game burnout.
And if you want something that is (not really) F2P, copies WOW shamelessly, but has a decent community and for some stupid reason is quite fun to play (for me anyways) give Runes of Magic a go.
Might keep you entertained until some new games are released this year.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Quest tracker helping you to locate the general area is coming in the next book update which should be available later this month.
The solo classes for grouping (oxymoron if any
) I'd recommend are about anything else but hunter or champ. Especially minstrel, loremaster, captain and burg are classes that really blossom in group play.
Playing: AC2
Played: UO, DaoC, Horizons, Ryzom, WAR, LotRO, Eve, VG...
You don't have to conform to a raid schedule. You never had to. You chose to. If you wish to choose not to, then play a game not based around the worst sort of life-devouring raiding.
Such as Guild Wars. Nearly anything that can be done, can be done in a time block of under an hour, starting whenever is convenient for you. Log on whenever you like, grab as many or as few other players as you like, fill in the remaining spots (if any) with henchmen and heroes, and go. Guild Wars fits around your life, rather than demanding that you schedule your life around the game.
And it's a better game than WoW in a lot of other ways, too.
GW just never felt like an MMO to me. Much worse than any other "MMO" I've played. To each his own I guess.....